tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696121198761790392024-03-13T05:08:40.639-07:00JDCSpot RunGames and Other ThoughtsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-66604318634669065272024-01-11T10:04:00.000-08:002024-01-11T10:04:28.158-08:00RPG Criminal Casebook - The "Liar" Definition<p> We return now to the annals of the State Commission on Proper GMing, which as you all know interprets, creates and enforces the laws against GMs who commit serious crimes. My last post, which excerpted from the training materials on railroading, provoked quite a bit of good discussion, which is what it was meant to do. Now, though, we turn to the messy business of caselaw and re-interpretation of a particularized definition of railroading adopted by and then re-interpreted by the State Commission.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbVq9IOX6OdUstoMVmbDgmMS3eTaHN9o8fWO730RZaiG4UwF4wNOSuZzKz4d7lb99IOKK4NrvtSab3cSGWqBiPAhzBx28_-uwS6ykz8c7Fhwh0IxVx9lzXHfRurSjnv_Feeiu5GPd43hvz41P395_fhO467SwnxVE-RwTG1qyaMjHXtNYovbdOKhzTrHLF/s640/cf4f46ee1a8616d8f0c8f938db3a3fdaca52c5f359f1359b8135b07601bc804d_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="559" data-original-width="640" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbVq9IOX6OdUstoMVmbDgmMS3eTaHN9o8fWO730RZaiG4UwF4wNOSuZzKz4d7lb99IOKK4NrvtSab3cSGWqBiPAhzBx28_-uwS6ykz8c7Fhwh0IxVx9lzXHfRurSjnv_Feeiu5GPd43hvz41P395_fhO467SwnxVE-RwTG1qyaMjHXtNYovbdOKhzTrHLF/s320/cf4f46ee1a8616d8f0c8f938db3a3fdaca52c5f359f1359b8135b07601bc804d_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Karl Llewelyn could never</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>Specifically, we now turn to talking about the definition of railroading adopted by the Commission in 20X6...</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><b>1. Definition.</b></h2><p><b>A GM commits the crime of "Railroading" when they take an action which violates an explicitly- or implicitly agreed-upon freedom of the players.</b> [1] </p><p> <b> </b><b>A. An agreement by a player to play a game that contains a particular designer instruction or mechanic is an agreement for the GM to utilize that mechanic or follow that instruction.</b> [2]</p><p> <b>B. Failing to take an action, even if agreed-upon or directed by the text, is not railroading.</b></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span>Commentary by the Rules Committee</span></h2><p>[1] The purpose of this definition is to emphasize the deception that railroading reveals. The players <i>thought</i> that they had freedom to do a particular thing, as a result of the written text of the game, statements by the GM, previous actions, and so on. There might be an implied agreement that the players may take their characters where they please, but actually the GM will use fictional force to take them where the GM wants. There might be an implied agreement that the GM will not alter their prep based on the luck or skill of the players, but actually the GM will use fictional force to make an outcome or process the way the GM wants it to be. There might be other types of implied or even explicit agreements or expectations that are violated by railroading. In this definition, the railroading actually <i>reveals</i> a prior deception, a violated promise to follow an implied agreement, a failure of expectation. </p><p>[2] This exception exists to protect GMs against false accusations of railroading by players who simply didn't read the rules or didn't pay attention when they were being taught the rules. Such players may <i>feel</i> railroaded, as they brought in implicit expectations of freedom from other experiences, but they have not in fact been railroaded and a GM who violates that ungrounded expectation shall be acquitted.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Quantum Ogre Cases</h2><p>An immediate turmoil came about under this definition as GMs who had been accused of quantum ogre crimes (broadly defined by one commentator as "moving prepared D&D encounters to where the player characters are") brought a variety of defenses under subsection 1(A), citing to the rules of D&D which say that the GM can place encounters where they wish.</p><p>The D&D Rules Cyclopedia, p. 91, for example, excerpted here.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQT9hDOeLNGHjhuUdsYU9lhjjPLvUoMUhmFx8zWIhOmozNWKBtVUjMhW8er53UHiQ_NJcRhyyb3SaWHxDCfG_9fbVRLuT0qDihP5KxVU6UPbXRQIXY1U9gWOZJEG19-004xmWnYXrGlrwlyLqMpkRO3sxreuwufGd4yBVzV4gGR9hiJqTZOo5GsK4TwHz/s495/monstercheck1.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="363" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQT9hDOeLNGHjhuUdsYU9lhjjPLvUoMUhmFx8zWIhOmozNWKBtVUjMhW8er53UHiQ_NJcRhyyb3SaWHxDCfG_9fbVRLuT0qDihP5KxVU6UPbXRQIXY1U9gWOZJEG19-004xmWnYXrGlrwlyLqMpkRO3sxreuwufGd4yBVzV4gGR9hiJqTZOo5GsK4TwHz/s320/monstercheck1.png" width="235" /></a></div><br /><p>The Important Note, they argue, permits the GM to pre-arrange encounters <i>during a fictional time period</i>, irrespective of <i>fictional geographic location.</i></p><p>Players who agree to play D&D, therefore, can't have the expectation that any particular monster will be encountered in any particular place. (And the GM has the power to place a monster specifically any time they wish within the two-turn window described for encounters.) Therefore, even if it's improper in some other way, or even a bad idea, subsection 1(A) directs their acquittal.</p><p>Even more significant statements were found in places like the AD&D First Edition DMG ("never give a sucker an even break"), the AD&D Second Edition DMG and its discussion of Keys and Triggers for encounters, and so on. </p><p>Universally, GMs said they never explicitly promised not to alter their decisions from prep to table, and urged that the texts of these games urged them not to commit to such an inflexible approach.</p><p>Players pressing charges, prosecutors and auditors responded, broadly, by indicating that the 1(A) exception cannot be meant as an invitation for the accused to rummage through a rulebook looking for an escape hatch. Yes, the "Important Note" does give the GM great leeway. But if, taken as a whole, the game as experienced by the players (including statements by the GM and previous play) has led players to believe their choices in traversing a map matter, then it's deception if the GM reveals that they don't actually matter by moving an encounter to their position. And of course, why would players read the DM's Guides of any D&D game? </p><p>The replies were equally forceful. Railroading is a serious charge! Everyone hates it, the loathing for it is universal. If players are actually aggrieved greatly by railroading, as the universality of the hatred it engenders indicates they are, isn't there some responsibility on the part of players to actively take steps to learn how GM decisions are actually made in the game they're agreeing to play? Isn't that, ultimately, what the exception in 1(A) is about? A player can't cover their ears and then complain they didn't hear when the GM told them what was going to happen. And if we're all here to play D&D shouldn't people know that D&D lets GMs place monsters where they please? Before a player can say they have grounds to bring such a serious charge as railroading, which could result in being dragged on social media, having cruel YouTube videos made about them, etc., don't they have some kind of obligation to understand the game they've supposedly been duped into playing?</p><p>While these cases are of interest, I list them here primarily to give some idea of a typical sort of litigation which was conducted before the State Commission after the adoption of this definition. GMs tended to bring designer statements emphasizing their discretion as a defense, complainants tended to have more generalized arguments, that the experience as a whole had promoted a deceptive idea. The Commission then judged the evidence and issued its opinion. (Appeals from the Commission's decisions went - and of course still go - first to the Court of Appeals, then to the Supreme Court.)</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Dragonlance Case</h2><p>Of course the State Commission is not exempt from activist litigation. It is from this category that we find the astonishing Dragonlance Case, one of the most controversial of the era of this definition.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Undisputed Facts</h3><p>The accused in the case, Dungeon Master Erin M., offered to her group to run the classic Dragonlance series of modules. The players knew, broadly, the rules of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and had some concept of the world of Dragonlance. They didn't really have a conversation about Dragonlance specifically before the game began.</p><p>Ms. M. diligently followed the module instructions of Dragonlance, perhaps, it was later theorized, in preparation for this litigation. </p><p>The party proceeded through the first parts of the first module, Dragons of Despair, without much trouble. However, instead of proceeding to return to Solace as the dragon armies swept across Krynn, the party decided to double back and attempt to penetrate the armies of the dragons in order to obtain information about the crystal staff they were seeking.</p><p>Encounter key 43 in Dragons of Despair indicates that if the party attempts this they encounter 1d10+10 Baaz every game hour. "The number", says the book, "is unlimited."</p><p><span>The party managed to survive the first encounter with the Baaz but was killed by the second, and the campaign ended.</span></p><p><span>An auditor making a random check of campaigns conducted by registered and certified GMs in the state discovered the matter and after interviewing the players, brought charges of railroading against Ms. M.</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span>The Defense</span></h3><p><span>Believe it or not, this was not the first case brought to the Commission by a GM disputing charges of railroading in Dragonlance. Most relied on a reputational defense. "Everyone knows" the original Dragonlance series explicitly directed the GM to use force to keep the "story" on track ("story" is used directly in the text of Dragons of Despair as a motivation for GMs to do this.) Therefore, if everyone knows Dragonlance authorizes the use of various methods of GM force (excessive monsters, enforced captures, kidnappings, etc.), the argument goes, nobody can truly be "deceived" into thinking that their games will be free from such coercions in the event the party goes off the rails. Sometimes this did lead to acquittals, in circumstances where players were forced to admit that they knew what they were getting into. But the Commission was firm that if even one player wasn't (for example) on Twitter and didn't really participate in broader RPG discussions, and therefore approached Dragonlance in a spirit of innocence, that deceiving them could form the basis for a finding of railroading. Few groups lacked even one such participant.</span></p><p><span>Instead of this approach, Ms. M's court-appointed lawyer, Mr. Bartolino, attempted a different tack - that, from the perspective of an AD&D player, Dragonlance's GM "force" in the form of overwhelming monsters was not force at all, that Dragonlance's supposed reputation for "railroading" had no basis, that the play of a Dragonlance game in which a total party kill occurred from going "off the rails" was simply a valid and textually correct way to play AD&D.</span></p><p>The following transcripts may be of use.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Testimony of C.L., player</h3><p><b>Mr. Bartolino:</b> Ms. L, you testified in response to the prosecutor's question that you were familiar with the rules of AD&D, is that correct?</p><p><b>Ms. L:</b> Yes, I'd played it a few times before with different DMs.</p><p><b>Q</b>: Read the rules carefully? Knew them well?</p><p><b>A</b>: It's a complicated game with lots of sort of tangled text. I wouldn't say I was an expert.</p><p><b>Q</b>: If we gave you a quiz on the rules, but didn't let you look in the book, what would you estimate your grade to be, today?</p><p><b>A</b>: Today? Probably a C.</p><p><b>Q</b>: And if we let you use the book?</p><p><b>A</b>: I got pretty familiar with the book when we were arguing over this. I'd say a B plus or an A.</p><p><b>Q</b>: I think that's pretty typical for players with your background and experience. You understand that a great deal of the issue in today's case is what your expectations were for this game, don't you?</p><p><b>A</b>: I think so. </p><p><b>Q</b>: You testified you entered into the campaign with a general understanding of what an AD&D campaign would be, didn't you?</p><p><b>A</b>: I think the answer's yes. I'd say yes.</p><p><b>Q</b>: You testified the fact that it was a Dragonlance campaign didn't really enter into your expectations. You were just going to play some AD&D. Correct?</p><p><b>A</b>: Oh yes. That's correct. I'd sort of heard of Dragonlance but nothing really specific.</p><p><b>Q</b>: Now I'm going to ask you about your expectations for an AD&D campaign generally, all right? First, when you play in an AD&D campaign, do you have an expectation that every character will survive to the end?</p><p><b>A</b>: No.</p><p><b>Q</b>: In fact, your expectation of AD&D campaigns includes the possibility of what is often termed a "total party kill", in which every player character is killed in a dreadful battle. Correct?</p><p><b>A</b>: Yes, that's right.</p><p><b>Q</b>: You might be disappointed at the outcome or even surprised but you wouldn't consider it a violation of your expectations?</p><p><b>A</b>: I'm not sure I follow.</p><p><b>Q</b>: It doesn't happen all the time, but you know going in that it can happen, correct?</p><p><b>A</b>: Correct.</p><p><b>Q</b>: What are the circumstances in which you would expect a AD&D game to end in a total party kill?</p><p><b>A</b>: Well, usually it's because you tangle with a group of foes that's too powerful. My experience is that a single foe, even a quite powerful one, in AD&D, rarely kills the whole party because of the turn order and the rarity of multiple attacks. Someone is usually able to run away even if the party can't beat the monster.</p><p><span><b>Q</b>: You mention a 'large number of foes.' Even relatively weak foes like goblins or bandits might be dangerous in large numbers?</span></p><p><span><b>A</b>: Yes. Well, it depends on the level of the party. Usually one or two big groups of monsters can be handled by wizards, with area of effect spells. But in AD&D that runs out pretty fast and if you're in the wrong environment it can be disastrous.</span></p><p><span><b>Q</b>: Would you classify the Baaz in Dragonlance as weak foes?</span></p><p><span><b>A</b>: Somewhat. They're meant to be used in large numbers so they're individually not too strong. They're not as weak as kobolds or goblins. I would put them on par with orcs. They can be dangerous in groups or in the wrong place.</span></p><p><span><b>Q</b>: By the time you reached Encounter key 43, you had come across several Baaz. That's what you base that opinion on?</span></p><p><span><b>A</b>: Yes.</span></p><p><span><b>Q</b>: Not only the characters, but the players also knew, by the time they reached Encounter key 43, that the Baaz were about as dangerous as orcs. Correct?</span></p><p><b>A</b>: Correct.</p><p><b>Q</b>: Were there anything about Baaz that made them more dangerous in numbers than orcs?</p><p><b>A</b>: I'm not sure.</p><p><b>Q</b>: Well, what happens when a party member kills a Baaz with a melee weapon?</p><p><b>A</b>: Oh, that's right. The Baaz turns to stone and there's a percentage chance that the melee weapon will be trapped in the stone of the statue for several rounds.</p><p><b>Q</b>: How would that affect the party's chances in a fight with a large number of Baaz?</p><p><b>A</b>: I see what you're getting at. Yes, the fighter can't really intercept the next Baaz if they're still trying to pull their sword out of the first one.</p><p><b>Q</b>: A large number of Baaz is more likely to trap the melee fighters' weapons at least once, correct?</p><p><b>A</b>: Correct.</p><p><b>Q</b>: And if they do, even once, the larger numbers of Baaz are more likely to be able to move towards the more vulnerable party members?</p><p><b>A</b>: That's actually what happened in our last fight. I mean yes.</p><p><b>Q</b>: Now...this ability of the Baaz, turning to stone when they die. That's simply a unique monster trait. Lots of those traits across AD&D monsters, correct?</p><p><b>A</b>: Umm...not sure I follow. </p><p><b>Q</b>: You might have been surprised when Erin said 'the dying Baaz turns to stone', but it's just a feature of the Baaz like any other monster feature. Correct?</p><p><b>A</b>: Right. Correct.</p><p><b>Q</b>: What I'm getting at is, in the previous encounters with the Baaz, before Encounter key 43, you didn't think "Hold on, these things are too dangerous" and worry that Erin might be doing something improper?</p><p><b>A</b>: No. They seemed like normal monsters.</p><p><b>Q</b>: And you faced an army of Baaz - and more powerful monsters - invading this part of Krynn. You knew that by the time the party hatched the plan to try to infiltrate their lines.</p><p><b>A</b>: Yes.</p><p><b>Q</b>: According to the registered record of the campaign, the party killed a total of 26 Baaz before the last party member fell in Encounter 43. Does that fit with your memory?</p><p><b>A</b>: Yes, that sounds right.</p><p><b>Q</b>: I want you to think back to before you went to Encounter 43. You've fought Baaz before. If I told you "the next encounter will be 12 Baaz and the encounter after that will be 14 Baaz", would you expect the party to survive those encounters, or to fall?</p><p><b>Ms. Williams, prosecutor</b>: Objection, speculation.</p><p><b>Commissioner Z</b>: Sustained.</p><p><b>Mr. Bartolino</b>: Did you think that the army of Baaz ravaging Krynn was larger or smaller than 26 Baaz?</p><p><b>Ms. Williams</b>: Objection, relevance.</p><p><b>Commissioner Z</b>: Sustained.</p><p><b>Mr. Bartolino</b>: Is there an expectation in the normal play of AD&D that a party of your level will be able to handle an entire army of invading orcs?</p><p><b>Ms. Williams</b>: Objection, relevance. Speculation.</p><p><b>Commissioner Z</b>: I'll allow it. You may answer, if you can.</p><p><b>Ms. L</b>: I don't know that I understand. What do you mean by 'handle'?</p><p><b>Mr. Bartolino</b>: I'll ask the question another way. Your party was a typical AD&D party, correct?</p><p><b>Ms. L</b>: More or less. Erin said something about there being no clerics but by the time we got to the end we had one. </p><p><b>Q</b>: Any rangers?</p><p><b>A</b>: One. Riverwind.</p><p><b>Q</b>: Thieves?</p><p><b>A</b>: One. A kender, Tasslehoff Burfoot.</p><p><b>Q</b>: Invisibility spells?</p><p><b>A</b>: Raistlin picked <i>stinking cloud</i> for his second level spell, not invisibility.</p><p><b>Q</b>: No <i>pass without trace</i>?</p><p><b>A</b>: We could have had Goldmoon cast that but we needed those spells for healing. Anyway, our party was too large and we had to cover too much ground for pass without trace to be feasible. It only lasts a few turns.</p><p><b>Q</b>: What I'm trying to get at is, you weren't really outfitted either in skill or equipment for an extensive overland campaign in the hostile territory held by an army, were you?</p><p><b>A</b>: We thought we could at least make a raid to find out more information.</p><p><b>Q</b>: I'd like an answer to my question. You weren't outfitted for a counterattack on an army of Baaz, let alone an army of Baaz headed by more powerful creatures, were you?</p><p><b>A</b>: No. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Redirect testimony elicited by Ms. Williams</h3><p><b>Ms. Williams</b>: The party didn't fight all 26 Baaz at once, did they?</p><p><b>Ms. L</b>.: No. We fought 15 in the first encounter.</p><p><b>Q</b>: How did that go?</p><p><b>A</b>: Badly. Actually we had to fight a smaller guard encampment to even get into their territory, I think that was a separate encounter. [Technically a small Baaz encampment is actually the first part of Encounter 43; before the "endless" number of Baaz patrols that find the party once per hour. - Ed.] We managed to avoid one patrol and proceeded further in, searching for any kind of larger encampment or command post. We then got caught by a patrol of 15 Baaz. I saw Erin roll for how many there were. The wizard still had some area of effect spells so we did all right. We killed several, badly wounded several more, and drove off the rest. </p><p><b>Q</b>: What did the party decide then?</p><p><b>A</b>: We had captured one Baaz but he was a fanatic and didn't respond to our questions. After wandering around in the area we had no idea where to go. That's when [player A.F.] pointed out that we had seen flying enemies throughout this territory. It made sense that the more powerful draconic monsters, the ones in charge, had access to flight and could be anywhere in the region, so the intel we wanted might be extremely hard to find. The party decided to back off and head back to Solace.</p><p><b>Q</b>: Did Erin let you get back to Solace?</p><p><b>Mr. Bartolino</b>: Objection, leading, calls for a legal conclusion.</p><p><b>Commissioner Z</b>: Sustained.</p><p><b>Ms. Williams</b>: What happened after the party decided to withdraw from the area?</p><p><b>Ms. L</b>: We made for Solace as quickly as we could. But we didn't make it out of the area in time. We ran into another patrol. This one had 11 Baaz in it, including some of the survivors of the first battle. If we'd been at full strength, we might have made it. But we were out of spells, low on hit points, out of healing, there was no safe place to rest, and were running out of magic items. Our front line fighters got a couple of bad rolls and both got their weapons stuck in the first Baaz they killed. That was that. We went down.</p><p><b>Q</b>: How did you feel?</p><p><b>A</b>: It sucked. We were all really down. We had thought we might be able to find out something. It was a creative way to try to get ahead of the army at least in terms of intel. But we just got obliterated, lost the campaign and achieved nothing. There should have been something for us to do other than run away, you know? In Dragonlance a lot of the characters are literally chosen, we thought, by gods. Couldn't they have looked out for us a little more? There's lots of things Erin could have done to help the game out and she just killed us instead, all because we had a creative idea about doubling back on the bad guys, trying to find out more about them.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The Commission's Decision</h3><p>The Commission's decision was against Erin M. The Commission determined that Ms. M. should have openly told the players that taking the party to Solace was the only way to proceed in the module. </p><p>"Encounter 43," wrote the Commission, "is simply a 'rocks fall, everyone dies' dressed up in more AD&D terms. The accused should have recognized this and told the players. By concealing this, Ms. M. deceived the players into thinking there were more options available other than flight. The characters had been fleeing for some time, watching the pastoral world of Krynn fall beneath the draconic claw. A creative player would start searching for other options, and these did. They were engaging with the overall premise of Dragonlance, which is the struggle of goodness - manifested in the emerging powers of Goldmoon and others- against the evil of the draconic armies. Ms. M. should have heard their debate and simply said 'there may be future times to strike back but for now you must continue to flee if you want to continue.' By withholding that information Ms. M. was deceiving the group about their situation - not the party, but the players. This Commission therefore finds Erin M. to be guilty of railroading. The punishment should be severe since Encounter 43 is so simple and direct in its obvious use of force. As an experienced GM she should have remembered her training, fulfilled the requirements of her state certification and warned the players."</p><p>Erin M. was sentenced to having shit talked about her at EN World and two Discord servers of the Commission's choice for two months. However, before the sentence could be carried out, she appealed the decision to the Court of Appeals.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The Court of Appeals Decision</h3><p>The Court of Appeals overturned the Commission's decision. They put great weight on the open and obvious fact of the ongoing successful invasion of the draconic armies into the region.</p><p>"The players testified that Ms. M. made it clear that the draconic invasion was succeeding. The only apparent weakness of the villains was their obsessive searching for a crystal staff. With that information, the characters might rally a defense, but not until they reach a place of safety. Even setting aside the literal, from a figurative perspective the situation could not be made more clear. The town is literally named Solace. The inn is literally named the Last Hope. The characters have visited there before. The accused's omission to directly tell the players 'don't try to fight an army that has defeated everyone north of here' is not a deception. Indeed, the players' decision to turn away from the obvious course presented and into a dangerous situation without proper preparation or outfitting was well known, in the play and rules of AD&D, to risk the death of the party. That well known risk occurred. But the accused did not deceive them into thinking it didn't. </p><p>Just as we have not excused GMs from railroading charges because of the reputation of Dragonlance as a 'railroaded campaign', so too we will not impose them on GMs who do not railroad while running the Dragonlance campaign in an ethical and honest manner."</p><p>Of interest in the decision is a concurring footnote prepared by Judge Enright, which noted that Encounter 43 required Ms. M. to roll 1d10 and add 10 to determine the number of Baaz in each hourly patrol encounter. By making the second Baaz encounter only contain 11 Baaz, including wounded and dispirited Baaz from the first one, Ms. M. had actually made the second Baaz encounter <i>easier </i>than the text of Dragonlance would suggest. Not only did it contain the minimum number of Baaz in the patrol, some of them were already wounded and low-morale. Judge Enright opined that this indicated Erin M. actually wanted the players to escape and did what she could under the rules of the scenario to allow it to happen. But the "dice fell where they may" and the party did not escape.</p><p>The conviction was vacated. However, the Commission appealed to the Supreme Court.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The Supreme Court Decision</h3><p>The Supreme Court reinstated the conviction. </p><p>"If Erin M. hasn't railroaded," the opinion averred, "there is no railroading in AD&D. A GM can't escape a railroading charge by claiming 'when I threw those literally endless monsters at the PCs, and they all died, I was just following the combat rules. The players knew what the combat rules were!' The combat rules of AD&D which make taking on a large number of monsters a serious challenge are not the rules for the placement of monsters in AD&D. Knowing how the monsters fight doesn't impute assent to knowing that in certain places in a module that there will be 'endless' monsters to fight without respite." </p><p>Instead, the Supreme Court urged a limited interpretation of the 1(A) exception to the railroading definition. The player has to have made on some level an assent to the specific type of action that is at issue. Here, the placement of "endless" monsters, but in other games it might be something as simple as a printed mechanic. "A simple disclosure that engagement with the army will result in hourly contact with an 'endless' enemy would have given the players sufficient information to either take the risk or try something else," concluded the Supreme Court.</p><p>Interestingly, however, the Supreme Court acknowledged Judge Enright's reasoning as it pertained to Ms. M's creation of the weaker second Baaz patrol once the characters attempted to return to Solace, and ordered that it be considered as a mitigating factor in punishment. "While it would have been better to simply allow the party to return to the rails it has to be said that Ms. M did at least make some attempt to mitigate the harm done. If she can do so within her rules, surely the Commission can do so within its rules." </p><p>On remand, the Commission issued a revised sentencing requiring only that Ms. M. be subtweeted by two blue check Twitter accounts of no less than 25,000 followers. Her friends were allowed to post "blue check, opinion discarded, lmao" memes in response.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Questions for Further Discussion</h2><p>1. There is no "coming back" from railroading - once you've done it, you can't undo it, by the 20X6 definition. However, the Supreme Court decision and the Enright footnote seem to indicate that perhaps there should be some kind of "safe harbor" from the accusation. If Ms. M. had allowed the party to limp safely to Solace after being beaten back by the evil army, should that have given her a defense from accusations of railroading? Or would that just encourage railroading GMs to hit hard enough to get people to go along with their illicit desires?</p><p>2. To quote from the appellate brief of Mr. Bartolino to the Court of Appeals, "where is the lie?" The 20X6 definition of railroading approaches it from the perspective of wishing to prevent deception. What, specifically was Ms. M's deception? She never promised the characters could take on an army. She never promised that in the event of a massive invasion that there is any fighting back to do initially. The AD&D rules about stealth and infiltration are what they are. Both the Commission and the Supreme Court (and, in her final bit of testimony, the player, Ms. L) said that Ms. M should have disclosed something further about the situation. But did she withhold anything that the players weren't already told - that there was an army, that it was very dangerous, that it was advancing, that it was everywhere (for now) triumphant, that Solace was in the direction of safety (also for now). Ms. M never told the players that everything they come up with has a chance of working because the players came up with it. "Where is the lie?" </p><p>3. The proposed "solution" for Erin given by the Supreme Court and the Commission was to outright tell the players that they were turning into infinite peril. Is this a flaw in the definition of railroading, that a GM who simply directly says "you must go south to continue this adventure" can escape prosecution? To put it another way, does the 20X6 definition of railroading which focuses on <i>deception</i> fully encompass the crime of railroading, or is there a type of objectionable, criminal railroading that takes place "in the open"? Can a GM simply erase all player freedoms by doing so directly and vocally just before imposing their will in each decision, and defend themselves by saying "well, I didn't <i>trick</i> them"? If Erin M. had said "you have to go south to continue the adventure", before the players reached the decision, it seems the Supreme Court would have acquitted her. But <i>should they?</i> Or is it just railroading in another form?</p><p><br /></p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-73161191496148633312024-01-03T15:35:00.000-08:002024-01-03T15:45:12.112-08:00Criminal RPG Activity Chapbook: Railroading<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqSOunlkOaccFrc45krBeF4DXlatUFHspSqzq627UD2P_4n_Iquo7I6LfXUzCixyqVjJb0uTeN69z1U5GprABXH98CW3dZyZc7yDDKNq2xEEHdMvuooEy9uCSUKwZfO1mwgFOJjpySZJ_NRyY4Cy6nJo6nM5AGpD5dGBi2HUUMPoGclY3l48YoyuJGbGvO/s565/unknown-3.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="542" data-original-width="565" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqSOunlkOaccFrc45krBeF4DXlatUFHspSqzq627UD2P_4n_Iquo7I6LfXUzCixyqVjJb0uTeN69z1U5GprABXH98CW3dZyZc7yDDKNq2xEEHdMvuooEy9uCSUKwZfO1mwgFOJjpySZJ_NRyY4Cy6nJo6nM5AGpD5dGBi2HUUMPoGclY3l48YoyuJGbGvO/w320-h307/unknown-3.png" title="Pictured: a criminal" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Pictured: A Criminal</b></td></tr></tbody></table> Naturally, we all hate railroading, as all good people do. Railroading is the act of a criminal...a scofflaw...a bandit...a Vampire player! But what exactly are the elements of railroading? Consider this helpful casebook as a place to begin discussion on this important subject.<br /><p></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><h2 style="text-align: left;">I. The Tourists of Innsmouth</h2><p>The group is playing an occult adventure game. Clues point the group towards Uncle Steve's haunted mansion full of ghosts and trickery. The group has stated that they will go to Uncle Steve's haunted mansion but they get sidetracked trying to track down every last piece of information in the quiet seaside town where Uncle Steve lives. They're not just going to the library and looking up old books, they're interviewing people about the architect, visiting the grave of the former housekeeper, questioning the gardener's brother-in-law, getting bogged down and turned around with every new piece of information. </p><p>Although nobody says "we now go to the mansion", during a lull, when everyone is frustrated and exhausted from running around town and chasing down essentially worthless leads, the GM says, "Great. You are all now at the gates of Uncle Steve's haunted mansion of ghosts and trickery."</p><p>A. <i>What degree of railroading has the GM committed?</i></p><p><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><i> </i>1. <b>Felony railroading. </b>The whole point of an occult adventure is to conduct an investigation; indeed, traditionally, charging in without investigating is disfavored. Having invited the group to do an investigation the GM cannot step in if it goes a different length of time than the players propose. They may advance threats if there is time pressure (the Boss Ghost completes their ritual and becomes a Super Boss Ghost, for example.) But they may not determine the group's next step. <b>Punishment: </b>being subtweeted by an account with 100K+ followers.<br /></p><p> 2. <b>Misdemeanor railroading. </b>While the GM's actions are improper, they're excusable since the players expressed the desire to go to Uncle Steve's house before. Arguably the GM is just moving them to a place they already determined they want to go, assisting them since they were getting bogged down. <b>Punishment: </b>Three minute at-table argument the first time there's a surprise in the house. "But before we came to the house, I would have..."<br /></p><p> 3. <b>It isn't railroading.</b> The GM is just getting the players past a part that is unnecessary and visibly frustrating. They're helping the game, not hurting it. Since the players are happy, no railroading has occurred.<br /></p><p>B. <i>Questions for discussion:</i></p><p><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><i> </i>1. <b>Does it matter that the players said they wanted to go to Uncle Steve's haunted mansion?</b> Would your answer change if the players said "We need to chase down every lead in town before we go up there!" Would your answer change if the players never announced their future plans, only their immediate actions?<br /></p><p> 2. <b>Does it matter what's printed in the rulebook? </b>If the rulebook says that the GM should do this, in a section easily accessible to the players and described as good play of the game, does that make the GM's crime more or less severe?<br /></p><p> 3. <b>Does it matter that the players were getting visibly frustrated and stuck? </b>If they were enjoying themselves roaming all over the creepy seaside town questioning the milkman and Steve's ex-boyfriend, does that make the GM's crime more severe? If the players <i>seemed</i> to be getting visibly frustrated and stuck but were actually just roleplaying and were secretly enjoying themselves greatly, does that make the GM's crime more severe or less?<br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">II. Superhero Showdown</h2><p>The group is playing a superhero game, taking on a powerful supervillain. In their initial confrontation with the villain, they stop his evil plan and are closing in. But then....</p><p><i>A. Which of these situations is railroading and, for those that are railroading, would you classify them as felony or misdemeanor railroading?</i></p><p> 1., The game is Champions. It's a module. The<b> GM consults the module</b>, which says "the villain must escape the heroes here in Act I, so that he may be defeated in Act III. Introduce new threats or distractions to make this happen." The GM follows the instructions in the module and introduces new goons into the situation. In the crossfire the villain escapes.<br /></p><p><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> 1A. The players know about the text in the module.</span><br /></span></p><p><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> 1B. The players do not know about the text in the module.</span><br /></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> 1C. There is actually no such text in the module but the GM feels, correctly, that it will make for a better final confrontation for the desires of this group.</span><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> 1D. As in 1C, but the GM's belief is incorrect.</span><br /></span></span></span></span></p><p><span> </span><span> </span>2. The game is Mutants & Masterminds. The GM consults the rules, which say "<b>you may spend a Villain Point </b>to have the villain reveal a sudden escape route or distraction that allows them to disappear." The GM spends the villain point and introduces a distraction that allows the villain to escape. The rule is knowable by the players although there's no reason for them to know it since player characters can't have Villain Points</p><p><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> 2A. While doing so, the GM smirks in a superior fashion and brags that their villain has a Villain Point which allows them to escape.</span><br /></span></p><p><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> 2B. While doing so, the GM loudly curses that she's being forced to use a Villain Point to let the villain escape, shaking her head and scribbling furious notes.</span></span></span></p><p><span> 3. The game is Masks. The GM consults the villain's Moves, which include (among many other options) "teleport away while taunting the players". The next time a player misses a roll, they <b>choose that Move even though other options exist</b>.</span></p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> 3A. The players know this is a move.</span><br /></p><p><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> 3B. The players don't know this is a move.</span></span></p><p><span><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> 3C. The players don't know this</span></span></span> is a move for this particular villain but know that moves like this exist.</p><p>B. Removing the system momentarily from the picture, imagine that <i>the GM advice suggests </i>having powerful villains enter scenarios with escape plans and gives advice on how to make that happen, and the GM, within the systemic confines of that system, constructs villains to do exactly that. Contrast the GM advice to the approach of the Villain Points or the module text in 1 and 2 above. Are any of these more or less legitimate? Why?</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">III. The Inverse Chandler Move</h2><p>The game is a pulp adventure game. The players are trying to solve a mystery. They can't, they missed or misinterpreted a clue. The book says "under these circumstances, have a NPC show up and just tell them the next part of what's going on." The GM decides not to do that.</p><p><i>A. Is this railroading? </i></p><p> 1. <b>Yes</b>. The players have the right to expect that the GM will help them over this bump because the designer says that's how it's supposed to go. The GM is improperly exerting force over the game world, to the negative of the enjoyment of the players. That's railroading.<br /></p><p><span> 2. <b>No</b>. Railroading can only happen by action, not through inaction. It's the players that have messed up their game. The GM isn't there to rescue them from the consequences of their own actions.</span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span><span>IV. The Collapse of the Quantum Ogre</span></span></h2><p><span><span>Of course we are all familiar with the heinous quantum ogre crime. In this scenario, a group of players have the choice to leave town in a fantasy adventure game by the east road or the west road. The GM has an encounter with an ogre prepared for the west road. But when the players choose to leave town by the east road the GM has the ogre attack occur anyway. Whichever direction the players choose, the GM puts the ogre there. Now we all know this is a serious railroading crime for which the GM must be punished by no fewer than 10,000 words being written about them on OSR blogs over no fewer than three months. However....</span></span></p><p><span>A. Do any of the following circumstances make the crime <i>more serious, less serious, or even fully justify the crime?</i></span></p><p><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><i> </i>1. A statement from the accused: "Just because the players don't immediately see the reason for something doesn't mean the reason doesn't exist. And consequently, I have great leeway over events that may seem inexplicable or even suspicious. Perhaps a wizard sent the ogre to ambush them after seeing them from afar. <b>The whole inquiry into why the ogre was where it was should only be conducted in the fiction.</b> The game even says I'm not supposed to let the players look at my notes! Nor is it proper for you, an investigator from the State Commission on GMing, to look at them. The reason the game says to keep my notes confidential is to preserve my freedom to act in just these types of circumstances. My prep is not the authority of what happens in the game. The words spoken at the table by me and the other players are the authority. Why do you elevate what I wrote last week over what I decided at the table when I myself won't accord it that level of power? If the characters investigate the ambush they will find why the ogre attach took place on the east road. If they don't they won't. The whole inquiry is improper!"<br /></p><p> 2. A statement from the accused: "Among my many roles in a fantasy story is that of Fate. <b>Fate exists in this game world! </b>If the player characters become powerful enough they can go and meet her. The skeins and threads of fate coil tightly around player characters. You are acting like my job is to be a computer running a program. A highly modernistic kind of thinking. Scientific, you might even call it. But this is a <i>fantasy</i> world. The gods exist in this world! You can even look them up, they're in the player's guide and in the GM's guide. <i>Oedipus could not avoid his fate by taking the east road instead of the west road. </i>It's wrong to treat a fantasy game like the gods don't exist, or that they're as hands-off as the Christian God seems to be in modern America. Yet that's the kind of world you're imposing on my table with this judgment! Yes, certain events are fated to occur to the player characters. That's what being fantasy heroes is all about!"<br /></p><p> 3. A statement from the players: "We jointly suggest that we bear some responsibility for this ogre being on the east road when we chose to leave the city to the east. During our break we had emphasized that our overland travel had been far too safe and implored the GM to increase the difficulty of it. And<b> that ogre ambush was the highlight of the night! We thoroughly enjoyed it. </b>If it wasn't for the State Commission's audit of the GM's notes we never even would have known that she had previously written that the ogre ambush was on the west road. She moved it to the east road for us to have a good time, and we did. Surely that can't be railroading, right? We might not have asked for it by name but we certainly wanted something like it! If we hadn't had the ogre ambush - or something like it - we would have had a bad time."</p><p><span> 4. A statement from the accused: "Before the game, I told the players I would improvise encounters based on what I thought would be the most fun. I was devastated to see the looks of frustration and dissatisfaction on their faces when I described the ogre attack. However, you can't say this is a railroad!<b> This is nothing more than a simple miscalculation on my part of what would be the most fun in that moment.</b> I suggest that at most this might be an act of negligence or even simple innocent mistake on my part, not an intentional crime. They knew I might do something like this - the fact that they didn't like when I actually did it is not an indictment of the exercise of power itself, but the specific decisions I made with it."<br /></span></p><p>B. If a particular table treats a proposed decision-making process for the placement of monsters as legitimate, <i>is there an artistic basis to object to particular processes even independent of the enjoyment or assent of the players participating</i>? In other words, even if you concede that a table might be fine with the quantum ogre appearing, is there a basis for urging that it's improper anyway? Answer first from the standpoint of a designer attempting to impose their own processes on the table, and then from the standpoint of a non-designer.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-42100086800653076582023-10-02T15:56:00.002-07:002023-10-02T15:56:54.272-07:00More Thoughts on Fate<p> After a few years of sharing around my <a href="http://jdcspot.blogspot.com/2019/06/fate-core-is-good-actually-series-of.html">Fate Core principles post</a>, I have had further conversations with people about it and developed some more ideas about Fate (broadly, not just Fate Core) that explain a lot of the issues that people report to me that they have with Fate. If you've struggled with it, especially if you were around for the Dresden RPG or Spirit of the Century, give it a look, hope it helps.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvb5DTLgu3mEa3VxO_AO_mYz9Gy2S7N5TAu85ZRfN03UT4dbiF68i528Fk3kiW3q0jHUqLMRjae2SrIvxaSNtujamImkDQM2ZK9GVVT8vVfpJ4lry4j0MVpnxcGNJTnkM6qnfZo8B2OgfSMAW0iG__0qj9OK9g5z9FzO-q0r-Q0IAo12CwGIxIMxOZSS5f/s1452/kong1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1452" data-original-width="1019" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvb5DTLgu3mEa3VxO_AO_mYz9Gy2S7N5TAu85ZRfN03UT4dbiF68i528Fk3kiW3q0jHUqLMRjae2SrIvxaSNtujamImkDQM2ZK9GVVT8vVfpJ4lry4j0MVpnxcGNJTnkM6qnfZo8B2OgfSMAW0iG__0qj9OK9g5z9FzO-q0r-Q0IAo12CwGIxIMxOZSS5f/w281-h400/kong1.jpg" width="281" /></a></div><p></p><p>Here are the two things I want to try to get at:</p><p>1. People love Aspects too much. They shouldn't. Aspects are great but when you love one too much it can get in the way of what their actual function is.</p><p>2. If you're feeling both "I shouldn't get Fate points just for doing something I would or should do anyway" and "I'm always running out of Fate points", someone at the table is badly miscalibrated about what the action of the game is. </p><span><a name='more'></a></span><h3 style="text-align: left;">Fate's Historical Accidents</h3><p>I think there is an accident of Fate's development that led to the Aspect/Point economy being weirdly attenuated from the fiction that undermines its usefulness as a concrete/pulp systemic element. </p><p>The modern "branch" of Fate started splitting off at Spirit of the Century and then Dresden Files. In both those games, characters are conceived of as larger-than-life noir or pulp heroes, each fully personified protagonists in their own way - therefore, each comes with a High Concept, a Trouble Aspect and a series of other aspects related to "past adventures" of the characters. Play that plays to each of these characters, therefore, is highly based on players who firmly take the spotlight to themselves to play out their motivating factors (this is really what Trouble is) and the job of the plot is to corral them all onto the Orient Express, Indiana Jones' traveling red line, or into the nightclub where Frankie the Squealer is rumored to be. It incentivizes good natured pushing for spotlight time. But this actually is sort of an odd decision for the adaptation elements of both properties.</p><p>1930s adventure pulp is based around one or at most two protagonists; their supporting cast can really be summed up in one brief statement at most (sometimes not even that - plenty of 1940s pulp sidekicks just have a name and nothing else!) And our heroes probably have a much smaller personal set of aspects that they carry with them. These are not deep characters with elaborate psychologies. They wear their hearts on their sleeves and more or less address the reader with what they think in a situation.</p><p> Read a Doc Savage or Shadow novel. Doc Savage is a pretty well rounded character, Aspect wise. Lots of concrete things that affect his immediate adventure. Now how about Doc Savage's "Fabulous Five"? .....is there any world where these are in any way equal to Doc just in their Relevant Fictional Details? Absolutely not. They certainly have a High Concept, and maybe another Aspect, but that's it!</p><p>A highly detailed, finicky situation where dozens of facts are immediately relevant just isn't exciting in a pulp sense. So if you really want to make a good translation what you need is for some characters to just...not have as many Aspects. The more characters you have, the less Aspects each of them can fruitfully offer into the fiction.</p><p>It's a little more understandable in Dresden, because the "multi-POV" urban fantasy novel is a thing, and a very popular one, but <i>not in the Dresden Files books</i>! Usually the multi-POV urban fantasy novel uses the multiple points of view to comment on the development of one or more relationships culminating in two or more characters' romantic relationship. Dresden just puts a camera over Harry Dresden's shoulder and that's that. (I'm increasingly convinced that as-written, a 4-person Dresden Files game (both editions!) should play like 4 separate Fate games in a shared universe, and there should be a love tetrahedron betwixt the players.)</p><p>One final element of Fate's development was more cultural than textual, which is the almost complete ignoring of the Minor Milestone. This might be a consequence of convention play (no real advancement in convention play) or of the over-focusing on Aspects (more below) but the Minor Milestone more or less disappeared off people's radar in playing this game and I think it's vital. The number of Fate games I've played in where people don't do ANYTHING on the Minor Milestone...or remember that they exist...is significant.</p><p>In part (my conclusion, not necessarily a fact) because Dresden and SOTC loom large over early Fate Core thinking, when people started to try to do other things with Fate, the Trouble Aspect became a sticking point. "Wait, am I really going to get paid just to do this thing which I should be wanting to do anyway?" This overlooks that "Trouble" here is referring specifically to the noir (and perhaps even more specifically to Raymond Chandler's) conception of "trouble" as "the thing the main character gets into". The High Concept Aspect is a statement of identity and the Trouble Aspect is a statement of action. You should rename "Trouble" to be something else if your game's not pulp adventure or noir-esque! But it should be the thing you're doing in the game.</p><p>And, importantly, because of the Minor Milestone, which urges you to change non-High Concept Aspects all the time, <b><i>all Aspects in the game should be fictional statements or phrases relevant to what you're doing exactly at this moment</i></b>. Aspects run into problems when they're 1) not relevant, 2) not immediate, 3) not actionable due to vagueness or because they're a pun or too clever, or whatever.</p><p>Once I got my hands on Fate Core I really started to "get" more of what Fate was after and how Fate games should be constructed from the ground up. In this they're more like Cortex turned out to be than GURPS.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Building a Fate Game</h3><p>So if you construct a Fate game from the bottom up, what does it look like? You have the High Concept Aspect. That stays the same. It's kind of a catch all character concept Aspect. "This is 'my thing'." In fact, my stern notions about what an Aspect should be can be relaxed when it comes to High Concepts. Make a really baroque, involved High Concept, it's fine! Really put some work into that one because that's the one that stays the same throughout.</p><p>You need to have a "Trouble" Aspect...what are you doing addressed to the fictional action of the game at this exact moment? Here are other names I've given to Trouble Aspects:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Production Aspect (for a director trying to finish a film)</li><li>Case Aspect (for a cop trying to solve a crime)</li><li>Curse Aspect (for a witch trying to break a curse)</li><li>Demon Aspect (for brothers trying to banish a demon)</li></ul><p></p><p>Some considerations: 1) Should there be a joint Trouble Aspect? In my game with the brothers, they were gonna be a team. When they were dealing with demon problems, I gave them both a fate point based on the Demon Aspect because it was always the same. It's essentially the same outcome if you just give everyone an extra fate point and an extra problem per game, but I like to have more proactive characters and so the players tell me what they're up to and that becomes an Aspect that can remind them if they get into a subplot or out into the weeds somewhere.</p><p>2) Should you allow Trouble Aspects to be updated on Minor Milestones in addition to another Aspect being updated? (This is probably my most significant actual house rule.)</p><p>But how many Aspects should you have after you have a High Concept and some kind of "Thing We're Doing Right Now" Aspect? </p><p>You have to be really realistic about your group's social dynamics, the footprint of a session, how often you meet, how many sessions can you spend running around each other before people get bored. Because there's a limited amount of fictional facts that are relevant to pulpish (now using the broader term) conflicts.</p><p>So if you have 25 Aspects sitting at a table on character sheets, you have dead weight - not good if the players have worked really hard and really invested in their Aspects, which the game (wrongly IMO) says you should. Worse, the GM is gonna introduce more Aspects, and the players are gonna introduce even more Aspects during play. What a nightmare!</p><p>Instead, you should start from 0 Aspects and add Aspect types based on the themes that you want to address, types of themes present in the setting or genre that you want players to weigh in on through personal action. It's a little different from the "action of the campaign" because you already have an Aspect for that (Trouble.) But they are things that the characters will want to address at some point during the campaign.</p><p>Here are some Aspect collections that I've used in the past:</p><p>* Space Western: The Law, The Land, The Gun</p><p>* Gotham City: Wealth, Love, Pain (more specifically, the 'Thing that happened or happens to you that you just can't shake and every time you're alone in the dark it's there with you')</p><p>* Supernatural Family Drama: Inheritance, The Dark Book (the source of the family's wicked power), The Town</p><p>So as the characters pursue their current goal (Trouble), you throw in material that's related to what you, the GM, have identified as relevant fictional stuff. You can bring in locations with Aspects and NPCs with Aspects and all that and it'll be fine because they'll be Aspects that draw players into conflicts along lines you've already steered them towards. </p><p>If there's fewer Aspects on the players' sheets, and the Aspects are always more relevant to what's happening then the pressure to get Fate Points is more relaxed; you'll naturally give out more. This allows you to be more of a dick about which Aspects can be invoked on which actions, which is vital. The players will fall in love with their Aspects and try to shoehorn them in everywhere. But you shouldn't let that happen! If they have an Aspect they can't figure out how to use, they can fix it at the end of the session at the Minor Milestone! They should constantly be changing how they address the fictional situations you're putting them in - and that's how they get the Fate Points they need to hit the big numbers when they hit the dangerous situations (or roll nine -3 results in a row, as I always do.)</p><p>If you're in a game where your Aspects aren't hitting and you're really scrimping for Fate Points, you and the other players (including the GM) have not communicated to each other what the campaign's about and focused your fictional attention. Once you do that, it works just fine.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-83952546190112257862023-07-17T12:59:00.002-07:002023-07-17T12:59:24.733-07:00Old RPG Gamers and The Streaming Youth - From a Dark Forest<p> Another question from the dark forest, which is essentially creaky old people muttering about how much better it was back in the day. I tried to answer the following self-summarized prompt, posted in late 2022:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://64.media.tumblr.com/e5c0bbccb6626bd07297fb25678c4b53/tumblr_ouhbvjKbGw1v53vrbo4_400.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="312" height="445" src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/e5c0bbccb6626bd07297fb25678c4b53/tumblr_ouhbvjKbGw1v53vrbo4_400.jpg" width="312" /></a></div><br />"JD! You absolute fool. You dunce. Why do you say 'System Matters' lost the debate in the public sphere? What's all this about "the streaming generation" of players? And don't you just hate all that shit, why are you talking about it like it's legitimate?!" <p></p><p>Over the last...maybe year and a half, I came to terms with the population of people entering the hobby via twitch or youtube streams (the Actual Play podcast phenomenon continues but is greatly diminished in comparison). I have my issues with how those streams are conducted, but that's only of tangential interest here. I challenged myself: "You claim to care about your local gaming community, in fact you often assert that it's (and local communities like it are ) the only gaming community that exists. These people are going to flood your community and you are going to know nothing about their point of view. Are you one of those pieces of shit artists who sit around being like 'oh man we solved all these problems in 2005, these new artists are dumb and have nothing to show me and will do nothing to help the world'". Are you that kind of guy, where they'll laugh at you behind your hand because you're old and have nothing to offer them? </p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>I decided I was not that kind of guy. <p></p><p>Google and Amazon are the bad guys. The users of Google and Amazon are the <i>survivors</i>, not the villains. So I began to run games in spaces where I would come across people who got into the hobby through streaming primarily. Here is what I discovered about them and their approaches.</p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Choice of Game</span></p><p><b>Overwhelmingly they prefer D&D </b>for the following reasons:</p><p>1.They got here because they were excited about watching someone play D&D (in a particular way, more on this below.) They have not been here that long. So they probably haven't had a chance to play that much D&D! Usually they've played a one-shot or sometimes a short camaign. But they truly have not had a lot of D&D experience. It feels like forever but the streaming explosion truly has not been going that long. A lot of them have been here only 1-2 years. Considering how hard it is to get a campaign rolling and keep it rolling, saying "let's play something other than D&D" is often a big disappointment. <i>They haven't gotten to play that much D&D!</i> When I say they're often very new, you really have to take into account that they may have been getting themselves psyched for a D&D game for over a year, then only actively seeking one for a matter of months.</p><p>2. D&D has many systemic qualities that inform the tone of play they seek (a little more on this below.) They're working from a common language of D&D Plus The Internet. They can crack jokes in D&D+Internet. They've learned it before they even set foot in your game.</p><p>3. D&D lets you be quiet for long periods of time. This is important to their view of the importance of audience to play. (more on this below) You can do a whole lot of not much in a D&D session and not derail or drag things. Compare to a character-driven game like Apocalypse World where if you're not Doing Something Right Now then the whole game stumbles over its feet.</p><p>4. D&D supports a feeling of positive camraderie. The Old Bad Days of the "can I play an evil character" and thieves stealing from the party are completely alien to this cohort. They're here to have fun together. (Compare to the PVP elements of Apocalypse World or Urban Shadows.)</p><p>That said, they are fully aware of the existence of other RPGs and "willing" to play them, in the sense that if you're friends, and you have a friend-group-playing-a-game, they won't make an objection to a non-D&D game. But often times they're looking for D&D for the reasons above.</p><p><br /></p><p>Tone and Style of Play</p><p>1 - Careful. They have been taught from day one that difficult content should be approached in full view of all players and discussed explicitly. They are more considerate of each other's feelings and boundaries than the cohort I came up with for sure. And say what you want about the adequacy of those "how to be a good DM" youtube videos, dealing with boundaries is a MUCH more common topic there than it was in publications in the 90s (for example). And they have no problem pausing and checking in with each other during play, and expressing their out-of-character feelings about how the game's going. Honestly they are so far ahead of where I was on this subject when I'd been playing as long as they have, I am really happy to even think about it.</p><p>2. The Audience. This is probably the biggest place where streaming has had an impact. And as much as I hate the streaming services, it's honestly not all bad. Here's my observation:</p><p>A) they are fully aware they are putting on a performance for their fellow players. Making funny or badass comments, doing things that are exciting or weird, and other things that "play to the audience" are a VERY high priority and if they are shut down in some way they (whether as performer or audience member) are highly disappointed.</p><p>B) Consequently, they are very willing to sit and be a quiet audience member while someone else is in the spotlight, if that person is able to hold the spotlight. Remember in 1998 when you "played Vampire" but actually you had 4 separate Vampire games and nobody quite liked it? This cohort is absolutely fine with just sitting there and listening and reacting and experiencing someone else's story to a degree I absolutely was not. They might not love the 4 separate Vampire games (see "camraderie", above) but they are very willing to let people have their spotlight time and encourage them to "go big" with it even if their character "wouldn't be there" or "isn't really doing anything."</p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Tonal/Stylistic Properties of D&D in the Streaming Youths</span></p><p>How do their tonal/stylistic priorities mesh with D&D or, if not D&D, what the text of the game is? This bit is less of an observation than a conclusion on my part</p><p>This cohort embraces <b>irony via dissonance.</b> One thing about D&D <i>that they like </i>is that sometimes D&D just <i>says something stupid</i>. Someone acts in a way no real sentient entity would act, a room in a dungeon makes no sense, a rule that leads into a blind alley, a half-baked scenario with big holes in it. They love this shit. Commenting on it, either in- or out-of-character (or in that quasi-in-character way that sometimes you do in D&D to make jokes to each other in the voice of your character) is a common source of comedy. Remember, as audience members of a stream they'd be joking with each other in the chat about exactly this stuff! </p><p>I remember Vincent Baker's admonition that the purpose of a game system is to produce "disagreeable" outcomes, that is, outcomes that we couldn't just sit there and talk it through and agree on it. And I think this is embraced in a very unusual way. Pick lists like PBTA moves where you know what the options are and they're fully transparent and the players pick from them don't provide the opportunity for the GM to roll the die, look behind the screen, and lay up a softball straight line for the players to knock out of the park with a funny joke. This is not to say that PBTA games can't provide this type of outcome, but often it comes about because the GM or players are looking to introduce it on a fictional level, when the system can't really produce something <i>unexpected </i>due to its complete transparency.</p><p>This is also why I predicted that despite turning up their nose at WOTC during the latest controversy (the OGL withdrawal debacle), they would always simply go back to it because WOTC owns D&D and that's the end of that story.</p><p>A dislike they have: <b>blocking the performance.</b> This is something that sometimes happens and it's really negative towards their preferred playstyle. This actually happened many times in previous generations too so you'll recognize the pattern: someone announces some bizarre or off the wall action. The GM says "that's awesome, now roll Acrobatics, then Stealth, then an attack roll, then save versus Constitution" or whatever combination of rolls they assess the bizarre action to require based on the text. Nobody can make 4 of those rolls in a row so the action always fails. </p><p>Remember that in the D&D they watch, nobody adheres to the written rules this closely so they truly "see right through" the "but that's what the rules say!" response. A GM is supposed to know that you really just make em roll Something, Anything, and if they roll high they do it and if they roll low they don't. (This is the only rule that actually exists in many/most of the most popular streams.)</p><p>So I think, again, looking at the state of the art, there are games that they might embrace that really lean into this performance aspect of play, not necessarily in the sense of weird voices or whatever, but in the sense of "my character is gonna do something wild, check this out!" Here I am thinking of things like Feng Shui, but you could also get some traction from (for example) PBTA games like Masks where a big crazy action can indeed be boiled down into a single roll.</p><p>So <i>speaking overall </i>the displayed belief of this cohort is that System Doesn't Matter, in the sense of the original essay. The success or failure of a game is based on a skillful GM who discards the text when they feel it is pushing them to block the performance, and based on skillful players who provide good entertainment and interaction with each other.</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Opportunities for positive play with this set of preferences</span></p><p>Once you start to see the performance aspect of their play, it opens up a lot of doors. Here are some opportunities that I've used with this cohort of players that have worked:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Just Ask. </b>This is something I learned from my 1990s play when people might come to the Vampire game with a six page background. Just say "Hey you said your character spent a long time in the feywild. What if your hot ex boyfriend from the feywild showed up and caused you a problem?" Because they've fully embraced the "let's talk about game content" for questionable topics, they have absolutely no hesitation in discussing it for "regular" topics too. This is also how you can emphasize comedy, drama, horror, etc. elements and tones. Just say "hey what if this were a little more dramatic" "are you scared? are you scared?" etc. Essentially you are setting them up for success in performance. They know their streamer idols do this so why not them? In wrestling terms, they're smarts, not marks. They know that the great moments are planned out, so why not embrace it?</li><li><b>Gas them up. </b>Say "sweet" when they do something badass and laugh when they do something funny. Embrace your role as straight man - or put a funny character in against something that they want in a "normal" way. Simulation is a tool you can use (especially if, like D&D's simulation elements, it's sometimes broken or makes no sense) but if you look at the simulation and it's a bunch of nothing, skip it.</li></ul><div>My conclusion is that there are strengths to this cohort of people. The supposed "Mercer Effect" of expecting an auteur DM of a high quality has not manifested in my experience, because they also recognize the contribution of well-prepared and enthusiastic players to a good stream D&D experience. They are far ahead of where I was at their age and experience level with respect to content and inter-player relationships as key to the gaming experience. And in many ways they are similar to other cohorts of gamers - they have their inside jokes and their pop culture references just as other gamers love to quote Monty Python or Star Wars. </div><div><br /></div><div>I urge you if you have the opportunity to welcome these folks into your local gaming scene and to your table. They're not going anywhere and they've got a lot to offer.</div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-47199244283865236342023-07-17T12:51:00.008-07:002023-07-17T12:51:49.262-07:00Gaming SCPs - 200-299<p> I realized I forgot to mention that I actually <i>did</i> read all SCPs that existed, but this was back when there were only about three thousand of them, so a lot of these are just re-skims on my part.</p><p>This section has the first "monster SCPs" that I really like for gaming. Too many of the monster SCPs are just "they torturekill you if you break rule X" which are less interesting for gaming than you might think. Puzzles make more sense in gaming if they have other stakes. The Tortured Iron Soul (SCP-203, below) is quite dangerous and gruesome but the obvious motivation in interacting with it is to gain new information about it such as its origin and effects. And The Protector (back to back! SCP-204), once you set aside the edginess of "let's use these pedophiles to activate the anomalistic entity" is also really interesting. This edginess sometimes ruins otherwise interesting entries - the phonograph record that causes time to freeze when it skips is primarily tested by killing someone near it, for example. C'mon. Couldn't we think of other things to test with it?</p><p>Overall, there's a LOT of good candidates in this range for gaming even though from a project perspective there's not much mythos or worldbuilding going on. I was really surprised how many of these 100 I thought were good! There are still plenty of derivative SCPs (one is just "what if Silent Hill, man"), and much of the project's identity still remains in the future. One notable entry is the first real action-oriented SCP, primarily consisting of transcripts of the special forces of the SCP going into a weird dimension. It's also been updated to modern presentation standards so it's neat! </p><p>There's also my first disease SCP - a lot of these are just zombie/rage infections that make people into m m m m m monsters! Gamers already got plenty of monsters, they don't need more. But this one (Base Eleven Disorder, below) is really nice and intriguing. I didn't pick it because it's not really scenario-inducing, but the <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-269">Dialysis Bracelet (SCP-269</a>) is also a decent "medicalized" SCP, where you "kinda get what it's trying to do" but it's too alien/bizarre to pull it off. </p><p>Similarly, Professor William Wordsworth's Collection of Curiosities is good because every new animal comes with sketchy/blinkered but quasi-accurate instructions on how to contain and care for each new anomalous creature, which of course is much more valuable (and challenging) than just gunning them down.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><br /></p><p>Locations</p><p>SCP-211 - Paper-Covered Building - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-211">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-211</a></p><p>SCP-222 - Clone Coffin - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-222">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-222</a></p><p>SCP-238 - Building Complex - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-238">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-238</a></p><p>SCP-257 - Professor William Woodsworth’s Collection of Curiosities - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-257">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-257</a></p><p>SCP-274 - Graffito - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-274">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-274</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Items</p><p>SCP-205 - Shadow Lamps - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-205">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-205</a></p><p>SCP-206 - The Voyager - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-206">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-206</a></p><p>SCP-216 - The Safe - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-216">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-216</a></p><p>SCP-232 - Jack Proton's Atomic Zapper - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-232">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-232</a></p><p>SCP-241 - Good Home Cooking - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-241">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-241</a></p><p>SCP-243 - Animation - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-243">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-243</a></p><p>SCP-249 - The Random Door - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-249">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-249</a></p><p>SCP-261 - Pan-Dimensional Vending - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-261">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-261</a></p><p>SCP-262 - Coat of Many arms - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-262">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-262</a></p><p>SCP-288 - Stepford Engagement Rings - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-288">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-288</a></p><p>SCP-294 - The Coffee Machine - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-294">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-294</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Entities</p><p>SCP-200 - Chrysalis - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-200">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-200</a></p><p>SCP-203 - Tortured Iron Soul - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-203">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-203</a></p><p>SCP-204 - The Protector - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-204">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-204</a></p><p>SCP-229 - Wire Weed - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-229">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-229</a></p><p>SCP-247 - A Harmless Kitten - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-247">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-247</a></p><p>SCP-254 - Employee of the Month - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-254">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-254</a></p><p>SCP-255 - Base Eleven Disorder - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-255">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-255</a></p><p>SCP-263 - "Cash or Ash?" - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-263">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-263</a></p><p>SCP-265 - Black Volga - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-265">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-265</a></p><p>SCP-266 - Will o' The Wisp - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-266">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-266</a></p><p>SCP-270 - Secluded Telephone - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-270">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-270</a></p><p>SCP-272 - An Old Iron Nail - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-272">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-272</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Special Note!</p><p>A fully downloadable and interactive SCP is in this range, and it's very cute. An RPGMaker 2003 game, check out SCP 245 - SCP-RPG - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-245">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-245</a></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-43803396394593349562023-06-12T10:19:00.005-07:002023-10-27T10:29:29.867-07:00SCP for Gaming People: SCP 100-199<p>I kinda messed up and didn't do SCP-100 in the last entry, which is a shame because it's actually a really good one.</p><p>I should note that I'm curating these for gaming people, not necessarily for gaming. As you can see, some of these are very open-ended, others are more like oddly-formatted short fiction with a beginning, middle and end. Ripe for adaptation, perhaps, but not necessarily easy to just directly import. These are the ones I consider to have just the right combination of imagination, missing pieces, fun, the roughness of amateur-created writing, and the polish of easy digestibility. Also that strange feeling when you read something and think "this could make a good scenario." </p><p>Finally, there are some SCPs that have puzzle or game elements themselves. Trying to figure out SCP-194 (linked below) is fun!</p><p>In these second hundred SCPs, we see the development of new areas of SCP worldbuilding (Marshall, Carter and Dark, and one of my favorites, Dr. Wondertainment) as well as an early example of a good medical SCP, SCP 103, the Never-Hungry Man. Of the "gore" SCPs, this is one of the few that emphasizes that medical doctors actually do try to treat patients and are concerned about them. Lots of bad SCPs have high body counts just for the sake of high body counts, and portray the SCP foundation as being more or less maniacal; this one rather drily reports a medical team refusing to do what their boss orders them to do to a patient, being forced to do it anyway, and the boss being "court-martialed". Interesting... But you can also see the "torture/just do horrible things to test subjects" style even in otherwise pretty good entries - see the Anachronistic TV, which provoked them to try to torture people with it rather than figure out how it was making episodes of <i>I Love Lucy </i>that never existed... Compare to <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-151">The Painting (SCP-151)</a>, (not included below, but a pretty basic SCP), where obviously the real question is how the Painting was made! </p><p>As you can see from the below, I tend to like SCPs that leave people changed or strained rather than dead or mangled. The Variable Coaster is a good example. People ride the coaster for, subjectively, months, but they are there only for three minutes. This approach to horror/fantasy eventually would manifest in some of the SCP wiki's greatest works, the "infohazard" or "memetic" anomalies, which approached the Lovecraftian idea of knowledge or experiences as the horror itself. </p><p>Notable, below, is a unique version of the "creepy ventriloquist dummy", not animate, exactly, but fearful nonetheless...</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>Locations</p><p>SCP-100 - "Jamaican Joe's Junkyard Jubilee" - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-100">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-100</a></p><p>SCP-102 - Property of Marshall, Carter and Dark, Ltd. - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-102">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-102</a> </p><p>SCP-121 - Concrete Cradle - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-121">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-121</a></p><p>SCP-176 - Observable Time Loop - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-176">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-176</a></p><p>Items</p><p>SCP-101 - Hungry Bag - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-101">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-101</a></p><p>SCP-107 - The Turtle Shell - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-107">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-107</a></p><p>SCP-112 - The Variable Coaster - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-112">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-112</a></p><p>SCP-137 - The Real Toy - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-137">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-137</a></p><p>SCP-145 - Anachronistic Television - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-147">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-147</a></p><p>SCP-161 - Pinwheel of Doom! - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-161">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-161</a></p><p>SCP-174 - Ventriloquist's Dummy - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-174">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-174</a></p><p>SCP-190 - A Prize Toybox - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-190">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-190</a></p><p>SCP-194 - Thank You For Your Cooperation - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-194">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-194</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Entities</p><p>SCP-103 - The Never-Hungry Man - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-103">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-103</a></p><p>SCP-125 - Contagious Reflection - <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-125">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-125</a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-63193568477618375722023-06-08T14:04:00.007-07:002023-10-27T10:29:38.051-07:00Good SCPs for Gaming People - SCP-002 through 100<p>Another "someone mentioned they'd be interested someday maybe" post...</p><p>I bow to the frenzied demand of the public...</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><b>Best SCPs between 002 and 100 for Tabletop Gaming People</b></p><p>SCP-001 is a bit of a meme entry; they kept it intentionally vacant for many years, then held a massive contest to find the best entry. The one they picked is fine but a lot of the alternate-world SCPs I find to be, while interesting, not in the sweet spot of SCP's strengths. If I ran the zoo I'd move them all to the story section (but I don't.) Anyway SCP-001 doesn't belong with SCP 002-100. </p><p>These are Very Early SCPs, often simple, text-only and short. A lot of the "mythos" of SCP has not been written; although a few factions (Global Occult Coalition, Are We Cool Yet? - see <i>The Fifth Dimension </i>below) make their first appearances there's little to discuss yet. This makes these early SCPs highly suggestive and very good for exploratory/open-ended gaming. </p><p>Now that I've put this together I realize this is a pretty good way for you to understand what I like about the SCP project. If it's strange, frightening, dangerous, perhaps a little silly or surreal, and described bureaucratically, that's a good SCP, to me (not coincidentally these are also the best for gaming because they're the most open-ended): </p><p>Locations:</p><p>SCP-002: The "Living Room": <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-002">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-002</a></p><p>SCP-052: Time-Traveling Train: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-052">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-052</a></p><p>SCP-83: An Abandoned Row Home: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-083">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-083</a></p><p>Items:</p><p>SCP-013: Blue Lady Cigarettes: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-013">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-013</a></p><p>SCP-018: Super Ball: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-018">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-018</a></p><p>SCP-025: A Well-Worn Wardrobe: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-025">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-025</a></p><p>SCP-062: "Quantum" Computer: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-062">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-062</a></p><p>SCP-066: Eric's Toy: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-066">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-066</a></p><p>SCP-092: "The Best of <i>The Fifth Dimension</i>": <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-092">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-092</a></p><p>SCP-093: Red Sea Object: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-093">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-093</a></p><p>Entities:</p><p>SCP-021: Skin Wyrm: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-021">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-021</a></p><p>SCP-031: What Is Love? : <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-031">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-031</a></p><p>SCP-038: The Everything Tree : <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-038">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-038</a></p><p>SCP-046: Predatory Holly Bush: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-046">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-046</a></p><p>SCP-043: The Beatle: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-043">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-043</a></p><p>SCP-085: Hand-Drawn "Cassy": <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-085">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-085</a></p><p><br /></p><p>And if you want to see fanfic-level stories that people wrote about these, you can find them at: <a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-series-1-tales-edition">https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-series-1-tales-edition</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-37719030785980847742023-04-28T16:29:00.000-07:002023-04-28T16:29:02.406-07:00Why play Wizards-era D&D? - Another Question From A Dark Forest<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6dm8YtJYm_JNCqdReJwSrJwv1Po1mlFMGmzKcKrjoe6dFfLCfxcPwmpS5A76bjmeMYcf-_AsGgeCuYbxug_91aJEb4swjStTEqjnwh49aE7E61HXAF0cNjaLXb87PI4Y5di4rLuehbpRbmYeVZAJ9DjNS13pZDGE6dyyBQ-kkTPyf9Sv0HrGeYCsM9Q" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1509" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6dm8YtJYm_JNCqdReJwSrJwv1Po1mlFMGmzKcKrjoe6dFfLCfxcPwmpS5A76bjmeMYcf-_AsGgeCuYbxug_91aJEb4swjStTEqjnwh49aE7E61HXAF0cNjaLXb87PI4Y5di4rLuehbpRbmYeVZAJ9DjNS13pZDGE6dyyBQ-kkTPyf9Sv0HrGeYCsM9Q=w287-h400" width="287" /></a></div> The dark forest questions continue. This one comes from a D&D skeptic. Specifically, "why play Wizards-era D&D?" (3rd through 5th edition, plus Pathfinder, perhaps 13th Age, and other games in the orbit). The idea is that since encounters are meant to be balanced, and characters are meant to be balanced, that really you're just marking time as you level up. Reaching 20th level is a foregone conclusion, and levelling up and getting more treasure is the only real reward in the cycle of play, so why play it at all?<p></p><p>I think there is something to this question. Although Wizards-era DMGs are, in my view, extremely good at certain things, they are less good at addressing the question of where the Challenge in Challenge Rating really is, and certainly do not suggest the sort of "well, you strolled into the dragon's cave at first level, guess you all got eaten" play that was common in map-based play prior to 3e. To some degree that type of play is denigrated as balanced encounters are seen as the main type of encounters to be had. There is something to this observation. It doesn't come out of nowhere. Here is my response.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>I. Retreat!</p><p>It's true the text of these editions is against the suggestion of characters stumbling into an unbalanced encounter due to bad or reckless decisions and getting eviscerated. But it should be noted that 3e is the first edition in which any attention at all is actually given to tactical movement. The only thing keeping monsters from simply walking past the fighter and killing the wizard in one hit prior to 3e was a sort of gentleman's agreement. 3e introduced the attack of opportunity, as well as other very specific defensive and offensive determinations related to movement. 4e did this even moreso, with many key action types and spells related to movement of the PCs and of the enemies. <i>Wizards-era D&D is the first era of D&D to provide mechanical support for a retreat.</i> So in practice, not in theory, these editions are actually okay with you getting in over your head in an unbalanced situation, because for the first time you can use the mechanics to your advantage in escaping the danger. (4e is the best at this because of its comprehensive tactical treatment of movement.)</p><p>II. Character Construction</p><p>In prior editions of D&D, the equipment and spell list was the key element of your characters capabilities past a certain level, and there were no rules for the sale, trade or obtaining of specific equipment or spells. Wizards-era D&D, however, involves multiple independent character creation choices at different stages of play. Magic items and equipment are more or less easily swappable with just a bit of player investment to become what you want them to be. (4e and 5e do this most effectively.) This means your character is a complex bundle of mechanics, and manipulating and adjusting that complex bundle is one of the key pleasures of the game. Then you depoloy them in a skirmish and see how they do. How do you contribute, how do you absorb enemy action, do you do a lot of damage, do you assist other PCs? All these are questions that 3-5e D&D puts to a character design, an intentional character design that the player has almost complete control over. (3e and Pathfinder are the best at this, Pathfinder 2e is probably the natural extension of this as it is more careful with the organization of its character capabilities.) Death isn't the outcome to be feared (necessarily, though it can happen it's less of a setback than in prior editions), but instead being ineffective across a swath of encounter types. </p><p>III. Social reasons.</p><p>This isn't just "well everyone plays D&D so it's easy to find a game." That's certainly true but I don't think this is what our interlocutor is getting at, nor what I think is important about D&D's setup to its social success. </p><p>First, D&D promises a casual experience. You don't have to remember clues in your typical D&D adventure. You barely have to remember names. The type of fantasy that D&D is is ubiquitous in video games and in modern fantasy novels. You have your swords, your elves and your wizards. They fight monsters. If you want a game where you can just kinda drop in and play and then not worry about the next time you get to play, D&D's great for that. (In fact many of the pre-Wizards play setups for club D&D were very similar.)</p><p>Second, D&D onboards its GMs in an exceptionally effective way. You need a GM to have a game of D&D, as well as many other RPGs, and D&D's dungeon setup is just ideal. You draw a map, you stock it with some monsters (pre-created encounters already available to you in the DMG!) and play. You don't have to worry about worldbuilding (or, indeed, the world at all). All you need to do is be able to say "the left hallway is dry and the right hallway is mossy and smells of mold." The pressure is off when you're a D&D GM.</p><p>Third, there's plenty of exceptional material out there so if you don't even feel up to that, you can get yourself an adventure or campaign and you'll be fine. In fact, there's lots of really heralded D&D campaign material out there to immerse yourself in - beautiful art, elaborate maps, lore to explore if you want, item cards for magic treasure, etc. People get excited about the new Adventure Path, and for good reason, you're going to get a really nice mini-campaign with high production values that's been well playtested (ahem, more or less). Independent of "well why don't you just play games that don't need all that stuff?" when you pick up Kingmaker (for example) and go "wow, we get to do adventuring AND establish our own wilderness kingdom?! that sounds fuckin cool! look, when we find a magic item we get a card with a high quality piece of art on it of the item" that is a pleasure in and of itself. </p><p>IV. Simple fantasy.</p><p>It's a little wild to see the encounter being addressed without situating it in an adventure or campaign. The adventure and campaign are both very present in the design of each encounter and each character. Even if the individual encounters are more or less going to go your way, you still do want to see the big evil guy defeated, or the mysterious magical disease cleansed, or the ghost ship to be sunk. It's easy to denigrate D&D as "well it's just imperialist murderhoboes obliterating innocent orcs on the Frontier; see Gary Gygax's comments on Native American genocide if you need the details." But the number of adventures that fit into this mold, even if we stretch it as far as we can, is pretty minimal when compared to the assumptions that characters will be protecting something. Low level characters defend farmers and villages; high level characters prevent planets from being torn apart by magical storms. You come back and you keep playing because you want Farmer Jones to not be killed by goblins and you want Toril to not be obliterated by a Red Wizard gone Mad With power. If an encounter - or dozens of encounters - go well, that's good, but in the context of an adventure or campaign, you may still be driven to want more! It's not complex, highly politicized fantasy or a complex mystery, it's simple, straightforward fantasy where the bad guy has to be found and put in your sights. And that's <i>not a bad thing.</i> For the reality of many player's real lives, this may be the level of investment they want or need. It actually sounds kinda nice while I'm describing it. Maybe it's time to go get into another D&D game...</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-27702270783441729432023-04-11T11:26:00.003-07:002023-04-11T11:28:14.384-07:0097 author recommendations from a dark forest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2uGFDL9nJ-lEvUnEGoXY2LpSWyCEV925exU_pY3C3uuRubDtIbgx9a25MZS25C-5pVZFglVWGeelq26mFG_WjM156Ca0sfnwVbGDaSZGyYFSkqaICUyQuuf-7pWzli5Sr6LFfeyfFbg5yNfHY5UinDmanTJvFcee7_WAzOjPSKjlaDYQ7g5ShljEJNQ/s556/6931dbd03dc19d2670925897b27b5ca43ddc7921.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="540" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2uGFDL9nJ-lEvUnEGoXY2LpSWyCEV925exU_pY3C3uuRubDtIbgx9a25MZS25C-5pVZFglVWGeelq26mFG_WjM156Ca0sfnwVbGDaSZGyYFSkqaICUyQuuf-7pWzli5Sr6LFfeyfFbg5yNfHY5UinDmanTJvFcee7_WAzOjPSKjlaDYQ7g5ShljEJNQ/w389-h400/6931dbd03dc19d2670925897b27b5ca43ddc7921.png" width="389" /></a></div><br />I'm on a dark forest server where people a lot of times talk about books but it's always nerd shit, sf and fantasy, sometimes horror, etc. You know, the dominant form of books, film and entertainment during my lifetime. Anyway, I decided to help these dorks out with my own highly personalized recommendations of Normie Books Regular People Like To Read. Significant responses are collated at the bottom of the post.<div><br /></div><div>This is just a recommendation list, anyone who attempts to recognize this as Discourse will be forced to write a 5000 word essay on how <i>Understanding Media </i>applies to Booktok. Also note that this is from a random stroll through my kindle library, it isn't typical of my shelves (or really of my reading.) There's lots of shit you can't get on Kindle still!</div><div><br /></div><div>How reading this type of stuff helps your sf and fantasy gaming more than reading sf and fantasy is left as an exercise for the reader.</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Dickens</b>. A Christmas Carol, unabridged if you can find it, is a 10/10 experience, absolutely vicious and fun to read. However, the climb into Dickens is a lengthy, slow process and once you get past Great Expectations there's a lot of time investment that doesn't pay off. <b>Read these highlights</b> and if you love it, be assured there's a lot more.</li><li><b>Wodehouse</b>. Even the lamest Wodehouse is still lively and very funny. You'll find a fount of modern comedy springs from here. <b>Do not miss this.</b></li><li><b>Wharton</b>. The place to turn for capital-R Romantic lushness and vividness. Like Dickens, though, the very best of Wharton and the very worst of Wharton are night and day. <b>Read the highlights.</b></li><li><b>Chesterton</b>. If you love a genre or topic and Chesterton does something in that genre or topic you'll love what he wrote in that genre or topic. But if you are just reading Chesterton qua Chesterton you're gonna find him insufferable. <b>Skip until you find him in other ways than just reading him.</b></li><li><b>Zane Grey.</b> Overrated due to his influence, nevertheless if you are interested in the Western, you have to read him, in the very least in the "Western Writers Are Actually Like This" way, but for enjoyment you can skip him. If you must dive into Zane Grey, start with his baseball stories! But <b>you don't have to read him</b>.</li><li><b>Nora Roberts</b>. If you're a weirdo and you don't know how to read a regular romance novel, read the first few books of the In Death series (Roberts writing as J.D. Robb). This will teach you what a romance novel is, what a romantic suspense novel is, and what merit you can find in them as a weirdo, because they're quite creditable sf police procedurals. <b>Very worth reading. </b></li><li><b>Max Brand.</b> Beware the dilution of the Max Brand - there were lots of series where he was a lead contributor but someone else wrote almost all of it. More exciting than Zane Grey, but less historically necessary for understanding. <b>Hit the highlights, or skip.</b></li><li><b>Rex Stout</b>. You'll learn racial slurs for groups you've never even considered before, but over time you'll see Stout become more of a 1950s liberal in his outlook. Still, because there's no real continuity in Stout novels, and they're all just as charming and exciting as any other, there's no reason to not skip some of it and <b>hit the highlights.</b></li><li><b>Le Carre.</b> Yea, just <b>read it all.</b></li><li><b>Balzac</b>. I would recommend Balzac over Dickens for "realist" (not realist-IC) fiction actually. They're shorter, more pointed, and delve just as deeply into the psychology and morals of the characters. Also Balzac seems to care about women as full characters just a bit more than Dickens. <b>Recommended highly.</b></li><li><b>Stephen Ambrose.</b> Not really that good. You get both better information from other sources and better sentimentality as well. <b>Skip.</b></li><li><b>Louis L'Amour. </b>This is the problematic fave of the Western genre. Just as wrong as Zane Grey but actually can write an engaging story and a decent action scene. Caution is recommended ("this is what Western writers actually think!") but there is <b>solid pulp fun waiting here.</b></li><li><b>James Lee Burke.</b> He was a lot more special in the pre-internet days when being exposed to the folkways of other regions was harder to casually get. Still, you're probably going to have a real good time reading them. Nothing special but solid. <b>Don't pass him up </b>if you have an interest.</li><li><b>Barbra Kingsolver. </b>There's some kinda turgid books in her bibliography but her debut trilogy is a wonderfully observed warm blanket: The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams, Pigs in Heaven. <b>Don't worry about it beyond those highlights.</b></li><li><b>John Nichols.</b> The Milagro Beanfield War trilogy (including The Magic Journey and Nirvana Blues) is, similarly, very special, a wonderful experience, but little else he does reaches that height.<b> Read the highlights.</b></li><li><b>Ed McBain.</b> The man who perfected the police procedural, a lot of his books are now actually of interest as historical pieces for how New York cops acted in the 1960s and 1970s, at least as they acted when they were on their best behavior. His legal thrillers are very up and down but if you are into him you'll read em all, as I did. Ax is one of my favorite police procedurals of all time and it's like 80 pages. <b>Read a few short novels </b>and if you like him be happy cos they're all like that.</li><li><b>Italo Calvino. </b>Probably you know about him cos you're a weirdo but if you don't, you're about to find out that one of the most heralded European literary figures also writes the kind of weird shit you're into. <b>Read it all.</b></li><li><b>Agatha Christie.</b> As I mentioned in a recent thread, despite her association with classic mystery formula, she was a relentless experimenter in the field. Watch out for anti-semitism though! Weirdly, her best known novels are also among her strangest. You might get more benefit from reading a couple in the "second tier." <b>Read with caution and sharpness.</b></li><li><b>Erle Stanley Gardner.</b> Perry Mason is weirdly the least interesting parts of Perry Mason novels. There's probably better ways to absorb historical information about Los Angeles in the last century, but in terms of construction of formula he's instructive. I wish Cool and Lam had become his main meal tickets, those are good. The high popularity stuff is <b>missable tho.</b></li><li><b>T. Jefferson Parker.</b> The ultimate airport novel guy. <b>A nice pastime</b> but you don't need to seek it out.</li><li><b>Ellery Queen.</b> Weirdly, Queen's characters are less charming for all that they're kinda "nice". You'd rather have Nero Wolfe being an insufferable prig than just a bland smart guy being smart. You might read a few for the classic mystery "challenge to the reader" format since that's of interest to gaming nerds (and Umineko pals) but otherwise <b>don't worry about it.</b></li><li><b>Isabel Allende</b>. I don't like calling her "elevated romance" because romance is completely valid and doesn't need to be elevated. But there's no doubt that she is reaching for something even when she's writing, like....a Zorro novel. <b>Just a real pleasure.</b></li><li><b>Dorothy Sayers</b>. It's fine but if you've read some classic mysteries, you'll kinda know how these go. A little too middle of the road to be of great interest. <b>Skippable </b>unless you're in love with her subgenre.</li><li><b>Guy de Maupassant.</b> There's a lot of churn, but if you find a good anthology by someone who loves his stuff, there's some great short works in here to not miss. <b>Follow an expert's anthologizing here. </b></li><li><b>Leslie Charteris.</b> There's absolutely no reason at all that nobody is doing a series of splashy, quippy Saint movies. They're a little out of date socially but the Saint is such a charmer you could easily see him turning on a dime on any of the prejudices laying around. <b>More fun than any adaptation you've been easily able to see in your life.</b></li><li><b>Simenon</b> has both sociological and historical interest, as well as being very charming (though as a Francophile I am prejudiced.) When Maigret is doing his Maigret thing there's really nothing better. There are an awful lot of them and some (especially the later ones) fall off in quality but even those are quite short. <b> Read as many as you can,</b> but don't worry if you can't find some.</li><li><b>Len Deighton</b> - Often derided as a poor man's Le Carre, I actually think Deighton's humor is a strong point (Billion Dollar Brain, Violent Ward) Le Carre often suppresses, making him, if not Le Carre's equal, at least in the same conversation. <b>Definitively worth your time.</b></li><li><b>David McCullough </b>- The biographies are too long and I feel the hand of an editor in shoving them towards mediocre hagiography. But The Johnstown Flood is good. <b>Read that one.</b></li><li><b>Donald Westlake</b> - His most successful stuff are the Dortmunder novels and the Parker novels (under the name Richard Stark), which are well deserving of the recognition. But don't overlook his chintzy pulp period either! I think it's important that Westlake doesn't take his heroes as seriously as sometimes his most famous series imply that they are. Ultimately this is a pulp guy who found mainstream success, so, in his heart, he's <b>one of us.</b></li><li><b>Joyce Carol Oates</b> - Same principle. She may write some literary stuff, some romance, some autobiography, some historical, but in her heart of hearts she's a horror fanatic and she loves every piece of it. Bizarre twitter feed and all, she's <b>one of us</b> too.</li><li><b>Janet Evanovich</b> - Read one of the early Plums, if you wanna have a good time. But don't bother continuing to read them unless you REALLY like them, it's honestly one of the most formulaic series out there. I guess it's bubbly enough. But <b>I'd only read one.</b></li><li><b>Umberto Eco</b> - Like Calvino, he's actually as weird as we are. Unlike Calvino his prose is very very slow moving. It's thought provoking, and if you want to read ten pages and really think about it for a little bit, this is where to be. But<b> read for thinking, not always entertainment.</b> Meh, I guess this makes it sound less fun than it often is?</li><li><b>Elmore Leonard</b> - Recently discussed here, a towering figure of modern entertainment literature. Reading him will tell you a whole lot about TV and film in the 80s, 90s and 00s, and you'll get a clear picture of a type of entertainment that game nerds built on that isn't necessarily being done anymore. <b>Very entertaining and enlightening.</b></li><li><b>Dennis Lehane</b> - Has a deep insight into cultures of abuse - sexual, familial, spiritual - and layers it through the mysteries with scrupulous care. Less careful about other political issues. <b>Solid</b>.</li><li><b>James Patterson</b> - Mysteries and thrillers are worthless. But his YA series is kinda fun if you're that age! But<b> for us elders, no thanks.</b></li><li><b>Michael Connelly</b> - <b>Read the early books in the series, but then stop.</b> The more opinionated they are, the less interesting they are. But they do have a sense of place, and in the case of the Lincoln Lawyer, a true sense of character through action (less so for Bosch).</li><li><b>Clive Cussler</b> - Only to be read ironically, via books you get at the thrift store for 25 cents. <b>But probably not that either.</b></li><li><b>Walter Mosley </b>- A titanic genius who works to the absolute top of multiple genres, including ours, though he's lesser known for them. If all you know is Easy Rawlins, get into his science fiction and fantasy. <b>Read it all.</b></li><li><b>Martin Cruz Smith </b>- Has never quite lost the exoticism (both good and bad) of the settings and characters. I like it, but others find it a little cloying, or perhaps a little bit overbearing - telling you what you have to think of these places and people. These days you can kinda find their own words. But you might <b>try one and see what you think.</b></li><li><b>Tom Clancy</b> - Only to be read to find out "this is what Ronald Reagan Actually Thinks", or to see a window into a world where conservatives actually participated in the art world. If you want that, read <i>The Hunt for Red October </i>at the thrift store. But you <b>probably don't need to</b>.</li><li><b>Upton Sinclair.</b> A lot lower-brow than most of the guys you talked about in history class; for the same reason, there's a lot of stuff that's tied to its time and place and can be skipped. <b>Read one</b> and if you like his style, you can read all eleven Lanny Budd adventures if you want.</li><li><b>Bruce Jay Friedman. </b>A little self absorbed but if you can overlook that you'll have a good time. <b>Read one. </b>The stylistic tics are there throughout so if you don't like it then don't read any more. </li><li><b>Robert Ludlum. </b>Don't mistake him for Clancy - he doesn't really write technothrillers - and don't mistake him for Fleming, his most exciting books are not about "professionals", exactly. The typical Ludlum thriller is a standalone, perhaps a little over-explained and a little over-stuffed, and in a way that's a part of their charm...the best way to describe them is "Gothic but for boys who like guns".<b> Worth investing time in.</b></li><li><b>Michael Chabon:</b> Don't let the literary hoopla fool you, <b>he's one of us. </b> He writes alt-history, did a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is so heartfelt and passionate. </li><li><b>I recuse myself from the legal thriller world,</b> but if you do go there, I like Grisham's sentimentality more than Richard North Patterson's stentorian declarations of slippery slopes to make every situation Important.</li><li><b>J.A. Jance</b>: An example of a truly hometown writer, she can tell you about life in Cochise County a lot better than most. But she sometimes tries to go beyond that, or write something with a romance at the center of it, and it's not that great. As a "country police procedural" she isn't bad but perhaps not truly worth seeking out. <b>Read if she comes your way.</b></li><li><b>Jimmy Breslin</b>: Absolutely not overrated.<b> Read it all.</b></li><li><b>Ira Levin</b>: The Seventies encouraged thriller writers to be overblown, only the greatest had the chops to survive this stylistic period. Levin does. <b>Absolutely holds up.</b></li><li><b>Doris Kearns Goodwin: </b>Absolutely crushed by boomer-brain syndrome from a young age, you read her LBJ stuff and nod along and get 300 pages in before you realize nobody is ever going to tell you what, exactly, happened to the people of Vietnam. Not hagiography, and engaging and informative (usually), but you need to<b> supplement her with others. </b></li><li><b>Thomas Berger: </b>His most famous novel, Little Big Man, is kinda middling in my opinion (the film, while important, doesn't exactly hold up). But he does have insight into midcentury America as well. You might start with his short stories, or just dive in on another of his novels. <b>Recommended.</b></li><li><b>Roy Blount, Jr. </b>: Shit your dad thought was funny if he attended college to not go to Vietnam. I'm glad your dad got to live, but this guy sucks. <b>Skip.</b></li><li><b>Lawrence Durrel</b>l: If you do a Sensible Chuckle Dot Gif at New Yorker cartoons, like I do, then you'll really like the Antrobus stories. A bit snooty overall (the Alexandria Quartet is particularly hampered by this), but <b>worth a look.</b></li><li><b>Loren D. Estleman:</b> You might mix up stuff they've written with Walter Mosley, or Elmore Leonard, or even T. Coraghessen Boyle's odder historical novels. It's actually pretty easy to read Estleman and misfile him mentally, which is a shame because his work is<b> incredibly sharp and exciting.</b></li><li><b>Gillian Flynn:</b> It's funny that because her one glossy novel got adapted to a big budget hit that people think her books are like these...prestige glossy novels. They aren't, they're about abuse, ultimately. As thrillers they're pretty middling, but as character studies they often are highly revealing and interesting. <b>Recommended.</b></li><li><b>T. Coraghessan Boyle:</b> His sense of humor hits me exactly right and often in just the right amounts. Skip the adaptations - these books honestly are the case for "novels do different things with characters than films do". I like them, a lot. <b>Recommended.</b></li><li><b>Robert B. Parker:</b> Pretty by the numbers. You'll like them if you come across one but you <b>don't need to seek him out.</b></li><li><b>Sara Paretsky.</b> Now if you want a modern PI novel series that actually kicks ass, the V.I. Warshawski books are classics for a reason. And they actually work as a series, unlike many of the mystery folks I've discussed so far! <b>Top tier recommendation.</b></li><li><b>James Clavell: Just no.</b></li><li><b>Caleb Carr:</b> A good example of how one idea can't make a novel. The guy should be writing short stories! <b>Don't bother.</b></li><li><b>John Steinbeck: </b>Absolutely not overrated, the more you read the more you will agree. <b>Read it all.</b></li><li><b>Lee Child: </b>The Jack Reacher novels are a good example of the "action" novel which used to be extremely common, but which is now often relegated to the back stacks at Amazon, and their success is well deserved. You are gonna chow down on these like popcorn. <b>Go for it.</b></li><li><b>John D. McDonald: </b>The highest recommendation I've got. Even beyond his excellent mysteries, he's giving you a glimpse into midcentury American self-loathing and sex. <b>Don't miss any of it.</b></li><li><b>Carl Hiaasen:</b> Maybe the only guy who can put together a true caper in the Elmore Leonard style. I just wish he had more books out! <b>Recommended</b>.</li><li><b>Joseph Wambaugh:</b> He kinda worships cops (The New Centurions - give me a fuckin break man), but when he pulls away from that (The Secrets of Harry Bright) or emphasizes their place in a dangerous, unjust system (The Black Marble), his knowledge and care makes for an enthralling read.<b> Check it out </b>but if he starts going on about how unfairly cops are treated, you might skip ahead.</li><li><b>E.L. Doctorow</b>: I feel like I missed the boat on this guy. A lot of smart people I respect think his stuff is good but I just can't fuckin get it. Maybe it's just <b>not my thing</b>. But I wouldn't recommend it. Maybe I'll give him another chance...</li><li><b>Tony Hillerman</b>: I do feel like his later novels fell off a little (and Anne Hillerman's follow-ons don't have the same energy), but his unique point of view and well-observed style make him almost a <b>guaranteed good read.</b></li><li><b>Daphne Du Maurier</b>: <b>Rebecca is great, read that</b>. Then stop.</li><li><b>Jo Nesbo</b>: For all the emphasis people put on how melancholy his books are, I find it to be a pretty thin veneer on pretty by-the-numbers cop-and-killer books. I guess people love them so you might as well <b>try one and see if that's you</b>.</li><li><b>Mario Puzo</b>: He has one all-encompassing point of view, and at times that runs him into trouble that, if he could step just one step outside his comfort zone, he could really get somewhere, but he never does. <b>Watch the movies instead</b>.</li><li><b>Barbara Tuchman</b>: Her books are a little pat, but is that really a good critique of a pop history book? I never finished one without enjoying it, thinking about it, and learning from it, so what am I complaining about. I should just <b>recommend </b>it instead.</li><li><b>James Michener</b>: I guess they're interesting from a perspective of trying to identify what a genuinely American "epic" novel is in the 20th century? But if you don't care about that, there's <b>no reason to read it</b>.</li><li><b>Jim Thompson</b>: An exceptional, vicious, and insightful read. <b>Read it all.</b></li><li><b>Graham Greene</b>: The people who pompously talk about the political or social aspects of Greene or lushly adapt Greene into prestige film or TV make it hard to fit inside your head that he wrote deft, sharp works that carry the reader away. <b>Read it all.</b></li><li><b>John Updike</b>: Similar to Puzo, he can't quite get outside the head of his characters far enough to make them really pop, in my view. The exception are the Witches of Eastwick novels. R<b>ead those.</b></li><li><b>Craig Johnson</b>: The Longmire books, like J.A. Jance's books, succeed when they bring you deep into a geography that you don't normally get to experience. The characters are fairly flat but the points of view in his books are quite multifaceted. I enjoyed them - though they are a bit all of a piece. <b>Read one</b> and see what you think.</li><li><b>Patricia Highsmith</b>: Just the best. <b>Read it all, in order.</b></li><li><b>Erskine Caldwell</b>: I think people see Tobacco Road as kind of "misery porn", but ultimately it has a spiritual heart to it, and you can see it throughout Caldwell's work. Perhaps rightfully considered lesser than Steinbeck, but aren't we all? <b>Recommended.</b></li><li><b>William Faulkner</b>: I can't be objective about him, I love everything he's ever done. So what, it's my list? <b>Read it all</b>.</li><li><b>Gabriel Garcia Marquez</b>: Terrific. Not even slightly overrated. The famous works and the lesser known works are all great. <b>Read it all.</b></li><li><b>Ross Macdonald</b>: Weirdly I do think some of his stuff is a bit overrated. Every once in a while the literary world seizes on a genre guy and tries to "elevate" him through unfair comparisons to other genre writers. So you find all these reviews of like, The Underground Man, and they're trying to make it out to be something it isn't. The Underground Man isn't that good! But there's a LOT of really good Macdonald. Almost all of it is phenomenal, actually. But it's just good solid genre writing about a PI tryin to solve a tough case! <b>Recommended</b>.</li><li><b>Frederick Forsyth</b>: When he's at his best it's pretty hard to beat him. And he writes war and soldier books a lot better than his nearest competitor, Ludlum. But a bad Forsyth novel is just about the worst thing you can think of. <b>Read the early stuff.</b> Then if you really want to see something bonkers beyond belief, read The Phantom of Manhattan. LMAO.</li><li><b>Dick Francis</b>: Reading a Dick Francis novel is inexcusable when Stephen Dobyns' "Saratoga" series exists. Dick Francis is who we should be using instead of Agatha Christie for "a formulaic mystery where sucking up to wealth is the whole point". <b>Abysmal</b>.</li><li><b>Stephen Dobyns</b>: Shouldn't be on this list because he's not very popular but he writes solid poetry, the Saratoga mystery series is terrific, his other thrillers are also really great....just an all around cool guy. <b>Check him out.</b></li><li><b>Larry McMurtry</b>: Fully embraces the emotional end of the Western and is better for it, making his stories more universal and elevating them beyond the genre. He followed his interests there and kept going. <b>Worth your time.</b></li><li><b>Sue Grafton.</b> The first few books in her series are pretty great, but eventually she got to retreading and then re-retreading and then re-re-retreading...you get the picture. <b>Read the early stuff.</b></li><li><b>Eric Ambler</b>: Exceptionally popular in his day and now largely forgotten, he writes a kind of slow-moving espionage or "regular person caught up in deeper plot" thriller that certainly influenced and was influenced by Deighton and Le Carre. <b>Worth seeking out.</b></li><li><b>Cormac McCarthy</b> (I was just coming to him in my library!): Solid, bleak, it takes a while to get what a "Cormac McCarthy book" is, because it's so varied, but if you read enough you will see what he's trying to get at in the core of his characters. I am not sure the film adaptations (which are good, in their own ways) are able to accomplish this. <b>Recommended</b>.</li><li><b>Zora Neale Hurston</b>: Exceptional works, very deeply observed and considered. They are particularly valuable to the modern reader as they speak to an element of the 20th century black experience that is not often trod in modern historical works. Recall as you read that Hurston did not support <i>Brown v. Board of Education</i>... <b>Read it all.</b></li><li><b>Gregory McDonald</b>: If all you know is the Fletch movies, you should be aware that even if you like them a lot, the novels are much funnier and much better, and he has a whole second set of novels that you haven't come across. <b>Recommended</b>.</li><li><b>Haruki Murakami:</b> One time someone asked me "who's the President of books?" as a joke, and I thought about it seriously (taking jokes seriously is an excellent way to troll) and eventually landed on Murakami. Hardboiled Wonderland is great, of course, but if that's all you've gotten, there's much much more there - and still more coming! <b>Read all you can get.</b></li><li><b>Tess Gerritsen</b>. Unbearably bland. Let Rizzoli and Isles kiss each other Tess!!! Skip. (Edit: I forgot that she actually has some interesting POVs in her books - forensic scientists of various unusual kinds, etc. But there's only so many cases she seems to be able to send them on. The early books in these series work all right. <b>Read those</b>.)</li><li><b>Toni Morrison</b>. I think there are some works that she's produced that are less universal and more personal than critics will let her be. Sometimes it's okay to just write a good book folks!! If you're shaken up by all The Discourse and are too tired to try to gain some Deep Meaning, it's actually fine, she's completely readable and you can absolutely immerse yourself in her books. Delete your accounts and read some Toni Morrison. <b>Recommended</b>.</li><li><b>Ernest Hemingway</b>. Not overrated now, though perhaps there was a time in your youth when he was. Like Morrison, sometimes you're trying to lift some interpretation onto the back of a modest, poetic experiment in language. <b>Recommended</b>.</li><li><b>Truman Capote</b>. I find his fiction to be just a little bit much, his "non fiction fiction" like In Cold Blood is much more engaging, to me. When he keeps his feet on the ground, at least within reach of the journalistic eye, he's incredibly effective. <b>Hit the high notes.</b></li><li><b>Norman Mailer</b>. One of these guys who you can just feel the excellence of his style, the passion of his work, you're fully swept up in it, and then 150 pages in there's a conversation that makes you wonder if he's ever talked to or looked at a human woman. <b> Read with caution.</b></li><li><b>Katherine Anne Porter</b>. Honestly she has such a small output and it's so incredibly good that you will wish that there was more. <b>Read it all, so to speak.</b></li><li><b>Thomas Harris</b>. If you watched the Hannibal TV show and thought "well this doesn't seem quite overwrought enough" HAVE I GOT GREAT NEWS FOR YOU!!! I can't recommend it. But I love it. <b>Recommended </b>anyway.</li><li><b>Fyodor Dostoyevsky</b>. A lot of people have one idea about his stuff because of the pop culture view of "the dour Russian novelist" but I think it's best to classify him as a conservative Christian writer deeply concerned with the effect of society's pressures on the soul. These novels are almost incomprehensible if you can't take Christianity really seriously. But if you can, it's <b>Recommended</b>.</li></ul></div></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Authors I was asked about that I didn't read enough of to have an opinion</h3><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Richard Russo, Louise Penny, Daniel Silva, Dan Brown, Rachel Carson, Bill Bryson, Diana Gabaldon, Doris Lessing</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Retorts From Others, imagine the rudeness</h2><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Hard disagree on sayers. When she's on she's incredible, she does one of the great genre romances, and I love the way she constructs most of her mysteries, where is rarely a question of who, but rather proving it."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">"I remember reading A Widow for One Year by John Irving and Empire Falls by Richard Russo. That may have been when I read The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx as well. It was a hell of a break from stuff like A Games of Thrones and The Diamond Age."</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Louise Penny: Excellent series if you like likable police folks, Quebec, interesting non-police characters. The series should be read in order as there are fundamental changes that happen across the books - and Penny does it well. If you are uncomfortable with Canadian police valorization; terrible technical gaffes; and poor television adaptations - do not read. But my bottom line: Read all in order"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">"Footnote on Jo Nesbo and the Harry Hole novels: I have recently mainlined the first 8 books. I have 4 more to go (and a new one is coming out later this year).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>Books 1 (The Bat) & 2 (Cockroaches) pretty much stand on their own but do not take place in Norway at all. They take place in Australia and Thailand respectively (weird, but true).</div><div><br /></div><div>Books 3-5 (The Redbreast, Nemesis and The Devil's Star) form a loose trilogy building on shared antagonist separate from the killer in each book.</div><div><br /></div><div>Books 6-8: Have been mainly standalone with one exception: Harry has an on going relationship problem that goes ALL the way back to The Redbreast (Book 3) and you'd lose a lot of emotional context if you don't read them straight through. But they're perfectly understandable even without that context."</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>"Oh I think probably South Pacific is still worth reading, if you were gonna read one Michener. My parents were gaga over Michener and I read kind of ... everything when I was in middle/high school. Probably a lot of it has not aged well -- not sure how I'd take The Source now."</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-54928170432222309252023-02-15T14:46:00.005-08:002023-02-15T14:46:33.709-08:00JD's Pro Tips For 7e Call of Cthulhu<p> Pulling another post out of a dark forest I was in and putting it here for easy sharing. How to play 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu. </p><p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUNmtYztWPzdgRB2dzRm0QA9f72Gb-uUfCAVeAoPRj9A-pdw61lNm0iPqHbkG6eNgGwr1rL5drddCLC_vuaXXY0p9zMSAX3IFqDZ70k6oXZC2mx_Mdg6Ap7YebJFLsqIF9M5LH9bEGD9_FPRp3vUSzw2O0bcz1w3iJXOiEV15KZAoFMCzTzBP2qokGXg/s1651/Ultros-battle-FFVI-iOS.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Final Fantasy 6 screenshot" border="0" data-original-height="1103" data-original-width="1651" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUNmtYztWPzdgRB2dzRm0QA9f72Gb-uUfCAVeAoPRj9A-pdw61lNm0iPqHbkG6eNgGwr1rL5drddCLC_vuaXXY0p9zMSAX3IFqDZ70k6oXZC2mx_Mdg6Ap7YebJFLsqIF9M5LH9bEGD9_FPRp3vUSzw2O0bcz1w3iJXOiEV15KZAoFMCzTzBP2qokGXg/w320-h214/Ultros-battle-FFVI-iOS.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pictured: Call of Cthulhu, <br />7th Edition, (1993), colorized</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I think it's vital to note that 7e is the first actual new edition of Call of Cthulhu - an edition that firmly updates the system and changes its approach to many topics. Some of my tips will seem extremely basic and obvious to people who have played this game for multiple editions. Others are new to 7e, fitting into those mechanical approaches that are new. </p><span><a name='more'></a></span><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Skill List</h2><div>Indie RPGs often have no real skill list, or a short one, or a "focused" one. From this perspective, Call of Cthulhu's massive, sprawling skill list is simply a design flaw. But this overlooks the advancement system of the game. My tip is to use every corner of that full list. Ask for Botany checks and when they fail, just bluntly withhold the information. Don't give them part of the information or "enough to keep things moving", just don't give it to them if they fail. They'll be mad and frustrated and then at the end of the session when they get better at Botany they'll be happy. And who knows, maybe they'll get Lucky and succeed! </div><div><br /></div><div>You can go ahead and give basic information without a roll but don't give into the temptation to blunt the outcome of a failed roll. That's the actual price for advancement in Call of Cthulhu.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Bout of Madness</h2><div>Call of Cthulhu has always connected its Sanity mechanics to a big list of real-world mental illnesses and dysfunctions. This is one of the worst things about those mechanics. That's not how mental illness works; it's one of Lovecraft's more insidious bigotries to imagine that it is. But in 7e Chaosium cracks open the door a little bit to another view of what a loss of Sanity is or might be and the opportunity should not be missed. </div><p>The Bout of Madness occurs when a particular threshhold of Sanity loss is reached. What happens is - very simply, the GM gets to turn to the back of the character sheet, which has a lot of helpful spaces for family members, backgrounds, treasured items and other mundane but evocative things, and change or add something. There are other options but, and here is the tip in big letters so you don't miss it:</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">During the Bout of Madness, you should never, ever, ever, ever write anything internal to the psychology of the character. You should always, always always, write something external to the character.</h3><div>The best thing I ever put on a character's sheet during a Bout of Madness was: "My brother lives in Prague and I call him on the phone when I need advice or support." And I played the brother absolutely straight - exactly what was written there. Is this a real brother? Is this someone who existed before but now, shaken, you must lean more heavily on? Is this character just picking up a phone and staring blankly into space? Is there something else on the other end of the phone line? Every player in the room is going crazy to know and you never have to say. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Keeper is always the players' lens into the fictional world. The Bout of Madness mechanic is the game itself firing a flare into the air and saying "hey can you really trust the Keeper?" in a safe and contained and consensual way. It's honestly extremely fucking great and it's so wild that Chaosium just want to connect it to the copy-and-paste of mental illnesses still. Don't do this. The players will do it themselves when you write "The slimes from Aldebaran can be repelled by salt" in there and they'll rush into the hardware store waving shotguns and demanding all the salt.</div><div><br /></div><div>I added a "Meaningful Location": "A church that isn't abandoned" and it was this big, crumbling structure in the city center, tended to by a kindly old bearded priest "awaiting orders to return", presumably from the Vatican, and when the characters asked about it and poked into it, I just had city officials and others say "Oh, I thought that place was abandoned" or not be sure exactly what street it was on, etc. It was the players who acted unhinged about it. I didn't write "obsessed with creepy church" on their paper. I just wrote "a church" on there at the right time.</div><div><br /></div><div>One time I added "Red Poems by Seymour Martin" to the "Arcane Tomes" section of someone's sheet during a Bout of Madness. And yea, Martin was an occultist modernist poet and a real Lovecraftian-style artist-madman so maybe there is something of use in this book but how did you get it? </div><div><br /></div><div>A Bout of Madness is your permission, as the Keeper, to just reach into the reality of the world and directly show the player characters that it's all just a cardboard bunch of props on a stage and an earthquake just knocked them awry.</div><div><br /></div><div>Note that you should be encouraging them to add things to those sections themselves as well as they develop contacts, introduce family members, etc. Then you change one thing about them or add one squamous adjective during a Bout of Madness and...is it just their perception that's changed? Or is this person different? Were they always this way? Are they really this way now? The Keeper is the one that tells you whatever they want, so the answers to all these questions are always the same. </div><p>Note that this method only works when you address Call of Cthulhu in campaign mode, which I believe is its natural state. After all, it is adventures in the world of H.P. Lovecraft, not a Lovecraft story game.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Losing The Game</h2><div>Remember that you can lose a game of Call of Cthulhu. You can't put the clues together, you don't discover the right lore, you get to a wall and you can't get over it. Making this clear is vital. It's actually kinda hard not to accomplish <i>something </i>in a Call of Cthulhu investigation, so a partial success is almost always possible. </div><div><br /></div><div>But sometimes you <i>just can't hit the rolls </i>and the GM says "you read in the newspaper of a dreadful fire and your mind recoils from a wild realization, a feeling that this was only the surface..." and you move on to the next thing. Usually the destruction of the world isn't on the table in Call of Cthulhu adventures for just this reason, but you should feel absolutely free to melt down villages into liquescent goo and quarantine cities if that's what the consequences require.</div><div><br /></div><div>(As tough as this sounds, if you're playing scenarios that have been published after, say, the mid-1990s, the state of the art is pretty forgiving in terms of at least getting you to the final confrontation without too much trouble, but don't shy away from the loss!)</div><div><br /></div><div>Similarly, don't worry too much if the players they kill the monster or the cultist or whatever quickly or "early" or something. Remember, you are potraying not a story, but <i>the world of Lovecraft</i>. Just by taking any kind of action, the player characters are already a long way beyond most Lovecraft "protagonists", who often could be replaced with a movie camera and a tape recorder to just watch what happens around them. So don't worry too much if they do something that throws off what you imagine is the pacing of a story. It's fine, just go on to the next consequence.</div><div><br /></div><div>And, importantly, despite what Call of Cthulhu players brag to each other about, Call of Cthulhu monsters are <i>not invincible</i>. Read the rules for shotguns and explosives because the player characters WILL go for them. Who wouldn't, after the lessons of WW1?</div><div><br /></div><div>Call of Cthulhu 7e's a really really good game, and a clear upgrade from previous editions.</div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-51120484081256489512022-11-21T13:47:00.011-08:002023-10-27T10:30:29.070-07:00Four Questions from a Dark Forest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxMwO2Gv7HeqoWHT_PRGju6aL4iUGZwd7cdWehPZXa4_z02fUuCuR3bwhuKgimu1bgpUC3mzsYfKRARaQQXHWI4UCF9aQHulmA8nFzW-UZBCvEZlrnUNCEb7NtzUma4KXAnoIIhesQSO5Qz3cdQvijexhXBO1ECZgS0pg751u27GiOPkQfpQYr2SEhsg/s1040/IMG_20190428_134520.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="745" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxMwO2Gv7HeqoWHT_PRGju6aL4iUGZwd7cdWehPZXa4_z02fUuCuR3bwhuKgimu1bgpUC3mzsYfKRARaQQXHWI4UCF9aQHulmA8nFzW-UZBCvEZlrnUNCEb7NtzUma4KXAnoIIhesQSO5Qz3cdQvijexhXBO1ECZgS0pg751u27GiOPkQfpQYr2SEhsg/s320/IMG_20190428_134520.jpg" width="229" /></a></div>A lot of people (six) have said that the alternative structure to social media is a "dark forest", where communities live in private discord servers and chat channels, never to be broadcast to the world. This is extremely stupid because actual conversations between real people standing next to each other on the planet I live on, Earth, are also not broadcast to the world, and they often don't take place in forests. Nor are they secrets. They are just regular conversations. What I say to the lady at the donut shop and what she says to me is not broadcast to the world. And if I write about it here, I'm not reporting, journalistically, on what happened in that conversation, but just giving my perspective and processing it into a form where I would like to comment on it. <p></p><p>It's in that spirit that I here (mis-)characterize and then answer four questions that someone on a chat with me asked the chat, because I think they're interesting questions. Here we go.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>Where I put things in the questions in quotes, they're quotes from our interlocutor, where it's not in quotes it's my summary. All the quote marks in the answers are my words.</p><p><b></b></p><blockquote><b>Question/Topic 1: The platformization of tabletop RPGs. There's a historical path from Wizard's Attic to Lulu and RPGNow to Indie Press Revolution and DrivethruRPG to Kickstarter, Backerkit and itch.io. "It does feel like we're more dependent on Kickstarter and Itch recently than we were on previous platforms. So much so that when, say, Kickstarter announced they're getting into Blockchain or Musk crashes Twitter, it has a BIG effect on the scene and everybody's scrambling to react. Does that sound right?"</b></blockquote><p></p><p>I think this characterization both over and undersells the situation we're in. It's vital to note that D&D ebook sales (and reprints of past material) changed dramatically in the middle of this, and that commercial distribution decision had a huge artistic impact. </p><p>For a relatively short period, D&D's "historical" materials were sold on SVGames.com. They had a set of free materials (including some scans of historical interest), that were no-frills PDFs sold for around $10 apiece (interestingly, this would be about $18 today just with inflation costs - but sure enough, the Rules Cyclopedia is still $10 today on Drivethru.) At the time, RPGNow was just getting underway - the two were rivals. DrivethruRPG was launched later and eventually merged with RPGNow. </p><p>Wizards of the Coast eventually, quite unceremoniously, yanked all PDFs from SVGames both for sale and download. This decision on their part was quite consequential, artistically, as it provoked the creation of engines to "play old D&D" and free or very-cheap distribution of those products formed the basis for what would eventually grow into the OSR, which is the second most lively community in fantasy RPGs (the first most lively is, of course, the community around "big streams" of 5th Edition D&D on Google or Amazon platforms, which aren't mentioned in the question - more on this below.)</p><p>The important thing about this "path" through to current PDF distribution is that it, like many other platform stories in the same time frame, is one of consolidation and is driven by the increasing desire for visual provocation. Remember, the "pivot to video" that happened on Facebook and the rise of YouTube happened in the same time period. Vine was purchased and eliminated by Twitter for the same reason - they foresaw that Vine would destroy it, and the growth of TikTok showed that Twitter was right to see Vine as a threat. In our space, the continued dominance of the PDF standard falls into the same category. There truly is nothing about the PDF standard that makes it useful for the distribution of tabletop RPGs other than the commercial desires of the audience ("oh, is <i>that </i>all?") HTML is better for accessibility for disabled readers; hell, a simple app that runs the arithmetic of a game would be a better way to organize the rules of most RPGs than a PDF whose index doesn't work but which has three pieces of full color art on every page. But the audience has spoken (the bastards!) and so the art-heavy PDF experience is considered, by them, superior to any other. In a spoken-word hobby where only one person at the table even gets to see the art, this is a nightmarish state of affairs, but everyone but me loves it and it will absolutely, positively, never change, except to get worse. Look at any "GM advice" video on Youtube if you don't agree, and see what the algorithm there tells you to do in your game. </p><p>But to bring it back to the specific entities raised by our interlocutor, beyond the RPGNow/Drivethrurpg merger, the arrival of D&D PDFs on Drivethrurpg is a huge deal for them, conclusively establishing that entity as the winner of the decade-long struggle. But Kickstarter and Backerkit are not competitors with DrivethruRPG. In fact, overwhelmingly, DrivethruRPG is used as an electronic fulfillment house and archive for crowdfunded projects. Backerkit might be used to distribute drafts but in the end creators don't want to be responsible for their funders downloading shit over and over forever. And anyway, once a project is done, putting it on DrivethruRPG gets them even more money. (Plenty of Kickstarters use DrivethruRPG POD to fulfill their print rewards - this allows another entity to manage the shipping costs and lets backers be flexible about when they want physical delivery.) </p><p>So Kickstarter/Backerkit isn't really a "platform for tabletop RPGs" in the same way the predecessors were. Instead, there are many elements of projects on those platforms that (presently) rely on DrivethruRPG. And the anti-commercialism of itch.io as a tabletop RPG space (only partly intentional - the complete lack of tools to sort, search and find tabletop RPGs on itch.io compared to DrivethruRPG drive this more than anything else) makes it a lot less of a competitor. If you're a <i>commercial creator </i>and you sell tabletop RPG ebooks on itch.io, I guarantee you sell stuff on DrivethruRPG.</p><p>I don't even know why IPR is on the interlocutor's list (I mean, I <i>do</i> know but will pretend to overlook it). IPR was a nice thing to have around when Lulu was uncertain and DrivethruRPG had no POD option. But it was just a storefront. It never did anything else.</p><p>So, while I think it's notable that DrivethruRPG absolutely, positively won the "platform for the distribution of tabletop RPG e-books" wars of 2000-2010, it certainly has not been threatened by subsequent events. Companies with their own communities of players (Paizo, Pinnacle, Modiphius, etc.) have developed their own in-house storefronts, but these are not seeking to become platforms for the hobby broadly.</p><p>Nevertheless, if you're putting Kickstarter in the same "platform" category as DrivethruRPG, you have to take YouTube and Twitch into account as key players in the "platform for tabletop RPG" battles. Twitch particularly, with its integration into Amazon, a major distributor and price-setter for print products ("Why should I buy at my local gaming store when I can get it for thirty cents less on Amazon?" - someone who has been sexually harassed at their local gaming store) is a vital consideration here. A performance of a tabletop RPG on Twitch is almost certainly contributes more to the perceived identity of the game than all other sales or play of the game, and very likely more than the design of the game. </p><p>So my answer, in sum, is to be very careful about thinking about what a "platform" is. Like, just because Elon Musk has crashed a second divorce into Twitter and indie creators who rely on Twitter for the discovery of their work by a broader audience are scrambling to find an alternative before the service is overrun with people selling unvaxxed urine and cryptocurrency doesn't mean Twitter was ever anything to the tabletop RPG industry other than an advertising channel, like an ad in <i>Dragon. </i></p><p>Before I tried to discuss the "platformization" of tabletop RPGs, I would be really specific about what activity within that sphere I was considering as becoming attached to a platform. There are readings of this question where DrivethruRPG is truly the only "platform" for tabletop RPGs, and others where Youtube and Twitch are.</p><p></p><blockquote><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu0wsS_hmqLom8mUpTIppOgVKrBtXUpmTTeUZAucBK4eqf8NaKN9Awp2s3Qk5oDbXGB4hiPQw_SX6KjNp7FDHERzBo6zQ4rUwTxodd5Khq8rTu33pEUZmktgTQuPIJpRchaf0ckFlBACxWErRhcMkawigo-vpMoZSFsR6MGB47FZaX7KH78TbjRCWGBg/s911/image0-4.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="911" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu0wsS_hmqLom8mUpTIppOgVKrBtXUpmTTeUZAucBK4eqf8NaKN9Awp2s3Qk5oDbXGB4hiPQw_SX6KjNp7FDHERzBo6zQ4rUwTxodd5Khq8rTu33pEUZmktgTQuPIJpRchaf0ckFlBACxWErRhcMkawigo-vpMoZSFsR6MGB47FZaX7KH78TbjRCWGBg/s320/image0-4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Question #2: What's the current status of White Wolf now that the video game company transfers seem to have calmed down? "Maybe it's just me, but I feel like White Wolf games have a much smaller audience and impact on RPGs than they used to. So I feel like WW is just a smaller piece of the overall TRPG story now? Does that sound right?"</b></blockquote><p></p><p>Yes and no. I don't think a lot of people have gotten their heads around the fact that White Wolf has, in the last few years, become probably the most aggressive player in melding the video game world, the streaming world and the tabletop gaming world both financially and artistically.</p><p>Because I get asked about the fucking timeline of this so much, here's a quick breakdown that I did of this in another dark forest:</p><p>In the late 1980s, the dominant tabletop RPG, D&D, was going through some struggles. On the one hand TSR was still chasing the big success of the red box Basic Set, which was aimed at kids and families, and on the other hand they were, in a jumbled and haphazard way, trying to advance the property into AD&D to service the older players who were coming up on 15 years into the hobby. There were strict content guidelines about what could and couldn't go into D&D in an attempt to make D&D palatable to Middle America again (the Satanism-in-D&D scandal was fading out, and the theory was that this was a result of toning down the violent/occult content. I agree with this theory, by the way.) And as always, most in the industry were fine chasing D&D's coat-tails.</p><p>So it's <i>in that context</i> that White Wolf comes along with Vampire in 1991, Werewolf in 1992 and Vampire 2ed. in late 1992, in which they use stylish, scary art and emphasize hard at every turn that these are games for adults. Romance, sex, violence, it can all come on the table. Throw in a cultural moment of goth music and a rediscovery of Anne Rice's horror and you have a recipe for success. White Wolf has made its money and its name being EDGY and ADULT. </p><p>By the time White Wolf decided (I am summarizing a lot of players here into "White Wolf" because they aren't at the table anymore so please forgive the reductionism) they needed to reboot their games (via the "blue book" World of Darkness) era, this was a necessary artistic step as well as a commercial one. I think a lot of people looked at the "new World of Darkness" era as strictly a cash grab rather than noting that the previous games had a lot of stuff in them that made sense in the 1990s when inclusivity just meant having a bit of art and a Spanish name or two, but in the age of the Web meant you needed to actually think about that material a little more deeply and in a little more of a mature manner. That's why Vampire: the Requiem's edgy stuff is presented more clinically and more "here's a thing you might put in your game if you want" rather than the deranged travelogue into a dark carnival reality that the 1990s World of Darkness material, telling you "how it was". (This is also why I like Requiem more - it is addressed to players as creators rather than experiencers of a game designer's thinking.)</p><p>And pretty quickly the old EDGY and ADULT (all caps) World of Darkness disappeared, except in one place, the massive and still phenomenally successful Masquerade LARP world. It was in the LARP world that Masquerade survived in its original form while White Wolf worked its way through Vampire: the Requiem. </p><p>Requiem was artistically successful but never reached either the commercial impact of Masquerade nor its influence. So when White Wolf was being purchased and repurchased by video game companies they didn't want Reqiuem - they wanted Masquerade. And the people they put in charge of it weren't Requiem people - they were Masquerade LARP people. (Remember that when the Onyx Path IP licensing/sales deal took place, LARP was explicitly excluded from it.) </p><p>That's why, in a lot of respects, Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition feels like a throwback (even more than the 20th Anniversary version of Masquerade!) - because it has the "let's scare a suburban mom!" attitude of the 1990s, still intact in a LARP time capsule after all this time. (Folks, the suburban moms actually played Vampire: the Masquerade.) And this is why the completely insensitive and immature garbage in the supplements eventually landed them in hot water - because they were still in the gleeful transgression mode of the 1990s ("what if you were playing a CHILD PREDATOR?!?!") and didn't get that their audience was now grownups who thought this was very very stupid instead of 14 year olds who wanted to look down on the 14 year olds playing a sanitized Mormon D&D.</p><p>But because the video game companies deal with <i>actual money</i> instead of just whoever's friends are friends with who, they fuckin fired all those people. Now, you might be wondering, JD, what are you talking about "actual money"? The answer is the shocking and welcome production of White Wolf video games since Paradox took more close control of the company. White Wolf now has a AAA free to play multiplayer "shooter" (I mean you're a vampire using vampire powers so guns are not all of what's going on), multiple prestige visual novels (is this the ultimate outcome of the tabletop RPG's audience seemingly unending hunger for fancier art in their games?!), a VR game based on Wraith: the Oblivion, and many other projects. The release schedule has been relentless for these games over the last four years and is set to continue. They provide an immediate entrance to the White Wolf properties for the video game audience.</p><p>Okay, but how do they get them into the tabletop game? The answer is that if you go to the Paradox page for their World of Darkness games to learn more, they regularly push the tabletop games and an absolutely shocking amount of tabletop streaming on Twitch and Youtube, officially backed, sponsored, scheduled, budgeted and licensed. You can become a Vampire: the Masquerade fan without touching Dungeons & Dragons these days. And they have their own dark forest in that they bring all these fans together in their servers where they can schedule games, meet new players, etc.</p><p>White Wolf has, via its video game partners and tremendous support for streaming, made the most aggressive push of any company into trying to meld their video game and tabletop and streaming audiences into one, <i>maybe including D&D and WOTC in that equation.</i> Just look at the disasters around official D&D licensed video games if you don't believe me. (Then look at <a href="https://www.solasta-game.com/">Solasta</a> and really think about why Hasbro can't seem to get shit off the ground.)</p><p>I'll talk about how insanely hard White Wolf is pushing this melding of indie creators, streamers, official creators and streamers, and other fans in another question. But overall, the only way you can say that White Wolf doesn't remain a major player in tabletop RPGs is to overlook the tremendous success of their tabletop RPG streaming shows and the (oft-theorized and finally-realized) connection to their massive video game projects. </p><p>Now, this is all pretty recent. And you never have to get me to be a doomer who says it's all for nothing and nobody will ever cross the bridge from video games to tabletop games (and do we even want them to?! have you ever <i>met </i>someone who has played a video game?! good heavens!). But the idea that they're not doing anything special in the tabletop space is wrong.</p><p></p><blockquote><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNg7lp5ewirqdIryr07G9qeZ9OUY7z2CcPChH_AVQF8nBhIBguleTxV92bmsmSGrU3nrzqYQN1g4oMMRkcT7kGBPDO5WYetAP9u7w_U4c1-AwhPvmKhBUTr8ZxCwccVSeJM0QAm1CFbiA2beuwKSgnGVy-xaXXyPefarN7E3JBbP6H31h9mPZrp91Dfg/s960/tumblr_pgc9mznMMY1qzt49co1_1280.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="960" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNg7lp5ewirqdIryr07G9qeZ9OUY7z2CcPChH_AVQF8nBhIBguleTxV92bmsmSGrU3nrzqYQN1g4oMMRkcT7kGBPDO5WYetAP9u7w_U4c1-AwhPvmKhBUTr8ZxCwccVSeJM0QAm1CFbiA2beuwKSgnGVy-xaXXyPefarN7E3JBbP6H31h9mPZrp91Dfg/s320/tumblr_pgc9mznMMY1qzt49co1_1280.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Question #3: "How do we assess "open gaming" as a movement at this point? I mean, everybody and their brother releases SRDs now or has a branded way for people to release supplementary material for their game in a "Powered by XYZ" format." Since you can't really enforce copyright on game mechanics, can we just shrug our shoulders at it and say that it was all just about reassuring people that they won't get in legal trouble, we promise?</b></blockquote><p></p><p>I think this actually might relate back to the platformization question a lot more clearly and specifically than the platformization question. I do think that, on the community end, the open gaming licensing of 3e D&D was a promise that Wizards of the Coast would not return to the litigious and aggressive days of T$R, as we wittily called it, in which fan materials were targeted by takedown letters written by lawyers' assistants and not proofread. But what it, in practice, means nowadays for games is that a dedicated shopfront will open on DrivethruRPG where the holder of the IP will get a substantial cut from the production of the fan material.</p><p>There are a huge number of contributors on these storefronts that make, essentially, beer money for selling shit that they write for their home games, and DrivethruRPG, as the winner in the PDF platform wars of 2000-2010 has set the amount of money that a creator gets from publishing this stuff at 50% of the price. That expectation is now "priced in" to questions about open gaming - how much is it actually "worth it".</p><p>Other games are still released into the creative commons, the public domain, or even informal "yea, just write whatever thing you want" permissive structures, but as far as an explicit "license offered openly and which can be accepted for commercial purposes", until this year DrivethruRPG's 50% slice was the industry standard. People who worked in this space more or less had to swallow it. Of course people could (and still did) work under the d20 OGL or a SRD for a different system and sell their works at full price, but the strong push to bring it under one commercial umbrella traded literally half the revenues for visibility, showing how little of the latter most of these creations had, and how little the former was perceived as being worth.</p><p>But as mentioned above, White Wolf recently took aim at this by allowing an open license for Vampire: the Masquerade <i>video games </i>after a 2021 itch.io video game jam resulted in massive success in the video game, tabletop and streaming spheres. And what's insane is that - even though video game money is "real money" compared to the tiddlywinks exchanged for tabletop RPGs - White Wolf is offering <i>75%</i> of the revenues to the creators. </p><p>I think this "open video gaming license" is the first real sign that the partnership of tabletop gamers with itch.io might actually bring about new <i>creative</i> and <i>commercial </i>cross-pollination instead of just trying to get customers from one column into two. It remains to be seen how important a step this will be but if other game companies follow suit, DrivethruRPG 's 50% sum will come under increasing pressure. You can either sell a PDF about a new Vampire clan for $2.99 and get $1.50 for it, or download a free copy of Ren'py and make a visual novel about an exciting adventure within that clan and sell it for $5 and get $3.75 for it from a much larger audience (not just Masquerade fans, but horny visual novel fans too!)</p><p>Of course it may all come to nothing - Paradox might go under, they might shuffle off White Wolf in a fire sale if Bloodlines 2 is a flop, or something else might happen. Or it might spread to other companies and properties and put real pressure on DrivethruRPG for the first time since open gaming really was a thing. We will see. It was an absolutely jaw dropping development to me.</p><p></p><blockquote><b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwR6Th_wGnn_ExYfAmE6iTrDdRbx1fsk7JX_kiUt8TviKoTxEMvXu51RH8dQrN7WxWvJWFlyvpYwhYJUcQHZpoNTOGobsRQ5vHtY_Xyeg04uj6Bx189jVugadguh5c-gt1t_PHgCeUXbDZCPrSlfb35Jo-uj80g_suWMEEBtX2gBExKf7SRMoQUvrAAg/s2048/IMG_20190702_193217.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1156" data-original-width="2048" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwR6Th_wGnn_ExYfAmE6iTrDdRbx1fsk7JX_kiUt8TviKoTxEMvXu51RH8dQrN7WxWvJWFlyvpYwhYJUcQHZpoNTOGobsRQ5vHtY_Xyeg04uj6Bx189jVugadguh5c-gt1t_PHgCeUXbDZCPrSlfb35Jo-uj80g_suWMEEBtX2gBExKf7SRMoQUvrAAg/s320/IMG_20190702_193217.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Question #4: "if you had to describe "why do people make and publish their own indie RPGs" in the 2020s, what would you say the main thrust of it is? I feel like "alternatives to D&D" is still a major part of it, but it's more clearly just a creative medium that many people are working in and interested in becoming better at, now? And they're not necessarily designing indie games in response to the limitations of mainstream games anymore, right?"</b></blockquote><p></p><p>First, and I can't believe I'm saying this <i>again </i>but, the people who battled me for a literal decade insisting that "indie RPG" just defined a particular property relation between a creator and their work, while I vainly insisted that it meant "all play and publication of all non-D&D RPGs" are now seemingly coming around to the idea that, <i>in practice</i> I was completely right - was right from the start - and have never been wrong on this subject for as long as I have lived. As the term is <i>actually used</i>, "indie RPG" means "not D&D", and always has. Call of Cthulhu was on the "indie RPG" display at my local mall game store just two months ago! The agony of being right pursues me through this life like a hound of hell. </p><p>But okay. Back to the question. I feel like the answer is what it has always been. People just want to make these fun games and contribute to the art form. It's honestly nothing more than that and never has been. There were plenty of people in 2002 who were making "indie games" (by both definitions, "not D&D" and "creator-owned") who were completely within the mainstream of RPG thought back then (if the "mainstream" could be truly identified, he said, through clenched teeth.) It really is a question of why do artists make art? (Or, in this case, why do saxophone reed makers make saxophone reeds for saxophonists to use in making art?) I think you can identify particularized movements within "not D&D" at various times but I'd really want to focus in on one of those movements before I commented on whether I felt it was here or had any particular motive force in the present.</p><p>Anyway, it's very likely this essay won't help at all - neither anyone who read it, nor the interlocutor who definitely isn't going to benefit from me begging "please, please, please spend some time in tabletop RPG Twitch streams and their associated discords and <i>really count up the numbers</i> of viewers, chatters, and other participants" so thanks for reading. I'm sure you feel it was time well spent, right?</p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-71032576806874470252019-12-31T19:50:00.002-08:002020-01-02T11:09:52.645-08:00Lovecraftian horror tabletop RPGs and "what if we made losing Sanity good?"There's a perennial discussion that arises around Lovecraftian horror that takes as its central question the following:<br />
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In Lovecraftian horror stories, since what seems to be insanity is actually insight into how the world really works, couldn't we replace "insanity" mechanics with some kind of "clarity" or "insight" mechanics?</blockquote>
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This blog post is my long way of saying "I don't think so." </div>
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Before we get started, as always, please don't take my comments to be about the advisability of a game design direction. I have nothing to say to game designers; they have bigger problems to worry about than anything I could raise. As always I'm really talking about campaign construction within constraints of group decisions, what game you've decided to play, etc. If you're going to play <i>this </i>type of game, <i>here </i>is my advice. I'm definitely not saying anything about what type of game should be designed or selected. People who say "well, let's just not do Lovecraftian horror", cool, don't do it. Nothing that follows applies to you.</div>
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This isn't a theoretical question for me because I actually just got done with a 8 month long <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/7th-edition-rules/" target="_blank">Call of Cthulhu 7e</a> campaign. Using the absolutely top-tier and recently-disappeared-from-the-web World War Cthulhu: Cold War supplement from Cubicle 7, I designed a campaign in which the PCs were all spies in 1969 Czechoslovakia a year after the Warsaw Pact invasion that ended hopes of liberalization there for a generation. They had to juggle their actual spy missions and objectives against their secret anti-Mythos investigations and, of course, avoiding the cults and secret police that seemed to lurk around every corner. If you haven't read either 7e Call of Cthulhu or World War Cthulhu, I recommend them both although I suggest starting with the World War II era of the WWC line, as it's a little easier to conceptualize and a little bolder in its direction given the jejune treatment of Nazi occultism in tabletop RPGs before this point. See <a href="https://jdcspot.blogspot.com/2019/12/review-world-war-cthulhu-darkest-hour.html" target="_blank">the previous post on this blog</a> for more.<br />
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Call of Cthulhu made big changes in the 7th Edition. Now when you hit a particular Sanity loss level, the GM gets to add to or alter the background sheet. This could mean introducing something from their still-extensive copy/paste of mental illnesses, but it could be something along the lines of writing down that you have a brother who you talk to on the phone when you need help. And the game leaves explicitly open the question of whether this is you leaning more on a brother that existed before, whether this brother is a rupture of reality that didn't "exist before" or whether the brother's a delusion. So I was thinking, should I put stuff on people's sheets that felt like insights or felt like impairments. Or neither?<br />
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Part of the key to why I decided against just treating it as straight insight is that Lovecraft didn't really write any protagonists. Nobody in Lovecraft is an actual character, from the short stories to the novels. You can replace them all with a video camera and tape recorder to experience the scary events and you don't lose anything. Nobody in a Lovecraft story actually takes strong action in order to accomplish some desire, or grows or changes at all. (Compare this to the Poe protagonist who is almost always obsessed in some way and who always wear their hearts on their narrative sleeves.) This means that RPG players and designers have had to come up with what a "Lovecraft hero" is from scratch. Early Call of Cthulhu said "well, they're an investigator. Make someone who wants to investigate". It's fine but drab. It's not just a task based system, it's a task based motivation.</div>
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And while it's now <i>de rigeur </i>to mention Lovecraft's various bigotries in reviews, collections or other derivative works, RPGs have rarely described explicitly what those bigotries added up to in terms of the worldview of his fiction. The human mind is said in a Mythos tale to be self-deluding, and thus able to function. If we truly understood our place in the universe, we would "go mad". </div>
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The Cthulhu Mythos therefore explicitly stands in for the social, religious and racial upheavals of the 1920s as viewed by a guy who fantasized about living in the world of the 1820s. This fear was not unique to Lovecraft - plenty of authors, even pulp authors, looked around at jazz music, the apparent rejection of Christianity at the moment of its greatest political accomplishment (Prohibition), the rocketing advancement of science in the form of the theory of evolution and radio and said that the "natural" place of man in the universe was being usurped.</div>
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Horror has always been a conservative art form; always. You stand on the way things are and amplify the fear of how things might be. There are a few exceptions but they are...a few exceptions. (The "conservative" label is <a href="https://jdcspot.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-division-1-tom-clancy-and-decline.html" target="_blank">such a derided one in art</a> at this point that I feel I should say that it isn't a slam on horror to say that it's largely conservative.) Thus, the typical horror hero is an everyman, a stand-in for the audience. Lovecraft (and he was and is not the only one to fall into this problem) takes this too far and makes the protagonist a pile of grey mush who doesn't take any dramatic action because dramatic action might make them an actual character, separate from the audience's experience. </div>
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So Mythos RPGs have been stuck in the bad situation of knowing they had to somehow make the characters have mental breakdowns but rejecting the real-world core of the Cthulhu Mythos that would make the breakdowns occur. I often say that today we genuinely are living in Lovecraft's nightmare world - the world he would paint as what would happen if the Old Ones won.</div>
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But, in fairness to them, Mythos RPGs can't stand where Lovecraft stood even if they wanted to; they have to work for modern players! Where do you go from there? Call of Cthulhu just used the Sanity Point system, copy-and-pasted a bunch of mental illnesses and called it a day. Again, they looked at the question as one of reductive, materialistic tasks. There was no real attempt to situate it in any kind of actual portrayal of mental illness, because honestly, "madness" as depicted in Lovecraft is nothing of the kind. When people "go mad" in Lovecraft stories (and don't join the bad guys) they don't really do anything and wouldn't be interesting to play. So Call of Cthulhu threw up its hands. It should go without saying that this is, independent of the Mythos elements, a Really Bad way to depict mental illness in any kind of thoughtful way and encourages players to recreate harmful stereotypes. As provocative as the Sanity Point system is in a task-based game, it isn't actually saying anything valuable about mental stability.</div>
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Many Mythos games have improved on this over time. Trail of Cthulhu introduced the idea that really the threat was that the truth would undermine your mental strength rather that introduce some kind of mental "wound". Cthulhu Dark's playset approach let you craft how the human mind would respond to specific Mythos provocations. Fate of Cthulhu has their "corruption" mechanic which is about how your action-adventure might be compromised.</div>
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So the new Call of Cthulhu sanity system is embodied <i>in the real world</i> in the form of the GM as gatekeeper of fictional reality. "Hey, this brother you wrote on my character sheet, are they really real?" you say to the GM, who merely looks innocent and smiles and asks what you want to do next.</div>
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So all this is to say that I actually thought about making "clarity" style changes to the PC background sheets when I was running a CoC7 game. Putting things in like "you have a new mathematical theory which will revolutionize nuclear theory" or "they're wrong about the vice-president!" But I realized that the "real understanding of what's happening" in Mythos gaming is what the real life players do. In other words, you come to a creepy old house, you find out it's infested with an evil fungus from a meteor, and you have to destroy it with salt; that's clarity, that's what's "really going on". It's the player who makes the clarity seem crazy when they go racing into town and run into the grocery store screaming that they want to buy every bag of salt in the place.</div>
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Ultimately, the modern Mythos hero has a modern motivation (even if portrayed in a historical setting), whether that be compassion or ambition or obsession because the real motivation for the player character is...literally, the player. So the positive elements of understanding what's going on can be delivered to the player, not necessarily to the character. The GM is portraying a hostile universe, so clarity and understanding should be delivered outside of that portrayal. You use what you learn in my Call of Cthulhu game to make me say "the fungus dies from you pouring salt down the sink".</div>
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That's, in sum, why I don't think swapping out Victorian-era "madness" for "real understanding!" works in Mythos RPGs. It might in other forms, but understanding is a player accomplishment in Lovecraftian games and should be put into their hands, not into the hands of the game system.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-35577690198646176822019-12-31T19:19:00.001-08:002019-12-31T19:19:29.131-08:00Review: World War Cthulhu: The Darkest HourCubicle 7 came out with two really interesting Call of Cthulhu supplements over the last few years in their "World War Cthulhu" line. One, The Darkest Hour, focused on World War II. The other, Cold War, was focused on the postwar conflicts of the world. Both were remarkable to me as an aficionado of historical settings for RPGs as they seemed to embrace what made the original Call of Cthulhu's 1920s setting work. They didn't grab for the obvious "Nazi sorcerer will summon a monster and win the war" nonsense that has been thoroughly played out and was never really worth pursuing in the first place.<br />
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Nevertheless since the materials have gone out of print, it's now difficult to access my 2016 Feature Review of The Darkest Hour on <a href="http://drivethrurpg.com./">drivethrurpg.com.</a> If you're interested, it's below the cut:<br />
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"Hey, wouldn't it be cool if President Roosevelt sent a bunch of investigators to stop Hitler from summoning Cthulhu?" is a thing a gamer might think when they were fourteen. Then you learn a little about World War II and which side, if he had lived that long, Lovecraft would undoubtedly have sided with, and suddenly the bloom is off the rose. The concept of a mad Nazi sorcerer is frankly, stupid and a waste of everyone's time. They didn't need sorcery to be horrible. Sorcery is fictional and Nazi mass murders were real. What would they have done with sorcery that they didn't do with their own determination? Spread their evil further, win maybe? But that doesn't make them a different kind of evil; they don't become more horrific if you give them tentacle monster shock troops, they just become more successful at spreading the horror they launched. The more I learned about World War 2, the less I liked attempts to shoehorn the Cthulhu Mythos into it. Let's not even get to the Victorian anxieties that bubbled just beneath the surface of Mythos writings; suffice to say the Allied armies (racially diverse, eventually even racially integrated!) would never be the good guys in a Lovecraft Mythos tale. Thus, for many years I put down the recurring idea of a WW2 Mythos game. I may have even been mean about it once or twice!</div>
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So when I saw <i>World War Cthulhu: Darkest Hour</i>, I was fairly decidedly disinterested, even though it was Cubicle 7 and I normally quite like Cubicle 7 games. Nevertheless I decided to give it a look and I'm very glad that I did. WWC has a very different attitude towards how to design a Call of Cthulhu scenario in World War II which transforms the war from a shorthand 5th grader's scribble of bad Nazis seeking forbidden knowledge to a setting that presents tremendous challenges to investigators seeking to achieve military and potentially occult goals at the same time.</div>
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In your typical Call of Cthulhu scenario, investigators receive a weird invitation or see a bizarre story in the newspaper that is in their professional field. They gather up because they know weird shit might be going down and start digging into it. Importantly, in Call of Cthulhu scenarios, you can lose. It is quite possible to miss clues, miss events on a timeline, misinterpret the clues and go to the wrong place, and you never solve the mystery, and then you see another horrible newspaper article and you FEEL AFRAID at the unknown horror that you almost spotted, and lose Sanity. This makes a typical Call of Cthulhu scenario a self-contained episode. However, in WWC, a different methodology is at work.</div>
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In WWC, you identify a location and determine what's going on with the war as an environment that the investigation takes place in. The sample campaign (more on this below) is a small town in Vichy France near a mysterious wood and a copper mine the Nazis really want to keep open. Then you create the occult threat and what might draw the investigators to the area. This approach guarantees you're not going to have your team of rowdy investigators winning the war singlehandedly, and also guarantees that they will have to thread some very difficult needles. In a (separately published) scenario, for example, there's a mysterious occult plague in a town controlled by Italian fascists. They believe (and spread the word) that they are being targeted by an Allied biological weapon of some kind. But it isn't; it's a MONSTER. You can definitely see how investigators who come into that situation will have to walk a tightrope between the danger of the Mythos and the danger imposed by the war. And when there's a plague monster around, maybe calling in an artillery strike is the worst thing to do. ("Are those spores or smoke?")</div>
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WWC asks not that you treat WW2 as a pulp setting, but instead asks that you treat it as real, with real stakes. And that, to me, is the innovation that makes it work where other WW2 Cthulhu scenarios have failed.</div>
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The sample campaign (which I ran in late 2016 for several months) is a great example. The characters are Special Operations Executive agents parachuting into the Vichy France countryside in April 1941 (seven months before the Americans even get into the action!) with the mission of putting together an intelligence network in the countryside, and finding out what happened to the investigator who disappeared before the Nazi invasion. He was looking into a cult, naturally, but the investigators can't just pop in to a Vichy village and start asking questions and avoiding attention because then they'll be pegged as spies immediately killed by the Gestapo, and the cult will be about its evil business unimpeded.</div>
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And there are questions about how much to trust the Resistance that's helping you...or even if you trust them, how much to involve them? They have different goals and restrictions, and they may or may not know about or believe in the occult problems the investigators have to deal with. If a monster's going to eat a bunch of people, you have to balance whether you want a suave lady shooting a Sten while smoking a cigarette standing next to you, or whether it would be better if she didn't have her arm eaten and nerve broken so she would have both those things to fight the Hun.</div>
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You have to balance several things as you move towards your confrontation with the unknown in a WWC game: the Vichy authorities, the Gestapo enforcers, the German military, the local influencers, and of course, the need of the Allies to win the war. It makes for a very entertaining vice which the GM turns to put too much pressure on the PCs. Just when they have the local wealthy family more or less handled, some Germans turn up and start asking questions about who might have an unauthorized radio. When the Germans have been handled, the Vichy authorities might pop up with a new decree. And all the while the cult keeps on working. It's a very solid setup.</div>
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All in all, World War Cthulhu is a tremendous effort, works really well, and the sample campaign gives a very solid example as to how to design a WWC scenario. This game completely rehabilitates the idea of the WW2 Mythos scenario and breathes new life into it with the relentless focus on the war as environment instead of the war as event.</div>
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If I had to suggest a way to improve this effort, I would mention there are several typographical errors (the names of characters in the sample campaign aren't always spelled the same way, etc.) and I would really hammer out several different campaign structures other than the SOE structure that's presented. Overall, though, this is an exceptionally solid work that accomplishes something many have attempted but rarely successfully. It's definitely worth your time.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-46452767167451812202019-06-08T18:46:00.002-07:002019-06-08T18:52:37.323-07:00Fate Core Is Good, Actually. A series of play principles by JDCorleyPeople always yell at me when I say "but <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/114903/Fate-Core-System?src=hottest_filtered" target="_blank">Fate </a>is good, actually". Then I explain how I run it and they look really thoughtful and have to sit down for a while. Here's how Fate is good, actually, at least when I run it:<br />
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1. Absolutely, Positively No Over-Clever Aspects. No. None. Zero.</h2>
Aspects should be straightforward as possible and concrete as possible. This doesn't mean they have to be physical within the game world. They can represent emotions or points of view of the character or faction that has the Aspect. In fact it's good to have Aspects like that (see below.) But everyone that hears an Aspect should have (or be able to get with a simple question) a clear picture of how they exist inside the game world and in what situations they apply or don't apply.<br />
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1A. Anyone bringing an Aspect to the table based on a pun, or trying to use them in a way that is based on a pun, must receive a 7+ minute long lecture on what Aspects are.<br />
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1B. When you use Aspects in any action you should be able to, in a sentence, say what the action is, and use the Aspect in that sentence, in a comprehensible (if not grammatical) way. If you can't understand what you're saying then the Aspect doesn't apply. "I'm a Trained Physicist, so I'm used to dealing with industrial computer systems on the fritz; my training will help me hack this one." is comprehensible. "I'm Brave, and I'm in a dangerous situation, so being Brave helps me beat up the bad guy in this dangerous situation" makes no sense. Being Brave might help you Overcome some kind of despair, provocation to fear, or Defend yourself when the other guy is trying to Create an Advantage for themselves about how scary the situation is. But it isn't just a generalized "I'm in danger? So Bravery helps me." thing. That's not what Bravery means!<br />
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1C. The GM should be an absolute dick about refusing to permit Aspects that only obliquely apply to be used in an action. Remember that Fate Core is an <i>action adventure system</i>, just as much as D&D. Aspects only apply or don't apply to concrete actions occurring in the world. (The exception is if you're invoking one to create a detail; this works perfectly as-is and nobody gets mad enough about it to read a blog post, so just ignore that exception for now.)<br />
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1D. Just about every session the players should be changing at least one character Aspect to respond to the situation that they urgently find themselves. This is an anticipated part of the game (carefully read the minor Milestone description) and should be made almost mandatory. This is another reason over-clever Aspects are bad. You won't want to give up an Aspect you worked really hard on, but you'll easily give up an Aspect that is simple. See 1 and 1B.<br />
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1E. The one exception to this principle is <i>maybe</i> the High Concept, where something really baroque and weird can be appropriate. That's where you say "this is my thing", so go hog wild with it if you really feel the need to go hog wild somewhere. The GM should still be aggressive about not letting it in if it doesn't apply though - that's how you get fish-out-of-water comedy friction!<br />
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2. The Acting Entity Generates Their Total and the Reacting Entity Tries To Beat It. Absolutely, Positively No Exceptions.</h2>
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2a. The number one complaint people have about Fate is when you're just sitting there piling up Aspects on both sides. "Well if you do X then I do Y and invoke aspect Z." No fuckin way. Don't do this. For one thing, see 1C above. For another thing, an action in Fate is a declarative statement, and you don't get to just rewrite it as you go. You make the statement and the other side makes a statement in return.<br />
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2b. Note that by doing this, Create an Advantage is valued more by actors than by re-actors, but fate points are valued more (and spent more) by re-actors.<br />
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3. <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/114902/Fate-Accelerated-Edition?cPath=3924_19296" target="_blank">Fate Accelerated</a> is a Great Idea but the Default Approaches are Bad.</h2>
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3a. The default Approaches reward over-cleverness with language. I absolutely <i>promise</i> you some shithead lawyer is going to be able to explain why they're attacking you Peacefully. Who the fuck wants to even hear that, let alone have to "adjudicate" it. No way. If you must use the default approaches, be prepared to be just as much a jerk about which Approaches apply and which ones don't.<br />
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3b. Dresden Accelerated is a little better on this because the supernatural stuff sorts really firmly into the approaches. But you can do even better than Dresden by remembering that the Approaches should be as concrete and well-defined as possible. It's really important to know where the boundaries of broadly defined stuff is.<br />
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3c. Don't overlook Fate Core just because you're excited at how simple Fate Accelerated is. If you find you're drifting off into space when arguing with yourself about NPC stats or whatever, just <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/177639/Fate-Accelerated-Core-Conversion-Guide?src=also_purchased" target="_blank">go back to Fate Core!</a><br />
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4. Almost Always Try To Tie Your Power System To The 4 Actions.</h2>
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There's lots of different power systems in Fate. Their worst failures are when they don't actually help the players get through the 4 core actions of Fate. (This is also why the best stunts are those that alter or expand on those 4 core actions.)<br />
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4a. If you're thinking about how to adjudicate the use of a power in Fate, think about the 4 actions. The output of those 4 actions is well balanced because everyone can use them. Perhaps the power is best envisioned (systemically) as a really out-there stunt.<br />
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4b. Before you tie yourself up in knots "adjudicating" a power, consider just saying what happens. Magic can just be magic. A super-fast person can just be super-fast. That will create a situation that the other side has to respond to, which they will do...with the regular old 4 actions of Fate.<br />
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4c. This is not to say the 4 actions are sacrosanct. Definitely consider swapping one out if it fits your game. So long as it's A Very Small Number you're good.<br />
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5. Embrace the Pulp. </h2>
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I don't mean the "pulp" gamers talk about, where there's like fedoras and Nazis and shit. I mean the actual meaning of the word in a literary history sense, where the emotions are broad and the plots are simple.<br />
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5a. NPCs should wear their Aspects on their sleeves.<br />
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5b. The setting should wear its Aspects on its sleeve.<br />
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5c. If you can't figure out how to make this happen, see 1 above. If you're doing (say) a <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/141360/Romance-in-the-Air-o-A-World-of-Adventure-for-Fate-Core" target="_blank">Romance in the Air</a> game and you keep making Aspects about the broader political situation that nobody can figure out how to call on then maybe the political situation isn't as relevant to the conflicts portrayed in the fiction as you thought. Maybe you need to think of a concrete, material manifestation of that political situation to be an Aspect. Or maybe it's just a background fact that isn't Aspect-ual at all. Not every fact that's true about the game world is an Aspect. An Aspect is just something that's directly relevant to the action of the action-adventure protagonists Right Now.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-23680056642942378302019-02-16T21:12:00.002-08:002019-02-17T10:58:44.856-08:00The Division (1), Tom Clancy, and the decline of conservative entertainment<div style="text-align: center;">
Did you remember that <i>The Division</i> is a Tom Clancy game?</div>
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<a name='more'></a>Tom Clancy is a creator we normally associated with the "technothriller" phrase, primarily as a result of his extremely tight relationship with defense contractors, who paid him to put new whizbang gizmos in his books so that the influential but tech-illiterate people who loved them would support them when they came up. But a Clancy thriller is not a thriller in the normal sense. Clancy has a very specific feeling in his work that other thriller creators (techno and otherwise) don't specialize in: anxiety.<br />
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A Clancy protagonist is extremely bland, technocratic - a Company Man. Jack Ryan as CIA analyst is the exemplar here. Today we associate technocracy and expertise with the Silicon Valley cult of neoliberalism. But that wasn't always true. In a Clancy novel, the right thing to do is not in doubt because of some flaw of the protagonist or some compromise they must make in service to a flawed institution; but because they don't have all the facts, and can't get them. The best Clancy novel, <i>The Hunt For Red October</i>, cranks this up to the top. Is the sub coming to attack us or defect? Are the Russians found tracking their fleeing sub or trying to trick us? We'd know what to do (follow the procedure, which would inevitably create the virtuous result) if we knew the facts, but we don't know the facts.<br />
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Compare this to James Bond, who Fleming portrays as a sociopathic dinosaur of violence from a more horrific age, or to Jason Bourne, who Ludlum portrays as quite literally mentally shattered by his government-promoted skills. Everywhere else in the thriller world, the protagonist is Part Of The Problem, and must overcome his (almost always his) failings to save the day. (Fleming even cheerfully describes Bond falling deeper into his failings, at times making him a tragic figure.) Clancy didn't do this. And that's why he realized, very early on, that his work was perfectly suited to adaptation to video games. The player could easily put themselves into the shoes of a Clancy protagonist - learning and following the rules of the game with skill feels like learning and following the rules of the world.<br />
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In 1988, Microprose came out with <i>Red Storm Rising</i>, which is a masterpiece of fog-of-war. (How could it be otherwise? Sid Meier was on it!) You're a nameless American sub commander and you must wage war on Russian vessels fighting (and supporting!) a Russian invasion of the Norwegian Sea. The last mission of the game was always to find the ballistic missile submarines that were launching nukes. But for our purposes the key fact of the game was this. It was a game about <i>finding</i> the enemy. You had to find the enemy before you could engage them. Every mission started with you facing the hostile unknown. (And of course, 'the hostile unknown' is a fundamentally politically conservative view of foreign policy and the world in general.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCFr-JLZJfo8zFgqMafM66BOvsrbJM8NLMnXXa0ZIuSlxHKvflUYsvQkN_mBFffKDr52jxYYRHaGAaly-h_-WldQeb6hkxvQ84nbq7Zf1DINgtqtNJ2egbXlSybkJfu5pqndYEMQhTO2Be/s1600/1998.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCFr-JLZJfo8zFgqMafM66BOvsrbJM8NLMnXXa0ZIuSlxHKvflUYsvQkN_mBFffKDr52jxYYRHaGAaly-h_-WldQeb6hkxvQ84nbq7Zf1DINgtqtNJ2egbXlSybkJfu5pqndYEMQhTO2Be/s320/1998.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A definition of The Unknown:<br />
everything beyond the reach of a cop's flashlight</td></tr>
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And this embrace of Clancy-esque anxiety reached straight through the other games (<i>SSN</i>, etc.) right into the first Rainbow Six shooter in 1998. In that game, you command an anti-terrorist unit whose job is to get into secured areas and rescue hostages. But the AI in the game, while simplistic, was emergent. One wrong sightline, one gunman standing in a place you didn't expect and every member of your team would be maimed or killed. Again. Anxiety. Facing an unknown threat. You can kill a threat that's right in front of you - just click the left mouse button. That will never work out badly in a Tom Clancy world. But you must enter the unknown in <i>Rainbow Six</i> (at least in 1998).<br />
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Something else was happening in the 1990s that would put Clancy games on the path to the Division, though.<br />
<h2>
The Conservative War On Art</h2>
In the 1980s, arguably, Clancy is the center of conservative American art, though he lacks the religious elements of the Moral Majority era. And he is a very commercially savvy guy. He uses licensing well. Clancy the brand of course outlives Clancy the artist. Ghost writers and spinoffs all enhanced his success. Through to the 90s there was a deep well of talent that he could draw from - the conservative art world.<br />
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If you watch a movie from the 60s or 70s, and to some degree into the 80s there's a stock character: the "conservative art snob". The character that's like "rock and roll?! But what about my beloved <i>opera</i>?!" when the kids just want to dance. And maybe the kids teach him a lesson, or vice versa, but to audiences in that time frame, it was taken as read that you could be a conservative person and still take art quite seriously - maybe even too seriously!<br />
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Here's the nub of it:<br />
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<b><i>In 1980 if you were into ballet you were probably politically conservative. In 2000 if you were into ballet you were almost definitely a filthy liberal.</i></b><br />
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When you look back at the 70s and 80s, you see things like the original <i>Red Dawn</i> and while you might chuckle, there is no sense that it's being presented ironically or in any way insincerely. <i>Red Dawn</i> cracks jokes but in the end it's a flick that says school spirit - embodied by the jocks, even - will defeat the dirty commies. In that movie there's a communist soldier that pries a gun from the dead hands of a person who died next to a bumper sticker saying you can have the gun if you can pry it from their cold dead hands. That's a movie that wants to make you laugh - genuinely. It's real conservative art. But something happened.<br />
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In the 1990s, the American conservative movement launched a war on art. The perception was that the art world was not homophobic or racist enough. The most familiar conflict associated with this push is the attack on the National Endowment of the Arts, but it was not just the elites, it was a top to bottom push. The Southern Baptist Convention demanded parishoners boycott Disney, of all things. Not even the hypercapitalist repository of traditional family-friendly fairy tales was enough for the Newt Gingrich era.<br />
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By 2000, with the Republican party firmly in control of an overwhelming majority of American states, they unleash an orgy of spending cuts to strangle libraries, live theater, visual art, digital art, orchaestras, dance companies, public funding for film, essentially the entire superstructure by which non-blockbuster American art was produced was drowned in those ten years. In the middle of the 20th century the dream was that every small town in America would have not just one, but TWO professional orchaestras - one for classical music and one for "pops". This was a <i>conservative</i> American dream, mind you. They believed the country needed needed to preserve and advance historical cultural triumphs and art was a part of that. But by 1990, they wanted no part of it. What if a kid got inspired by music and became a <i>rapper</i>?! (Interestingly, the only place truly conservative art still thrives is in the cop show, but they tend to be too racially diverse and often portray the police characters as struggling with being ethically compromised. <i>Blue Bloods</i> can only reach so far.)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Blue Bloods</i>, a show that dares to ask "okay but what if<br />
police violence and nepotism is actually good when white<br />
people do it?"</td></tr>
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So by the time the 21st century rolls around, and video game technology is getting really hot, Clancy's content is looking pretty anemic. There isn't a deep bench of conservative artists anymore who can grasp and express the emotions he's trying to get across. The post-9-11 first person shooter experience is indeed structurally conservative - a guy with a gun left-clicks his way through foreign people until the world is saved. But typically they embrace the "compromised" thriller structure. In <i>Call of Duty: Modern Warfare</i>, the organization you work for is part of the problem; in the <i>Black Ops </i>series you're explicitly hallucinating. So the political statements of the games are less than explicit. They are hidden behind the post-Iraq War-failure mask of "mistakes were made". (This is with the exception of the first <i>Modern Warfare</i> game, which is jaw droppingly prescient about the impending total failure of American oo-rah intervention for a game made during a time when the Iraq War enjoyed 80+ percent public support in America.)<br />
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This brings us to <i>The Division</i>.<br />
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<i>The Division</i> is a third person shooter MMORPG in which a terror attack has crippled New York City. The plot is explicitly a conservative fantasy, much more explicitly even than the other foreign-adventure shooters populating the market. You are an operative "activated" by a shady national security entity ("The Division") to go in with your gun and special forces training to sort things out.<br />
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Just like Rush Limbaugh always said, one day the big corrupt racially diverse liberal cities crumbled and an Individualized Strong American With A Gun is the only force able to put it right. You are a bartender or a cabdriver or something "embedded" in America by this government organization, so when you are "activated" you grab your gun and "roll out." You literally are a secret agent infiltrating what clearly doesn't count as The United States. You're a Real American infiltrating (gasp!) the mysterious foreign land of New York City.<br />
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It's implied that the Division is a big organization, and of course it's a MMORPG so there's lots of other players running around, the single player story plays out with you, and one other injured NPC agent. That's it. Nobody else from your group makes it to the infected area. So it's as radically conservative a notion as you can probably get without actually putting explicit white supremacy in it. In the tutorial, you shoot a "rioter" who's trying to get some antibiotics for god's sake. Only in a Clancy world would that make any sense. Remember, in Clancy's world, the threats you can see and understand are not the struggle. It's what you don't know and can't figure out that is dangerous in Clancy's world.<br />
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The game does realize on some level that having the player airdrop into New York and just spend their entire time assassinating poor people trying to survive is Definitely Not going to be compelling to a national audience who remembers President Bush letting New Orleans drown. So <i>The Division </i>has to make a very tight turn.<br />
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But when it does....it drops everything that makes Clancy's conservative-thriller structure work. In <i>The Division</i>, you're always, always, always sure about what is happening next. You can pop up a high-tech map, explicitly a map that is inside the game world, an in-world map, with an orange arrow pointing to where you need to go next. Pointing to where you need to search to find the next clue. Pointing to items you need to scavenge. And then it introduces a crew of people that you are there to help, so you're not just there for hostile reasons. Once you look closely at this group their presence is mind boggling.<br />
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So it's the Joint Task Force (JTF). It has security forces, clearly portrayed as cops who had to put on body armor and pick up a M-16. Like, not special forces operators like the PCs. They're regular joes in helmets. (There's even women JTF officers! What would Tom Clancy think?) There's medical personnel who have to be rescued from clinics where they're trying to provide first aid and first responder treatment to everyone, including gangs that treat them like valuables to be traded/stolen. And engineering/infrastructure people who are essentially the most EYYYYYY I'M WALKIN HERE New York City plumbers and building supers you can imagine. And along with the JTF was the "First Wave" of people from the Division, all of whom either got turned by the mysterious enemy, killed, or are otherwise wiped out, leaving the JTF to struggle through on their own. Gangs are stealing weapons, shooting it out in the street, the water supply is barely chugging along, people need first aid everywhere in the city, it's a mess, the JTF is stretched to the limit.<br />
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When you look at the JTF in the context of the thriller, it absolutely leaps out at you: The game posits that there's positive, cooperative, skilled-but-highly-pressured people right next to you, all around you....and in thrillers do you know what we call those people? The ones that try to get shit done but maybe the problem's too big for them, or maybe - just maybe - they can pull it off? Those are <i>heroic protagonists. </i>The game put actual protagonists into the game next to you trying to accomplish your technology-assigned tasks, and made your only verb for interacting with the city your left-click gun.<br />
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With the JTF literally right next to you as in-fiction working examples of a much more heroic way to move through this fictional space, literally every time there's a mission to assassinate some gang leader, anyone who is thinking about the rules of this fictional world is thinking......wouldn't it be better to try to negotiate here? Wouldn't it be better to trade some stuff? What actually do I accomplish by putting 10,000 rounds in the head of some rioter that (say) the nurse here at the base couldn't accomplish if I just was standing there and glared menacingly at the rioters while she tried to treat them? If the JTF weren't there the game would be unbearable, but since they are there, they raise unanswerable questions. When you actually find out about the First Wave, the inescapable conclusion is "Oh shit, I'm not just the bad guy here, I'm a bad guy working for <i>very stupid people</i> who already failed once, and can't think of anything else to do other than 'more of the same'."<br />
<h2>
What Could Have Been</h2>
There's a version of this game that could have been made that embraced the Clancy-conservatism. Like, you're going into darkest (ahem!) New York City and you don't know what you're gonna find, and the wrong move could be game over. You can deal with whatever's in front of you with total confidence - you never shoot an innocent person, that just doesn't happen in Clancy-world. But how you get the problem in front of you is the struggle. That would be a Clancy-conservative game. But the people who might make and understand that type of game aren't around anymore. There isn't a conservative art scene which Ubisoft could pull from to make it work.<br />
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Or there's a version of this game that could have been made that embraced the JTF as the more standard thriller protagonists. Just leave Clancy on as branding and have a game about a New York cop who survives the outbreak and has to make her way to safety with her gun, a few bullets, and her street smarts, or a hospital physician's assistant who is trying to save who he can, or a fuckin plumber! Come on, Mario's not a plumber anymore, the field is wide open for a heroic plumber who knows if the pipes break down everyone will be dead in a matter of days. Hell, you can even give em guns and have them left click if you want! But they're the heroes. Make them the heroes!<br />
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But they couldn't figure out how to do either of these right, so they tried to strike a middle path and it.....isn't that good. Thanks For Coming To My TED Talk.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-62799690184671919762019-01-08T13:48:00.000-08:002019-01-08T13:48:22.815-08:00JD's History/Music Corner: Frank Hutchison<br />
The last post rescued from G+ (for now)<br />
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Let's talk about Frank Hutchison!<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">By the time 1920 rolled around, the initial consolidation of record companies had reversed course; the technology to make records had gotten too widespread, too cheap and too standardized for any one entity to control. By 1940, the radio would hammer the revenue stream into place, but before that time wildcat local labels and record companies would bring formerly regional and racially segregated music to a new audience. Overlap between white country music and the blues was already occurring "in the wild", but the technological and financial changes of the 1920s accelerated this process. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here's Frank Hutchison, advertised as "the first white bluesman" (this is not true) in a 1929 recording of "K.C. Blues". He was advertised this way because increasing pressure from radio stations made record labels much more aware of attracting the white audience it perceived as having the ability to buy radio sets. It was more acceptable for white audiences in 1929 to buy a "white bluesman"'s record (usually by mail order) than just a bluesman's. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Despite these homogenizing pressures, Hutchison's extremely unusual rhythmic signature sets him apart - just try to track how many parts this single slide guitar plays...and then laugh your ass off when you get to the minute-thirty breakdown. (And 1929 was during Prohibition no less!) This is a very weird recording made at a time just before the venue for these very weird recordings begins to fade beneath the bright light of radio.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-28362325674259432992019-01-08T13:41:00.000-08:002019-01-08T13:41:09.129-08:00JD's History/Music Corner: Jimmie Lunceford and his Dance Orchestra, Phil Spitalny's All-Girl Orchestra, LaVern BakerMore history/music posts from g+!<br />
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Let's talk about Jimmie Lunceford and his Dance Orchaestra!</h2>
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So Jimmie Lunceford and his Dance Orchestra are the stars of this ten minute Vitaphone short. Lunceford, one of the highest profile black bandleaders of the 1930s, had formed his first band when he was an athletic instructor in Memphis Tennessee, called the Chickasaw Syncopators. He was the first public high school band director of any ethnicity in Tennessee. They did a lot of joshing and joking around and ended up playing the famed Cotton Club in Harlem in 1934, raising Lunceford's profile to national status. Although their presentation was loose and jokey, behind the scenes it was a disciplined organization that held together when plenty of big jazz outfits did not. After a European tour crashed and burned in 1939 For Obvious Reasons, the band fell on hard times and was dumped by their label a year later. You can see a reunion on film in 1941's <i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;">Blues In The Night</i>.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />In 1947, Lunceford was (along with many other performers in the orchestra) poisoned by a restaurant owner angry that he had to serve the black members of the band. Lunceford died and the authorities wrote it off to heart problems. He was 45.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />In this short you can hear the novelty song "Nagasaki", which portrayed the Japanese port city as a wild party town: "Hot ginger and dynamite / there's nothing but that at night / back in Nagasaki / where the fellas chew tabacky / and the women wicky wacky woo". Let's just be generous and say that it was written without a deep understanding of the night life of Nagasaki. However, the song was a well-known slam-dunk method of getting people onto the dance floor, at least until 1945, For Obvious Reasons.</div>
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Let's Talk About Phil Spitalny's All-Girl Orchestra!</h2>
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Phil Spitalny's orchestra was always introduced on the radio as "Phil Spitalny's All-Girl Orchestra featuring Evelyn and her Magic Violin!" It was the Hour of Charm, hosted by Arlene Francis between 1934 and 1948. The only other "all-girl orchestra" of the time was Ina Ray and her Melodears, of course. <br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />Before the All-Girl Orchestra, Spitalny composed and recorded many pop songs under the collective name "Phil Spitalny's Music". That's what this recording is.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />You can see the All-Girl Orchestra featured in <i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;">Here Come The Coeds</i>, the 1945 Abbott & Costello film - you know the one, where Lou Costello gets hit on the head and wakes up thinking he's a woman basketball player? <br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />Eventually Spitalny, who had emigrated from the Ukraine when it was still part of the Russian Empire, married Evelyn, she of the magic violin.</div>
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Let's Talk about LaVern Baker!</h2>
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Let's talk about LaVern Baker. <br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />Her birth name was Delores Evans. She began her singing career in Chicago clubs right after World War II, where she was billed as "Little Miss Sharecropper". After a few early releases she ended up at Atlantic Records where in 1955 she recorded her first hit, <i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;">Tweedle Dee</i>. <br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />When Georgia Gibbs recorded a note-for-note cover of the song, it reached number 1. Gibbs, who was not black, was somewhat notorious for these exact covers - she had also covered Etta James "Wallflower" as "Dance With Me Henry". Baker sued Gibbs and petitioned Congress to change the copyright laws to make exact covers into copyright violations. Both attempts were unsuccessful. One apocryphal story has Baker taking out life insurance when she was about to fly to Australia, and naming Gibbs the beneficiary. "If something happens to me," she supposedly said, "you're out of business." (Gibbs, who had grown up a Jewish orphan, had little clout of her own. She stated, later in life, that she had no control over her material and had only followed the dictates of her label.)<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />Nevertheless Baker continued on with a string of successes. Her voice bridges the gap between the gospel-trained Aretha Franklin and the big-band styles of rhythm and blues performers before her, combining a touch of vibrato with intimate tones. You've heard "Jim Dandy" and "See See Rider" but might not have heard her extremely raunchy 1965 "Think Twice" with Jackie Wilson - too rude to be released, it was suppressed for many years. It's a delight (full of slurs in a format that you're not used to hearing them in though) and it's below.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />After her marriage to comedian Slappy White ended in 1969, she went on a USO tour to Vietnam, where she took ill with a serious pneumonia. While recovering at the US naval base in the Phillipines, she was offered a job as the entertainment director at the Marine Corps NCO club there. She took the job and remained in the Phillipines for 22 years. In the intervening time her influence over rock and roll and R&B was cemented and when she returned to America in the 1980s, she was recognized on Broadway and in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; the second woman inducted, after, naturally, Aretha Franklin.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />She died in 1997 at the age of 67; like so many performers of the era, she died poor, and was buried in an unmarked grave. Local activists and enthusiasts raised money for a headstone which was erected in 2008.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />You can buy two LaVern Baker albums for $4 on Amazon: <a class="ot-anchor aaTEdf" dir="ltr" href="http://a.co/18dd0tZ" jslog="10929; track:click" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: #2962ff; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">http://a.co/18dd0tZ</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-41751456181916248882019-01-08T13:24:00.004-08:002019-01-08T13:24:59.516-08:00JD's History/Music Corner: The Coasters, Eazy-E, Johnny Cash at Sun Records, Sophie TuckerYet even more musical/historical posts from g+<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Let's talk about the Coasters!</span></h2>
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Coasters were formed in October 1955 as a spin-off group from the Robins, a LA R&B group. Although they came to the doo-wop revolution late, their incredible "storytelling" songs became standards and their influence over doo-wop was tremendous. Their first hit was "Down in Mexico" (recently revived on a Tarantino soundtrack, of course), though you will remember them best for "Yackety Yack", "Charlie Brown", "Poison Ivy", "Along Came Jones" (revived by the unspeakable Ray Stevens in the 1970s), and many others. Although we may see some of these as novelty songs, they were developed both as branding and as a way to distinguish them from the other doo-wop groups of the era, who focused mostly on songs about relationships and personal struggles. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Coasters benefited from a partnership with the incredibly talented songwriters and producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who also wrote for Elvis Presley and Ben E. King.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The membership of the Coasters changed over the years; a version of the band still exists. However, tragedy seems to haunt the band. Saxophonist King Curtis (heard on "Yackety Yack") was stabbed to death in 1971. Cornell Gunter (he went by "Cornelius' at the time) was shot to death in a parking garage in 1990. The most gruesome murder associated with the Coasters was that of Nate Wilson, a later member of Gunter's spinoff Coasters group. Wilson confronted Coasters manager Patrick Cavanaugh about Cavanaugh's plan to buy furniture with stolen checks. Cavanaugh shot and dismembered Wilson in 1980. He was given the death penalty, though the sentence was later reduced. Cavanaugh died in prison in 2006.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Coasters' influence was extremely widespread. The Beatles regularly performed their work, Sly & The Family Stone routinely paid tribute to them, and everyone from Commando Cody to the Beach Boys felt the influence of the Coasters' sound and the Leiber/Stoller lyrics.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can buy two Coasters albums for $4 on Amazon Music. </span><a class="ot-anchor aaTEdf" dir="ltr" href="http://a.co/bwrdH2K" jslog="10929; track:click" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: #2962ff; font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">http://a.co/bwrdH2K</a><br />
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Let's talk about Eazy-E</h2>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eric Wright, better known as Eazy-E, was born in 1964 in Compton, California. He dropped out of school in the 10th grade, but later received a GED. After dealing marijuana, an occupation introduced to him by his cousin, Wright began recording songs in his garage in the mid-1980s, seeing the Los Angeles hip hop scene as a means to more wealth and stability. He partnered with Jerry Heller to create Ruthless Records in 1987. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 1988, Ruthless Records released two groundbreaking (one might even say earth-shattering) albums in the same year, both intimately involving Wright: N.W.A.'s </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Straight Outta Compton</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and Wright's </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eazy-Duz-It</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eazy-Duz-It</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> sounds unequivocally like a test run for what N.W.A. would eventually become, partnering Eazy with Dr. Dre and DJ Yella. Unlike many of the more elaborate efforts of N.W.A., </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eazy-Duz-It</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> relies primarily on the undeniable charisma and over-the-top, exaggerated antics of Eazy to shock, amuse, titillate and provoke. Eazy-E has been called the "Godfather of Gangsta Rap" and </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eazy-Duz-It</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> may be the most pure shot of the genre you can find, especially including the humor that many other performers never quite got the hang of. The production incorporated many of Eazy's most important influences - you can hear P-Funk and Def Jam style beats throughout the album.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although the culture war over </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eazy-Duz-It</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> never reached the heights of the N.W.A. controversies of the late 1980s, in part because the humor in the album caused many to not take it seriously, it was decried by many for misogynistic and violent content, though, championed by the LA underground scene, it eventually went gold. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Heller described the Eazy persona as a role Wright had learned to play to survive: "No one survived on the streets without a protective mask. No one survived naked. You had to have a role. You had to be "thug," "playa," "athlete," "gangsta," or "dope man." Otherwise, there was only one role left to you: "victim."" Gangsta rap claimed this "mask" and spoke through it as a means of musical, personal and often political expression; how effective (or real) this layer of irony was is still debated. Eazy's lyrics include alternately ruthless and hapless violence against women, rivals and innocent bystanders, murderous and punctuated with gunfire samples, and didn't leaven the violence with "cleaner" material like previous artists often did when they recorded murder ballads or other violent material. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Regardless of your view of their albums, Ruthless Records shaped the West Coast hip hop sound and Eazy-E's influence on modern artists is overwhelming. After N.W.A.'s acrimonious breakup (allegedly including a kidnapping threat) in the early 1990s, feuds between the various members broke out. These feuds, especially those with Dr. Dre, came to dominate Eazy's output.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In February 1995, Wright was admitted to the hospital for what he believed was asthma. It was determined that he had AIDS, and it was extremely advanced. He spent the last month of his life trying to mend fences with his former partners. In March 1995 he died - he was buried in a gold casket, wearing a flannel shirt, a Compton hat, and jeans. He was 30 years old.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the time of his death, Wright was estimated to be worth fifty million dollars, though his debts were also serious. His children, their mothers. and business partners launched one of the most elaborate set of probate court cases in American legal history. As Wright once said, "I had seven children by six different women. Maybe success was too good to me." (He got married and had two more children after he said that.)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The complete collection of Johnny Cash's Sun Records singles, recorded between 1955 and 1959, is available for four bucks on Amazon. This includes huge hits and classics like "Folsom Prison Blues" and "Ballad of a Teenage Queen".</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sun Records, founded in 1952 in Memphis, was instrumental in the development of rock and roll as well as country music. In the 1950s, the two genres were intimately linked by white artists; black rock and rollers often saw their roots in big-production boogie woogie bands of the post-war era instead. Sun Records recorded Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Conway Twitty (recording under his real name of Harold Jenkins) and Roy Orbison as well. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The label struggled when it tried to sell black R&B artists like Rosco Gordon, Howlin' Wolf and (in my mind) the criminally under-recognized Little Milton to white audiences. It wasn't a strictly progressive motive, since crossover sales of "Negro label" records had completely transformed music in the 1920s and Sun believed that it could find success with black artists among white audiences again. The experiment wasn't as successful in the late 1950s, perhaps because of the development of television in music promotion. Presley, Cash, and Orbison were white guys that didn't upset our American apartheid when they were invited into someone's living room via the Philco. Eventually Sun lost so much money they had to sell Presley's contract to RCA. Lacking their flagship performer, they dwindled.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cash transformed both country music and pop music for both white and black performers. His unique voice and sound changed the landscape of American music forever. These singles are the seeds of that change and well worth the four bucks!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sophie Tucker was born Sophie Kalish on the way to America from Tulchyn, which is now part of the Ukraine but was part of the Russian Empire at the time - 1887. In 1903 she eloped with Louis Tuck, who was driving a beer cart. She had a son with him before they separated. Now "Tucker", she sang in her parents restaurant, beer gardens and cafes for food and money, which she mostly sent back to her family to help care for her son. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">She was married twice more, to a pianist and to her manager, but both ended in divorce, with no children. She said "Once you start carrying your own suitcase, paying your own bills, running your own show, you've done something to yourself that makes you one of those women men like to call a 'pal' and a 'good sport'."</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 1907 she went on the burlesque stage, wearing blackface at first since promoters thought the crowds would be hostile to her for being "so big and ugly" (as you can see from these pictures, this is fucking insane) so why not make her a comic figure? She was ashamed to tell her family she was wearing blackface and doing Southern-accented songs, so they never attended. In 1908, her makeup was lost by the railroad, so she had to go on without it. She said:</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"You all can see I'm a white girl. Well, I'll tell you something more. I'm not Southern. I'm a Jewish girl and I just learned the Southern accent doing a blackface act for two years. Now Mr. Leader, please play my song."</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tucker began incorporating "fat girl" humor into her act - you can hear a little of it in this 1927 recording of "Some of These Days" - other comic songs included "I Don't Want To Get Thin" and "Nobody Loves A Fat Girl, But Oh How A Fat Girl Can Love." </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 1909, she was 22 and performed with the Ziegfeld Follies, one of the biggest gateways to superstardom for women performers at the time. Though the audience loved her, the other Follies girls would not go on with her, likely because of her appearance. William Morris scooped her up when Ziegfeld let her go and partnered her with Ted Shapiro, who would be her accompanist and fellow wisecracker for the rest of her career. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shapiro also wrote Tucker's most famous song, "My Yiddishe Momme". Tucker was careful to perform it in large cities where a sizeable Jewish audience could be expected, though as she said, "You don't have to be a Jew to be moved by 'My Yiddishe Momme'." The Hitler regime would eventually ban all performances of the song, for Obvious Reasons. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tucker, who had a sensational European tour at which she performed for King George V, was hit hard by the decline of vaudeville. Although she became a screen performer and even was president of the short-lived American Federation of Actors for a time, she never fully entered the world of film or television, instead continuing to perform in theatrical and musical settings, through to her death in 1966. She was often billed as "The Last Of The Red-Hot Mamas", as a hearty sexual appetite was a frequent subject of her songs, very unusual for female performers after the decline of vaudeville. The Beatles once referred to her as "our favorite American group, Sophie Tucker." </span><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-64566748144875428612019-01-08T13:10:00.003-08:002019-01-08T13:10:39.955-08:00JD's History/Music Corner: Big Walter Horton, Muddy Waters, Ricky NelsonMore posts migrating from G+. Hope you like em!<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let's talk about "Big" Walter Horton! </span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also sometimes known as "Shakey" Horton. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Born in 1921, his early career is a little shady - he made several claims about his early life that are unsubstantiated (like playing with the Memphis Jug Band before he turned 10) or extremely unlikely (teaching harmonica techniques to Sonny Boy Williamson, who was older than Horton). The earliest recording of Horton dates from 1939, when he backed Little Buddy Doyle on Okeh Records. However, poor health and a lack of steady pay led him to leave the music industry for almost a decade. Still, he was one of the first Sun Records recording artists.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the 1950s he was a regular in the Chicago blues scene, frequently playing with other Memphis and Mississippi Delta musicians who had moved north. From there he became attached to several acts that took him to the UK and through the blues festival circuit. He can be seen playing with John Lee Hooker in the street market scene in </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Blues Brothers</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. He died in 1981, only a year after the film was released.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although he only released six albums in his lifetime, Horton was a pioneer in "amplified" blues harmonica and the establishment of a unique American sound. Here he is in 1970 in Copenhagen playing with Willie Dixon, who said he was "the greatest ever".</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let's talk about Muddy Waters!</span></h2>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Born McKinley Morganfield (a great name) in 1913 (we think - his gravestone says 1915, his marriage license says 1913, the census says 1914), he grew up in Stovall, Mississippi, a town still operated on the plantation system despite slavery's end 50 years previously. He bought his first guitar at age 17. "I sold the last horse that we had. Made about fifteen dollars for him, gave my grandmother seven dollars and fifty cents, I kept seven-fifty and paid about two-fifty for that guitar. It was a Stella. The people ordered them from Sears-Roebuck in Chicago." he recalled. His first gigs were on the Stovall Plantation itself. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a Southern blues musician Waters of course was inspired by the genius of Robert Johnson. He made a splash locally, but became the Muddy Waters we know today when he moved to Chicago in 1943. There is simply no alternative: Muddy Waters is the founding father of the Chicago blues sound, developing a unique style in collaboration with guitarist Jimmy Rogers (no connection to the white country bluesman Jimmie Rodgers). He began in the rowdy clubs operated by Big Bill Broonzy, himself a seminal bluesman. In 1948 he switched to the electric guitar, feeling that the loud, raucous dance halls were no place for an acoustic guitar. The Chicago blues electric guitar would eventually become one of the key elements of rock and roll. Several recording contracts around that time didn't materialize, with his music being shelved. Eventually Chess Records gave Waters a chance, and as he made hit after hit, they let him bring his own band into the studio. By the early 1950s, Waters was releasing showstopper after showstopper, including "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want To Make Love To You" and "I'm Ready". Interestingly, the songs that were the biggest hits for him were also the most macho, having a swagger that many of Waters' songs didn't have. Waters is also credited with introducing England to the electric blues sound in 1958. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although Chess Records would shelve Waters in the late 1960s, unlike many other black artists working in this period, Waters was continuously acknowledged by the many branches of music that he had influenced, and had little trouble finding work or connections. His Grammy awards came in the 1970s with upscale live recordings. He died in his sleep, of heart failure, in 1983. He was (probably) 60 years old.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is one of my favorite Muddy Waters recording, from 1949. You can hear the unique sound of the early electric guitar used in his unique style. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let's talk about....Ricky Nelson!</span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ricky Nelson has to be considered one of the most iconic performers of the 20th century - exerting major influence over the sitcom, pop music, country music, and rock and roll music at the last historical moment when all these disparate fields could be reasonably combined in one person's life. </span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Along with his brother, Ricky Nelson made his entertainment debut at age 8 in 1949, playing himself in the radio sitcom </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Before 1949, he had been portrayed - for five whole years! - by a professional child actor. The show was well established by the time Ricky came along, but was also ready to make a big jump to television. After a film version as a test (</span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here Come The Nelsons</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">), the television version of Ozzie and Harriet was launched to major acclaim. It lasted for fourteen years - in Ricky's life, this was from age 11 to age 25.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ricky Nelson was described by many as introverted, quiet, shy, somewhat mysterious and "odd", but very likeable and pleasant. During his youth he attended Hollywood High, but against his father's wishes decided not to attend college. He was already making $100,000 a year at age 18, he reasoned. What was the point?</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">To impress a girl he was dating who was an Elvis Presley fan, at age 16, he said that he would make a record. Using his entertainment contacts, he got a one-record deal with Verve. Verve was an established jazz label, but in 1957 they could see that the growing youth market was key and wanted a young singer they could groom into a star. Ricky was ideal since he brought with him all the fans of his radio and television shows. He recorded "I'm Walkin'", the Fats Domino standard, and "A Teenager's Romance". During summer vacation in 1957 he played state and county fairs across the Midwest; back in Los Angeles, he played at a high school lunch assembly and the grounds were swamped with screaming teenage girls. The album was a smash. His father, always astute in business, pulled Ricky from Verve when there was a conflict over royalties, and signed him at Imperial Records. Nelson also was dissatisfied with the older style of jazz and vocals that he had been performing and took on a band that was his age (17-18) to play rock and roll music. His music became such a success that the </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ozzie and Harriet</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> television show would now end each episode with a performance by Ricky.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the late 1950s, Ricky Nelson was the dominant force in white rock and roll music, charting more hits than Elvis Presley, who had been inducted into the Army and did not have the time to produce. Nelson expanded his television presence to boost his music career, and appeared in John Ford's classic </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rio Bravo</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. He changed his name to "Rick Nelson" in 1961, on his 21st birthday. It didn't stick. He did get married to Kris Harmon that year - like marrying a Kardashian today, she immediately became a character on </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ozzie and Harriet</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and would later appear in other television shows like Adam-12, though her acting career never developed to the degree her husband's did. (She is a well-known "American primitive" painter, though, and, yes, the older sister of NCIS star Mark Harmon.) </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beatlemania and the psychedelia of late-60s rock and roll pushed Nelson to the side of pop and rock's development, but he landed on his feet, helping to form the "California sound" of country music along with the Eagles, Jackson Browne, and Linda Ronstadt. Increasingly bitter over an audience that would not support his experimentation with new music, his last hit was the vicious "Garden Party" in 1972. His relentless touring in an attempt to re-create his music career was devastating to his marriage; after a five-year, extremely bitter custody and property battle, he and Harmon were divorced in December 1982. (The lawyers alone took over a million dollars.) Nelson was killed in a plane crash in 1985. He was only 45. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the time, and for many years, Ricky Nelson was dismissed as a manufactured pop singer, a teen idol created entirely by television. However, I feel that's an unfair characterization. He started his entertainment career as part of one of the last "family businesses" that the entertainment industry had before corporatization nearly eliminated them. Nelson's development as a musician was entirely self-driven; he could have simply been satisfied as a TV and movie star and been extremely successful. Again and again, Ricky Nelson proved that he could make his mark wherever he went. Love his work or hate it, he's a key player in mid-20th century culture.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">My favorite Ricky Nelson song is "Lonesome Town". You can buy his entire output from 1955 to 1960 for $4 on Amazon: </span><a class="ot-anchor aaTEdf" dir="ltr" href="http://a.co/aZDjCBq" jslog="10929; track:click" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: #2962ff; font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">http://a.co/aZDjCBq</a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-73844798483319482682019-01-08T12:58:00.001-08:002019-01-08T13:25:42.806-08:00JD's History/Music Corner: Jim Reeves, Charles Mingus, Early Duke EllingtonAs with my Streaming Nonsense posts, I posted a whole bunch of historical musicial bios/analyses on G+ and I'm pulling them here.Sorry I can't guarantee the sales listed will still be good (though shockingly, many of them still are.)<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let's talk about Jim Reeves!</span></h2>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reeves, a global celebrity, is a transitional figure in country music who connects the "white country" music of the 20s to the "Nashville sound" that currently dominates broadcast country music, melding country and pop influences. (Seeing the "Nashville sound" as a plague on the form, I'm ambivalent-to-hostile about Reeves' legacy, but I can't discount his incredible talent and body of work.)</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reeves was born in 1923 in Galloway, Texas, the youngest of eight children. He got a baseball scholarship to the University of Texas, but quit after six weeks to work in the shipyards in Houston. He then played semi-professional baseball for several years, and as World War 2 drained the leagues of talent, he signed with the Lynchburg Cardinals, a farm team for the St. Louis Cardinals as a relief pitcher. After bouncing around to the Natchez Giants, the Alexandria Aces, the Marshall Comets, and the Henderson Oilers, he suffered a shoulder strain injury and his baseball career was over. (Reeves was classified as 4-F due to a heart condition and could not be drafted into the military.) He was married in 1947.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eventually Reeves got a job as a radio announcer in small stations throughout the South. Although he took a run at recording, and even became part of Moon Mullican's band in this time frame, he didn't achieve much success. In Shreveport, Louisiana in 1954, he was meant to announce a live performance of Sleepy LaBeef (some say Hank Williams) and when that performer was late, he was asked to sing. It's widely said this performance was the one that launched his career. His first album came in 1955, with Abbott Records, which was collapsing even as Reeves was rising, charting three number one hits in a year, including "I Love You", "Mexican Joe" and "Bimbo". Reeves signed a 10 year recording contract with RCA Victor that year. </span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">He also appeared on the country variety television show Ozark Jubilee that year, and was asked back as a fill-in host in 1958. This was the first partnership between Reeves and television, where he cannily saw the benefit of television exposure.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Reeves started performing, the country style of his region was more associated with the western swing of Jimmie Rodgers, which included a high volume of singing (suited for outdoor performances or un-amplified venues), but when he moved to a more produced sound, he (against the protest of the label but with the support of RCA country super-producer Chet Atkins) lowered his singing pitch and brought his lips almost in to touch the microphone, singing in a more "crooner" style, which attracted pop success almost instantly, in 1957 when he sang "Four Walls" which was not only number 1 on the country charts but number 11 on the pop charts as well. Country music was one of the first genres to be segmented in radio production, and Reeves saw that as leaving money on the table. By the time 1960 rolled around, Reeves was a national sensation and was prepared to go global, travelling to South Africa (where he recorded an album in Afrikaans), Ireland (where he recorded two Irish ballads that hit the top 10 in the pop charts there), England and Norway. </span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Plenty of artists even in the 60s saw performing in South Africa as a bridge too far, and to do so explicitly in the language of the oppressive state was a political statement that was unmistakable, bolstering the conservative population. Reeves, like many white country artists, recorded some novelty songs (like "Mexican Joe", above) that exploited damaging racial stereotypes for laughs. Today, though, as country music plummets down a greased sluice of dad rock and resentment, Reeves' most enduring fans are in the Caribbean, Africa, Sri Lanka and India. The island of St. Lucia has famously adopted Reeves as one of their own and has a thriving "classic" country music industry that continues to be influenced by Reeves. He's on the radio in Jamaica. In Nigeria you can hear him in shops and on buses. In India ascetics ask for his rendition of hymns to be played at their funerals. Whatever his own feelings and actions might have been during the racial upheavals of the 1950s and early 60s, the emotions expressed in his music and his style has made him beloved in incredibly diverse cultures across the world. </span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reeves and his manager died when he crashed his plane in stormy weather in 1964. He was only 40 years old. His widow would continue to release recordings and Atkins and others would resample and reuse Reeves recordings for years, including a major hit as late as 1980 where he was (gruesomely, IMO) remixed to have a "duet" with also deceased country singer Patsy Cline (who also died in a plane crash). He charted after his death numerous times, including "Distant Drums" which was number 1 in the UK in 1966 (beating "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yellow Submarine")</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can buy 2 Jim Reeves albums on Amazon Music for $4 today. </span><a class="ot-anchor aaTEdf" dir="ltr" href="https://goo.gl/FpNbQK" jslog="10929; track:click" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: #2962ff; font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">https://goo.gl/FpNbQK</a><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">My favorite Jim Reeves song is one of his earliest "crooner" hits, "He'll Have To Go". It's short and sweet and gives you the best feeling for how his voice and style sounded.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let's talk about Charles Mingus!</span></h2>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mingus was born in Nogales, Arizona in 1922, about 90 minutes south of where I'm sitting, right on the border with Mexico, only a few years after the border skirmishes that brought his father, a sergeant, to the area. His family spent his youth in Watts, California, and although he was inspired by classical music, his education wasn't sufficient to teach him to read music quickly enough to join the youth orchaestras of the time. In high school he switched from the cello to the double bass, and began writing compositions himself, influenced both by jazz and classical music. At a young age he was recognized as a bass prodigy - he toured with Louis Armstrong in 1943 and was part of some of the biggest swing and jazz bands of the era, including Russel Jacquet, Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington, but began very quickly to establish himself as a temperamental performer who clashed with fellow musicians and composers with sometimes unpredictable results. Ellington, for example, fired him after an </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">on-stage</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> fight with Juan Tizol. </span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was inspired by his collaborations with Charlie Parker, but seethed with contempt for those he considered unworthy imitators. He even named a song <i>If Charlie Parker Were A Gunslinger, There'd Be A Whole Lot Of Dead Copycats</i>. In 1952, Mingus, along with Max Roach, founded Debut Records so that he could conduct his music career the way he wanted, and elevate musicians he considered underexposed. Although he did his best, Debut's biggest and most important albums were Mingus' own. The greatest decade in one of jazz's greatest careers came in this period, including </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pithecanthopus Erectus</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in 1956 and </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ah Um</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in 1959, all technically "indie" albums. </span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the 1960s, Mingus began to experiment with more improvisational material, as the New York scene began to embrace fully free-form performances. He experienced Ornette Coleman's dramatic and controversial freeform 1960 performance and although he critiqued it, he immediately created a quartet mimicking Coleman's to work in that freeform space. </span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mingus' temper was as bad as ever. In 1962, he punched trombonist Jimmy Knepper in his mouth so hard that it broke a tooth and ruined his ability to play the trombone for years. In a stream of consciousness autobiography written around that time he claimed to have been married to two women at once - we know he was married to at least five women in his life. He described abuse at the hands of his father, ejection from white musicians' unions. Mingus struggled with mental illness, including depression, at one point committing himself to Bellvue Hospital. He claimed they recommended lobotomization.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">By the mid-1970s, Mingus was suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease and could no longer play the bass. He still continued to work on compositions as long as he could. He died in 1979. He was 56. His ashes were scattered in the Ganges.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mingus became one of the central figures in jazz almost solely on the strength of his genius composition and unmatchable performances, and his influence can't be overstated. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">----</span><br />
<br />
<h2>
Let's Talk About...Very Early Duke Ellington!</h2>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Content Warning: This post contains some analysis of a "deep cut" old-timey racial slur.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Duke Ellington is one of the most important figures in American music history, but I think some of his most important contributions occurred extremely early in his career, before his biggest hits, his Prohibition-era Cotton Club gig, or his relentless, cutting-edge jazz innovation. He was only 26 when he contributed four songs to </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chocolate Kiddies</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, an African-American revue which toured Europe, including the song below, "The Jig Walk". Although the Charleston had been created 2 years previous, "The Jig Walk" uses many of Ellington's signature innovations to liven it up even more, including chord progressions which are more associated today with the 1930s than the 1920s. Ellington's songs were the highlight of the revue, and "The Jig Walk" was the most long-lasting of the global hits that came about as a result of the revue. It was re-recorded over a dozen times in only a few short years (though conflicts over who owned the rights to the song - the show's many producers, Ellington, or the show itself meant Ellington, back in the states, saw none of the profit.)</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here's the lyrics:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"There's a funny twisting step, makes others a joke</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">All you steppers gather round and make your footsies smoke</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You don't need no big brass band</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don't need no song.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everybody put your hands and get going strong.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jig Walk, come on and do the Jig Walk</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And do a little Charleston, Charleston, Charleston</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">With a little pat-de-pat pat-de-pat</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jig Walk, come on and make your funny feet talk.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And when you do the Charleston you'll start them to rave</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Show these kind folk New York's dancing craze</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It has got that Big Broadway ablaze</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jig Walk"</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's easy to look at the lyrics and say "well, Ellington was just using the language of the day and what you'd expect from a revue called 'Chocolate' when he said the Charleston was a 'jig walk'" but that overlooks a big piece of the puzzle. Black vaudevillians who preceded the jazz explosion had created their own </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">nationwide</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> black vernacular since they traveled the country, even to highly segregated and hostile regions otherwise isolated from any kind of national black culture. W.C. Handy explained when describing the creation of his 1913 "Jogo Blues":</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Whenever these fellows wanted to say something to one another - not intended for outside ears - they used words invented by themselves for this purpose. Sometimes they simply attached new meanings to familiar words. For example, a white person was always 'ofay', a Negro </span><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">'jigwawk'</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The terms, as pliable as silk, were also extended to cover fine distinctions. Thus, if the girl you were 'sparking' at the moment was light colored, you might describe her as 'ofay jigwawk'. If she was the stovepipe variety, you might have to hear her called a 'jig-wawk-jigwawk'."</span></blockquote>
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ellington was unquestionably aware of this theatrical slang, and by calling his Charleston creation "The Jig Walk" he claimed the worldwide dance step as the property of and part of the identity of black America, and gave a wink to those who knew the slang - a wink that wouldn't be detected by those who only knew the slur. It was a song about how African-American dance and music had a nationwide impact, presented in a way that would have worldwide impact. The choice to sing "The Jig Walk" connected the vaudeville language of the previous decades (1890s-1910s) to the quintessentially modern dance rhythms of the Charleston, and the musical innovations pointed the way into the future of jazz and pop dance culture. Listening to it is listening to a swinging door between the present and past.</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chocolate Kiddies</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was a smash hit throughout Europe....although in Germany, reception was chilly when German audiences thought they were from French colonial Africa. (In 1925, France had sent a black regiment into Bavaria hoping to intimidate the Germans into paying their war debt.) After learning they were from America, German audiences warmed up to the show, but dark clouds were on the horizon. Sam Wooding, orchestra leader, described one incident this way:</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sam was in the bar of a hotel run by an old Jewish couple. He saw one of the other performers walk over and talk to the woman behind the bar, one of the owners. There were two German men there who were enraged by this and slapped the Jewish woman - the other picked up glasses off the bar and smashed them before leaving. When Sam and the other performers ran over to the woman, she said the angry men were demanding to know what right the woman had to have this hotel and demanding "why didn't you get out of Germany". Here's Wooding, describing the incident to Josephine Baker years later:</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Most of the men only wished they had understood enough German so they could have caught the bastards before they slapped this old lady. Well, we didn't have long to wait. A couple of days later, in walks six of these same guys to one of the rooms for our private party. They were drunk. Chick Horsey and Bobby Martin from my band were in one of these rooms eating with a couple of chorus girls and these Germans came into the room. Chick told the girls to get lost and after they left, one of the Germans locked the door, walked over and said something in German, and his friends laughed.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Chick Horsey was a master at gang fighting. He smashed this German and the German went down like a bull in a slaughterhouse, blood flying everywhere. Bobby picked him up and threw him out the window - it was on the ground floor - and from then on, as Chick would smash these bastards, Bobby would throw them out the window. Chick said that every time he socked one of those guys he saw the German that slapped that poor Jewish woman and he thought of how some of the white Southerners treated black men and women in America, and this gave him strength.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It seemed like a miracle. We didn't know Chick and Bobby was that good. Well, the Germans never came back."</i></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now that's a funny twisting step that will make others a joke. Here's a recording from a Jewish bandleader in 1926 (no recordings of the </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chocolate Kiddies</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> cast were made.) Hope you have a good new year and............a good day.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "robotodraft" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-75631266072135823262018-12-21T11:29:00.000-08:002018-12-21T11:29:15.068-08:00More Streaming NonsenseHere's the rest of the reviews. Enjoy.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (</span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">) is streaming on Hulu and Crunchyroll. It's a good example of adapting a Sherlock Holmesian situation (the genius investigator, the regular-guy sidekick) to a new format (anime). As ridiculous as the main heroine is you never feel like she's just being awful or weird for no reason - her interiority is expressed not through the usual flashbacks (well, a few of those), but also because of what she says. Our hero is just barely more than your ordinary high school anime milksop, enough to make him worth watching. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This series also has one of my favorite things, the supporting-cast episode, halfway through (Asahi Bridge Irregulars). It may be my favorite of the series. It's very anime so if you're not into that, don't watch it, but if you're okay with anime "stuff" it's a quite solid one-season program. For Holmesians like myself, it's 4 stars. If you're not a fanatic, maybe only 3.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix Streaming.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It seemed a lot crasser than the first, and little enough was done with the theme of people pretending to be cooler than they were. The main bad guy needed to not be as cool as he thought he was for this to really land. It didn't. Still, the action sequences were great, the development on Nebula and Gamora was good and EVERYTHING about the Soveriegn as villains was delightful. You suck, Zylak. Two stars.</span><br />
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></b>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">When it went overboard it did so in search of the themes it was relentlessly hammering on. I'm willing to forgive a superhero film a lot if it actually tries to be as iconic as the character's it's recreating. Quite delightful. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The House On Pine Street </b>- Amazon Prime</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once again we see how a relatively low budget can be used to great effect in this world of digital filmmaking, in a way that seems like it should be being done 50 times a year, but isn't. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A pregnant woman and her husband move back to the small town where she grew up after some trouble in the big city. The house may be haunted. Or maybe there are other fears at work. It's a simple story with no real twists and steadily advancing concepts and connections. The cast is small, the set is simple, and the script is good. It's the kind of thing a big studio simply would never make these days, but which is very worth watching, especially for the horror fan. The acting's especially on point for the woman's mother - oh man my wife can tell stories about her relationship with her mom and I definitely could see that on the screen here.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Riverdale</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Season One now streaming on Netflix. RIverdale is the best thing for the "CW aesthetic". Actually I think a lot of romance properties could be fruitfully adapted to that network's house style, a lot more so than superhero properties, which tend to have extremely shallow relationship material to begin with. Veronica Lodge, played by Camilla Mendes in the same way that Scottie Pippen "played basketball" moves to town in the midst of the disappearance/presumed murder of Jason Blossom. Archie is a lovable lug and Jughead is played by Cole Sprouse in a turn that shows me he is no simple Disney star. He and his dad are electric and heavy in every scene together. This is the kind of evening soap opera that used to exist before "high concept" shows ate up the airwaves. In fact, there's no simpler concept than Archie Comics' Riverdale, which is why it has survived so long over the years in such recognizable forms, whereas Captain America got turned into a Nazi and they reset Batman like nine times by now. Hashtag justice for Ethel. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shelley</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A pregnancy/psychological horror flick of the type that would have been groundbreaking at one point. That point was before 1956's </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Bad Seed</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. If you're into stagey, observational horror films like me, don't miss it. Otherwise, don't bother. Two stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">We Are Still Here</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The gear-shifting in this haunted house story is so crazed that it goes from a very carefully laid out setup to a gore-splattered nightmare of an ending in about eight seconds flat. Made me laugh in delight and catharsis. The actors and direction make this film land where it could have fallen on its face. Loved it. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Handsome</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix original. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can hardly be objective about this one. Maybe you won't like it. However, it is exactly my type of film, like, exactly in the center of the bullseye. I am ready for a Detective Burt Jerpis spinoff. "That's why you're the boss." Five stars FOR ME. Maybe three objectively.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Evolution</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">French observational/body horror. This one will stay with you, and the ending is breathtaking. Once you start to realize what's missing in the situation everything begins to take on a sinister bent, especially since the children in the film don't (necessarily) know to see what we see as strange. Five stars. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">When They Cry</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Hulu. (also Higurashi no Naku Koro ni). </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The art style and voice acting in this anime is, intentionally, so annoyingly over-cute and over-childish as to be almost unbearable. What will keep you watching is that this is a weird combo serial killer/Groundhog day/demon possession story that plays out in numerous different ways from numerous different viewpoints and at literally any second one of the ultra-cute kids could murder someone with a knife or a baseball bat. I feel a little like this is the high-school-anime-fan equivalent of David Lynch watching a lot of Father Knows Best and Ozzie & Harriet when he was a kid and then putting a checkerboard floor on a kitchen in one of his films. I don't even know if I would recommend it except that I watched it all the way through, so it must have SOME power. Three stars I guess?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Verdict</b><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paul Newman and Sidney Lumet elevate a script that's honestly only a modest courtroom thriller into something existential. In addition, I feel this movie exudes a type of masculinity not often seen in films. When it peeks through the surface of the alcoholism and cynicism, it's very powerful. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Evidence</b><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A low-budget horror/slasher film that shows that technology can be an aid to B-filmmakers instead of a crutch. A bunch of people are stuck in a ghost town and they're all getting murdered one by one Movies like this give me hope for the B movie in the 21st century. Suffers from Horror Movie Ending Syndrome where instead of just delivering what was promised we need to have some big reveal. Bleah. Three stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mulholland Drive</b><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am not going to describe this to you. It is as pure a cinematic experience as you will ever have. It is one of the greatest films ever made. If you try to describe it to others you will find that you are falling short. That's because it's not a radio play where your voice can get it across. That's because it's not an essay where I can communicate it to you with words. It's a film, its filmic language is so flawlessly executed that you will find yourself responding and reacting without knowing why. Five stars.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>It Follows</b> - Netflix Streaming</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone got done talking about this one a while ago but it just hit Netflix streaming. It is everything you want it to be and more. Quiet, calm, creepy, observational, heartfelt, understandable, incredibly precise and constructed. (It is also not a period piece and shit that is exactly in the middle of the frame is not something you "may notice". C'mon.) An instant horror classic, one of the best of the genre, in my view. Five stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Wailing </b>- Netflix Streaming</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the second Korean horror movie I've seen starring a kinda shlubby average joe trying to save his precocious daughter, the first being the unbelievably solid </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Host</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> from ten years previously. Maybe that's just my own ignorance of the genre in Korea or maybe it's just what America has decided to import but it seems a bit of a too-close parallel. It also doesn't quite land in </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Wailing</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> because here our hero just seems completely at sea - in </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Host</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> our hero was always trying something even though constantly failing. Also, the supporting cast seemed more intertwined in </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Host</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Here there are too many to really carry the emotional weight of our hero's hapless journey to total damnation.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think there's a certain subtlety to the ending of the film that isn't really earned. But I think it is very much on point, especially for the world today. We often don't have to see the devil to believe in the devil or more metaphorically, we will swiftly assume evil and malice in the world. But we must see God to believe in God - we have to see extremely solid and direct proof of good intent and virtue before we will dare believe in it. A spiritual path (more than one spiritual path is depicted in the film; they're all taken seriously) asks us to live the other way around, to believe in God when God doesn't show herself and dismiss the devil unless he really, really, really works his ass off. Maybe, after all, it's just some tainted mushrooms. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three stars. If you're not a horror fan, it's missable.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Captain America: Civil War </b>- Netflix streaming</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's increasingly clear to me that the Avengers team films are the weakest of the bunch, and it's a shame that this one had to be one given that the first two Captain America movies were more about him directly. Honestly there is never a spot in the film where we get to fully see Cap's perspective in multiple situations (compare to the first movie where everything is about internal character made external and the second movie is about individual resistance to systemic corruption at every turn). The hints of his perspective are given, and the bad guy is well turned, but it never materializes as a movie theme because we have to service so many other characters. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Zemo's plan makes no logical sense but it makes thematic sense given Cap's perspectives in the film, just as Red Skull doesn't need to blow up America to be a good bad guy in the first Captain America movie, all he needs to do is manifest internal Nazi horror outwards.)</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is so rarely a scene where the dialogue sounds like the dialogue that people might say (compare to the first two Captain America movies where even under heightened circumstances the dialogue is directed thematically.) And there is no reason for various persons to make the turns that they do other than that it is time for them to make them. Finally, only the first and last fight scenes are good - the biggest and longest fight scene is so boring and terrible it almost seems like a joke when they </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">start</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> it by saying the location's been evacuated. Hey, way to not put anyone's beliefs really to the test, movie. I'm going to check out for the next twenty minutes because you just said this fight has no thematic weight.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like, if putting Spider-Man in the midst of harm's way had actually caused Stark to come around on the key points of theme ("I've gone too far, what have I done, this is my fault, this guy would be trashing muggers in Queens right now if I hadn't decided I knew better, this is just what Steve warned me about") that would make his involvement have some thematic weight. But it doesn't; the main casualty is a </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">friendly fire</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> incident. Again, way to not give the conflict any real impact.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It could have been 40 minutes shorter and 40 times better. Also there are no significant roles for women in this one (compare to Carter in Cap 1 and Natasha in Cap 2) and that really starts to pall. (I thought the Vision/Scarlet Witch stuff was fine but completely out of place; she's checked out of the theme of the film and into another one, and so is he. Why not make this its own movie and really develop the relationship before having them turn on each other?)</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The best Marvel movies take risks - Cap 2 is better than Cap 1 because it dares to tell us that the quasi-good-guys of the last several movies are actually the worst imaginable badguys. Guardians of the Galaxy asks you to care about a green wrestler, a raccoon with a gun and a tree that can only say three words. Doctor Strange says "let's really turn all that Kirby and Ditko stuff up to a hundred thousand percent, visually". It doesn't always make a great movie but at least it brings something to the table. Given that comic books belong entirely to their current creative team, and what Captain America is today he might not be tomorrow, giving a film over to the vision of a director, producer, actor and crew rather than trying to just make it "fit into a universe" makes more sense artistically and even financially. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marvel (and Marvel fans, from looking at the endless stream of shit thinkpieces about these movies) have completely missed what made these films good by looking for what made them the same, and the seams really seriously show in the most homogenous products, like </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Civil War</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Two stars. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can do better; find yourself a copy of the Civil War stuff for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and put together some good thematic laser beaming, or write a really good fanfic where all your favorites work in a coffee shop and end up making out. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Long Goodbye - </b>TubiTV</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b> </b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Altman (along with John Williams who did the music, including two overlapping versions of the same title song) understood that the source material was Raymond Chandler's </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tristram Shandy</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of hard-boiled detective novels, a sprawling, strange shaggy-dog story that combines a grand, slow lassitude with offscreen moments of crazed rage and murderous fury. So it was perfect for Altman, and perfect for Elliot Gould. Altman's version is just the tiniest bit more ordinary, but not so much that you'd notice if you weren't a fanatic like me.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Philip Marlowe wakes up at the start of the movie - apparently he has been asleep since 1947. He lights a cigarette with a wooden match that he scrapes along the wall - as he clearly has been doing for years, by the look of the wall. He does this everywhere he goes. His cat wants some food. He is out of food, so he improvises with some cottage cheese and an egg. The cat doesn't want that, and knocks it onto the floor. Without cleaning it up or getting angry, he heads out to go to the store to buy cat food. It's 3 AM and his hippie lady neighbors are having a topless party next door, but Marlowe is putting on his jacket and tie to go to the store to buy cat food. "Will you buy me some brownie mix, Mr. Marlowe?" "Sure" he says. "One regular and one fudge." "One regular and one fudge." "You're the nicest neighbor we've ever had." "Of course I'm the nicest neighbor. I'm a private eye." The elevator down to the street doesn't work the first time he presses the button.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The song on the car radio is the title song. It's also on Terry Lennox's radio, a guy who is going into or leaving a gated community with a security guard. Lennox has scratches on his face...perhaps fingernail scratches from a woman. The version on his radio is not the same as the version on Marlowe's radio. But it's the same song.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marlowe gets to the store and goes in to get the cat food and brownie mix. He leaves his car lights on. He can't find the cat food he wants. "Buy this one," suggests a grocery clerk. "All this shit is the same anyway." "I'm guessing you don't have a cat." Marlowe replies. "I don't need a cat, I got a girl." replies the clerk. Marlowe returns to his apartment, delivers the brownie mix to the topless women and the cat food to the cat. The cat doesn't want this food either. It leaves.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">We're now 11 minutes into this tough private eye movie and I promise, I promise, I </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">absolutely promise</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> you will love every langorous, impenetrable, ordinary, extraordinary second of it from start to finish. Five stars. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Neon Demon </b>- Amazon Original</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's a slow experience, extremely deliberate. Similarly to the last horror movie I posted the ending holds up much better than most. I think horror movies tend to end better when they don't try to keep escalating into total apocalypse or hammering twist after twist into place - I think they do best when they deliver exactly what they promise. However, for all the portentous, wonderful filmic work (this is the first movie I've ever seen to explicitly differentiate the male heterosexual gaze and the lesbian gaze), it doesn't quite hold together. The revelations feel "right" but they don't feel earned. Especially since our experience is through a central character explicitly presented as an ingenue, who takes very little action in the film. Three stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In the House - </b>Netflix Original</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's good. It's nice to see a ghost story movie that treats ghosts differently than the "they just want to communicate with us!" post-Sixth Sense standard. Good performances; at first they seemed a little silly but they drew me in, painted a character that had those types of anxieties and worries. The last fifteen minutes is not what you think it will be. I actually think it holds up much more than your typical horror movie ending. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Erased </b> (animated) - Hulu and Crunchyroll</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I don't think I've seen a show of any sort, let alone an anime, with as many really solid, well-delivered "resets". You think the show is one thing, then it is another. And then again; and then again.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the characters in the story writes a story called "The Town Where I Alone Am Not There". Of course, we immediately see it has a double meaning. But those are not its only two meanings. Again and again that story returns to different characters in different ways. I don't think I've ever wanted to immediately re-watch an anime before, not for the plot twists (you're going to "guess the killer" really early on), but instead for where each of the characters comes from and goes, where they are present and where they are absent.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's remarkable. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everly</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Salma Hayek stars in the Sin City story that Frank Miller only wished he could envision. A lady is in a room. A hundred billion people are coming to that room to murder her. It's funny and ultra-gross and has the Hot Action gunplay JD likes. A Christmas movie to see in a double feature with The Ice Harvest. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Puella Madoka Magica</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Crunchyroll and Hulu</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The next logical step after Sailor Moon, this one-season anime magical girl phenomenon completely altered the landscape. The evil monsters and their horrible pocket dimensions are animated in a unique style that honestly must be experienced to be believed. The movie's up too, though honestly, it more or less just gilds the lily. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three Kings</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix and Hulu </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">his is not a movie about three guys trying to rob Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, no matter what the trailer says. It's David Fincher being very, very real about American culture and values as expressed in human conflict. The leads (Clooney, Wahlberg, Cube, and an absolute revelation in Spike Jonze as Vig) are incredible. Five stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Man On Wire</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The documentary, not the fictionalization. Why would you want to fictionalize something like a man walking between the World Trade Center towers on a tightrope? It really happened. The documentary keeps it real; keeps it going past the "end of the story" that a fictionalization inevitably would give us. Delightful, romantic, sad, triumphant. Five stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Third Man - </b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's an incredible experience. A man comes to Austria after "the war" (in 1949, what else would we talk about?) at the behest of a friend. When he gets there, he discovers his friend is dead. In a traumatized world, this film attempts to make sense of loyalty and greed. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"When he was 14, he taught me the three-card trick. That's growing up fast."</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"He never grew up. The world grew up around him, that's all."</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is one of those movies that five stars seems inadequate for. You don't watch it, you become possessed by it, and it will always leave its mark on you.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pleasantville</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A somewhat hackneyed premise is elevated by a splash of surrealism and some great performances. An orgasm literally explodes a tree into fire. Four stars.
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<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Killer</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you ever wanted to see someone jump through the air whilst firing two pistols with doves flying, this is it. A deranged look at a whole new world of action movies, for American audiences at least. Totally holds up. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Terriers</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The best thing that was ever on television and you never watched a minute of it, you Philistine. Six thousand stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Finder</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Bones spinoff that was better than Bones. We shall never see Michael Clarke Duncan's like again. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Life</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A very strange and remarkable TV show, especially in its first season. A police officer is wrongly accused of murder. When he's cleared, he emerges from prison with a very different attitude. In this show you will love absolutely everything Sarah Shahi does. Became a bit more mainstream in the 2nd season (including gilding the lily by trying to make Shahi, already one of the most beautiful humans on television, more overtly glamorous.) First season: five stars. Second Season: four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pontypool</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
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A zombie movie with a unique vector of infection. Horror movies are best when they take at their core a real life question or issue and blow it up to monstrous size. This does that in a way not often attempted out of Romero's zombie pictures. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honeymoon</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix, Amazon</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A whirlwind romance leads to a honeymoon out by the lake. But maybe the wind whirled too hard. Again, this takes a real fear (intimacy, can we really trust our life partners), and cranks it to a thousand percent. Five stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Starry Eyes</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix, Hulu</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A young woman will do whatever it takes to get ahead in Hollywood. Or will she? Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Awake</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A marvelously experimental police show. After a car accident, a detective wakes up each morning in a world where his son survived, or in a world where his wife did. Anchored by top drawer performances from the core cast. Cancelled after one season; more unjust than Firefly's cancellation. Five stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last Shift</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A solid little B-horror movie that shows you don't need a hundred million dollars to make a taut, scary feature. Simple storytelling about a woman's first night on the police force, combined with good direction (you are fully aware of where everything occurs) makes this a masterclass in low-budget scares. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Midnight Swim - </b>Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although it was classified as a horror movie, it may be the first example that I know of of a magical realist suspense movie. There's lots of ways for us to see what's going on, but because of the point of view character (it's sort-of-found-footage) there's no way for the other characters to put it all together. It's expertly directed by Sarah Adina Smith and expertly acted by Lindsay Burdge, Aleksa Palladino (who also was great as Angela Darmody in Boardwalk Empire) and Jennifer LaFleur; I absolutely believe on every level these three characters are sisters (and that the incomparable Beth Grant is their mother.) I am happy it got some good reviews; when it wrapped up in the way I knew it would, I said to myself, nobody in the world except me will like this movie. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Synchronicity</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A feller is on the brink of a major scientific discovery funded by a shady entrepreneur. He meets a mysterious woman (Brianne Davis, the best performance in the film). Neither the discovery nor the woman are what he thinks they will be. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moonrise Kingdom</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Until this movie I would not say I was a Wes Anderson fan - his tone was too studied to be sincere. Even on a rewatch, I'm still not a fan of his earlier films. </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moonrise Kingdom</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is exceptionally sincere and emotionally real despite its grand artifice, and is best discovered rather than explained. I can't watch it enough. </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grand Budapest Hotel</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was even better, but it isn't on Netflix streaming yet. Five stars. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Metropolis Restored</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The story of the restoration of the classic 1927 science fiction film is itself an adventure. Suffice to say it holds up and the new score is exceptionally on point. Get your headphones on for this silent film. Five stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">3 Women</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The only Robert Altman film presently on Netflix, which is an unutterable injustice. This is not his greatest but it very leisurely draws a noose around its characters in a way you won't quite see until the consequences begin to spool out. Shelly Duvall and Janice Rule are excellent but Sissy Spacek gives the performance of a lifetime. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>High-Rise</b> - Netflix</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As with most things Ballard it's very hard to film. Like good adaptations of things hard to film (</span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Catch-22</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">), it relies on performances and style to get over things that previously would be explained in text. There's a seemingly slow change in style over time from semi-naturalistic to more fable-like and grotesque; however, on a re-watch I'm more confident that the style doesn't actually change, but the referent of the fable is less obvious at the start of the film. This is also an exceptionally English film, and the class message comes from a point of view we're not used to seeing class struggle from in America: the middle class/intelligentsia. Normally our films are about poor people rising up or rich people falling down. In </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">High-Rise</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the middle is visibly deluded about what's happening; the poor are who it's happening to and the rich are who's doing it. This is really, really good. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hiddleston is fine in it, and plays to what his character is, but he's actually not the central character of the piece, just our means of seeing most of it. The real stars are Sienna Miller as Charlotte and Luke Evans as Wilder; Evans in particular is absolutely electric every moment he's on screen, and elevates everyone else in every scene. The only major misstep is when it crosses the line briefly to music video instead of filmic montage at the Act 3 break. Other than that it's well worth your time, but don't think of it as just a means of passing the time, just a thing to chill out and watch. This is a film that says something very specific about England in the late 1970s, and as with all extremely specific messages from the Book of Revelations on, it has a universal message as well. Four stars.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Absentia</b> - Amazon Prime</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">So this may be one of the best horror movies of the last ten years. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The total confidence of this movie, especially the performance of Courtney Bell and Katie Parker as sisters (the central relationship of the movie) is riveting. It's cheap as hell, very restrained and very, very effective.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A woman's husband disappears. Seven years pass. She now is beginning the process of declaring him legally dead. It's hard for her. She begins to be haunted by either hallucinations or a ghost of him, angry at her. She is wracked by guilt over the process. She is pregnant with another man's child, but hasn't been able to fully commit to that relationship because of her lingering guilt over her husband's disappearance.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her sister, just out of rehab, moves in to help support her. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Plot-wise, I would say that this is "if Lovecraft understood a human emotion". Five stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-21102568275299355812018-12-21T10:48:00.001-08:002018-12-21T10:48:47.148-08:00Streaming NonsenseI used to post a bunch of film and TV reviews to G+, but it's going away! Blogger is still here though, so, after the jump, here's my archive of Streaming Nonsense posts.<br />
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<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bang Bang Baby</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Currently streaming on Amazon Prime.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">While tailor-made to appeal to my interests (a historical setting? people singing their feelings in period-appropriate ways? a meta level pulling apart the pop star as performer and movie star? yes, please!) it has a fairly ugly core at the middle of it, and doesn't fully pull off the Lynchian contrasts necessary to make that work. The songs are really catchy, though, and the performances are dead on kitschy. Still, unless you're me, it's missable. Two stars.</span><br />
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<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Malevolent</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix Original</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seemingly trying to create a YA style story/property at first, it sort of works on that level. But about an hour in the gore starts and from there on out it doesn't work at all. Then the climactic showdown of the piece breaks its own horror rules to make it a completely limp piece of nothing. Not even the horror aficionado needs to watch this one. One star.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maniac</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix Original</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Critics hammered this one for being more symptomatic of prestige TV than deserving of the title, but I disagree. It's not some spectacular experience that will turn your life upside down, it's a science fiction (alternate history?) show about people who are struggling with emotional issues, and how they find a connection. It's humanistic science fiction - and in the end what it tells us is about relationships, not about technology (or even the weird world of the show.) </span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm watching it a second time, not necessarily to try to "notice" things in it, because really there's not much to "notice", but just instead to see how the characters slowly change, with their worlds, from the beginning to the end. Honestly I may be over-defending this one a little because what I read about it was just so harsh. It's really good! Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Ballad of Buster Scruggs</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Netflix Original</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Six short Coen Brothers films - like a little collection of novellas. Stripped of their langour, with the throttle all the way open, one really feels the Coens' hands in these, for good or for ill. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first, a hyperviolent slice of absurdity (and music history) is an effective gag and I absolutely delighted in it even if it really didn't have any deeper meaning. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The second, a nihilistic short-short requires you to really love the Coens, but if you do, you'll really love this one too. I do and I did.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The third is simply a rough ride, starting out with some warmth and humanity, but slowly sinking in a freezing cold quagmire; if it weren't Liam Neeson I probably would have skipped it. As it is, it feels out of character for the series, lacking in humanity or understanding. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fourth tries to carry itself on Tom Waits' charisma, which is considerable, but in the end, the values expressed don't cut against each other hard enough. The owl should have returned. Because it didn't, you come to the end feeling it had nothing to say.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fifth goes to a place that few seem to recognize the Coens have an abiding interest in even outside their masterwork </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Serious Man</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">: faith and uncertainty. While I can't forgive the portrayal of natives in the second short, here, although they play nearly an identical role, I almost can, because nothing you're looking at or experiencing is exactly what it appears to be and people must go by feeling and guesswork, down a narrow path, with no guarantees. I've liked Zoe Kazan since "Bored to Death", it's time for her to be the lead in a massive blockbuster. It has a simple surface story - maybe a little too simple. You can miss what it's trying to get at very easily. President Pierce is trying to figure out what the prairie dogs are. Do you know what they are?</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The last is a "bottle episode" masterpiece that will wheedle its way inside your mind and very carefully take up residence there. I'm going to be thinking about it a long time, especially thinking about who the camera is at which moments. By the end, they're talking to us; or about us. How should I know if they come to understand? I'm only watching. And the coachman never stops. It's policy.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">There's a couple of pieces that are really for Coen Fanatics Only, and at least one doesn't land. Still, it's undeniably worth it. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Inside Llewyn Davis</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, currently streaming on Amazon Prime.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think of all the Coen Brothers movies, </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inside Llewyn Davis</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> portrays a world that is by far the most Christian, though perhaps it is not as explicitly a religious film as </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Serious Man</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> or </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">True Grit</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (if watched with your eyes closed.) Llewyn tries as hard as he can to force people away and away and away; he is forgiven again and again and again, a nesting Russian doll of forgiveness, but inside the last is the sentence "I don't see a lot of money in it." - a knife cut as deep as any stab wound ever depicted. Grace smacks into Llewyn Davis' face like a snowball, then like a flurry of them. He tries to push away what God is giving him as many times as he can. But God isn't giving him success or happiness; God is giving him grace. Or maybe "the gods" are; Ulysses, after all, is in this film. Every performance in it is real - even the cartoonish caricatures are real, too real, almost too real to abide. Carey Mulligan alone could fill a dozen volumes of a French novelist's masterwork, Garrett Hedlund does more with a cigarette and a haircut than he has any right to. Oscar Isaac is the real thing. He will be a movie star my whole life, and deserve it all.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">There's always a miscommunication in Coen films that are revelations and not mistakes. Here, it is simple. "Llewyn is the cat." I'm shipping out, Pop. Five stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Touch of Evil</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Netflix streaming</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seeing Touch of Evil gives you the same jolt of cinematic recognition as seeing Citizen Kane, as seeing Birth of a Nation; these films are each summaries of film and storytelling technology that would propel the form for decades to come. Everything there is to know about Hitchcock's classics can be found in Touch of Evil; everything there is to know about the modern horror film can be found in Touch of Evil; everything about how to make a scene move, flow, build in fear and release can be found in Touch of Evil. Sometimes you are seeing other movies and not this one, but it's pure, pure storytelling genius from start to finish. Five stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Images</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Amazon Prime Video</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This 1972 Altman piece of experimental filmmaking (the actors and he decided on what they would shoot every morning, then went and did it, sometimes with no script) is full of high strung sexual violence and eerie, artificial acting on the part of everyone on screen. You have to be down for some "real Altman shit" to get through to the end of </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Images</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, though to some degree the ending is even more harrowing than the supposedly more intense middle act. In the hands of a master, psychological horror, with the emphasis on the psychological, never fades even in the last moments, where horror movies often stumble. I'm always down for some Real Altman Shit, so it's five stars for me. Maybe for you it's only four.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Endless</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, currently on Netflix Streaming</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The creation of the same creative team that made the low-budget horror thriller </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Resolution</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, we find them exploring the same conceptual space but with a broader twist. Beyond the tight personal confines of </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Resolution</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the ideas presented are a Lovecraftian nightmare without a single tentacle. It could be a dreadfully dull puzzle movie but it eschews that. You </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">could</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> figure out what's going on before the main characters do, but "what's going on" is not what the story's about. This is a great demonstration of what I always say: the plot of a piece of film or literature is not the series of events. It's the series of </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">decisions</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. So even if you figure out "what's going on", that's not going to spoil the story for you. I did feel let down a little bit because it failed to rise above the subject matter of </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Resolution</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. C'mon, you've done that once already, and hooked me. Now you've got a real budget and a bigger concept, show me something new! Anyway, it still stands on its own. Three stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Black Room - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix Streaming</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Remember when we used to call the late night cable softporn "Skinemax"? Yeah, it's that. There's way better places to get boobs on the internet now, so there's no need for this. There's a couple of gags about how when an incubus possesses the male lead he's got a bigger dick, but they don't </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">show the dick</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Come on people. It's 2018. If you can't show the demon's dick why are you making Internet soft porn? Oh, right, for heterosexual male titillation. One star.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seven In Heaven - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix Streaming</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Entering this with absolutely no expectations, I was surprised to see the star of American Vandal's Season 2 as the male lead in a high school horror film that actually seems to get how uncertain and fluid teenage relationships and commitment is in high school. Yeah, maybe you make out with someone in a closet at a party you didn't really want to go to, it doesn't mean the two of you are dating forever. Two teenagers are put into a closet at a party they don't really want to be at, but when they come out, they're at a completely different party in the same house, and one of them is on the run from the authorities for murdering someone. This alternate world is clearly artificial and hostile - its inhabitants demanding and cold, though perhaps with an echo of the "real world" (where a series of mixups and stupid ideas lead to a standoff between the police outside and the rest of the partygoers inside - including those who realize our two leads are missing and are frantically trying to figure out how they could disappear inside a locked closet.) As the alternate world escalates in hostility, our heroes try to both figure out a way back and find a way to turn the alternate world against itself. I had no expectations at all; in fact, sort of expected it to be bad. And it's not! Three stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Family Blood - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix Streaming</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vampire movies have leaned on the addiction metaphor before, but rarely tried to reflect the addiction on a family. The novelty of the setting is fine - a single mom, newly sober, trying to reconnect with her two kids on an extended placement - but the vampire film tropes are too predictable and eventually overwhelm whatever interesting ideas it might bring. (Ya know, sometimes things go, at least temporarily, smoother around the house when the addict is using. But then their scumbag addict/pusher friends start coming around....) The mother and son play well off each other - you get the solid idea both of them are exhausted by their battles against each other but neither will give up. A solid horror experience. Three stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Delirium - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix Streaming</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another "person with questionable mental stability moves into possibly haunted house" flick. Cynical and ugly, there's nobody to like in this film. Even the manic pixie dream girl is a drag. The concept would have been just fine without the protagonist having mental issues, as he discovers his childhood home has all sorts of secrets literally in the walls, and his creep of a brother gets out of prison to try to get him involved in dreadful shit. In terms of what's "really going on", it's interesting enough, so I'll give it two stars. You can miss it.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Re:Mind - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix Streaming</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eleven high school girls are kidnapped on the eve of their graduation and locked - literally shackled to the floor - at a dining table in a baroque/hilariously over-scary library/trophy room. They determine over the course of 12 episodes that they are selected because they all have bullied a girl - a girl who may be dead, or who may have disappeared, or who may have engineered the whole thing. But that isn't a secret - and the reason they're there is a secret that no one of them knows, but which, put all together, they can deduce. I was surprised it took as long as we did to get to a significant flashback point, and was sort of disappointed in how the denouement played out. (Also, if you think about the denouement, and what's been established throughout, it doesn't make a lot of sense from a practical point of view.) The postscript episode, told entirely in a flashback, is actually my favorite. It shows in a clear, dramatic way how even very ordinary lives can be full through with secrets, all growing entanglements with each other like cobwebs. This isn't a show that says that these girls are special in some way. It very methodically shows how they are not. There's a 3-episode sequence in the middle where someone else comes into the room with them, and they can - sort of - walk around, while the girls can't, and it's...very solid thriller/horror filmmaking. Still, I can't give it a high mark because screaming and breathing heavily on the soundtrack is inserted when it absolutely, positively isn't needed. Three stars.
</span><br />
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The VVitch - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix Streaming</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A drab, filthy , dark, colonial America forms the setting for a very simple decision that is universal. When the society that determines virtue is itself wicked, there are no boundaries for those it deems so. Huckleberry Finn put it comedically, when he reflected that helping Jim, the slave, to freedom would condemn him to hell, he steeled himself and said "Well, then, I'll go to hell." Here the injustice is more personal, more closely felt, and so the slowly failing boundaries falling one by one feel like personal liberations into a deadly wider world. Black Phillip for President. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Shining - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix Streaming</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A horror classic parodied so much that it's almost impossible to re-view the original, but when you do, you find the performances offputting in a very specific and engaging way. This isn't a movie that wants you to fully understand everything that's happening. It wants you to be swept up, drawn along irresistibly to an ending you need more than anything else but dread might be the worst thing ever. Five stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Creep - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix Streaming</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anchored by a tremendous razor's edge performance, this is the story of a videographer hired to film a guy who may or may not be a murderer. Every time you think he is, he is laughing and joking around - so the accusation is easy to deny. Then when you think he isn't, something very wrong is displayed, which makes you think maybe he is. Out of nowhere this became one of my favorite horror films. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Creep 2 - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix Streaming</span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The creep is back! And this time there's a girl? Although it's fine it seems to gild the lily. See above. Three stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Invitation - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix Streaming</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two people are invited over to their friends place - they haven't seen them in over a year. Halfway through they start talking about this weird organization. They even have a video to show. Is this a cult? Everyone laughs it off. Everyone's polite. They went through a hard time and maybe if this group is helping them then it's okay. But something isn't okay. The slow escalation in this one is incredible. It's one of my favorite horror films of all time. Five stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Hateful Eight - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Netflix Streaming</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is too easy to dismiss Quentin Tarantino as a guy obsessed with racial slurs, pulp movies and feet. With more or less unlimited Hollywood power, he decides to shoot a bottled-up Western that pulls no punches in a format phenomenally expensive film that goes over the top with gore, shock and elaborate backstories. The Western film is struggling with its identity and </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Hateful Eight</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> gives one option for its survival: depict the West as a hostile place full of the evil, greedy, broken and violent. But two and a half hours in the catharsis it starts to depict is wholly the wrong kind for what might have been a weird but unique take on the awful patchwork of American history. The performances are great, the film is gorgeous, and when the tension actually starts to mount you feel you are in the hands of the masters. But this didn't need to try to be what its creator clearly half wanted it to be. It's no </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jackie Brown</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, that's for sure. Three stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Suburbicon - </b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hulu and Amazon Prime. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Useful primarily as a reason for showing why the Coen Brothers' mastery of both humor and noir is a nearly impossible tightrope to walk, this story of a 1958 neighborhood and family coming apart under the incredible heat of premeditated violence and the consequences fail to reach either the levels of hilarity, pathos or weight needed to be much of anything, let alone the wild spiral between them that our current masters can bring about. They wrote it but Clooney couldn't walk the tightrope they strung. I'd rather see Clooney reach for his own voice instead of trying to chase his friends. Even the music cues don't get what's great about the Coens' use of music. Still, without the comparison, it moves along and carefully contains a simple story on two tracks, of a type of drama one rarely sees. I didn't feel cheated, so perhaps my expectations were too high. Three stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">American Vandal, Season 2</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix Original</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">American Vandal's season one was an undersung sensation, anchored by genius comedic performances by the cast and a script that methodically took the absurdity of the premise - a po'faced "true crime" investigation into a cheap high school prank - and, by simply never, ever blinking, walked it into a realm where it had something very clear to say about our fascination with such deep dives and the potential cost. Season 2 finds our heroes going to a new school to deal with a more malevolent entity ("a </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">serial</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> vandal!", someone gasps), but it makes the turn from comedy to drama much more quickly and delves into it to a much deeper degree. The central figure isn't the stoner/loser type of the first season, but instead, "the weird kid". Picked out by the police because he was bullied by his classmates... but he doesn't see it that way. (And then, later, perhaps, we feel that he secretly might, but can't admit to himself that he does.) </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course the adults in the show are craven and opportunistic, protecting their image at all costs, but then it is revealed that of course, </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">of course</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the kids in the show are the same way. It's a little more gross, a little more crass, but perhaps it ends with a little more heart, a little more hope. Demarcus Tillman for president. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Currently streaming on Amazon Prime.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have always been a Luc Besson stan; although this one was overlooked in theaters, I feel it's a clearer picture of Besson as sentimentalist. This movie seems corny and hammy and everyone's hollering to the ceiling, but it feels right, it feels great, it feels fun, and most of all, in a movie landscape where snark and sarcasm are the norm, it feels honest. Agents Valerian and Laureline are super-agents for an intergalactic consortium of species. They are dispatched to retrieve a "converter", a cute little aardvark-like creature who is the last of his species. In a jaw-droppingly executed black ops heist that takes place simultaneously in two overlapping dimensions they achieve their goal, but when they return to Alpha, the City of a Thousand Planets (and home to the consortium) discover both that the converter, the thief who stole it and the person who hired the thief to steal it may not be all that they seem. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Relentless visual inventiveness and an absolute commitment to sincerity make this movie different from the genre fare we're getting nowadays. It feels a lot like a 1950s sci-fi thriller with modern day action and CGI elements, in the best way. From the first six minutes of the film, in which (to the most dead-on obvious needle drop...the best kind of needle drop IMO) you see how Alpha began, you not only want the City to succeed, and thrive, you want it to hold on to the ideals it stands for. You want Valerian and Laureline to find a way to save it without compromising the sense of decency you want them to embody. (Of course the big question of the movie is whether they get married, it's a 1950s movie!) Rihanna turns in a much too short performance as a great artist - if they simply brought her back in the next movie without too much fuss I'd be thrilled. (There definitely won't be a next movie.)</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">After I first saw it, I thought it was maybe 3 stars....but it's stuck with me, the ideals and the visuals, perhaps not the characters or the plot. I started to give it 4, but then I remembered how Rihanna's character went out. Three stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It Comes At Night</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Streaming on Amazon Prime.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A postapocalyptic thriller about a little family of three holed up in a farm as a disease has destroyed humanity. They burn the body of one that was infected, and the next night someone tries to break into their home. They capture him. He has a family, and some goats and chickens; they have fresh water. They decide to take that family in. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The perfect example of a movie that does not rely on "plot" in the sense that we normally nitpick about. It's strictly a character piece, with unresolved questions and disconnected answers leaving you both befuddled and transported to a very dark place. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Ritual - </b>Netflix streaming</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another in the category of "horror enabled by streaming service" films. Four friends, mourning a fifth, take a long camping trip through the Swedish countryside that he had intended to take them on together. One, our point of view character, feels enormous guilt that he let the friend die in a robbery-gone-wrong. They decide to take a shortcut through a dense forest. Something lives in the forest which begins to prey on their minds and then on them. Eventually, they discover others who live in the forest who worship this being. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I've seen some negative reviews of this, because it falls into the category of "man pain" film, and if any of them showed any actual maturity, the movie wouldn't happen. I completely disagree. Yes, the characters make foolish decisions, but they are never portrayed as geniuses - the one with the most stable life and emotional center is also "the whiny one". We embrace stupid decisions made by horror movie teenagers, why not grown men? They're explicitly going on this "lad's vacation" to expunge some genuine feelings they have, and the thing they find is, often quite directly, responsible for bringing it to the fore. The ending might be a little 'on the nose' but it's not unearned. The unique design and behavior of the horror is also extremely effective. Four stars for the horror fan. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sunset Boulevard (1950)</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix Streaming</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Usually discussed as a film noir, this is best understood, in my opinion, as a Gothic. Joe Gillis is a screenwriter - he plays the part in the Gothic of the young, educated, willful, attractive woman who comes to the gigantic, crumbling house of the dark, formerly powerful, wealthy man, in this case, Norma Desmond. Although Gillis thinks he gets one up on Desmond, in the end they're getting their claws into each other. In the end, the house is too haunted, death in every room, in every frame. But ultimately it's passion, genuine, that tears the house down. See how many of the "waxworks" you can recognize - silent stars playing themselves as old folks. I got 2. Cecil B. DeMille is in this and honestly? He's incredible.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unforgettable, electric and iconic. Five stars only because we haven't invented a sixth. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blood Ransom (2014)</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Streaming on Hulu. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another entry in the "B-horror enabled by digital filmmaking" boom I'm chronicling. A singer in Los Angeles is turning into a vampire; her driver has been put in place specifically so she will kill him and complete her transformation. But he falls in love with her and she resists the transformation, at least at first. When two goons decide to kidnap her, noting her vampire boss' obsession and concluding he'll pay, both the driver and a vampire assassin go after her. Interview With A Vampire established the genre of the gloomy vampire saying things like "stay away from me!" and "what do you think I am?" and "you're the only person I can trust now" while extremely serious-faced, alternating with vomiting up blood and glowing red eyes. Twilight couldn't quite derail it. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's kind of insane that the transforming vampire lady is supposed to be a singer when we don't get to actually see her sing, but she does get on her hands and knees in the middle of the highway to literally lick blood off the asphalt. The movie understands the film should never crack a smile as these things are happening - let the audience do that when someone yells "you're standing in the middle of the road!" or "I need 24 hours!" or "I need your blood - I'm not going to hurt you!" Horror B-movies should embrace the badness, not the boringness, and this one does, though don't come looking for camp, everyone keeps it very serious-faced. I was worried that there wouldn't be a scene in which a naked vampire lady sensuously washes blood off herself in a shower. But there is! Three stars. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fargo Season 1</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Currently streaming on Hulu. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most of the post-Fargo-film attempts to capture the Coen lightning missed one of the following elements:</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">* consistent recognition of the humanity of each and every character</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">* recognition and respect for heart, not just intelligence, savviness or quirkiness</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">* sincerity</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The series has all of these things with one extremely important, crucial and effective deviation. Billy Bob Thornton turns in a breathtaking performance as Lorne Malvo, a hitman/"bounty hunter" who is most clearly understood, and very early on, as an inhuman force, a horrible storm of fate and (as the name suggests) malice that uproots everything around it. Martin Freeman as Lester Nygaard seems to stand in for all the people who sickeningly discover that their misfortunes haven't built any character. We learn extremely early on that anyone can be killed at any second in this series, for any reason, for a mistake, or for no reason at all. We know Allison Holman and Colin Hanks (as two young police officers in two separate towns) are in much more danger than they do and we desperately want them to survive not because of the mystery, but because of their heart. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ultimately I couldn't invest in Breaking Bad. The plot seemed okay. In Fargo, Season One, the whole world blossoms in freezing cold snow. The train is pulling out of the station. You have seconds to decide if you throw your glove out the window or if, like Lester, you can't really figure out why you would want to. Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Observance (2015)</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Streaming on TubiTV; you need a free account but need not subscribe.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another in the line of "extremely inexpensive genre film enabled by the existence of streaming services and digital filmmaking" movies that I've been pursuing over the last year, this one is a horror/thriller film. A private detective is assigned to a surveillance job of a young woman. It's his first job "back" after the death of his son; he needs the money to pay the lingering hospital bills. His dreams are nightmarish, his wife is incommunicado, the abandoned(?) apartment he's in seems more decrepit with every day that passes. The young woman he's surveilling doesn't leave her house, making it impossible for him to plant a listening device - and a confrontation with another man in which he forcibly tries to get her to leave also fails. By about 3/4 of the way through the movie you are increasingly convinced both of them are in some kind of supernatural or at least psychological trap in which she can't leave and he can't stop watching her not leave. The last act fails to deliver, though. Although there's some body horror that successfully ramps up the tension and a sudden unexpected shift in the point of view is intriguing, ultimately the film lacks either catharsis into his madness (or curse?) or her paranoia (or the conspiracy targeting her?) </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still, the small cast is well-used, and the concept fits the film, writing, direction and acting. It's a pleasant little needle of a horror flick and I don't feel I wasted my time on it. Three stars. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Freakish</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Hulu Original. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">With the second season recently dropping, I decided to give another look to the first season. As a "B-horror" series, it's perfectly adequate. It falls into a category we rarely see nowadays, but which was common in the 1980s-1990s: the specifically and consciously young adult horror flick, with gore somewhat downplayed but just enough blood, jumps and extremely broad acting for "horror" kids to have fun watching. The cast is former child stars, Disney actors, and even a few "digital celebs", and their acting is not what you'd call subtle. Their performances are broad and big both in drama and in comedy, for what's a pretty grounded location-horror scenario. After a chemical accident transforms the town into ravening killers, our Breakfast Club of heroes is trapped in their high school fortifying it both against the monsters and against a chemical gas cloud that could transform them at any time. Liza Koshy as Violet is one of the standouts - best known before this for being a "vine star" (RIP), she does a straight-man performance which is often unrewarding but helps anchor the show. Give it four stars if you're 11-14 years old and drew a grim reaper on your notebook. Three otherwise. I'll watch season two soon.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Long Shot</b><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Netflix streaming</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A short (40 minute) documentary whose trailer I posted earlier. A man is arrested for murder. He says he was at a Dodger game. Twenty nine thousand other people were there, too. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like documentaries that show lawyers being painstaking, because that's us at our best. (And most accurate.) This one does it. Yeah, it's a little self-congratulatory, but the twists and turns of it are worth it. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The twists and turns are too real to be perfect. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Four stars. </span><br />
<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"You can't go through life thinking of the "what ifs". The next two minutes are a what if."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>American Vandal</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b> </b>- A Netflix Original Series</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, this is exactly my type of satire. The over-serious true crime docudrama livened up by the absurdly small stakes and a long series of dick jokes. Yet as the series proceeds, it gets under your skin. The stakes go higher, and higher. And then some very real things start to happen. The ending makes extremely clear what the human cost of "deep dive" speculative documentaries like Serial and S-Town really are. It's a hilarious comedy but in the end it does have a message, and it's very meticulous and careful about building it. It's not just about ball hair. But it's at least about that, and much more stupidity to come.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tank Top Todd did nothing wrong!!!!!</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Abbatoir - </b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Netflix Streaming</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">An example of a good horror experience degraded by post-production. The odd, offbeat costuming, acting, locations, sets and direction (a character is spotted in a brown fedora only seconds after someone made a joke about old timey reporters wearing brown fedoras) would make for a quirkily creepy experience if they had managed to refrain from putting in dark musical stings whenever someone hands an ominous package to someone else or when there's a closeup on someone seeing something terrible.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A reporter is frustrated with her job and her personal life; she finds solace in her sister's family. That family's killed in a home invasion; within days, someone has purchased their house and torn the murder room out. She questions the realtor, who nervously says that she's just done the equivalent of asking a Broadway actor about </span><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Macbeth</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As an aficionado of Call of Cthulhu and World of Darkness, the plot is quite entertaining. The lead, Jessica Lowndes - who is also a pop singer I guess? - has a slightly stilted and awkward delivery that actually adds to the charm of the film. The character clearly sees herself as a spunky reporter in a screwball comedy, and being immersed in a horrific situation neither fully transforms her into a horror-film heroine nor lets her stay in that wisecracking reporter mode. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The trailer is everything that's wrong with the film boiled down into everything that's wrong with trailers, so I won't post it. I want to give it four stars because I like how weird and awkward it is but honestly it's probably only three.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Stranger - </b><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Streaming nearly everywhere</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Orson Welles stars opposite the incomparable Edward G. Robinson in this almost unbearably suspenseful thriller available nearly anywhere since a mistake let it fall into the public domain. A small time Nazi is released by the Allied War Crimes Commission in the hopes that he will lead their most implacable investigator (Robinson) to the most mysterious, horrible war criminal who ever escaped. He does exactly that in the first fifteen minutes of the film. The Nazi is living in bucolic postwar small town America, as a beloved teacher, marrying the most beautiful heiress to the most influential family of the little burg. He even gets the girl, as we watch! The sickness is in the most perfect place imaginable. Even the town clock refuses to work right.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But from the first frame of the film, we watch a brilliant, methodical mind tighten a noose slowly, inexorably, around his neck, and never, ever stops, not for any reason, ever. Reason and science tightens the noose. Emotion and connection tightens the noose. And happenstance and fate tightens the noose. Watching it work is like watching a clock tick closer and closer to midnight, or high noon.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Falls into the category of of a wildly spellbinding experience. Five stars. Available on Amazon Prime, TubiTV, Youtube and lots of other places, thanks to the public domain.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Buster's Mal Heart - </b>Netflix Streaming</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a sort of weirdness not often seen these days, but which I feel like digital filmmaking should enable - the conceptual film anchored by a singular performance. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A man is on the run from the police in the mountains. A man is alone in a boat in the middle of a placid ocean. A man struggles to hold his family together as sleep deprivation magnifies his paranoia and fears in the days before Y2K. At first you think you're seeing the same man at different points in his life, and begin to think that perhaps the man in the mountains is what happens to the sleep deprived man. Then you start to think it's the opposite. But what about the man in the boat? There's been a mistake. </span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ultimately the film suggests that our search for our place in the universe and our search for our own identity is the same search; that we are our place, and when our place changes, even if we didn't make it change, we change. When we change, our place in the universe changes. And in the end it says that peace can be found. But perhaps not a peace made by seeking to be free of fear, or "free of the machine", as one character puts it, but peace nonetheless.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is also a religious movie, and very Christian, concerned with themes of forgiveness, kindness and trust, though I suspect most would not see it as a "Christian film" in the normal sense.</span><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The whale is a holy place. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Four stars.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-44048787769299405822018-10-08T11:44:00.002-07:002018-10-08T23:16:01.770-07:00You Don't Have A Tabletop RPG Community (Probably) - Part One<div>
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Every so often a post gets shared on social media and it's something about how we need to do something on behalf of "the RPG community" - shun a harasser, yell at someone with a bad blog post or gross cover art on their $3.99 supplement for a game nobody plays, or destroy the story game pigs. These appeals often fall on deaf ears when they come to me, often to the consternation of others. My explanation, that I don't think there's a community that tabletop RPG enthusiasts online belong to, is never welcome to any side of whatever blow-up is happening this week. So I'm going to post my thoughts on this subject, in detail, here.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJ_LbT99YPKrA5fFPwEPuYrxzSXvSV38ZQbXE5w2KsS1yppVx-LBgBYXfxe0Ee6ZiyBXk28qMsC0CfN-F43a7rn2xowxli20dWcdytiG19BeIn13zimfDaYRrS6Y5Asw4hnkvoWzpOrgu/s1600/halloween_1978_still%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJ_LbT99YPKrA5fFPwEPuYrxzSXvSV38ZQbXE5w2KsS1yppVx-LBgBYXfxe0Ee6ZiyBXk28qMsC0CfN-F43a7rn2xowxli20dWcdytiG19BeIn13zimfDaYRrS6Y5Asw4hnkvoWzpOrgu/s320/halloween_1978_still%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"There is no such thing as society." - Margaret Thatcher,<br />
<i>Halloween </i>(1978)</td></tr>
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A quick caveat before we begin: During the controversy (?) over a couple of Magpie Games blog posts a couple of years ago, two separate people told me they considered my statement that there was no RPG community to be a direct threat to them. More than one person has confirmed this feeling to me in other contexts as well.<br />
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Well, sure. If you're walking down a street and a guy with a butcher knife walks up and shouts "you know, the laws don't apply to <i>me</i>!" that can be scary. </div>
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So if you're someone who <i>needs </i>there to be a tabletop RPG community to feel safe, don't read what follows. Even if I'm right, it doesn't matter. (Perhaps that should say "<i>especially</i> if I'm right, it doesn't matter".) This blog only has 6 readers (including 2 dogs) so nobody is actually listening to this, and, if you hadn't already noticed, there's literally hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year trying to convince you, me and everyone on earth that I'm wrong. I don't stand a chance, and neither do you or the rest of the world.<br />
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Google, Facebook, and Twitter don't <i>only </i>want to convince you that buying a thing, and then talking about that thing online is sufficient to form the basis for a viable, positive community. They are working to convince you that the "communities" formed by doing so are actually much more meaningful than participating in communities which <i>aren't</i> based on buying things and talking about them. Compared to that kind of ridiculously over-funded opposition, blog posts like this one have no power and do not do anything. Aren't you glad you read this far? "Yeah, time well spent," is what you're thinking right now. Anyway, you will be safe and happy forever if you don't read any further, and there will never be any impact to you for deciding not to read this. So if that's what you need, then <i>stop here</i>.</div>
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<h2>
My Racist Neighbor Hits The Same Potholes I Do</h2>
A hypothetical that I often serve up in these discussions is simple:<br />
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My neighbors and I are in a community. (Most would agree with this.) Now, assume that I have an extremely racist neighbor. Are we in the same community?<br />
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Perhaps I don't associate with him as friends, or invite him to events at my house. Perhaps I caution other neighbors about dealing with them. Perhaps I even confront them or (times being what they are) talk shit about them online. But even after all those things I do, are we still in a community together?<br />
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Yes, of course we are. The determining factor, in my view, is that, among many other things, <i>communities share needs</i>. If the streets in my neighborhood are run-down and full of potholes, or if a traffic light isn't safe, or if the schools are in crummy shape, that affects all of us in the community. Our community has joint needs that are more important than many of our differences. My racist neighbor might propose horrendous ways of dealing with the community's needs, or grossly misdiagnose the community's needs, but ultimately my neighborhood community isn't a social club. <b>A community is not a group of friends</b>. (Not even "Facebook friends", or, as they used to be called, "enemies.") We share the use and need the support of a physical space and that's what makes us a community.<br />
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My neighborhood also holds resources in common. We're covered by a court system, policed by a City agency, we have trash pickup through a City contract, and if the air is smoggy my racist neighbor has to breathe it too.<br />
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Of course, it would be ideal if my racist neighbor would fuck off. If they would drive on their own roads (bumpy as possible, please) and breathe their own air (scented with farts, one hopes), of course I would be happier. But exile from my neighborhood is controlled by many mechanisms and institutions, with protections both for my racist neighbor and myself. The police might arrest them for burning tires on their front lawn, or for the inevitable public defecation charge that seems inextricably associated with displaying the Confederate flag, but if they do, a lawyer will be appointed, which I help pay for, to help them out. My racist neighbor might not pay their rent, or their mortgage, or their taxes, and in such cases their landlord, bank or government can turn to the courts to expel them from the community, if they follow the rules for doing so. The same protections extend to both him and I, whether they be robust or anemic.<br />
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Now, <i>could there be </i>a community with anti-racist values that included me but excluded my neighbor? Of course. A community working towards a <b>particular goal</b> can take on board values that include me and exclude that scumbag next door. A community's values can be quite important, and make a big difference to who is allowed in. But there isn't a community that doesn't have both:<br />
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<li>Jointly held needs and goals; and</li>
<li>Jointly held assets directed towards those needs.</li>
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And as soon, as soon, <i>as soon</i> as we look to "tabletop RPG aficionados discussing their hobby online", hoping to find the values and priorities of (or inculcate values into) this "community", we immediately see catastrophe looming.<br />
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General Delivery: The Community</h2>
Where, broadly, is the online tabletop RPG community? Well, I am told, it is situated on many different platforms and has shifted over time. In the 1990s it was on Usenet, then it went to web forums, and now it is on social media. Thus, the community has shifted from existing in media controlled by nonprofit entities (Usenet servers were controlled by universities, for the most part) to those controlled by enthusiasts (web forums) to those controlled by increasingly large for-profit entities.<br />
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A few slivers remain where this isn't true, the collapsed, fading remnants of another time: the mailing list, a web forum or two (often a subforum on a web forum about something else) the shared livejournal, the curated blog with a hundred people who read it. Does Dragon Magazine still have a letters column? But overwhelmingly, today, Google, Facebook and Twitter control the means of the tabletop RPG community's communication with each other. Importantly, those entities are under significant financial pressure to constantly bring new people into these platforms and never, ever kick anyone off. Their entire business model (to the degree they have one and aren't just frantically staving off a crazed, thinkpiece-spewing collapse) depends on a constant stream of people joining their platform and sharing commercial opinions and preferences. As someone memorably said, when you use a free service like Facebook, you are not the customer, <i>you are the product and the advertiser buying your information is the customer</i>. Worse, those controlling the platforms will simply never share the power to exclude someone from their platforms with anyone else. What does this mean for the online tabletop RPG community?<br />
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It means that the community cannot screen the values or priorities of the constant stream of people who arrive. It means the people who are aggressively pushed into this community have no common assets or needs, and so cannot organize to achieve common goals even if they had them, which they don't. Importantly, it means that so long as for-profit corporate entities control the entryway and environment of the tabletop online RPG community, <i>nothing can be done to change this</i>. What tiny waves of influence tabletop enthusiasts might try to exert will be suppressed, as much as possible, by multi-billion dollar corporations and their massive financial partners. I think I know who will win.<br />
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Without shared values and priorities, the online tabletop RPG community can't exist, or if one momentarily flutters into existence, it will quickly be intentionally drowned. To put it another, more direct way:<br />
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<li>Can a racist buy a RPG supplement? Of course they can. Amazon makes a lot of money selling tiki torches to racists, why not RPG supplements? All the money in the world is presently working to find a way to sell RPG supplements (and baby food, vegetable oil and golf clubs) to racists (and others) faster and easier and more efficiently.</li>
<li>Can a racist organize a RPG group? Empirically, of course they can! They don't need anyone's permission. Lots of racist people out there, and plenty of milquetoast <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFGQdvYIJ0M" target="_blank">"Your Racist Friend"</a> people who don't mind hanging around them. </li>
<li>Can a racist come online and talk about RPGs? Yes, certainly. The gatekeepers of the discussion spaces are desperate for them to, in order that they can take that tiny fraction of a percent of information from the discussion and sell them to advertisers. If someone doesn't decide to come online and speak their opinions, the people who process, repackage and sell those opinions will find those temporarily silent people and figure out some way to get them to share.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Nowhere in this process is there even room for any leverage to keep them away. You couldn't slide a piece of paper between the needs of our new racist community entrant and the goals of the corporate entities desperately trying to extract money from their opinions. One gear turns the other. </div>
<br />
The pipeline of online capitalism will serve racists the product, then that same pipeline will serve those racists up to social media as a product for advertisers, and social media will always, always, always deliver them to interactions which serve <i>the interests of the advertisers purchasing the data</i>, not the interests of the other people using the social media channels. The material conditions of social media interaction mean there can never be a community there - if one temporarily arises, those that control the interactions of that community will sluice millions of eyeballs and words onto it until the community is destroyed. Usually it takes less than a few months. At times you can see it happen in days. Soon technology will advance far enough to make it possible to destroy a burgeoning online community in hours! ("The best of all possible worlds!" says a computer programmer in a gated development with an AR-15 next to his desk.)<br />
<br />
As bad as this sounds, the reality is <i>even worse. </i>Aren't you glad you're still reading? The financial pressures of the tech sector are going to make these conditions worse, not better, as those same technological pressures will make delivering the RPG products to the racists easier, cheaper, and faster, and erode every ounce of structural power in the hands of the users of social media.<br />
<br />
And there's still more bad news looming. Let's consider the new broadcast potential of streaming and the desperately aggressive jockeying for each set of eyeballs connected to a Patreon account or unique Youtube hit. You won't change those dynamics because those eyeballs and hits each are a chunk of data and money and there are a limited (though very large) number of them. Commercial motivation becomes the pressure not just for purchasing, but for play itself. Now not only can you not hold back your own commercial opinions, now the money urges you to perform for it, not for yourself, but for the spare change of millions, and to perform louder and louder and louder, forever. Death is the only escape. Hail Satan.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of this blog's most stylish readers</td></tr>
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Now you're thinking, "But JD, I have lots of online friends. Are you saying we're bad?" No, certainly not. You're not bad at all. I'd go so far as to say that everyone reading this is a good and pleasant person (or dog). The fools and churls (and the impatient?) gave up and blocked me long ago. But remember all the times that you and your social media friends got really upset about a bad RPG thing ....and then <i>nothing happened?</i><br />
<br />
<h2>
A Case Study In Frustration</h2>
Let's hark back to a controversy from a few years ago. Wizards of the Coast announced the release of the 5th Edition of the Dungeons and Dragons Player's Guide. Two people were listed as consultants, and some believed those two people had harassed and attacked people in "the community" (or intentionally provoked it to happen), so they naturally became upset. Those accused denied the accusations, and - equally naturally - became upset that they had been accused.<br />
<br />
It mattered a great deal (so it seemed!), and not just to those directly involved - the accusers and the accused. Many involved felt vulnerable to harassment or attack as a "community leader" (WOTC) had seemed to bestow their blessing on dangerous people. Lots of people even formed and expressed a quite strong opinion about it. It absolutely consumed tabletop online discussions in every channel that it was permitted to spread to - Twitter, Facebook, G+, even those creaky old blogs and web forums!<br />
<br />
But <i>what actually changed?</i><br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Community" Responds To A Major Happening</td></tr>
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What happened in the "online tabletop RPG community", as a result of the accusation? Nothing whatsoever. What happened as a result of the denial of the accusations? Nothing at all. Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition was not affected - it sold as many copies as could be expected, the two controversial consultants still run their forums and blogs, and still release their RPG supplemental material and get gigs from other RPG sources. How infuriating that must be for everyone involved, even them! A serious accusation is made, and denied, there is no means for resolving it and the impotence of the result lingers over all those who were wronged - whoever they may be.<br />
<br />
If there were a tabletop online RPG community, controversies like this would be considered, empirically, its most significant conflicts. They frantically consume all avenues of conversation for days, months or even years. You'll note that even I, a hermit who lives in a cave in the desert, a foolish recluse who doesn't even think there <i>is</i> a RPG community, knows about the "D&D consultants controversy" that shook that phantom community to its core. Yet despite the supposed importance of these controversies, "the community" has no means of resolving them, or enforcing their resolution, or using that resolution to advance their goals or spread their values.<br />
<br />
If I accuse my neighbor (even the racist one!) of stealing my barbecue grill, and they deny it, there are many mechanisms by which this controversy can be resolved. The police can investigate; if they can't puzzle it out, I can sue my neighbor myself. If all that fails, perhaps my insurance company will reimburse me; not full justice, but certainly more than nothing.<br />
<br />
If I volunteer at an organization and have a conflict with another volunteer, we have a supervisor to resolve it, or (ultimately) the organization has a board of directors and they will resolve it, whether to my benefit or not, and the organization will have policies and procedures both formal and informal to be sure that the organizations' goals are served by both the method of resolving the conflict and the resolution itself. We spend our days in communities of all kinds, surrounded by these sorts of mechanisms, visible and invisible, commonly used and rarely deployed, formal and informal. I'd write more about these types of systems but that's my day job and as lovely as you all are, you're too broke to hire me.<br />
<br />
So when this consultants' controversy arose, and people with increasing franticness accused and denied and counter-accused, there was no result - the controversy collapsed from exhaustion, not from resolution. And let's be clear, I don't want to blame the "tabletop online RPG community" for this inaction because what possible thing could "the community" have done? What shared resources does it have, to direct towards which shared need?<br />
<br />
No community mechanism existed to resolve the D&D5 consultants controversy. Plenty of <i>individuals </i>announced which side they believed or where they came down, but, bluntly, so fucking what? I am allowed to believe Nicole Simpson was killed by her husband all I want. I can even say so on social media if I wish! But it's a <i>jury</i> that decides <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_murder_case#Verdict" target="_blank">if the police have enough credible evidence to convict her husband</a>, or to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_murder_case#Civil_trial" target="_blank">take away his money</a>.<br />
<br />
There is no such mechanism for the supposed "community" of RPG gamers - not even a show trial at GenCon in which we are all invited to denounce the accused as counter-revolutionary. And individuals acting alone, even by the thousands, will never cause a material change in how a community operates so long as their actions take place in an environment where their only meaningful action is the production of consumer data and the only thing that may be meaningfully expressed is a personal consumer preference. Nobody, on any side, in the D&D5 consultants controversy <i>organized</i> to obtain a particular material outcome they felt was just.<br />
<br />
And once you really start to think about it, it's impossible to even imagine what a community mechanism to resolve this type of controversy <i>would be </i> if we remember the structure of being an online RPG person. Remember, the pressures of the money will always be towards delivering more new RPG aficionados to RPGs, delivering those people online, and asking them to share their opinions, then to share them faster, more shallowly and with less consideration for others. That's what the pressure will be, that's what the money wants, and the money will want it forever, the pressure constantly mounting and the technology to inflict that pressure becoming more and more inexpensive and effective. Designers, publishers (like WOTC, in our example), big-time streamers, big conventions, social media influencers and others in that monetary ecosystem have no financial incentive to do anything but accelerate it, to jam on the gas as hard as possible. If they have any hesitations that this is what must happen, the next business behind them won't, and will run them right over. To put it in video game terms, if PewDiePie doesn't scream racial slurs enough, another streamer will replace him who will. It's <i>what the money wants</i>.<br />
<br />
Nobody responded to the WOTC consultants controversy by saying "Well, of course WOTC can't be trusted, <i>of course</i> they are the enemy of the RPG hobby, even if everyone on the credits page is as pure as the driven snow! They're <i>a publisher</i>! Of course they won't ever do anything good for their customers without a gun to their heads. They're an American business! They were never, ever, ever, ever our friends! They never will be! They want our money!" Well, I mean, I did, but it was not exactly what you'd call a welcome message. People just yelled at me and a sneering kid in a Critical Role hat pushed me down a flight of stairs, where I died instantly.<br />
<br />
This disconnect between a perceived community and its illusory nature also suffices to explain why many among those that complained the loudest about Wizards of the Coast's actions were never going to buy a new D&D edition in the first place, or had only passing interest in it. Announcing that they weren't going to buy this particular edition literally had no financial impact (though it was also not a boycott; see part two, coming When It's Ready.) They had no leverage to accomplish what they wanted to accomplish, but they felt they <i>should </i>have that leverage. They felt they should hammer on a button on their phone that would tell everyone that they weren't going to do a thing they had never intended to do in the first place, or that they felt strongly about a thing that they absolutely, positively knew nothing would be done about. This must have been a sickening feeling: to know <i>while shouting </i>that it was into a void. But social media demanded it, and because social media is in control of the "community"'s means of communications, it got what it demanded: weightless opinions, another sliver of a sliver of a percentage point that one day might be sold to an advertiser.<br />
<br />
To put it another way, consider those who made the accusation that the consultants were poorly chosen, and the "community" they thought they were defending. What was the <i>goal</i> of this supposed community action? Was it to cause Wizards of the Coast to break their agreement with their consultants and cut them from the credits? No - surely the crime wasn't the credit, but the agreement that produced the credit, which itself was already carried out completely by the time the public found out about it. Did "the community" want an apology from Wizards of the Coast? No; giving and receiving apologies is derided and degraded these days, but more importantly, an apology wouldn't be enough, since Wizards already profited from its association with the consultants. ("I'm so sorry!" says the embezzler, as he lines his pockets with your money. <i>"</i>Well, okay," nobody ever says. "He said he was sorry<i>.")</i><br />
<br />
Even worse, what if Wizards didn't directly profit from that association, but felt the consultants' contributions were helpful to their creation of D&D5? (Isn't this the most likely scenario given how few people actually read the credits page of roleplaying game books or have even the slightest familiarity with the material conditions of their production?) Perhaps the ultimate goal was to compel Wizards of the Coast to announce they would not work with those consultants again - but they only put out a D&D book a couple of times a year these days, and a team of dozens works on each one (according to the credits), so how much of a sacrifice exactly would that be? And how would such a promise be enforced? How would we know if it was broken? What could be done if it was? (The answers are "it couldn't", "we wouldn't" and "nothing", but nobody even bothered to ask!) Was the goal to require Wizards to find the consultants' feedback and go through D&D5 expunging the ideas or changes the consultants suggested?<br />
<br />
If so, we should be able to identify an organized group putting forward their idea. But we can't - all we have is social media - all we have is individuals saying "I like this" or "I don't like this" or "I like that you like this" or "I don't like that you like this" or "I don't like that you like this" or "I don't like that you don't like this", forever giving a <i>preference, </i>or a preference about preferences, or a preference about having preferences about preferences,<i> </i>but desperately avoiding an <i>action</i>.<br />
<br />
Nobody actually organized "the community" to attempt to press for any particular response from Wizards. Individuals talked about it on social media, sometimes quite influential individuals. People with lots of Twitter followers wrote lots of tweets and people posted about it on rpg forums. There were even some blog posts! (Though not one from me - I already treat everyone I buy things from as if their moral standing was approximately midway between a poisoner and a blackmailer, so there is nothing worse I can do to someone than be their customer, and nothing worse I can do to an audience than tell them honestly how I feel - aren't you glad you read this far? "yeah, time well spent") But nobody organized a community action. Nobody mobilized a community towards a goal. The only actions taken were ultimately directed to Twitter, Google, and Facebook, handing them just another little sliver of opinion that might one day result in an advertiser getting an ad to be just a sliver of a percentage point more effective.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Exactly the right amount of justice</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
Please don't mistake this for the sneering rhetorical flourish often seen: "the complainers can never be satisfied! No matter what you give them they'll ask for more!" That's definitely not what I am getting at. (Besides, is there actually such a thing as "too much justice"?) My point is that there was no <i>organization</i> around <i>any </i>goal. You couldn't give the "complainers" what they asked for because they never, as a community, organized to actually ask for anything.<br />
<br />
With no organization around a goal, the outcome - nothing - was inevitable. "Nothing" is not only what could be expected, but was the only possible outcome, and, crucially, it is the desired outcome of the social media companies who want you to be passionate enough to share your opinions about products in their channels, but not so passionate that you actually organize to improve the material conditions which produce those products.<br />
<br />
Assume for a moment there was a group of people concerned by Wizards' selection of consultants and decided they wanted a written apology. Those people <i>could organize to get it</i>. They would have a <i>goal</i>. They could even, if they worked at it, try to form a organization or (perhaps) even a community based around the idea that RPG producers should act a certain way, and if they don't, the organization can work together to get a written apology from them. People that didn't want a written apology wouldn't be a part of that community - people who didn't have any assets by which a written apology could be obtained couldn't. This community could decide to do many perfectly legitimate things: not just "raise awareness", but organize a boycott, obtain support from others at Wizards, or others in the industry with contacts there, work with secondary markets (retail, etc.) to put pressure on Wizards, hell, they could picket GenCon if they wanted, or ask a convention to ban the product from sale there, all to the goal of getting that written apology. When they got it, they could high five each other; if they didn't, they could keep working, and if Wizards' stubbornness outlasted their determination or if not enough people supported them, they could fail.<br />
<br />
Importantly, if you didn't think a written apology was valid, desirable, justified or useful, you could ignore what they were doing, or organize against it. The community would have its entry controlled by whether or not potential entrants <i>shared their goals</i>.<br />
<br />
And it is the same for all the kerfluffles that sweep through our communications channels. An accusation of harassment, a piece of racially stereotyped art, a white supremacist nominated for an award - no matter what the controversy is, nobody is able to <i>do</i> anything in this supposed community. That's because there is no community. There is no repository of shared values. There are no shared needs that aren't held by financially-hostile third parties who benefit from the way things are now (publishers, designers, social media companies, etc.) And there are no shared material goals. Some of us might like each other, but a community is not a group of friends.<br />
<br />
That's not to say all hope is lost. If a group determined that they wanted a particular outcome, they could organize, and work for that outcome. By selecting a goal, and subordinating their own preferences to a common goal they stop being just a bunch of customers, stop being just a bunch of online friends, and take the first step towards being a community. But social media and public-facing Internet communication channels consist entirely and only of <i>the performance of individual preferences</i>, and as a result, no organization and no community can survive there. You would have to write someone an e-mail, call them on the phone, talk to them in person - go into some form of communication where you have the control over what can meaningfully be said and not the platform. It's scary to do so, because you don't have control over what the other person might say to you, and you can't be guaranteed that it will be an anodyne, performative "opinion". When you talk privately to someone, what comes from it might be real. When you try to organize, what comes from that might be painful and your attempt might fail. (Not like social media, where you say the thing and you <i>did it!</i>)<br />
<br />
And if you begin to think about communities in terms of needs, goals and resources, you can identify places where a tabletop RPG community <i>might </i>exist - the group that organizes a long-running convention, for example. A club whose goal is public outreach, or whose goal is improving GM-ing, or practicing and improving their streaming skills, or whose goal is introducing indie games to established roleplayers. I'll go into that more next time. You're <i>probably </i>not in a tabletop RPG community, but you might be.<br />
<br />
Well, that's my post about why our situation is bad, it's worse than you thought, and even worse than that - but guess what? The future will be <i>even worse than the present</i>. Aren't you glad you read this far?<br />
<br />
<b>Continued in Part Two: Self-Deportation, The Social Media Non-Boycott And What Can Be Done (Nothing). </b>To be posted probably in like 2020 or something.<br />
<br />
Appendix to Part One: Today, Google announced that <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/8/17951890/google-plus-shut-down-security-api-change-gmail-android" target="_blank">Google Plus would be shut down</a> for consumers over the next 10 months. As the kids say, "Welp"<br />
<h2>
</h2>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-4692290742307147662018-09-17T12:13:00.002-07:002018-09-17T20:50:55.193-07:00"Tournament of Rapists" - Three Years On, What We All Definitely Learned And Did Not In Any Way Forget Or Overlook<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Finally, some peace and quiet!" My house, before I let it run down.</td></tr>
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In late summer 2015, a significant kerfluffle (don't ever use those two words together part 2: together again), erupted regarding a Drivethrurpg-sold supplement called <i>Tournament of Rapists</i>, a supplement for the <i>Black Tokyo</i> d20 Modern game line. It resulted in a clarification of OneBookshelf's content policies, and an outcry that freedom of speech had been completely destroyed; permanently eliminated, never to return. <br />
<br />
This news was a great relief to me. I for one was enthusiastic about an impending future where all free expression was eradicated, and I'm sure wasn't the only one: <i>"Finally, some peace and quiet!"</i> Still, somehow I survived, and so did RPGs and, shockingly, so did talking about them on the Internet.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><h2>
The Pickpocket's Debate: Linen Gloves or Deerskin?</h2>
<br />
The "debate" that raged (few enough people were talking to each other and nobody was listening to each other, so the word is a poor approximation) was almost exclusively over how and whether <a href="http://drivethrurpg.com/">Drivethrurpg.com</a> should go about selling The Damned Thing, a debate that to me that, as a RPG purchaser (and drivethrurpg.com reviewer), sounded for all the world like arguing over which pistol people thought the robber ought point at me. Naturally, we all know that at this late date, with the gloom gathering and the stars overhead going out, anyone you buy anything from is trying to dredge as much out of you as possible for as little as possible in return. Of course every business you have dealings with will cheat you, lie to you, poison you, and steal from you, if they can make a nickel doing it, or, shortly, those businesses will die and be replaced by one that will. Such is the nature of buying and selling in this best of all possible 21st centuries. People want the inhuman commerce machines who control every aspect of our waking day (and many hours of our dreams!) to reflect their values, but the best the "business community" can ever do is pander. On their normal days the entities we traffick with simply lie to us and on their worst days, they torture us. They will never be human and so can never be virtuous, but hope springs eternal, outrage is an adrenaline-spiking fire, and disappointed snark is free.<br />
<br />
So during this conflict I found myself in a strange place - every accusation against <i>Tournament of Rapists</i> seemed to be deployed only to try to persuade DriveThruRPG to refuse to sell it, and, similarly, the defenders of the product, such as they were, responded as if free expression itself would fall if it wasn't sold in their favorite (?) storefront. I suppose the agitation nerds feel towards the commercial keepers of their interests shouldn't surprise me at this late date. Fox canceled a pretty average, middle-of-the-road space Western 15 years ago and the crazed freakout this decision caused is, as far as I can tell, still going on. ("The real injustice was the cancellation of <i>Terriers!" </i>I howl, but nobody's going to ask me about that on a convention panel.)<br />
<br />
Few were really directing their concerns to the product itself, and - quite surprisingly - none of the defenders were. Everyone who styled themselves a defender of <i>Tournament of Rapists,</i> with ritualistic fervor bordering on tedium, had to denounce <a href="http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/DamnThin.shtml" target="_blank">The Damned Thing</a> before they demanded DriveThruRPG try to sell it to them. "Good luck, you're gonna need it!" one imagines them cheerfully concluding.<br />
<br />
Only a few, on either side, were attempting to actually engage with the material and respond to it on its own terms. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2x5Y1vyj1gSkxt5vyTufTGc3J6k0uJX_TyydxcAXi7v7i3gsKJ3ERsLSThfme6_DmujhW7fD7_7SfxS6b2F6xKjRSIm_66MAsSPdC_KfoY48R1MmzW9R9LBAcynbDSSGXcOx_ek712hHo/s1600/cannall1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2x5Y1vyj1gSkxt5vyTufTGc3J6k0uJX_TyydxcAXi7v7i3gsKJ3ERsLSThfme6_DmujhW7fD7_7SfxS6b2F6xKjRSIm_66MAsSPdC_KfoY48R1MmzW9R9LBAcynbDSSGXcOx_ek712hHo/s320/cannall1.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
I mean, I can explain what is objectionable about George Fitzhugh's <i><a href="http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/fitzhughcan/menu.html" target="_blank">Cannibals, All!</a> </i>(a deranged pro-slavery pre-Civil War publication). Perhaps even I can urge that its publication was harmful, a wicked deed, and it ought to have been suppressed, but in order to do so I have to look at what it is - the circumstances of its publishing, its form and style, its content and arguments, its emotional and moral appeals, its audience and their inclinations. Or perhaps we conclude after an examination of these qualities that as vile as it was it was comparatively harmless and its suppression would be useless. Or perhaps we conclude that it was vile, but it reflected a well-established vileness in society, so its suppression was not possible or would not have been effective, and should not have been done. Or we conclude that it was vile but we are all right with vile pamphlets of this sort being published because it does not cross some other line. (I suppose in Trump's America I ought to consider the possibility that someone might find a deranged racist pro-slavery pamphlet not to be vile at all, but please leave me my illusions for as long as I can keep them.) Not until we have situated the work in the context of its time, place, form and format can we make these evaluations with any kind of thoughtfulness.<br />
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Once you start that undertaking with <i>Tournament of Rapists</i> you start to really run headlong into the same type of obstacles I described in my <a href="http://jdcspot.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-principles-of-d20-supplements.html" target="_blank">post about "list of feat" products</a> - the evaluation of RPG products is aesthetically very challenging, since they are best understood not as works of fiction themselves, but technical manuals for a rough, private improvisational performance. In other words, before it even makes sense to turn our eyes to DriveThruRPG and lecture them on what they should or shouldn't sell - in the same spirit as urging the crocodile eating us to keep its teeth brushed - we need to determine what we ought to and actually do with RPG products when we buy them, and that's not a question most are interjecting into the "debate."<br />
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It's even worse for tabletop RPG <b>supplements</b>: <i>Tournament of Rapists</i> is a setting supplement for a game line, <i>Black Tokyo</i>, which is itself based on another game line from an entirely different company, <i>D20 Modern</i>, which, according to the legalese in the front matter, is based on another game, <i>Dungeons & Dragons</i>. Unquestionably D&D and D20 Modern are extremely relevant to why <i>Tournament of Rapists </i>and <i>Black Tokyo</i> are both creative failures. Yet neither of those two games were mentioned when most spoke of The Damned Thing.<br />
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Would people have been okay with <i>Tournament of Rapists </i>if the title had been less crass, or if the text had been clearer that this was intended as a hall of villains and a description of their perfidy? Perhaps some might have been appeased by this, but this position doesn't take RPG players seriously as collaborators in a creative process. Just as importantly, who exactly lays eyes on the titles or texts of digital RPG supplements at your table anyway? One person? Maybe two. You could just decide not to print out the title page. (I assume everyone is still printing all the digital RPG supplements they buy because otherwise, the industry's continued use of the PDF format would be, if not technically a crime, severe negligence.) No, certainly the objections went deeper than just a stupid title.<br />
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The flaws in <i>Tournament of Rapists </i>go right down to the conceptual level, yet few were willing to look at it that closely - it was like most people simply couldn't conceive of a criticism of the game on any level other than where it stood in a commercial market. On the other "side", interlocutors couldn't conceive of a criticism of where the game stood in a market as anything short of demanding its non-existence, and explicitly skipped the step of saying what, if anything, made The Damned Thing actually worthwhile.<br />
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Rather, when The Damned Thing came out, most who protested it expressed that 1) they might come across it when they didn't want to, 2) others outside the hobby might come across it and gain a poor view of the hobby that was unwarranted, or 3) another, less horrible, product might be sold next to it. All these things just endlessly circle a debate over what the identity of <i>DriveThruRPG </i>should be - is it a family friendly channel, broadcast TV, capable on its most dangerous night of having a chaste same-sex kiss at 9:45 PM? Okay, maybe it can go further and be basic-cable edgy, but not descend to the level of <a href="https://spacetwinks.itch.io/anime-hell-1995" target="_blank">dodgy late-night anime fansubs found in sticky VHS boxes in evidence lockups</a>. Or maybe it'll deliver hardcore porn on demand to anyone who wants some? That question is all DriveThruRPG's problem, or a problem between DriveThruRPG and its publisher partners. It's not <i>our </i>problem as players of RPGs. It's not <i>my</i> problem as someone who tries to determine if a RPG product is good or bad. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><u>In short, the fault is not in DriveThruRPG dot com; the fault is in our selves.</u></b></blockquote>
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Our responsibility is to respond honestly to what we are experiencing and know, and to that extent I was let down by my fellow RPG players online. I saw people who already would never play, purchase or read <i>Tournament of Rapists</i>, who had rejected D20 Modern and D&D for over a decade, becoming very, very agitated about The Damned Thing, as if it could be reasonably expected to affect them, or anyone at their table, or anyone that they know or might ever speak to.<br />
<i><br /></i>
Before I go further, I do want to acknowledge that there were others did try to engage with The Damned Thing, even one I can remember that looked at the excerpts from the product to explain their thinking. There were also others who had noticed and mocked the <i>Black Tokyo </i>game line for years. At least both of these approaches engaged with the material. The people making fun of it found it laughable and they therefore laughed at it; this is a fit and proper outcome. Those that found it disgusting expressed their disgust, those who attempted to situate it in the long and very poor history of the portrayal of sexual abuse in the hobby at least had a point of view on it beyond how it should be situated as a commercial product. By no means is this blog post meant to say "I'm the only one that noticed these things!" But <i>in my circles</i>, very few did. (I won't link those that did because god knows none of them need to worry about people getting mad at my dumb opinion and fucking with them instead of me since I keep my comments section, ears and eyes closed at all times.)<br />
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<i>Tournament of Rapists</i> was a product that was only ever going to sell 4 copies; 2 of them to wealthy rubberneckers, and which almost certainly could never see even a single second of at-table play. (The mechanical flaws in the supplement are too boring to list here; download any D20 Modern supplement and you'll see them repeated again and again.) The commercial significance of the product is essentially zero, so critiquing commercial decisions about it's sale or potential lack of sales seems the very definition of woolgathering. Whatever the problem with <i>Tournament of Rapists </i>was, it certainly wasn't that the actual product would affect people's actual games. It wouldn't turn the RPG hobby in a new direction. No one was ever going to play it, read it or even look at it, within the margin of error.<br />
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But to say the product could never have had any impact is not a defense of it. If <i>Tournament of Rapists </i>is simply a waste of time, a completely worthless collection of bits and bytes, why <i>not </i>exile it? If the product won't help anything by its presence, surely we are not harmed by its absence. <br />
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Of course Chris Field could simply print it out and hand it to whoever wanted it, so it's not a matter of his legal rights to freedom of expression. Tabletop RPGs did get made and sold before Drivethrurpg existed, after all. If <i>Tournament of Rapists</i> isn't worthwhile, what exactly are we "protecting" when we demand a particular position for it in a commercial market?<br />
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This whole shebang also put me in a strange position for one reason: <a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product_reviews_info.php?&reviews_id=93322&products_id=104235" target="_blank">I like Chris Field's other work</a> and I have for years.<br />
<h3>
The Damned Thing</h3>
I don't want to defend <i>Tournament of Rapists</i>, because it's completely indefensible and an absolute toxic waste dump all the way down to its rotten core. But I want to explain why it was actually bad, why it failed <u>on the terms that it presented</u>, not just in terms of being a crass relative at the family dinner table, or a billboard selling beer that was just too ugly to be permitted to stand next to all the other billboards selling all the other brands of beer.<br />
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I think Field has created some very strange and interesting things in many of his game lines. I think <i>Otherverse America</i>, one of his other product lines, is a science fiction world that stands absolutely unique in a bland sea of space operas and cyberpunk knockoffs. Within the confines of the d20 Modern and Pathfinder SRD systems (and more on why this is a major caveat below), he is someone who I see as an innovative voice, and his failures (the <i>Black Tokyo </i>line primary among them) are illustrative of the failures I see independent RPG creators recapitulating again and again.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://gxmediagy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/hipster-dog-on-laptop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://gxmediagy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/hipster-dog-on-laptop.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As always, another picture of one of this blog's fine readers.</td></tr>
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So, because I have DriveThruRPG Featured Reviewer access (and thank you to them for permitting me to keep it despite developing a very strange reviewing style whose orbit only intersects with "product reviews" in lengthily disjointed ways), I have a broad view of what exactly is being produced and what world <i>Tournament of Rapists</i> came from. I wanted to write this to tell you why <i>Tournament of Rapists</i> (and the <i>Black Tokyo </i>line in general) fails as a RPG hobby creation. I'm not going to tell you why it fails as a commercial product, or give advice to people who want to sell it, or who don't want it sold, or why it isn't "something I like" or why it isn't "something you should like." Those questions are beyond either my expertise or my interest and anyway, nobody reads this blog except 6 people and 2 dogs, so just using it to give my "opinion" is a waste of everyone's time, especially the dogs'.<br />
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I think the best way to explain the flaws in <i>Black Tokyo </i>and <i>Tournament of Rapists</i> (for there isn't a hair's breadth of difference between the flaws, from a conceptual point of view) is to go into detail about my favorite RPG line produced by Field: <i><a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/browse/pub/402/Skortched-Urf-Studios/subcategory/767_9181/Otherverse-America" target="_blank">Otherverse America</a>.</i><br />
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<h3>
Leave Your Husband, Kill Your Children, Practice Witchcraft, Destroy Capitalism and Become a Lesbian</h3>
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<i>Otherverse America </i>is a pulp science fiction game portraying a far future world in which the pro-life/pro-choice political conflict over abortion has escalated into a major cultural, religious, psychic, military and even extraterrestrial political divide. True to its name, it is a game of little relevance to the world outside America, as it portrays an exaggerated view of a peculiarly American modern conflict. <br />
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Science fiction has always exaggerated real-world issues in order to provoke thinking on those subjects. <i>Ghostbusters </i>(1984) is a conservative fantasy-comedy of a group of entrepreneurs trying to make their way as federal environmental regulators try to keep them from saving the world with their new and dangerous products. H.G. Wells' <i>The Time Machine</i> is best understood entirely as a Victorian extrapolation of extremely exaggerated class politics. <br />
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What's innovative about <i>Otherverse America</i> is the type of exaggeration that it portrays - quite unique, and uniquely suited to tabletop RPGs. In <i>Otherverse America</i>, the pro-choice side of the conflict really is a gang of pagan, queer, hyperscientific communal-living advocates who practice witchcraft, and the pro-life side of the conflict really are fascist, theocratic, aggressive militarists regulating everyone's sex lives, who revere pregnancy as a religious state of grace granting legal and cultural authority for its duration, and you can bet your socks that they also have banned oral contraceptives and condoms. In <i>Otherverse America</i>, each side of this culture war isn't portrayed as possessing the ideals and priorities of their real-life counterparts, even exaggerated; they're portrayed as possessing exaggerated versions of the ideals and priorities <u>their real-life counterparts' enemies attribute to them</u>, and honestly, this is a bit of a masterstroke.<br />
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Even more remarkably, this satirical rule works no matter which political side you're on in the real world. If the satire was from the particular point of view of one side of the conflict, we could complain that our own views were misrepresented, or that our enemies were either not satirized sufficiently ("but they really do believe that!") or were made out to be too sympathetic. The <i>Otherverse America</i> method lets us revel in the exaggeration of our own beliefs ("ha ha, this is what they think we're really like!") while similarly feeling no qualms about the treatment of the other side. And of course if you're a squishy middle-of-the-roader, you get to blow both sides up beyond all recognition. It's a way to keep gamers of all political stripes satisfied, interested, and collaborating fruitfully. (I am not the sort of person who believes there are no politically conservative RPG players out there; I suspect if you took an exit poll of our little hobby that Trump would have handily won it in percentages he couldn't come close to racking up nationally.)<br />
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<br /></div>
But that alone wouldn't be enough to really make me love <i>Otherverse America</i> as much as I do. Beyond this broad-stroke exaggeration, <i>Otherverse America</i> relentlessly treats its caricatured versions of the abortion conflict as affecting real people with real motivations. Consider that each "faction" sourcebook contains dozens on dozens of brief, one-paragraph backgrounds for player characters to choose from or take inspiration from, explaining how they came to be part of the faction and what they see as their place within it. As crazy as a world with psychic powers, vat-grown clone soldiers, and mecha whose piloting is strictly limited to pregnant women is, <i>Otherverse America</i> is a setting whose characters are meant to be played "straight"; we might cackle at their exaggerated situations (there's a dick-shaped space battle cruiser) and weird values, but in their world they are real and their struggles have weight. It's utterly bonkers but because of its thematic consistency, <i>Otherverse America's </i>science fiction parody works at the gaming table in a way many that just try to reconstruct an existing science fictional concept fail to achieve.<br />
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By contrast, <i>Black Tokyo</i> is a pastiche of violent hentai comics. It's not based on just "pornography" as a source concept, but the tiniest slice of the tiniest slice of pornographic material. <i>Black Tokyo</i> doesn't develop any aesthetic independent of this incredibly specific subsubsubgenre, and indeed, when something sneaks in from action movies or horror comics (a tournament of rapists, for example), it sticks out awkwardly and fails to mesh with the remainder of the material. <br />
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Often, RPGs use pastiche to call on common cultural ideas and developments that have been established over many works and over many years in a way that can get a RPG group on the same page quickly, by using broad referents that everyone has absorbed some portion of just by existing in modern (Western, English-speaking, ahem) culture. There's no need to re-do work that the underlying culture has already done. <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product_info.php?products_id=19866" target="_blank"><i>Freedom City</i> </a>is Green Ronin saying "a comic book city", with all the references and connections of it not to any particular issue of any particular comic book, but to the broader cultural signifiers of Metropolis, Marvel's New York City, and Gotham City. Every OSR dude with a blog has an "Appendix N-inspired" weird fantasy supplement in their back pocket, it seems, and as pointless as that appears to me, a guy who prefers <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficciones" target="_blank">Ficciones</a> </i>to <a href="http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-839" target="_blank">Conan</a>, it's a really solid way of bringing materials to the table without forcing people to know a particular reference fiction. Instead, all you have to know is a <i>type </i>of fiction, a broad subgenre spanning decades. (In fact, my aversion to the subgenre shows it is a very good thing to base a game on since it will keep away chumps like me who wouldn't appreciate the goings-on if I <i>did </i>show up.)<br />
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But pornographic hentai is such a narrow slice of culture, and is itself already usually a pastiche (of non-hentai manga and other sources), that a RPG pastiche has very little to pick from to bring to the table. Unlike <i>Otherverse America</i>, <i>Black Tokyo </i>and its supplements give us no place to stand - are we interrogating this pornography? Are we celebrating it? Creating it? Satirizing it?<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/atEAAOSw~bFWK8Wh/s-l300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/atEAAOSw~bFWK8Wh/s-l300.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Okay, Google, yeah, technically I guess these are lesbian test tubes?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There are other "tentacle porn" games that are meant to be satirical. Most are silly, over the top, "look at this stuff, aren't people gross for stroking off to it" gags, and in the end, mocking what gets someone else off is a combination of a waste of time, a one-joke enterprise, and, of course, it's normally done in order to reinforce the patriarchy's control over sexuality. (At least play <i>Otherverse America </i>and be a witchcraft-slinging test tube hell-lesbian!) But <i>Black Tokyo</i> isn't a satire (although there have been protestations from various quarters that it is, it just doesn't ring true to anyone who's read the material.) In <i>Black Tokyo</i>, you're not setting up sexual situations, you're setting up action situations with sex (consensual or not) merely a gloss. Even the additional mechanics of Black Tokyo fail to make the game actually pornographic instead of just exploitative. <br />
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I'm not inherently against pornography, and, if one is ever produced, even a pornographic tabletop RPG could be done faithfully, if that's what people are into and it's produced ethically and with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved. In this world of Kindle porno, xvideos dot com, and dick pill spam, like, why <i>not </i>make a tabletop RPG that helps a group improvise the production of verbal pornography? But <i>Black Tokyo</i> doesn't do this. It doesn't assist a table of players in the production of pornography, especially not pornographic hentai, which relies on visuals to a degree much greater than is supported by the game. There is no attention in <i>Black Tokyo </i>to the actual production of pornographic play - no way to, say, steer a game from one hentai fetish to another, no attention to selecting a group which will be into each fetish, no attention to creating a safe environment for people to open up about their sexual fantasies, and not even a 101-level look at how to collaborate to make those fantasies come about in an arousing way. The mechanics of the game are as un-sexy as can be imagined, and even the advice to players and GMs is so clinical and frankly un-excited about the concept that it seems to treat the possibility of arousal as laughable instead of desirable. Neither does it embrace the one-joke parody of the "tentacle porn" card games that are out there. (At least the card games have hentai-esque art! Tabletop RPG sessions are verbal!) So the pornographic material in the <i>Black Tokyo</i> line is worthless as parody, worthless as pornography, worthless as comedy, worthless as game material, and frankly just a waste of everyone's time.<br />
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I mean, <i>Otherverse America</i> contains just as much bonkers, deranged takes on sexuality, but unlike <i>Black Tokyo </i>they are presented in service to a theme, an aesthetic by which I can make a judgment call for me and my group: "yes, this material is good, will help us build and inhabit the world of <i>Otherverse America</i>" or "no, this material misses the mark." For <i>Black Tokyo</i>, there simply is <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/there_is_no_there_there" target="_blank">no "there" there</a>. <i>Otherverse America</i> presents its own ethics, its own strange morality. It is attempting to carve out its own cultural niche, not pursuing a niche of a niche of a niche, trying to fit itself into something already too small to contain it.<br />
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There are many ways the <i>Otherverse America</i> line of products could be improved. It could put more attention to the satire, discussing how to collaborate with your own group to import new satirical material and have it make sense in the context of the game. Certainly in the age of Trump, when a guy who unquestionably despises women and considers pregnancy (his word) disgusting, could be made the standard-bearer for anti-abortion activism, the the raw material for satire of this kind is all around us. In RPGs we can make these themes explicit in a way that a science fiction writer can't, since RPGs are technical manuals for group collaboration in an improvised performance. <br />
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Why not take advantage of the form and simply say directly to the game organizers "here's what you can do to help your group make this material work for them, to the goals you select?" It's telling that the one-star reviews for <i>Otherverse America </i>material often see it as exploitative, certainly a failure state that it falls into at times. For example, one pro-life gamer posted a one-star review alarmed that <i>Otherverse America</i>'s pro-choice faction had a reference in it to disgraced doctor Kermit Gosnell. Of course the poster thinks that Gosnell is actually lionized by choice supporters today, so they don't get the joke. When <i>Otherverse America</i>'s satire falls short, it becomes partisan or exploitative, and loses the only reasons that anyone would ever want to imagine a character in it. But it at least has a conceptual space that it tries to mark out that's broad enough to permit a player (including a GM) to bring something to the table, to develop the idea of it enough to make play fun and worthwhile.<br />
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<i>Otherverse America </i>isn't perfect, and it makes blunders (sometimes quite spectacular ones, given what it's trying to do) but at least it's trying to do something. You can actually think about and talk about what a good <i>Otherverse America </i>supplement is, or about what a bad mistake something in it is.<br />
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<h3>
A +2 Situational Bonus To Fucking</h3>
<br />
<i>Tournament of Rapists</i> was a dreadful supplement, but what made it dreadful wasn't only that it was exploitative, or failed to develop its own aesthetic or insufficiently respectful of a very sensitive topic. It couldn't avoid being dreadful in these ways because it's attached to the d20 system. <br />
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Many people were down on <i>d20 Modern</i>, though I for one quite enjoyed it. I liked the concept of attaching classes to the attribute system, always the most worthless part of any D&D edition you want to name. ("Is this the edition that will finally make attributes good?" Spoiler alert! It's not.) I also thought a lot of the talent trees were more thematic, consistent and interesting than feats, the chief mechanical innovation of the Third Edition era of D&D. (Of course, to my chagrin, feats were still an important part of D20 Modern.) I'm probably one of the few people who could really high-five a <i>d20 Modern</i> game these days. But attaching an action-adventure system, complete with talents about hit points and feats about how many feet you move in a move-equivalent action is not just a strange decision for a game based on violent hentai pornography; it's a completely stupid one. This is a subsubsubgenre where back-and-forth combat of the type advanced in <i>d20 Modern</i> just isn't on the table and where even the most rudimentary biology, physics and continuity is routinely ignored. How a violent-hentai-pornography-inspired RPG ended up a <i>d20 Modern</i> supplement is a sign of how completely the d20 SRD dominated self-published games throughout the 2000s and even into the 201Xs. There is simply no benefit whatsoever to the play of <i>Black Tokyo</i> from d20 Modern, or any type of action-adventure RPG where resolving challenges are the key function! But this is what RPG players can bring themselves to imagine, so this is what they are sold.<br />
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Compare this to <i>Otherverse America</i>, which wholeheartedly embraces the action-adventure elements of <i>d20 Modern</i> - the characters are in a mercenary squad, or they're special forces soldiers for their factions, or they're psychics on the run from one faction's government or another, or they're soldiers who were fighting each other and then put in a bad situation. Similarly to how <i>Otherverse America</i> develops its own exaggerated political situation, it also develops exaggerated action-adventure situations and they feel organically part of the setting. You can read <i>Otherverse America</i> and come up with encounters, scenarios and campaigns that the mechanics mesh with, just as in D&D3 and the best of all d20 material. But in <i>Black Tokyo</i>, the imaginative detail all goes into limp mechanics that have virtually no connection to play because there's no central fictional place for the game to stand. There's no target for the game to aim at.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ldxmP_TUXhE_8Myy_sL8epmmFG4UlEiTnjD08v-BdNPMp8cZHgFrw9W0aKt2T26YqmeFs2walxGEFe1LD0CPWlsb_I_ZskB-6yVTuecjnoPRbjTbig_eD5E6wpVyCEJaxjGWz-BA8msB/s1600/casualsex1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="761" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ldxmP_TUXhE_8Myy_sL8epmmFG4UlEiTnjD08v-BdNPMp8cZHgFrw9W0aKt2T26YqmeFs2walxGEFe1LD0CPWlsb_I_ZskB-6yVTuecjnoPRbjTbig_eD5E6wpVyCEJaxjGWz-BA8msB/s320/casualsex1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking things up while fucking doesn't make fucking more fun.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Again, if someone wanted to do a pornographic RPG, I see nothing wrong with that conceptually, but mechanically tying it to an action-adventure system like d20 is beyond foolish. I'm certainly not going to unravel the knot of violent depictions in pornography here, but suffice to say that I think we can all agree that even if that's the direction you decide to go, it's not <i>tactical </i>violence of the sort organized by the d20 system, and attaching it to such a system absolutely guarantees that you won't be able to present the subject in a way that's engaging, respectful of the players, or - the most telling omission - titillating. There's nothing in d20 Modern that permits you to create such an experience.<br />
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I honestly don't care whether DriveThruRPG sells The Damned Thing, or doesn't sell it, or sells it with a different title, or whether any digital storefront does, or whether it has to be sold on a USB stick in a brown paper bag on a street corner, so long as the government's not involved with the decision and it isn't completely suppressed (what would that even be?). That's a business decision, and if somehow a virtuous business decision happens to be made, eventually, it will be undone by a later business decision. <br />
<br />
No, my concern is with the product itself, as it presents and situates itself, and that's how it should be evaluated. From its bedrock foundations, right down to its concept, <i>Black Tokyo</i> is a creative failure of a game; <i>Tournament of Rapists</i> couldn't possibly ever be any better than the game line will permit it to be. It's an artistic failure, not only a failure of good taste or even of (God help us) progressive values that should keep it at arm's length. It's literally a supplement for a supplement for a supplement of a role-playing game based on a small slice of a small slice of a small slice of pornography. There isn't any room in it for the players, let alone for a GM's creative direction, let alone for any fun, arousal or energy. It doesn't even have room to be exploitative of its own accord, it wouldn't know how to be exploitative or have any of the mechanical tools to do so. When <i>Tournament of Rapists </i>is exploitative, it even has to rely on exploitative concepts developed by someone else! <i>Black Tokyo </i>and The Damned Thing it spawned are failures specifically on their own terms, specifically within their milieu. As a hobbyist - more, God grant, than a customer - that's what matters to me.<br />
<br />
<h3>
"Did I just read several thousand words - written three years late - just to reach the conclusion that <i>Tournament of Rapists</i> is a bad RPG supplement? Way to go out on a fuckin limb there, JD, thanks for the hot take"</h3>
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<br /></div>
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Quiet, you! <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9jumWKl5ZvhQgikUvHOjajqutF6AGiIcg3uWy7c0kD6t2uTPkhL_VGCUi7nP3hWEa8x7A3u_vKcSnljftF4OTmIPVKi2EqV-tVH_tzR6YJrMdSgR78QPw45gl3uOSM0KP-YYsUDumkSyp/s1600/hot-take.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9jumWKl5ZvhQgikUvHOjajqutF6AGiIcg3uWy7c0kD6t2uTPkhL_VGCUi7nP3hWEa8x7A3u_vKcSnljftF4OTmIPVKi2EqV-tVH_tzR6YJrMdSgR78QPw45gl3uOSM0KP-YYsUDumkSyp/s320/hot-take.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">love too take that hot house!!!</td></tr>
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<br />
No, the point of writing all of that was to, first, urge everyone to separate the suitability of a product for a particular outlet from the quality of the product. You'd think this would have been painfully obvious, but again and again as post after post targeted DrivethruRPG and its role in "the community", it became clear that it certainly was not obvious. Secondly, I wanted to get across to you that the mistakes of <i>Tournament of Rapists </i>begin at the conceptual level. Those mistakes ensured that no matter how banal the title might have been made, and how much sensitivity the subject might have been approached with, the supplement would always be terrible. And it is my experience that these conceptual problems are <b>extremely common mistakes </b>that lots and lots of RPG creators make in many less obvious contexts. So here's a breakdown: </div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b><u>Avoid making your cultural referents too specific, too narrow.</u></b> There's a reason that even in highly specialized games (<i>Space Wurm v. Moonicorn</i> or <i>Dogs in the Vineyard </i>for example) that there is a broad base of sources (psychic space 70s sf, Westerns) that can be drawn from for inspiration, and plenty of room to permit players to express themselves in the confines of the game. The OSR veneration of Appendix N is probably the most constructive expression of this. Call of Cthulhu being a roleplaying game from "the world" of H.P. Lovecraft (and all the horror writers he inspired, as it turns out) is another.</li>
<li><b><u>If you're using an action-adventure system (like D20 Modern), make an action-adventure campaign where action and adventure is the main draw.</u></b> If D20 Call of Cthulhu can do it, you can do it. <i>Otherverse America </i>does it, and <i>Black Tokyo </i>doesn't and can't, because it doesn't draw from action adventure properties. Similarly, don't think that just because the market for something is a particular way that you should take just any old topic and hammer it in place into the market because you don't think you'll make money any other way, because you will hollow out your own idea and make it unable to stand on its own two feet. In other words, if it's 2004 and d20 Modern is going great guns, don't just make a thing and say "oh yeah, uh, it's d20 Modern" because that's what's selling - instead, look at d20 Modern and think "what is the greatest, most incredible d20 Modern thing I can make"? Even supposedly generic systems like GURPS or Savage Worlds carry with them assumptions and specializations that make them good at some things and bad at others. D20 Modern is not good at pornography.</li>
<li><b><u>As a player of tabletop RPGs, your primary responsibility is to the safety, enjoyment and collaboration of your fellow players.</u></b> If you're trying to collaborate in an area where you don't feel like you have anything to contribute, or where you feel what you contribute can only hurt others, you need to put that feeling on the table. If you're going to play a game centered around porno, or murder, or golf, that's completely fine, but there ought to be a conversation in which everyone says up front "This is a game where we're fucking, killing, and playing golf" and everyone affirmatively is okay with it. Actually, wait, that's a good game idea, don't steal that. (writes "Copyright 2018, DO NOT STEAL" on front page of spiral bound notebook.) Most importantly, you have no responsibility to DriveThruRPG or anyone else selling you the materials for your games.</li>
<li><b><u>Titillating a RPG reader is not the same as helping a RPG player produce titillating material.</u></b> No matter what provocation you're trying to transmit through your work (and all RPGs try to provoke something), the important thing is how you help the player provoke that feeling at the table, <i>not </i>how your creation provokes it in the player when read outside of play. The greatest piece of art you can buy for your work is wasted space and money unless it produces actionable material in play. (I leave it as a terrifying exercise for a fearful reader what it means that the typical RPG has 3-4 pieces of visual art per page which does not and will never fulfill this requirement.)</li>
<li><b><u>Don't just satirize or strip-mine culture for your RPG referents; extract from it thoughtfully</u>.</b> Just because Marvel and DC made superheroes this way doesn't mean that's how they should be. Just because Dickens wrote about Victorian problems that way doesn't mean that's how you have to approach them. Definitely use cultural referents to quickly bring your fellow improvisers up to speed. But don't just randomly grab them because they sound cool or because you like them. If you carefully curate what you're bringing in, then your collaborators can fit their contributions with yours like a jigsaw puzzle. Otherwise they will be stuck bringing in random crap and it will conflict both with your goals and each other's.</li>
</ul>
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Okay, but where does that leave the controversy? It's even worse than you thought! Because between the outcry, the response, and the outcry over the response, and the response to the outcry over the response to the outcry, "the community", if there was one, would have made some progress on these issues. And we unquestionably, thoroughly, in every way, did not do so <i>at all</i>.<br />
<br />
My suggestion, that there is actually no online RPG community, so "nothing" was the foregone conclusion, is not welcome and nobody wants to hear it. Nobody wants me to point to this, or to the dozens of other controversies that shake our little online RPG discussion world, and the absolute lack of changes these controversies cause. Nobody wants to hear me say "look, there, see? there's no community here." Nobody wants to hear it. Therefore I'll write another 20,000 words about that topic. But at another time.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-469612119876179039.post-63360006784124591262016-09-15T15:34:00.003-07:002016-09-15T15:34:37.190-07:00Proof Story Hyphen Games Dot Com Hates D&D!!!!!!!!!A relative newcomer to story hyphen games dot com posted a thread trying to assemble a list of everyone's favorite games. For the last few weeks he's been gathering data. A sinister implication has arisen that will surely throw the world into chaos!<br />
<br />
8 people said that Apocalypse World was one of their top 10 games....<br />
<i>But 15 people said that D&D was one of their top 10 games!!</i><br />
<br />
Now, either story hyphen games dot com, speaking collectively, likes D&D more than Apocalypse World.....<br />
<br />
....or they are trying to INFILTRATE D&D and sap its precious bodily fluids.<br />
<br />
I KNOW WHICH ONE <b><i>I </i></b>THINK IS MOST LIKELY.....<br />
<br />
.....DOES YOU?!?!?!?!?!?<br />
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