When Glenn Howerton dies, “The Implication” will be on his gravestone. It’s his most famous line delivery in a career filled with great line deliveries and facial expressions – the way he lifts his eyelids a mere millimetre on exactly the right word, switching from friendly to dead-in-the-eyes absolutely effortlessly. Howerton is an incredibly physical actor – complete control over his body and voice, tuning it to whatever the scene needs. This is especially funny when he’s playing a pretentious guy like Dennis.
It’s Mac who pushes this scene from ‘great comedy scene’ to ‘iconic’, though. It would be easier for Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney (writers for this episode) to have Mac immediately push back on Dennis’s creepy idea; indeed, there are many scenes throughout the show that are based on this exact idea, usually involving Dee (a great one is when they’re both meeting with a psychiatrist in “Psycho Pete Returns”, and she provokes him into yelling “YOU FORGOT ABOUT THE SMELL, YOU BITCH!”). But they choose to have Mac do the single funniest thing you could do in this scene: take Dennis in good faith.
Over and over, Mac tries giving Dennis an out so that he doesn’t have to sound like a monster – surely this cannot be as bad as it sounds! But it’s just giving Dennis enough rope to hang himself. Dennis has chance after chance to take back what he’s saying and even recognises that, but he simply cannot resist revealing his monstrosity. Storytelling is based around someone making decisions, and comedy doesn’t necessarily have to be storytelling, but Always Sunny definitely runs on storytelling logic; comedy is based around setting up one expectation and then going another, and the simplicity of Always Sunny comes from these people almost always making the most wrong decision.
I think it’s what makes the show feel so simple and yet so effective; in the moment, a character’s decision is obvious even as it’s obviously wrong (although absurd and extreme enough in expression to be funny) – a character will just say a sexist thing as soon as a woman does anything, or a racist thing as soon as the topic of someone’s race comes up. In a broader sense, each decision ends up escalating the character’s story in a logical way, so that absurd moments are contextualised by larger absurd stories.
This particular scene is one of those moments where the comedy gets a little more nuanced – I think in this case, the ‘wrong’ thing is for Mac to take Dennis at his word. I think most people would either tell Dennis what he’s saying is messed up, or simply try to ignore it, and very few people would assume Dennis had misspoken and work with him to help him express himself better (Mac’s cheerful expression on “I think that I am,” makes me laugh every single time). The scene gets funnier and funnier because both Mac and Dennis are really trying to make Dennis not sound like a rapist, and both keep failing miserably.
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
I rewatched this episode (an absolute all-timer) just last week and was reflecting on how untouchably great this scene is. I don’t have Sunny on DVD, so maybe some better-prepared person can say there’s a commentary track that explains this one way or the other, but I always wonder if this felt as brilliant to conceive and act out as it does to watch. And agreed 100% that Mac’s earnest desire to find out that this isn’t as bad as it sounds is a huge part of what makes it. (I love how he lowers his voice as he very tentatively says, “But it sounds like … they don’t want to have sex with you.”)
An underrated part of the episode is that Mac’s stopped caring one scene later (while Dennis is still desperately trying to convince him he’s not a monster) and completely onboard towards the end, at least until it’s turned back on him (“Is this how you wanted those poor women to feel?!”).
Tristan notes how easily Dennis can be provoked to rage and Mac giving him a gentle cushion for depravity is so much better. There’s almost a 2000 Year Old Man quality here, but with Mac’s particular naivete instead of reportorial inquiry.
What did we watch?
The Apprentice
This movie opens with Richard Nixon giving his famous “I am not a crook!” speech, which I immediately interpreted as demonstrating that, where Nixon was tragedy, Trump is farce. The fascinating thing about Sebastian Stan’s performance is that there’s not much to Trump before he becomes ‘Donald Trump’ – if Nixon is smart and a perpetual victim, Trump is dumb and a perpetual victim. At first he’s awkward and weird and sensitive to every criticism and fault; he doesn’t so much grow as develop habits. If the film diagnoses Trump, it’s that when his brother – likely the only person he ever loved, and only because he was the only person to show Trump unconditional love – dies, he both descends into pill addiction (worsening his impulsiveness and mood swings) and sheds whatever humanity he had left.
Roy Cohn’s three principles – attack attack attack, admit nothing and deny everything, and never admit to failure – really do define Trump in this movie. Even the few times it feels like it descends into cliche are warped by his unique presence; the romance between Trump and Ivanova especially feels like this, where his vacuous stupidity ironically invigorates the cliches – he’s just as empty as they are. Jeremy Strong’s performance, extraordinary and otherworldly on the whole, reaches its apex in his final scene as Roy Cohn realises the most material effect he’s on the world is crafting this monster; as a character, Cohn is equally monstrous but also capable of real love and feeling, and as an emotional moment it’s us and him together recognising that Cohn created a voracious monster.
I’m actually reminded of the themes of Metal Gear Solid 2, of all things – a main theme of that is legacy, and one major subplot is a character realising he taught a student skills but not morality. In this case, Cohn taught Trump both, where skills and morality were intertwined; there is something weirdly pleasurable about watching Trump come together before our eyes. As stupid and thoughtless as he is, he’s a man composed entirely of ‘techniques’, and his ‘growth’ consists of picking up more and more until he’s ‘functional’ – this is a movie composed entirely of airquotes, and yet weirdly it does point to a version of Trump we could have gotten, one who pursued his relationship with his brother and protected Cohn instead of falling into a gaping maw of need and power.
Remember Me
This is the movie famous for the twist ending that the main character dies in 9/11, and this makes it hilarious that the movie otherwise has nothing to do with 9/11 whatsoever beyond the hints about the time period. But outside that, it’s a fairly generic romantic drama that mainly exists for one-liners. The best thing it really has going for it is Robert Pattinson’s insanely overcommitted performance, where he finds expressions and deliveries for every single moment – my favourite is when he gets violent with his sister’s bullies, and he flashes her a smile that lets you know exactly what he’s about to do.
(The movie comes dangerously close to ending with one of two shots: either Pattinson staring out into New York only to spot the plane heading towards him, or a shot of the towers with the plane coming over the camera like the opening shot of Star Wars.)
Species
Needed a dumb Hollywood movie to sober up to, and this fit the bill. All great scifi stories are based on ‘what if?’, and this movie asks: what if boobs were dicks? The practical effects are pretty cool – though the ending dives straight into CGI crap – but the script isn’t even up to par; there are five protagonists and it takes over an hour for any one of them to die, and by the end three are left. The most interesting part is how the monster of this monster movie is technically a protagonist; she has a sympathetic past and a naive view of reality that makes her easy to relate to, with her most monstrous quality being killing everyone of use to her (the spear carrier characters are probably the nicest I’ve seen in any movie).
That Species question is indeed great, because I never knew it until just now, but I do really need to know the answer to “what if boobs were dicks?”
I sent a video from the climax to my extremely-well-endowed-in-the-boobs-area friend and they said “weird sympathy pains for the monster”.
If boobs were dicks, the brassiere industry would have to make some drastic changes. Also breast feeding would be a crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
I have a fondness for Species but it is a remarkably unrealistic and stupid movie, in that a man leaves a hot tub containing naked Natasha Henstridge to answer his phone. What the fuck.
And more and more I am appreciating “and that little boy that nobody liked grew up to be … Roy Cohn” in The Simpsons, I am sick of this fucking guy being a character and a presence and love his relegation to dweeby needy child.
It was 9/11 the whole time!
I don’t doubt The Apprentice is a well-done and interesting movie worthy of investigation and discussion, but despite having it at my fingertips for well over a month I couldn’t muster the will to watch it and I can’t imagine ever finding it.
“Of all things”? I feel like it’s more surprising when something doesn’t remind you of MGS2.
Live music — jamming with friends in the basement, hell yeah. And lots of karaoke, a swerve into 50s bangers (Rama Lama Ding Dong, Yakkety Yak, Runaround Sue) was particularly fruitful, although Me So Horny remains undefeated as a karaoke song. All four dudes still up at 2 a.m. grabbed the mic for Bawitdaba, The Shield was a documentary.
Crawl — solid horror action, if not much more than that. Filmed in Serbia, apparently, we used to make things in this country (and we used to have Barry Pepper in movies). There are strong Tremors overtones and that points to some missed opportunities — one gator is maimed a la Tremors’ Stumpy and that would seem to lead to identification for future vengeance and that doesn’t happen; and the shift from one to two gators is great but two to lots means the threat is vague as opposed to trackable and thus fearful in its specificity. On the plus side, the dead meat character killings are pretty good and there is the outright hilarious and I believe intentional reveal of the looter chick — clearly marked for death from the get-go — having white girl cornrows, making her mauling a moral imperative.
Wooooooo live music in a basement!!
Bachelor Mother – made it to the end of the 1930s in this century-of-movies thing. I feel like this Ginger Rogers / David Niven screwball was praised by the Solute comment section on occasion and it’s been on my watchlist ever since. Like Vivacious Lady, I thought it fell a little short of the classics – it’s very funny in places but there are some fairly substantial gaps in between the best scenes. Rogers and Niven are a fun pair though and Charles Coburn is, once again, the best Screwball Movie Dad.
What Happened to Our Nest Egg!? – Japanese touring festival thing over at one of the local independent cinemas, I only made a couple of screenings this year due to other commitments but they were pretty decent. This first one is a feel-good comedy about what happens when your savings run out, kinda? It was a bit bloated and messy but when it got up to speed, pretty delightful. Could definitely have used a tighter edit but left me smiling.
Penalty Loop – second one was a darker, bleaker affair. A time loop movie, which I find hard to resist, and it has an interesting hook as the grieving protagonist takes revenge over and over against the man who killed his girlfriend, only to find everything reset the next day. I wouldn’t say this was a highlight of the weirdly consistent time loop genre but it’s a well-made slow-burn with some nice cinematography and sound design and it avoids easy answers.
Justified, Season 5 episodes – this season is fine but definitely lacks that sense of forward movement that the previous one did so beautifully. Lots of random violence and some consequences of previous actions unfolding and I’m kinda trying to get through it quick so I don’t lose momentum. Alan Tudyk was a fun guest star.
Wooo Bachelor Mother! It might not be top-tier but I like it a lot, especially for the casual obnoxiousness of the Donald Duck toy, which is essentially from a different universe at this point. And the plot itself is one that would not happen in our more enlightened times (the title is such a funny giveaway in this regard, a bachelor — who is a MOTHER?*) but Rogers is the perfect person to carry it forward. Accept the premise and be rewarded.
*although it occurs to me that Three Men And A Baby has a similar vibe, perhaps our times are not so much more enlightened
Haha yes, the duck toys are horrifying. It’s her entire JOB to sell these? I did also think of 3 Men and a Baby while watching! Ginger Rogers did everything those three men did, backwards, and in high heels.
Manhunter – Still awesome, though the middle undeniably lags a little, like Mann hasn’t totally mastered making procedure as hypnotic and compelling as Thief and later Heat (Thief’s jobs are also silent, these scenes are talky as hell). Watched with a very smart trans friend who observed Thomas Harris’ weird anxieties about queerness and sexuality being sublimated in his serial killers and how teeth bite forensics have been disproven (though I’m not sure she noticed Dolarhyde taking out his prosthetics, it’s kind of a subtle beat). Mann and Dante Spinotti make characters look like statues in modernist paintings, especially in the vibrant blue washes of Graham’s home, and where other 80’s action movies have guys crashing through the glass in slo-mo, in context it is breathtaking and so beautiful. The work of an artist, not just a professional, or maybe it’s the same thing in Mann’s corner of the world.
Your comments on procedure have me thinking about how this isn’t quite the same as Thief and to a lesser degree Heat because Petersen is largely reactive — he is investigating the killings and doing work, yes, but he is not initiating the way Caan or De Niro does. But now I am thinking on Heat’s other great procedural, The Insider, as a different spin on the Manhunter dynamic, if Graham and Dolarhyde had worked together, the investigator and subject at odds but aligned in goal. Graham comes to an understanding of Dolarhyde in that incredible scene watching the video (with Farina in the background, letting it happen), he recognizes his opposite number from the other side of a screen, while Bergman and Wigand make their great connection over a phone but still on terms with each other.
Shout out to the St. Louis appearance in Manhunter, the weirdo serial killer living out beyond St. Charles is accurate, though I doubt how many modernist masterpiece houses are out in those woods.
Get me drunk and I’ll sing that whole Red 7 album that gives us the “Heartbeat” anthem over the end credits. Shoot, I might do that anyway.
Jeopardy – On vacation in remote Baja California, Barry Sullivan has his leg stuck under a piling as the tide rises, and wife Barbara Stanwyck must look for help. But what she finds is fleeing killer Ralph Meeker. John Sturges, on his way to greater success, does a very good job moving this not-quite-a-B-movie-noir along, and Stanwyck is excellent. But the ending, after a very dark scene where Meeker basically rapes Stanwyck, goes remarkably, er, limp. And we also have a six year old kid as the third member of the family and there is no way not to make him annoying. (Boy, parenting was lax then as the kid runs around alone on the beach and climbs from the back seat to the front in a moving convertible. Not that they had seatbelts yet!)
Kojak, “Over the Water”/”The Nicest Guys on the Block”- In the former, Kojak takes a date to a restaurant in Jersey, only to get into a run-in with a local punk. Who turns out to be the son of a mobster who used to butt heads with Kojak and who found a town to take over across the Hudson (shades of Cop Land). The juice here is Kojak’s relationship with the daddy mobster and his collision with the compromised chief of police. The latter has semi-regular Roger Robinson as Det. Gil Weaver, who is forced by circumstance to endanger the life of an old friend involved with a group of amateur heisters in over their heads. We alternate between Gil’s story and the effort by the squad to figure out just what is going on. Both episodes have several scenes shot in LA, with every effort made to make us think it’s NYC but the sunlight is wrong and the buildings are usually too far apart if not just too short.
Fraiser, “Dark Victory”/”She’s the Boss”/”Shrink Rap” – Season two ends with another attempt to do a play for TV as Frasier has to help everyone else find their balance after a bad week and during a blackout at Martin’s birthday party. Not as successful as the season one finale, but a pretty good wrap on a somewhat unsteady season. Season three starts with Kelsey Grammer finally losing his mullet (which never seemed right for Frasier) and with the arrival of the third station manager in as many seasons, played by the radiant and acclaimed Mercedes Ruehl. As the title suggests, there is battle of the sexes element here that feels a bit forced since the bone of contention is really just “Frasier doesn’t like taking orders from anyone.” But Ruehl and Grammer play off each other well. And lastly, Frasier returns to private practice next door to Niles, and naturally it doesn’t work. The humor works but the idea is very forced. Milo O’Shea as the couples therapist who tries and fails to help steals the episode. (And yes, there can be couples therapy for brothers, as the Smothers Brothers credit that with extending their partnership.)
M*A*S*H. “Private Charles Lamb” – A Greek colonel, grateful for the care his troops received, arranging for an Easter feast for all. With a lamb for the slaughter, and for some reason that really offends Radar. Meanwhile, Hawkeye and Trapper try to protect a soldier who shot himself in the leg on purpose from the wrath of Frank. A lot of good gags, but the idea that the heretofore omnivorus farm kid Radar would not let anyone eat a lamb just makes no sense. But we are at the pivot from Radar being defined by a cunning mind under his innocence to just being innocent.
Reading the Jeopardy write-up:
Barbara Stanwyck, Ralph Meeker and John Sturges doing noir/crime? Hell yes!
Bad rape politics? Not great but not surprising given the time, movie still sounds good
“And we also have a six year old kid as the third member of the family” PASS. Although maybe not, I managed to deal with the horrible loser kid in Shockproof, but ugggggggggggh.
I liked Jeopardy, a good little semi-noir yarn. And tbf, the parents didn’t have a whole lot of choice letting the kid run around the beach by himself at a certain point. Who else is going to light those massive bonfires!
Uh, here’s everything from the last few days, since I didn’t write anything Friday.
Matlock, “Game Face”
Elsbeth, “I See… Murder”
Good Cop / Bad Cop, “Found Footage”
Going Dutch, “Born on the 3rd of July”
Animal Control, “Strays and Lovebirds”
I dunno… I’m getting a little tired of writing up weekly episode watches. Mostly I’m just summarizing the plot and saying “good episode.” What do you even want to hear about these shows?
The Righteous Gemstones, “You Have Hurled Me Into the Very Heart of the Sea”
But I’ll make a little more time for this one, as it’s an absolutely killer way to kick us back into what the Gemstones are up to now. Really funny throughout, and of course fulfills HBO’s promise for what we’ll get every season. (If you get what I’m insinuating, great. If not, better it be a surprise.)
Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years
I enjoyed this one. I don’t know if it’s his funniest, but it’s maybe his most introspective, and some of the sequences are very, very funny. Others tread some familiar ground, but elaborate on it in new or interesting ways. (Burr’s frustration with cancel culture is not new or original; his observation that nowadays you can face more consequences for saying someone had a great ass 30 years ago, or for riding in the HOV lane by yourself, than you can for being in the Ku Klux Klan, is.) And the closing anecdote with his son is great.
I just want to know if “Not Really Matlock” succeeds in any meaningful way. The premise sounds just insane, but also unlike anything CBS usually does.
I’ve been watching it every week and included it in my TV countdown of 2024, if that tells you anything.
There’s been some discord discussion about having more current media articles and much as I like the TV rundown in my WDWW mornings, your summaries and critiques would really fit the bill for that.
I think some sort of “week in TV” feature might be better suited to writing something actually critical about these shows, yeah. Right now I feel like I’m just writing plot summaries and not offering anything of critical substance. And they’re all shows I’m watching weekly and have for a while, so my critical opinion of them is implied in that. And, bluntly, based on the engagement in the WDWW threads, people aren’t as interested in currently airing TV shows as much as movies, so I’m not even sure if those plot recaps even have an intended audience.
I’ve definitely added things to my to-watch list based on these WDWW write-ups, if that helps. (Most recently Going Dutch.) I just haven’t had time to actually watch them yet (she admitted sheepishly). But they’re very helpful in pointing me towards interesting stuff.
I think having these TV reviews/recaps as actual articles could be helpful in terms of attracting audiences looking for reviews about those shows specifically. Other people here may be as woefully behind on current TV viewing as I am, but you could draw in a whole new audience who are Googling for discussion of stuff they like.
Most of the shows I watch aren’t very much covered anywhere else, so I do think that angle could be useful for the site.
I’m not totally sure how it would work. I could try a weekly rundown, but since so much I do watch is weekly, I’m worried about that turning into more plot summaries. I’d need to have some kind of way to talk critically about the shows on a regular basis, beyond just “I liked this episode! Let me ruin some punchlines for you.”
And make some time to do it on the regular, of course.
Crimson Tide – Dadcore sub thriller of a vintage Hollywood formula spiked with a heavy dose of ludicrous Not Tom Clancy plot elements. There is a sharp and witty screenplay. Tony Scott’s direction is agile but steady, not the hyper kinetic editing, whip pans and short shot length of later films. There is a solid cast with a couple of big future stars. To think there was a time when Viggo Mortensen and Gandolfini would be billed below Matt Craven and George Dzundza is crazy. It’s also a sort of prescient allegory of Barack Obama facing off with old brass “Nuke first and ask questions later” generals. I imagine him watching this late at night in the White House cinema. It’s all very tense fun. But the ending is the most ludicrous with Hackman’s psycho captain – or Denzel for that matter – facing no consequences for nearly blowing a seaman’s head off and punching his XO. Jason Robards just cancels both lead’s actions, hand-waving everything away with both going off with admirable respect for each other.
Dick Johnson is Dead – Still a great movie, funny in places and hits emotionally as hard or harder than the first time I saw it. Impressive when somebody with as much time spent in film production is clearly applying lessons from their experience yet finding their ways to new territory through the skills gained in repetition. Not just her vocational strength of the documentary cinematography but the production design and especially the editing, just a warm, challenging movie you can watch with your kids or your grandparents, depending on how squeamish they are about death. Everybody with a brain and a heart is at least a little squeamish, and running into the fear portion head-on is a wild ride that I wholly recommend.
The Cannonball Run. This was more of a case of nostalgia overtaking good sense. I remember watching parts of this movie when they would play it either on channel 11 (wpix) or channel 9. If you want to see cleavage, Jackie Chan playing a Japanese racer, Burt Reynolds and cars going fast and jumping and crashing, this is the movie for you.
Yeah the nostalgia is cleavage. The drunk Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. Rat Pack schtick made my dad laugh, so i knew it was old for 1981.
Fail-Safe – what a snooze. Stagey and talky in the worst ways, this has the same problem as Marooned/Space Travelers, nobody speaks like they’re in an emergency. Everything has a speech-y windup that crams too many words into every line. Walter Matthau’s character is a strange amalgam of both Dr. Strangelove and Gen. Ripper, with none of the effect of either. I love the man, but this ain’t it, no matter how hard he tries to go with it. Every difference from Dr. Strangelove makes it worse, particularly the part about being good. Great vintage Rear Projection Car Scene with perfectly still actors careening down a bumpy road, and then the background is jittery the whole time they’re stopped.
MONDAY
Contrataque
First time, my wife’s pick. A serviceable Mexican action movie, consisting mainly of a long shootout/foot chase between an undercover Mexican army unit and a narco cell. The Netflix budeget and modus operandi impose a pretty hard limit on the movie’s quality but within those limits this works better than expected with good action blocking and sharp performances, especially from Noé Hernández. (Reminds me of his nightmarish character in Miss Bala, a much better movie that touches some of the same subjects). Not a stellar movie but I might appreciate this better than, say, the pretentious narcopolitics bullshit of something like the Sicario movies.
FRIDAY
Mesa de Regalos
First time, my wife’s pick. A very good comedy about a couple of best friends with no money who agree to fake their wedding to fleece gift money from their family and friends. Complications and romance ensue. Very charming and charismatic and way better told than the Mexican comedy norm. Reminded us of back when we were planning our own wedding, which went down much smoother comparatively.
SATURDAY
Scavengers Reign
Season 1, Episode 3. “The Wall”. First time.
We learn more of Kamen’s life before the crash, and might be as ugly and gruesome as anything on the planet. Ursula learns more about the planet, which strains Sam’s patience since he only wants to get back to the ship. And the robot Levi gets infected by the local fauna, which will be significant since…
Season 1, Episode 4. “The Dream”. First time.
…it leads it to learn more about the planet and communicate with it. Not to mention have its own dreams and even feel things. Uh-oh. This leads to tension with Azi but conflict is averted for now. Elsewhere, we finally learn that Kamen was responsible for the crash, which the alien possessing him uses to further erode his state of mind. Ursula and Sam get to learn more about the planet and we see some cool but ever scarier bits of it.
Season 1, Episode 5. “The Demeter”. First time.
We follow a ship survivor for a while who has a terrible time in the planet before running into Kamen. Then he runs out of time. This leaves Kamen even worse and he’s finally consumed by the alien, but still alive. Elsewhere we get some more cool enivorenments and the seeds of some sci fi body horror to come.
Primal
Season 1, Episode 8. “Coven of the Damned”. First time.
Another incredible episode. Spear and Fang run into a group of witches who sacrifice humans to summon babies for them, witness a pterodactyl-riding demon do one such sacrifice and get captured. The crux of the episode involves the witch in charge of them looking back in time to see how Spear and Fang lost their families, and we realize that she went through her own similar tragedy, and she switches sides to help them in the third act. In typical fashion for this show, the storytelling is pitch perfect from moment to moment and every thing we learned lands as we learn it along with the characters. What makes all the difference in this episode is that is the first strong show of empathy and compassion since Spear and Fang first decided to band together, which is tingued with tragedy since, well, look at the world this character inhabit. And lest you think this show might be going soft, there’s still a gnarly fight at the end, as Spear and Fang make their getaway while two monsters fight it out, leading to killer final bit and a coda that had me in tears.
Season 1, Episode 9. “The Night Feeder”. First time.
A more straightforward episode where an unseen beast starts making gruesome kills every night before getting to Spear and Fang, the central conceit is that we never see it and all its attacks are shown through its POV only. It’s pretty genius and puts Spear and Fang in the defensive throughout. It’s almost a letdown at the end when we finally see what has been hunting them but that’s only because all the previous action had worked so well. Favorite bit: Fang fianlly gets to attack the still-unseen beast, only to get covered by black slime with no reason. Super creepy.
The Brutalist
An excellent David Lean-style classic epic, though much harsher and cynical. The best epic about the immigrant/American dream turning into a nightmare since, well, The Immigrant. Brody’s best dramatic performance since The Pianist, with which is has a lot in common. Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce have never been better, I don’t think. Very precise and solid production on every, like any good architect would want. It leaves much more unsaid that I thought it did, which I like a lot and that led to some good discussion with my wife and in-laws after. Well, one of my in-laws, since the other feel asleep almost immediately, before even the Statue of Liberty showed up. Lots of teasing over this. Speaking of which, smart intermission, very well done. Also, I knew one day that knowing the difference between Budapest and Bucharest would pay off.
SUNDAY
Primal
Season 1, Episode 10. “Slave of the Scorpion”. First time.
The show so far had been pretty flexible in its storytelling so far, with a few nods at continuity anchoring mostly standalone narratives, but for this first season closer it introduces something that will certainly, fundamentally change Spear and Fang’s story: a companion. And not only that, a human companion. And more than that, a woman. Specifically a former, fleeing slave escaping a water dinosaur that they then fight. After that opening action, we see the trio slowly bond, carefully measuring each other and learning about who they are. Mira, as she explains, is a very different character, as she can talk (though crucially, her speech remains unsubtitled and unintelligible to Spear), she worships the sun and comes from a place in a way different stage of civilization. She manages to explain that she’s been enslaved before, so the civilization here does not mean a more humane world than anything else we’ve seen. And all of this, again, is communicated brilliantly and economically, and never strays from significant action and even humor. By the end of the episode she’s kidnapped back by the slavers with Spear and Fang unable to stop it, leading to a great cliffhanger for Season 2. And like that, a show that was already great subtle changes its status quo into an even more intriguing form of itself. It’s evolution, baby.
Scavengers Reign
Season 1, Episode 6. “The Fall”. First time.
A alien pod that bit Sam produces a clone. We get a very good, efficient montage that shows how exactly the pod process works and what Sam and Ursula are facing without knowing, before Sam worsens and they have to fight out the clone. Elsewhere, Azi and Levi meet Kamen’s aliens, which goes about as bad as it could have.
Season 1, Episode 7. “The Cure”. First time.
External parties joing the plot, as Ursula and Sam meet a mute human woman who heals Sam using the local flora, which goes well until it doesn’t. A second band of scavengers gets wind of Azi’s distress call and descends on the planet to help. The fact that the planet’s moon has always had people in it and they hadn’t learn about the Demeter because they were too busy mining for materials to sell is a great cynical bit. Things will soon turn bad for them, but at least they’re now with Azi.
Season 1, Episode 8. “The Nest”. First time.
Sam’s “cure” turns him into a hyperactive child. It gets worse. Azi and the miners get to know each other while learning their ship is gone and they need to get to the Demeter. It gets much, much worse. Excellent show so far, can’t wait to see what shit goes down next.
What did we play?
I’ve finished the story to GTA: Chinatown Wars, and I’ve begun my process of trying to 100%. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten 100% on any game, and this one is both simpler and very fun to try that with, which was required getting some GameFAQs in on this.
Animal Well
Going through this slowly but surely. Now I have a yo-yo, ho-ho-ho.
The breathtaking art, with its coolly luminous colors standing out in the dark, continues to be such a highlight; in an exploration-heavy Metroidvania, you need rewards for wandering around, and here you get beauty and some real sense of wonder on top of all the new tools and collectible eggs. Passing over some huge, elegant cranes minding their own business down below me is a particular highlight, like seeing the brontosauri grazing in Jurassic Park. Also, I like traveling by ghost dove.
That ostrich, on the other hand, is the stuff of nightmares.
Balatro – wasn’t sure I was going to stick with this as it’s a bit of a weird “sitting on the couch” game, but then I realised that Game Pass also allows me to play it on my laptop which is a much better fit for a card-game / puzzle / roguelike mash-up. It’s pretty addictive, finding good combinations of jokers to max out scoring and overcome the various handicaps it throws at you leads to some satisfying moments.
The Final Fantasy Legend – last weekend I wanted to play something that didn’t require a lot of reflexes and RPGs are great for that. I also realized I didn’t want to bother learning anything new. So I dug out this old favorite.
I did a pretty typical playthrough last weekend, then decided, I wanted to try again but with a more fun party. So I’m gonna see if I can do it with two mutants and two monsters, where the biggest obstacles are lack of more direct control over your characters’ progression as well as really limited inventory thanks to the unbelievably shitty system there. I wanted to undertake the challenge of getting my monsters to the highest level possible on the first world (level 13 in the generally accepted description of the monster system), but it’s too much of a pain in the ass to find the rarer fights and then also hope they drop meat (I’m pretty convinced at this point that world 1 ha a significantly lower drop rate than the rest of the game). So I got bored with that. I’m on the second world with them at level 7 and 10 and I think I can get them to 13 before I leave.
Revenge of the Shinobi – Sega Genesis on Nintendo Switch Online
Beat the second half of the game over the week. Got out of the factory but not before facing the Hulk throwing cars at me, who then transforms into the Terminator at the end. Next up are two interesting city levels, with highway sections where I had to move across two planes of movement while dodging cars as well as fight on top of a moving subway. Very cool if slightly unforgiving set pieces. It also dawned on me here that the back half of the game here is supposed to be in the USA, despite having a large Chinese city somewhere in the Midwest. Got to the legendary part of the game where you fight Spider-Man and Batman back to back. They’ve both been slightly changed in this version to make them less legally dubious but come on, it’s totally them. It’s pretty exhilarating in a way, and they are some of the best boss fights in this game by some margin.
I then infiltrated a naval base and made it to a fight with Godzilla, who’s also been changed so his bones and internal organs are seen from the outside which looks super rad. It’s also a great fight and also incredible that they got away with it.
The final level starts in the rain with a very cool backdrop but then becomes a kinda crummy maze that I pulled a guide for. Finally made it to the last boss. Someone should definitely investigate the origins of the trend of powerful old Asian men with long white hair in pop culture media starting in the 80’s. I cheesed him with supers then made the ending, which was pretty but kinda basic.
All in all, this is a very good action platformer whose only flaw, like so many of its kind, is that future games would take its best parts on do them much better, particularly Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master. Good thing they’re doing a new 2D title this year which will certainly take a lot of cues from this one, though it will probably stay clear of intellectual property disputes.
Ninja Gaden Sigma – Xbox GamePass on PC
I had a three month free trial of GamePass that expired today and was planning on sampling a bunch of games but in the end only got around to this one. It’s certainly worth it, as it starts with already some of the best PS2-era combat I’ve played. Finished the first two chapters and was very impressed with the beautiful and bloody look and its mix of ancient ninja setting and far-flung sci fi/fantasy enemies. It’s also quite difficult but in a way that only makes me want to be better at it. I may suscribe again in the near future to play some more of it and sample some more games (including its sequels) though I’m tempted to make a full run of this one.
Correction: the game’s title is actually The Revenge of Shinobi.
Year of the Month update!
This April, we’ll be looking at 1999, so you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, et al!
Apr. 7th: J. “Rodders” Rodriguez: The Scooby Doo Project
Apr. 8th: Bridgett Taylor: …One More Time
Apr. 16th: Sam Scott: Spongebob Season 1, Wakko’s Wish, Elmo in Grouchland, and/or Bartok the Magnificent
Apr. 28th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Sixth Sense
And there’s still time to join us for Silent Era Month, where you can join these writers in examining your favorite silent movies and anything else from the 1910s and ’20s!
Mar. 20th: Cori Domschot: Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Mar. 24th: Tristan J. Nankervis – Birth of a Nation
Mar. 26th: Sam Scott: Peter and Wendy
Mar. 27th: Lauren James: The Well of Loneliness
Mar. 31st: John Anderson: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
Oh, duh. The implication:
https://sunnyinfarmington.wordpress.com/2018/02/08/13-consent/