The Zapruder Mystery

Short and sweet is today's motto. I didn't get any sleep until about 5 a.m. so the old brain department isn't too well staffed today.

A while ago I tripped over an interesting documentary, or conspiracy rant, you decide.

This documentary is about the Zapruder film, the only film footage of the JFK assassination and the edits that were apparently done to it.

Disclaimer: I haven't seen the whole thing yet, but it seems interesting enough. Watch and make up your own mind. I usually don't post videos I haven't seen myself, but even basic spelling is really hard today, so whatever.

Join me again next week when my brain hopefully is properly staffed and until then, have a great week!

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_QIuu6hsAc

Pain & Gain

Yesterday I accidentally stumbled over a movie I had never heard of. A small film, produced on the cheap for a mere $26 million, called Pain &Gain (2013).

Directed by Michael Bay and starring (amongst others) Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, this is one of the oddest movies I have seen in a long, long time.

The story in a nutshell is this: It's 1994 in Miami and personal trained Daniel Lugo (Wahlberg) is fed up with being a regular Joe. He recruits fellow trainer Adrian Doorbal and ex-con Paul Doyle (The Rock) and together they kidnap a rich businessman in order to make him sign over all his wealth to them.

Sound simple, right? Well see here's the thing. Pain & Gain is not just a crime movie, it's also a black comedy and it's based on a true story. It's insane, violent, absurd, kinda funny, and at all times really weird. It's also too long.

Take ten percent from Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, 25 % from a Guy Ritchie movie, a healthy pinch of Miami Vice and a few bit and pieces from various sources and you get this movie.

What needs to be said it that it's not a bad movie. It's very clear that Bay really cared, and it shows. He is a skilled director and P&G is beautifully shot. The actors are also good. Wahlberg had to bulk up from 165 to 200 pounds of muscle, which required twelve meals a day. Dedication indeed. What also stands out is The Rock. I've seen him in several movies, and always as the total badass. The kind of man-mountain that flips cars and punches through walls. Here he is sensitive. Sensitive and at times totally insane, but he emotes the fear and disgust really well.

Pain & Gain is however two hours long and in this case that's 20-30 minutes too much. There are several scenes that feel pointless to the flow of the story and just enhances the weird factor. Like when Doorbal is having sex with his wife, and she's flailing around with a pair of nunchucks. It adds nothing and could well have ended up on the cutting room floor with no one the wiser.

Here be minor spoilers. The three wanna-be master criminals are complete, excuse the expression, fuck-ups. I usually try to avoid profanity here, but it's the only word that adequately explains the sheer madness they call a plan. A lot of the comedy flows from these scenes, as especially Lugo fancies himself some kind of genius, and you can see a myriad of problems they just blissfully ignore. They coast by on an enormous amount of luck, and it the subject matter wasn't so gruesome, it would be really funny. The quote: “I was abducted by bodybuilder ninjas” should say a lot.

In closing, I enjoyed myself, but you should probably be in a certain mood to enjoy this. I do recommend it, but I imagine some people won't make it through both hours, at least not in one sitting.

That's that. Join me again next time, and until then have a wonderful week!

City of the Dead

Make some popcorn and jump into the cinematic time machine, it's time to look at:

City of the Dead (1960)

I first saw this movie sometime back in 1990-91, and true to form I watched it a couple of times. What stuck with me besides a fairly young Christopher Lee playing something besides Dracula, was the general atmosphere. I wasn't a fan of black and white movies back then, and I really liked this film despite it's monochromatic nature.

So what's it about?

The movie sets the theme by starting with a witch burning in the 1600's, and then jumps to modern times, i.e. the 60's. Lee is a university professor teaching a class in folklore and history. One of his students, Nan Barlow, decides to go to a small village called Whitewood to absorb some authentic atmosphere for her research paper.

This is the setup, and as far as I'm willing to 'spoil' the film. The story really is quite good, if a bit unsubtle as you can pretty much see things coming from a mile away. I heard a quote from Hitchcock the other day, “In order to build suspense you must give the audience information”. I think that's what they were going for here, as the “mystery” is as mysterious as a brick to the face. You can see what is happening, but the characters can't. Slightly unusual to a modern audience, but it works.

The title, City of the dead is pretty lousy. Whitewood is pretty much a tiny ramshackle village not a even a town let alone a city, but it's better than the U.S. title Horror Hotel. In fact, if you find it under Horror Hotel, then it's probably a cut version. Not that there is all that much to cut. It's not a gory movie, it's barely a violent movie. The cut part is from the opening witch burning as the U.S. censors were offended by the witch's dying pledge to the devil.

What makes the film is the ambiance and the actors. There are a few silly parts that make zero sense if you dwell on them, but it really doesn't matter. The important parts are solid which leaves City of the Dead as an overlooked but enjoyable part of horror movie history. If you haven't seen it, do check it out.

So that's that, join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

The Blizzard turns into an angry storm

Blizzcon is over and many fans are... disgruntled? Okay, furious is more accurate.

So what happened? Apparently it was a very lackluster con to begin with. This in itself is nothing new, it's a fairly well known fact that about every other Blizzcon has exciting stuff and the others contain filler announcements. This year was pretty much a filler year.

They announced a remaster of Warcraft 3, new heroes for Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm, a new expansion for Hearthstone and that World of Warcraft Classic is coming Summer 2019 and is free with a regular WoW subscription. Basic stuff, right? So far so good.

Then we get to the delicate issue. For a couple of years now, Diablo fans have been asking for news regarding Diablo IV and Blizzards only response has been “sometime in the future”. Then just before Blizzcon 2018 a blog post popped up on the official site that, it seems, was poorly worded.

It did say not to get your hopes up, but that it could also be seen as a teaser. I don't care enough to actually read it, you can probably find it if you want to.

Now, a presentation is a delicate thing, doing it right takes a very specific formula. In a nutshell it goes sort of like this:

1. Mid sized announcement
2. Small announcement
3. Small announcement
4. Medium to big announcement
5. Small announcement
6. BIG FRIKKIN' ANNOUNCEMENT

You layer the not so exciting bits between the hot stuff and finish big. You want the audience to leave the hall feeling pumped and buzzing with hype. Pretty simple right? Not, it seems if you work at Blizzard.

They end their main presentation with an announcement that we are getting a Diablo mobile game. Yupp, at a con that is predominantly full of PC players, they proudly trot out a mobile game as the big finisher. Then during Q&A a guy asks “Is this a delayed April Fools joke?” And the devs say no. The crowd is silent and very displeased. Then first one dev and then the others ask sarcastically “Don't you all have phones?” What a slap in the face to your own fans.

Crowd erupts with boos, and I can't blame them. Unfortunately the more “passionate” members of the fanbase started with the nasty personal comments on social media. You know, the never okay personal attacks and threats. Anger and disappointment is one thing but I wish people would stop with these attacks.

Apart from the disgusting attacks another commenter group appeared. The “how entitled can these people be?” comments. But I don't think it's about entitlement, it's an honest reaction to Blizzards lousy handling of the game. In itself, a mobile game is nothing. Yes, the fans wanted Diablo IV, and eventually they'll get it. The mobile game is not taking away that, but to pull out a mobile game as a big deal is frankly, idiotic.

Back when Bethesda announced Fallout 4 at E3, they also announced Fallout Shelter, a mobile game, and the fans were ecstatic. Why? Because it was announced along with the main game, and it was available on the iOS store that same day. Not in some distant future, but now. At this years E3, Bethesda did it again. Like my formula they had some smaller games up first, announced Elder Scrolls Blades, a mobile game, and then teased Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6. No one was upset, no one got angry, because Bethesda treated the mobile games like they should in front of a PC/Console crowd: like a small, fun extra thing. Very sensible indeed.

And let's not forget, it is usually not the developers who makes the decisions, it's the MBA business suits who neither understand the games nor the gamers. All they care about is money, and yes, a business has to make money, but a game company should also make games. If they make good games, they actually make money, and without cynically doing all they can to force people to pay up extra.

Well, that's it for me, this has gotten long enough and I've said announcement too many times already. Until next time, have yourself a great week!