Even if it weren’t interrupting my Saturday morning cartoons on a regular basis, this commercial would be the single worst piece of media I’d ever seen. I intended to open this with an explanation for the origin of “Forgive and Forget”, produced by the Christian Television Association, but I find no evidence outside of the video on Youtube that it ever existed, nor can I find the name of the insufferable tool who performed in it; I can only explain its impact on my life, as it aired on Channel 7 from 1987 through to the end of standard definition television in 2010. I, of course, was born in 1990, so I had to have this smug fuck pop up when I just wanted to watch Agro’s Cartoon Connection.
Christians can have a reputation for being hectoring, and the performance of this wannabe-Muldoon asshole leans right in on that, from the opening words. Harsh, forceful delivery – you will hear what I have to say, and you will agree with me by the end – you fool, you child. I have to come in and fix whatever’s wrong with you! This only makes the completely incoherent parable even more infuriating.
Ostensibly, this is a story of forgiveness, but that completely contradicts the actual story we’re given – if I’m to interpret the story myself, there are only two possible takes. One is that I’m to identify with the king in this story – he’s the Good character, after all, drawn in a beatific way by the unknown and uncredited artist (the one thing I will hand to this ad is the art is cool). In which case, forgiveness seems to lead to bad actors taking advantage of you, which requires swift and immediate punishment. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, I’m saying that’s a direct contradiction of the final message, and also I don’t see how God factors into that.
On the other hand, if we’re meant to identify with the crocodile and see him as a Bad Example we must not live down to, forgiveness doesn’t factor into his story at all. I’m no libertarian – there’s a vast difference between not paying a tax (even to monarchy) and providing a free service only to try and intimidate payment out of it. Like, the crocodile was being a dick, but he wasn’t being hypocritical – he wasn’t failing to forgive a debt, he was inventing one where none was assumed to exist.
What’s especially frustrating is that this is a perfectly functional story – the real message being something like that response to the paradox of tolerance, where tolerance is a verbal contract as opposed to a universal behaviour. Like a Nazi, the crocodile is acting intolerant, and thus will lose the privileges of society. I think the narrator is trying to make the king a metaphor for God, which only unnecessarily muddles interpretation (for one thing, God is not an active character – if God had meant to interfere with the degeneracy of mankind, would he not have done so by now?).
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch
Red vs Blue, Season Two, Episode Four
“Still doing that high-fat, low-fibre liquid diet where you drink nothing but bacon grease?”
Man, it’s hard to talk about comedy after a while – much harder than good drama. This is basically what the show has been like up until now, only moreso – the dialogue is much snappier and there’s an incredible rhythm at this point. Season three (as originally aired) bogged down in the story a bit; this is where we got well into season four on original airing and everything has just snapped together (I’m having the same trouble with 8 Bit Theater). The best I can say is how this captures a kind of everyday dipshit dirtbag energy, akin to Always Sunny, where people are looking for any chance to own someone else and avoid doing work.
This makes me go back to the idea that comedy needs a worldview; not that a comedy needs a profound thought to play with (RvB is certainly entertaining as is) but I definitely think it’s more helpful than in a drama. The Venture Bros got three seasons before I felt it overplayed its hand; Rick & Morty also overplayed its hand but also had both profound and funny things to do with its particular pessimism. 30 Rock managed to last so long simply by swapping out the idea it was pushing every now and again. Hell, you could point to The Daily Show in its prime, where the moral outrage was a useful tool for comedy. Much to think about and I still feel I’m short of a thought here.
That said, the Reds and Blues have been strictly demarcated again; the former have found their way back to Blood Gulch and the latter are dealing with the alien they found, which opens up new jokes about the alien smelling funny and being impossible to communicate with.
There’s a great moment where Grif agrees with Sarge that there was no tank, just to fuck with Simmons.
“If you’d backed up any further, you’d have had to mail him the bullets.”
“Start with some common ground, like how you both killed Church.”
“Mmm… good times.”
Barefoot in the Park – A fluffy and somewhat engaging sitcom of a play by Neil Simon becomes a fluffy and somewhat engaging movie by Neil Simon, directed by Gene Saks. It is very much of its time in the husband going to work while his new bride deals with not just the furnishings but even choosing the apartment. But maybe the notion of free spirit Jane Fonda and buttoned up Robert Redford nor really knowing each other despite marrying has a bit of resonance. Fonda is pretty good but not quite where she will be, and Redford actually seems quite good as the husband (a role he played on Broadway). Mildred Natwick steals the movie as Fonda’s somewhat repressed widowed mother, who resists all of neighbor Charles Boyer’s bohemian charms until they also find common ground. I think it’s fair to say that Simon’s plays continue be of their time and that he’s receded from cultural memory for a reason.
The Practice, “Poor Richard’s Almanac”/”Public Servants” – The murder of Richard Bay. In the first episode, the drug dealer client that Bobby is defending makes it clear he will do anything to avoid going to prison, including threatening the DA. Richard steals himself, wins the case, and pays for it in blood. In the second, Helen bends every rule to get the druglord to finger the hired killer, lets a SWAT team kill the killer, and tries to renege on her deal with the bad guy. Meanwhile everyone at the firm is reeling and Bobby feels guilty. But fret not, for in her eulogy Helen tells us Richard respected defense atorneys (which I don’t believe) and that her actions didn’t honor a noble public servant (who was introduced initially to be the DA who twisted the rules so we could not have Helen do it). Oh, and there is somehow another case shoved into the second episode. Thus does the fifth season end. with moments that really work, and moments that feel utterly forced, with some really good performances, and with Dylan McDermott outclassed by everyone. I found a couple of articles from around when this aired, and even at the moment, critics were losing interest (didn’t help that they were tuning it to this right after watch The Sopranos). And found one article that said basically Kelley killed Richard because he had no more ideas for what to do with the character. The long slide to irrelevance has begun.
Stranger Things, “The Turnbow Trap” – The gang has a cunning plan, but it isn’t going to work. Hopper and Elle get some interesting information. And Holly encounters a surprise. Frank Darabont came out of retirement to direct this one (and also episode five), and this definitely feels well done, but having not actually seen anything he directed, I can’t tell you what he brought to this that is special. Still, it totally makes sense that he loves this show and that the Duffers wanted him. King fans unite!
Live music — local music, with a packed house! Daughter of the Vine is heavy Velvety psych led by the guitarist of legends Mr. Airplane Man and they fucking ruled, Spiller is poppish punk/hardcore made up of longtime vets from Gang Green and Green Magnet School, the lead vocalist sang a song about his wife and his daughters, who were in the crowd, cheered their heads off, very sweet. This was opening for Black Helicopter, who playing a record release for their new album Balancing Act (containing The Captain-approved “Paralyze,” one of the best songs of 2025: https://www.mediamagpies.com/2025-in-music-part-2-top-60-songs/ ), and which I wrote liner notes for. They played the whole thing and whipped ass, the songs are punchier and occasionally poppier than their usual mode but full of knotty guitar and wrung-out emotions while still trying to walk a path forward. They closed with a couple of old classics, bringing a friend up to sing one and a previous bassist up to blast out another, and got called back for a true encore. Walking in I could hear the person behind me hoping that the show would provide an emotional counter to the past few days and boy did it ever, cathartic and joyous in people coming together to rock out.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — babysitting the nephews, showing them the classics. Our own Bridgett Taylor had a great write up of this a while back (https://www.the-solute.com/year-of-the-month-persia-on-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles/) and as she notes the vibe of our boys is perfect (as are the Henson costumes, it is wild to see these things credibly doing ninja shit). Unfortunately Danny is also here and he not only sucks but is a major emotional throughline, a total drip who essentially puts out a hit on our heroes and pays no price for this (this is not as nuts as Casey Jones straight up murdering Shredder in the goriest way possible though), boo to him. But still a good time.
No Other Choice — adaptation fears confirmed. Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax is a masterpiece and a large part of its power comes from its narrow focus, entirely in the head of its laid-off protagonist as he murders fellow out-of-work dudes in order to get a job. It is a satirical premise played completely straight and Westlake digs into the very real loss driving this, how it feels to have your skills and your work rejected and what it does to your identity to not be defined by this anymore. This manifests in several ways but Park Chan-wook emphasizes the patriarchal aspects without the personal ones, and he makes lead Lee Byung-hun more of a schmuck from the get-go (and a throwaway line suggests very bad psychosexual shit indeed), Lee is up to the task at least. Park also spends a fair amount of time outside of Lee’s perspective in focusing on one of his victims and this leads to a horribly miscalculated scene of attempted execution turned into wacky bungling, it goes on and on with zero laughs — picture the shower curtain scene in Fargo dragged out for five minutes. A later confrontation that hews very close to inspiration from the book, where Lee makes a real and personal connection with a victim (this connection is in part to get him off guard) is much better but the damage is done. Interestingly, the very ending is something that was not and could not have been in the book but it nails the brutal and soul-deadening tone, very grim irony that is not funny, and it shows what Park could’ve done if he thought about this stuff more than his fancy yet enervating camera tricks. Worth a watch overall, this is well-made, but it is also disappointing.
Carlito’s Way — I have a bad habit of following a movie that whiffs with a movie in the same mode that hits, just to show that first movie up. No Other Choice is about the moral depravity of a man who insists he is bound by the title, Carlito’s Way is about a man who makes a choice to no longer be bound by moral depravity and means it, but can’t escape his past — the way he chooses must reconcile with the way he took. This is thornier and better, and De Palma is fancy as hell here while tying this to Pacino’s emotions, the opening floating camera reprised at the end but especially that incredible sequence of Pacino spying on Penelope Ann Miller, heartsick and hopeful. This feels in conversation with Goodfellas, especially with the nightclub bits — Scorsese’s film is about a midlevel guy who ultimately turns rat when the life caves in, Carlito is a former king who tries to get away from the life and who sticks to his principles throughout. What he can’t see is how his principles now are informed by his changes and his immediate (and accurate!) loathing of John Leguizamo is because Leguizamo absolutely is what Carlito was in the early days, we always despise most in others what we recognize in ourselves. Carlito ultimately makes a choice and pays for it, but there is an honor in this Henry Hill would never understand, and that No Other Choice doesn’t understand how to fully subvert. Anyway, great shit aside from Viggo Mortensen playing a Puerto Rican, what the fuck people.
I’ve been waiting for your thoughts on No Other Choice. This is sadly close to what I feared–I’ll take you up on the “worth a watch” note and see this eventually, but it’s good to have this to calibrate my expectations.
There are some solid dark laughs in No Other Choice but the aforementioned setpiece is just brutal. It feels contemptuous, the Coen comparison came to mind because they often get tagged with that attitude and I don’t believe it but maybe this is what other people are seeing with them. Also, perhaps this is some ‘built different’ foolishness on my part but I don’t see what is so bad about the gore/violence here, it’s well-done and all and somewhat squeamish but it’s not what many reviews build up — if anything, the way Park restages the final murder in the book is less ugly, despite being more openly sadistic.
American Gigolo – maybe a bit too style-over-substance to be top-tier Schrader but it’s a lot of fun and Richard Gere and Lauren Hutton have good chemistry. Love Moroder’s score that repeatedly reworks the melody of “Call Me” into new shapes to suit the action.
The Female Animal – taken from a noir box set but this is more of a trashy romantic melodrama. An extra on a film set rescues the star from a falling stage light and she falls for him, but then he meets another woman who turns out to be (dramatic chord) the star’s adopted daughter! Hedy Lamarr is the ageing, needy star and she plays the role well – somewhat sympathetic until she goes too far. If it was shooting for noir vibes then it would need a much darker resolution but it’s good campy fun with some excellently withering dialogue.
Seinfeld, season 5 – “The Raincoats”, “The Hamptons” and “The Opposite” take us to the end of season 5. All good episodes although the middle one pales a little (or shrinks, if you will) in comparison to the consistently funny two-parter guest-starring a very funny Judge Reinhold and the excellent season finale in which George ignores his natural impulses and turns his life around, at the expense of Elaine and Kramer.
The Hamptons popularized “shrinkage,” its historical importance is secure! Incredible George stuff there, although his switch-up in The Opposite is indeed wonderful, this will actually pay dividends going forward.
I think I might just be slightly biased against episodes that don’t contain George’s parents at this point.
“The Opposite” is probably my favorite episode.
Definitely top tier. I guess I’d need rewatches to pick a favourite but it’s up there with The Subway, The Marine Biologist, The Contest for me. Oh and The Bubble Boy! And probably a few more I’m forgetting!
My Darling Clementine
I found this far less engaging than I’d expected, though the Criterion Collection essay on it is superb and helped me see the film’s appeal on formal and cinematic terms, even if it left me cooler than I’d like on an emotional level. Walter Brennan makes a much better villain than I would have expected, however.
Lonely Are the Brave
For Movie Club. This is a banger that led to a great discussion. I can see the flaws in Kirk Douglas’s character, and I appreciate that the film is level-headed enough to establish them, but I also respond to the romanticism of him (and the friend he tries to break out of jail, actually): there are few dramatic traits more appealing to me than the calm acceptance of the consequences of whatever actions you choose to take. Douglas here is another myth of the American West, but he’s a far better one than we’ve been getting lately. Beautiful performance from him, unsurprisingly, and–also unsurprisingly–terrific work from Gena Rowlands and Walter Matthau. My beloved George Kennedy turns up as a cruel, grinning prick of a deputy.
The opening shot where Douglas, a picture-perfect cowboy, lounges on the ground near his horse and then sees the jets streak overhead is an instant “this shit is cinema” moment.
Footsteps in the Dark
Light but endearing Errol Flynn comic mystery. It’s a little bit “we have The Thin Man at home,” but I still liked it. Flynn plays a high society investment banker who secretly writes mysteries on the side (his latest is a scandalous roman a clef of his wife and mother-in-law’s elite social club) and gets embroiled in helping Alan Hale’s police inspector solve one, all while dodging attempts to reveal his double life. The mystery plotting is weak, and certain gags go on far too long, but the charm is there. Good cast.
Wonder Boys
A warm, likable dramedy with a light touch and a commitment to humanity and eccentricity. (For 2000–or even quite a bit later–this does an admirable job of treating queer and trans characters as fully human presences.) Michael Douglas is good enough here that I don’t know why he never did more comedy. Is this the funniest a dead dog has ever been?
The Kid Detective
Deeply, deeply annoyed that this isn’t included in any streaming services and is thus ineligible for Streaming Shuffle when it is exactly the kind of movie I’d pick for that: tonally messy, funny, dark, surprisingly deeply felt, and sometimes getting in its own way. Adam Brody stars as a jaded, damaged, grown-up version of “the Kid Detective,” whose cutesy twelve-year-old sleuthing made him into a kind of beloved town mascot … until he (of course) couldn’t solve an abduction. Now he’s miserably coasting through life on cleverness that nobody finds cute anymore, and he can’t get anyone to take him seriously–but a high school girl has just hired him to solve her boyfriend’s brutal murder, which could lead to further humiliation but also redemption. Brody’s great. There are some good jokes. It gets much darker and much more human than a movie poking fun at a children’s literature convention needs to. Does it do all of that successfully? No. I could even see some people classing it as a complete failure. But this weird cross-up of Encyclopedia Brown, Brick, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and, I don’t know, Christopher Robin is a fascinating example of the benefits of combining a lot of influences and letting things get messy.
I assume you’ve seen War of the Roses but Douglas is having such a good time there, the successful yuppie unleashed.
I haven’t! Instantly added it to my to-watch list, though.
Nice, it’s a lot of fun.
I wouldn’t put Clementine in my top-tier of Westerns but I liked how surprisingly low-key it is, like a hang-out film rather than a big historical shootout. Agreed on Brennan who I’d only seen in more comedic “look at the old drunk guy” kinda roles prior to this.
Have been meaning to see Kid Detective for ages but it never shows up on streaming here either! Will make sure to seek it out soon though as it sounds great.
I can see Clementine improving on a rewatch for me now that I have a better sense of its aims. The more obvious hangout moments, like the big dance at the church that’s under construction, were among my favorite scenes here.
I really need to rewatch My Darling Clementine, I was also rather cool on it and from what I recall a lot of this was down to Victor Mature’s Doc Holliday. It is not fair to punish Mature for the crime of not being Val Kilmer but who said life was fair, and he seemed weirdly stiff beyond that.
And The Kid Detective sounds great, and it is immediately bringing to mind Mystery Team — a similar concept of a Three Investigators-esque crew who are still in the juvenile crime-solving mindset despite having graduated high school. Donald Glover is a star/writer (it’s through his old Derrick Comedy troupe, this was made right before Community took off) and it definitely leans toward goofery/parody more than serious matters but there is some good stuff about growing up in there and it walks a knife edge of tone very well, the rest of the world is barely tolerating these dweebs and it’s hilarious (one 12-year-old’s delivery of “aw fuck, it’s the Mystery Team” lives rent-free in my head). Strong recommend and on Tubi, of course.
Yeah, Mature isn’t bringing much heat here; he’s maybe at his best in the scenes with (or at least involving) Chihuahua–he put some real self-loathing into that “Dr. John Holliday” self-sneer towards the end–but they don’t happen often enough, especially when you’ve got Kilmer’s electricity in mind.
Okay, I clearly have to see Mystery Team. Tubi remains a bright spot in our benighted times.
Seconded, Mystery Team is a lot of fun.
Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made – The cursed film aspect is actually the weakest part, especially because it’s been done a lot, with the interviewees even naming some clear influences (Cigarette Burns, Ringu) in the introduction to the “lost” horror film it’s purportedly showing viewers. Antrum is a pretty effective pastiche of 70’s European horror (though there’s only so much you can do to disguise the hard look of digital) with some good scares. Certainly not a movie that would unleash madness and fire on it’s viewers.
It’s strange too that the reasons *why* Antrum is so cursed aren’t fleshed out much beyond the screenings and third-party manipulations – no interviews with the “cast” or “crew”, no mythology about the making of. Cigarette Burns doesn’t show you much of the cursed film at the center, but the reviewer still writing thousands of pages about La Fin Absolue du Monde years later, and the fate of it’s director, speak to art as life-changing and also a potential weapon.
The Pitt, S1E1 – Good so far, I like the 24-style format that seems to fit an ER shift where you’re rapidly moving from one patient to another in an overcrowded, overworked hospital. Some cliches – a main character dealing with grief/trauma has rapidly become a tired trope in modern media – but the gallows humor and sense of exhaustion all feel lived in. (The supervisor doesn’t even deny that the Pitt can’t supply a living wage to their nurses.) Just another DAYYYYYYYY
Blackberry – Showed a friend, it’s actually funnier on rewatch though a little shaggier. (“How much are they paying you?” “I shouldn’t say…” “I’m getting 10 million.” “Yeah, me too.”) The range of emotions in Howerton’s climactic scene are terrific, including some real pride in Mike for sacrificing him.
Wooo, The Pitt! I’m saving my S2 commentary for The Captain’s weekly TV round-up, but I dug the second season premiere, too. The show does have its cheese, but at this point, I’ll happily take cheese over ponderousness.
Tragically, the deadliest film ever made might be The Conqueror.
Accurate! The stats on cancer deaths with that movie are chilling stuff.
What did we play?
Red Dead Redemption 2 – now that this has opened up beyond the linear opening chapter it is indeed dauntingly huge. I always have slightly mixed feelings about huge open-world games – it’s fun to explore but can feel like a big time-sink that I’m wary of falling into. Having fun in smaller doses though, really enjoyed a mission that simulates a saloon drinking session with mad drunk-POV visual effects and vomit.
The usual F-Zero 99 over the week, plus assorted Capcom fighting games through various collections on Switch: Played Super Street Fighter II Turbo until I could pull off Chun Li’s super attack, some Darkstalkers 3, and a few rounds on Street Fighter Alpha 3. Not much to report, but it was fun. Will try to return to Bionic Commando, Doom and Hollow Knight this week when I have more time.
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles – So this came out a few months ago and I never got a chance to play the original, but I really like tactical RPGs so I decided to give it a shot. I played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance back in like 2010, but I really got bogged down at some point where I got fixated on trying to optimize my characters’ stat growth and could never figure out how to advance the plot.
Anyway: People keep telling me this gets a lot better after chapter 1, and I sure hope so. Because the difficulty of the battles you need to win to advance the plot escalates so rapidly that you end up spending a ton of time grinding in between. And there’s the fairly complex job system and the definitely complex web of different stats and mechanics, and despite all that, looking at guides for these early battles it seems like there are still a pretty narrow range of possibilities for how you can win these battles. I mean I’ve been grinding to the point where I go 3-4 days between plot battles, and (what I think is) the last one of chapter 1, half my team can still get one-shot despite all that grinding.
Oh, half of what I can take of my team, because the “guest characters” that show up in chapter 1 take up a spot I would use on a team member, and mostly they just charge right into the enemy gauntlet and get themselves killed. Also, the particular battle I’m complaining about forces you to split your party into two groups, so half of my characters are forcibly stuck far away from the action. Fun!
Despite this I still want to figure this out and make some progress forward to see if it’s actually as fun as people say it is.
Year of the Month update!
Here’s the movies, albums, books, TV, and games from 1985 for you to write about next January.
TBD: Ruck Cohlchez: Tim and/or Fables of the Reconstruction
Jan. 9th: Gillian Nelson: Advice on Lice
Jan. 16th: Gillian Nelson: The Wuzzles/The Gummi Bears
Jan. 19th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Breakfast Club
Jan. 23rd: Gillian Nelson: The Golden Girls
Jan. 29th: Cori Domschot: Jewel of the Nile
And coming February 2026, we’ll be looking at 1957, including all these movies, albums, books, TV, yadda yadda.
Feb. 2nd: Tristan J. Nankervis: Throne of Blood
Feb. 6th: Gillianren: The Story of Anyburg, USA
Feb. 13th: Gillianren: The Truth About Mother Goose
Feb. 16th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Incredible Shrinking Man
Feb. 20th: Gillianren: Our Friend the Atom
Feb. 27th: Gillianren: Sleeping Beauty’s Castle