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Recent Media Round-Up

July 3, 2023 by Belghast

Hey Folks! I have been more or less taking the last several days off because I am technically on vacation. Due to the less-than-opportune placement of July 4th, I took off today and also largely checked out of doing blog posts late last week giving myself a bit of a vacation. This morning however I had to do some work really quickly and make sure that timecards were approved. So I thought that I might as well bang out a blog post because I have some things to talk about. More specifically I have watched quite a bit of movies and series of late, and thought I would give a bit of a round-up of some of my thoughts regarding them.

Nimona

I feel like all of you need to stop what you are doing right now and watch Nimona. It is available on Netflix, and if you don’t have access to Netflix… then pirate the fuck out of it because it is very good. If you are/were a fan of Lumberjanes or the most modern incarnation of She-Ra or pretty much anything else from ND Stevenson, then you are probably going to love this. If not… then you will probably still love this because it is exceptionally well-written. It is a story about trying to find your place in the world when that world often is diametrically opposed to your existence. It has a lot of things to say, but also… I want Nimona to be my sidekick. I had not been following the production mess that surrounded this property, but it sounds like it is a sheer miracle that this came out at all.

Very much a good film for the entire family as well. I highly suggest you check it out.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

First I feel like I have to say that I don’t hate Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The movie had problems and I feel like the whole aliens thing was pretty divisive, but for me most of the problems with that movie came from the fact that it looked wrong. We were still in the era of CGI “all the things”, and it looked it… and now I feel like we realize what we lost during the CGI boom years… and folks go out of their way to make things feel like practical effects even when they may not be. Dial of Destiny harkens back to the era of Last Crusade, and while it is still maybe a bit busy and a little bit less about bringing the audience along for the hunt, it feels more grounded in at least imagined reality.

I think what I like the most about this movie is that it serves as a nice bookend for the entire series. Indy is still punching Nazis and still chasing objects of tremendous power but is very much a man out of time. He doesn’t really fit into the world of the moon landing, but no longer has the vim and vigor to really keep chasing forbidden treasure. Dial of Destiny serves as a great last hurrah for Indiana Jones and hopefully can put the character to bed on a good note. If this series continues, it needs to continue in the hands of someone other than Indy, and at most him serving as a supporting character. He has had his curtain call, and I feel satisfied with this movie being the last stanza.

The Flash

I am not going to spend much time talking about what a seeming shithole of a human being Ezra Miller has turned out to be. I don’t really care much about the current state of the DC Universe. I’ve watched the various movies, and enjoyed them enough to keep watching them… but also never really felt the love for them that I have in the MCU. I was mostly interested in this film as it serves to give a last hurrah to “my Batman” aka Michael Keaton. What I was not expecting was to enjoy the film as a whole anywhere near as much as I did. I’ve always sort of hated Ezra Miller’s version of Barry Allen. I found the character annoying as shit and extremely abrasive… and this movie goes a long way to resolving that problem and shows reach growth of the character.

Michael Keaton as Batman and Sasha Calle as Kara Zor-El were both phenomenal. The two different Barry Allens though… felt almost like watching two different actors in the same way as you do when Tatiana Maslany plays dozens of unique characters in Orphan Black. The only disappointment in the movie though is the fact that I expected something that just simply was not there. Knowing that the DCU is being rebooted… I expected this movie to play more into that fact. There were a lot of deep cuts showing alternate timelines like the Nick Cage Superman… but the entire thing wraps up in a very weird note that makes me question what this means for everything that comes forward. It doesn’t so much give the current DCU one last send-off as much as it just deeply muddies the waters. It is still a good film but I would probably suggest waiting for it to release on streaming before you watch it.

The Witcher Season 3 Part 1

Unfortunately, Netflix has realized the error of its ways when it comes to releasing episodes… and has begun awkwardly cleaving a series in half so that they can have two different epic premiere dates. This weekend the first part of The Witcher Season 3 dropped, and with it comes the first five episodes that end on a bit of a cliffhanger. I have a lot of issues with this show… not the least of which is the fact that Henry Cavil will be moving on from the series after this season. I get WHY he would want to leave however because the showrunners and writers are needlessly fucking with details constantly. The Witcher is one of those shows that is good… so long as you know nothing about the supporting material. It reminds me of my early experience with the Harry Dresden series prior to reading the novels. I thought it was pretty good… until I actually read the books and then suddenly got annoyed at the weird inconsistencies.

I think what bothers me the most about The Witcher series, is the fact that entire scenes have been lifted from whole cloth from either the books or the games… but little details have been fucked with for no apparent reason. The worst of this is the way that they are suddenly changing the entire personality and motivation of different characters. I am sorry folks… but they did Eskel dirty last season… and this season they are making some truly bizarre fucking choices with Radovid. The series version of Djikstra is fucking heinous as well and is nowhere near as compelling of a character. Basically, the show feels sloppy, and that is maybe the worst thing a show based off course material can be. The only reason why I kept watching is that they’ve at least nailed the pivotal characters of Geralt, Ciri, Yennifer, and Dandelion/Jaskier. The source material is so fucking strong… that it just infuriates me that the folks writing this show seem determined to sloppily copy the original homework.

Final Thoughts

I cannot understate how much I enjoyed seeing the Keaton Batman ride again. Have you seen any of the media that I talked about? What were your thoughts? What things did I completely miss? I’ve tried to keep everything spoiler free because I do think that everything was worth watching at least once. Again I highly suggest that everyone stream Nimona because it was so freaking good.

Netflix Castlevania

July 11, 2017 by Belghast

It would be a bit of an understatement to say I was excited about the new Netflix anime series based loosely on the events of Castlevania III. I have a deep relationship with this game series and while I have not played a lot of them, it was nonetheless extremely important during my formative video game playing years. The original was the very first game that I saved up money to purchase for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Back then at roughly age 11, it took a long time to scrounge up the money to buy a $50 video game… but that was really only half of the obstacle. To get the game itself required going someplace that had video games… or at least in the case of Castlevania a trip to Toys R Us… the closest of which was an hour and some change away from home. To say I devoured the game is a bit of an understatement as well… there are sequences in the original game that are burned into my brain just as indelibly as the Vampire Killer theme is. I have said this plenty of times… but I count Castlevania Symphony of the Night as my favorite game of all time and consider it pretty damned closed to perfect. When Koji Igarashi started the kickstarter for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night… I threw money at my screen and backed it as soon as I could. Since then I have played through the demo version that backers got a few times… so to say I am the target audience is also probably a bit of an understatement.

The show released officially over the weekend on the 7th but I just finally was able to sit down for a period of time and watch through it last night. Prior to doing so I had been seeing a bit of confusing press floating around with folks generally being unsatisfied with the new netflix offering. Firstly this is probably the most bingeable Netflix “series” I have ever seen… with only 4 episodes weighing in around 100 minutes of total watching. This honestly felt more like a pilot and less like a complete series, but I won’t get hung up on those details. What the season is more than anything is setting the stage for the second season. Since this series is roughly based on the third Nintendo Entertainment System Castlevania game… we go into it knowing some of the major plot points and it seems like the show more or less is following them. During the four episodes we are introduced to a cast of characters that will play out over the series… but I found it curious that at least one major character was completely absent. I am hoping this was just a situation of not having met him yet through the course of the very short few episodes that we got, and will join the team as a later reveal. The show sets up the central conflict between the early science hating church and Dracula… and to a lesser extent the general forces of the enlightenment. For the Christian viewers… I could see some of the dialog being a little hard to swallow. For me personally… it did an excellent job of setting up the central conflict that made Castlevania III so different than some of the others in the series.

One of the complaints that I have seen online about the show is that Dracula is not set up to be a sympathetic character… and frankly I disagree. I found myself sympathizing with Dracula quite a bit honestly, and were I in his position I probably would have wanted to burn everything to the ground as well. As far as matching the tone of the games… you are supposed to hate Dracula because ultimately that is the core conflict. Castlevania more or less is about the central conflict between the Belmont family and Dracula. More or less every 100 years Castlevania materializes in our plane of existence, and the Belmont clan trains to be able to stop him each time. This series has a Belmont and a Dracula… so I feel like it met all of the necessary requirements for being able to call itself a Castlevania anything. I honestly thought all of the character introductions worked extremely well, especially Alucard… who isn’t 100% on our side and we get that impression. The real problem with the series as I see it is that I want more of it. Four episodes was just not enough because it essentially serves as the pregame cinematic setting everything up… and we haven’t really gotten to any of the meat of the game yet… or in this case the series. I mean they had to functionally tell an origin story given that they cannot really guarantee that anyone who is watching the show has ever actually consumed any of the source material. I feel like they did a great job of setting the stage… but I am not really looking forward to the likely two year wait until the next batch of episodes. This time I am hoping they give us way more than four in a single sitting. This won’t be the show for everyone… but I am not looking to nitpick something that I never thought I would actually see in my lifetime. I am more than happy just to sit back and enjoy it.

Media Consumption 11/28/2015

November 28, 2015 by Belghast

Rainy Morning

It’s been a good morning, albeit a cold and rainy one. I got up and made a beeline to the kitchen to fix some breakfast. We’ve recently had a renaissance with the little triangle sandwich maker thing that became popular during the 90s. Recently we started playing with making pancakes in it, and the resulting tiny triangles of pancake goodness are awesome. So I fixed pancakes and sausage and my wife and I nommed happily. From there I ended up popping into World of Warcraft for a bit to do some garrison stuff, and shortly thereafter found The Goonies on cable. Around about this point my wife and I decided it was a good idea to go lay down and snuggle with the cats. It was around this point where my wife asked me… if I had already done a blog post. It had quite honestly slipped my mind. I live my life based on a sequence of rituals, with each one kicking off the next ritual… and if any of them happen out of order all sorts of mayhem occurs.

So that folks is how one almost breaks a three year streak of daily posting… not with tragic circumstances… but just a charming morning that made me forget that the internet was a thing. As a result I am getting a really late start at the day, but have now officially had some coffee so I believe I can functional properly once more. I’m back on the sofa wrapped in my blanket cocoon and tapping away on my laptop. Generally speaking Thanksgiving is usually this difficult holiday filled with running around like crazy, but this year a bunch of things have happened ending up making it the most chill and relaxed time ever. Firstly we wrapped up the work on the house just before the extended weekend, and with that there was a flurry of cleaning to make the house feel “finished”. Then we were able to load all of our meals into an evening and a morning… giving us the rest of the break just to chill. At this point we are taking advantage of the constant rain and the cold temperatures to simply stay in doors and hibernate.

Jessica Jones

With the hibernation has come a lot of Netflix or equivalent digital streaming. Over the past week I have been watching the new Marvel Netflix series, Jessica Jones. I have to admit that this is a character that I only know of in relation to the other characters she surrounds. I went through my “Kung Fu” phase where I read a lot of Powerman and Iron Fist, and ever since have had a certain affinity for the characters in that chunk of the Marvel Universe. In truth… after the amazing results of the Daredevil series, I would have watched anything produced for Netflix feature Marvel characters. Jessica Jones however took a completely different tone, but one equally gritty. While Daredevil shows the clear physical toll of being a hero… Jessica Jones does a good job of showing the mental and emotional toll. Jones herself is completely walled off from the world in her own emotional bomb shelter, trying to keep as many people away from her… because she is convinced that is the only way she can actually keep them safe.

The show also digs into a lot of themes of violation and betrayal but does so in a slightly different way than we are used to seeing. The Purple Man has always been such a strange character in the comics, and I was not quite sure how they would end up making it work for the screen. David Tennant’s portrayal does this excellent job of walking this razor line between making him completely horrific and likable at the same time. There are times you think that maybe with the proper role model, he could change and be a force for good… only to get those hopes dashed when you realize that this is a person without any sense of a moral compass. The actor playing Luke Cage also does an amazing job of bringing that character to life, and I am hoping we see a significant big more of him in the future seasons and the supposed upcoming Luke Cage Hero for Hire show. My favorite insider moment in the show was when Rosario Dawson’s Clare Temple, and it is setting her up to be the Night Nurse taking care of all the supers in trouble. I could gush about Ritter, but really without her the show would have fallen apart completely. I highly suggest watching it… and I am trying really hard not to do any serious spoilers here.

Inside Out

Last night I also finally got around to watching Pixar’s Inside Out. I have to say that in all honesty there has yet to be a Pixar film that I have not loved, and that is saying something because in truth… I can’t say the same about Disney animated films in general. There is a certain magic that Pixar brings to the screen, and a certain timeless “realness” that they give their characters. This film was a bit of an emotional roller coaster but I guess that makes since as it is kinda the “Feelings Have Feelings Too” movie. There were so many moments where I laughed out loud, and several moments towards the end of the movie where I failed miserably to fight back tears. Maybe the whole nostalgic binge I have been on served to deepen the experience of this movie. There were so many profound messages like… you can’t really be happy without also feeling sad sometimes. There were moments I related to the dad, especially when he was straight up oblivious… because so often I get lost in my own head and forget that I am supposed to be paying attention to the world around me. One of my favorite bits came at the very end of the movie when it showed the inside of the cats head… I am pretty sure that is exactly how it works inside our cats at least. This morning while laying in bed… every so often one of them would go tearing through the house for no apparent reason… only to come back and snuggle a few minutes later.

Heroes Reborn

Another thing that I started last night was Heroes Reborn, which is the reboot of the much acclaimed Heroes television show from a few years back. I say much acclaimed… and by that I guess I really just mean the first season. The show as a whole went tragically downhill quickly after that, and I blame the writers strike on pretty much killing all hope of that show living up to its full potential. I mean I realize strikes have to happen, but that managed to kill a number of would be amazing televisions shows. This time around we have zoomed forward to several years after the events of the first series, to a time where the “Evos” as they are now calling folks with super powers are out in the open and an act of terrorism has turned the public against them. The show has shades of the Mutant Registration act from X-Men, and the first episode centers on the dad from the first series, who has apparently forgotten any knowledge from the event. The first episode was intriguing enough to get me to start watching it, and I figure at some point today I will continue on that process. Will be interesting to see where they go with this one, and I hope that maybe just maybe they can live up to the promise that the first season started.

Hibernation Season

September 8, 2015 by Belghast

Hiding Out

Every now and then I go through these periods where I run away from the groups and games that require me to interact with other people and for lack of a better term “hide out”. They are usually paired with a period of high stress in my life, and I guess the current work stress mixed with the life stress of a bunch of big things looming on the horizon… could count as that. I also just went to the doctor and found out that I am dangerously low on Vitamin D. Generally speaking a healthy range is between 30 and 70 and on the test I came back with a score of like 10. Vitamin D effects all sorts of things… not the least of which is mental health and mood, so I would not be surprised if all of the bouts of depression were related to that chemical deficiency in particular. I am taking some insane 50,000 unit Vitamin D supplements once a week to help balance me out again, but I am still in the thrall of that desire to hide away from the rest of the world.

I think in part this is why I have not really been around in Final Fantasy XIV much because I have helped to build this wonderful and interactive world… that likes me being around. So when I am around I feel obligated to interact and be friendly…. and right now that is just too much of a drain on me. Similarly I have an issue with Wildstar because the Black Dagger Society is so damned friendly that I feel like an asshole if I am not also friendly back. As a result I end up playing a lot of Diablo III because I can get lost in a private game without the feeling of needing to reciprocate too many social graces. This is definitely a me thing and not due to any of the amazing people in my life. I am broken, and every now and then I just need to retreat inside myself until I am “less broken”. What I do when I am like this is hang out downstairs and binge television shows. I don’t really watch TV on a regular basis apart from Walking Dead/Fear the Walking Dead which becomes Monday morning water cooler discussion at work. I am what is wrong with broadcast television… I either record a show or watch it from a combination of hulu/netflix/amazon prime. The concept of watching a television show as it airs just seems so damned strange to me now. The problem being… I am the reason why good shows get seen as failures… because they are designed for people like me… not the nightly television viewing public.

The Strain

Awhile back one of my coworkers told me about the show The Strain. The problem with not watching television is that you also don’t really find out when a show is on the air. I love movies and television shows about things that go bump in the night, and as such I have a deep respect for the director Guillermo Del Torro. This show is apparently an adaptation of a graphic novel by the same title from 2009. There is really no disguising the fact that this is a vampire show… but not one in the Ventrue/Toreador tradition that we have seen Hollywood obsessed with lately. These are the Malkavians and Nosferatu that hide in the shadows. This show brings back a return to “vampires as monsters” instead of “vampires and glittery swoony boyfriend material”. The problem is I am not sure how much more of the plot that I want to give away other than that. Suffice to say you end up with a badass team of Vampire Hunters, lead by a grizzled old Van Helsing type that is played by none other than “Argus Filtch” aka David Bradley. The show has a very “zombie apocalypse” feel to it, but with smarter hunters stalking their prey rather than the mindless oppression of a world constantly looking for food. If you like the monster genre, I highly suggest you check it out. Even if you don’t normally like monster movies… it might be worth your time because the characters are really excellent and with their own interesting flaws. The first season is available on Hulu, and the show has been picked up for a second season.

Constantine

Constatine might be the “least NBC” television show I have ever watched. I am not really sure what the network executives were thinking when they greenlit this show…. but honestly it was not destined for broadcast television. The show developed a very small but fanatically devoted following… and honestly after finishing the first season I can see why. Sadly watching this show I felt pangs of regret… because I am part of the reason why the show never got a second season. I recorded it on my DVR and then binge watched it months after the show was cancelled. This is going to be another Firefly/Space Above and Beyond regret for me… because really the show is quite amazing. It does an excellent job of presenting the character of John Constantine with all of his flaws… and virtues. They did a much better job with the casting this time around than the Keanu Reeves movie…. which while they failed miserably at Constantine did a pretty damned good job of capturing the setting. I am still holding out hope that someone might pick this up as a Netflix, Hulu or Amazon exclusive. They have already announced that the character of John Constantine would be appearing regularly on Arrow, so there is at least hope keeping this franchise alive. Placing this show on NBC however…. was just destined to fail. I think had it even appeared on the NBC Universal owned USA network… it might have found a home.

Killjoys

This show… took me a few episodes before I got into it… but now I am currently watching my way through it and I love it. What it reminds me of is Firefly… but a show set in a different corner of that universe. In Firefly you were out on the outer rim of society… in a lawless wild west simulacrum. This show instead is about the bounty hunters operating in and out of the core worlds, the Killjoys. So far the show has spent equal time on and off of civilized worlds, and as it progresses there is an interesting world emerging. The bulk of the show is set in an area of space known as the Quad… which is a planet orbited by three dwarf planets. Qresh being the central planet ruled by the nine families, and between them is an unsteady peace… along with comes a very brutally cold war. Westerly gives you a big barren wasteland world, that was exploited by the “The Company” for natural resources and then sometimes nuked from orbit when the worker class rebelled. Lieth is the farmland world, filled with “indentured servant” farms and their own share of illegal farming going on. Finally you have Arkyn that so far in the series we have not heard much about… other than the fact that something went really wrong there… and folks tend to call it a “dead world”. I am only about halfway through the first season and I have to say I am loving it. The first episode does not do a great job of really showcasing the feel of the show so I would say give it at least three before you decide if you like it or not. As soon as I wrap this up I plan on returning to watching the show… which is available through Hulu… but you have to connect to your cable provider to grant access to it… and have to play it through a web browser. Both of these things I find annoying but I am dealing with it. What are some of your most recent favorite shows?