Blizzcon 2021

 

This weekend was Blizzards virtual Blizzcon.

I watched a couple of their presentations and Q&A sessions and figured I should highlight some of the announcements here.

The Burning Crusade is coming to WoW Classic. When it drops, you will be able to choose whether to stay in just Classic or move on to TBC. You will need to make this choice for each character you have. Additionally, if you want to pay real money, you can clone your characters and have them in both Classic and Classic Burning Crusade.

The Burning Crusade won't be 100% the same as those of us who played it back in the day remember. There will be modern upgrades behind the scenes, things like that.

While on the subject of WoW, Shadowlands will be getting it's first major upgrade which includes the pathfinder achievement that allows flying, a raid with Sylvanas as a boss and a new treant mount that will be free to all owners of Shadowlands.

On the flip side, there will be no further cosmetic character option in the foreseeable future. Maybe one day, but not now. However, I found out that the hole in cloaks used by Forsaken characters is already fixed and on the Public Test Realm, so that's something.

 

 

They revealed the Rogue class for Diablo 4, but I honestly didn't pay too much attention to that panel, since I'm not a Diablo player. What did catch my eye however is the official announcement that the incredibly well loved Diablo 2 is getting a dual remaster.

That is, Diablo 2 is being redone in glorious modern detail with all the bells and whistles. They are also recreating the original Diablo 2 with the only thing changed being the required operating system. Otherwise it will remain untouched for that original experience.

I'm guessing they learned something from the disastrous Warcraft 3 Reforged launch where they essentially deleted the original version from existence. I really hope Blizzard pulls this one off, or there is really going to be hell to pay and they can forget ever remastering another game.

Finally they are releasing a trilogy of Blizzards original arcade games; Blackthorne, Lost Vikings and Rock N Roll Racing. These games are only available in the 30^th Anniversary Collection on the Blizzard store. Get it there if you are interested.

There was some stuff about Hearthstone and Overwatch but Blizzcon started at midnight my local time and by the time I gave up it was already 2 am. And after that my brain was completely fried. It's not hard to find summaries of the announcements if you want to learn more.

Alright, that's enough of that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week and stay safe!

Suspicious of Suspiria

 

Long term readers know that I'm not a huge fan of remakes. Occasionally I do watch them however, mostly out of curiosity.

That's why I decided to sit down and watch Suspiria (2018).

I have previously talked about Suspiria (1977) by Dario Argento but you can't discuss a remake without bringing up the original. So, in both versions an American, Susie (Suzy in the original) arrives in Berlin to attend a prestigious dance academy. There she gets pulled in to the dark plots woven by the witches who run the school. This isn't a spoiler by the way, the 2018 version shows them in the trailer.

Most of the key characters exist in both movies but the 2018 version has more characters as it is almost an hour longer.

This is pretty much where the similarities end. Most of the changes aren't really that important, like how in '77 they studied ballet and in '18 it is modern dance. The slasher style killings in the original are gone, replaced by more methodical, story driven deaths. Things like that.

A big change that I really liked is the way Susie is treated. In the original she arrives and is almost immediately treated as a threat to be dealt with, while in the '18 version she is welcomed and actually trained. Another good change is that the plot makes slightly more sense than the '77 version.

And speaking of trained, Dakota Johnson took two years of ballet to prepare for this role and it shows.

The movie is set, like the original in 1977 and they did try to make it look like the 70's, but the result is a bit weak. They talk about the Baader-Meinhof group and the Red Army Faction in the background, but it did little for me to make it feel the 70's. Likewise, Checkpoint Charlie is featured in a few scenes, but it's less a relevant point than a set piece.

The actors are very good. Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton are the main players in the movie and especially Swinton is a standout, playing no less than three separate characters. Most of the dancers seem to actually be dancers which is a smart move.

The score goes from excellent to background noise, but does the job adequately. The film is scored by Thom Yorke of Radiohead fame.

Where the movie really shines is in its appearance. It is in many ways a gorgeous film and the cinematography is excellent. Some scenes are almost pitch black which is always a shame, but otherwise it is a feast for the eyes.

One thing that annoyed me a bit though is the fact that a large part of the movie is in German. Most of it is in English but lots of scenes are in German, and although I do understand a bit of the language and was able to follow by ear, it seems to be a kind of pointless effort to have so many scenes in another language. Yes, they are in Germany but why not just make the whole thing in German if that detail is so important to you?

The movie was also too long. At two and a half hour it would really have benefited from a leaner cut. Do we really need to see all the teachers eating breakfast? The side plot with the aging Doctor Klemperer also seemed a bit unnecessary to me. I wouldn't cut him from the movie altogether, but there were too many scenes that only made sense in the end and could have been done differently with the same effect. Fun Fact: Jessica Harper who played Suzy in the '77 version makes a brief appearance in the end.

So do I recommend Suspiria (2018)? Dario Argento said of the movie: “Either you do it exactly the same way - in which case, it's not a remake, it's a copy, which is pointless - or, you change things and make another movie. In that case, why call it Suspiria?"

I do agree with him in principle. But I have to ask why he gave his permission to begin with if he was this against it. I did have a good time, and unless you are a diehard fan of the original there is really no reason you couldn't enjoy it. It's far from a masterpiece, but it is more than good enough even though it is too long. So, yes I do recommend it, even though it won't be to everyone's taste.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week and stay safe!

Color out of Space

 

This weekend I chose to watch Color out of Space (2019) by Richard Stanley based on the short story The Color out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft.

I find that this is a hard movie to critique. On the one hand it is a very faithful adaptation and on the other hand it does it's own thing entirely. It ramps up the timetable from the original story from many months to a few days and it changes the principal characters a great deal, but not critically so.

The story in a nutshell is that a meteorite crashes down on the Gardner farm, and the weird unearthly color that lived in it starts to change not only the landscape but also the animals and people living there. The film follows this, no problems.

The film is set in today's world, not in the 1920's, but that is okay. Much of Lovecraft's work concerns alien horrors from beyond the gulf of time and space, so what does a hundred years matter? When you are confronted with an entity that can warp both time and your flesh, a smart phone won't make a difference.

Visually the movie is amazing, likewise the sound design. Both are standout in my opinion, really first class. This creates a great atmosphere that carries the movie through to the end with style.

The acting is good. Not brilliant but good enough. Even Nicholas Cage is good here. I find his work to be very varied, sometimes great and other times awful. He is solid here.

My biggest problems are the dialog and the characters. Most of the dialog is uninteresting and seems to be there more to fill the silence than to say something.

The characters are pretty awful, especially in the beginning. The movie does very little to make us like them. Yes, there are some early scenes that establishes them and their relationships which are both fine and needed, but they are such a bunch of jackasses. This is the movies biggest flaw, and makes the first third a bit hard to watch. After that, it gets much better and the ending was really good.

There were also a few scenes that really needed some more time in the editing room. For example when the meteorite has landed, the sheriff and mayor show up to look at it. They arrive, the sheriff pokes it with a stick and they leave. That's it, utterly pointless scene. In the original story, scientist arrive and take samples and give a lot of interesting insight into just how alien the thing really is. No such luck here. There's also a scene where the daughter stands about twenty yards from a series of lightning strikes and revels in how pretty it is. In reality she would have been knocked on her ass and suffered damage to her hearing. Those things are loud! And don't ask about the alpacas, I have no idea why they added alpacas to the story.

All in all Color out of Space was better than I thought it would be. After all, how do you make a movie about a color that no one has ever seen before? I recommend it to all Lovecraft fans, most horror fans and some other viewers who want something different.

Finally, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to recommend you watch the in-depth review by Deusdeacon on Youtube. He has really delved deep into this movie and all it's minor details. If you've seen the movie or you are just a bit curious, watch the video. If you intend to watch Color yourself, don't watch the video, it spoils everything. I'll include it below.

That is that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then stay safe and have a great week!

 Deusdeacon's review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCRlAPBtWx4

It's all in her head

 

In a post I wrote a little over two years ago, I linked a video about how there are no ghosts in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

Last week I found another video that shifts the movie in another, quite brilliant direction. Like the no ghosts video, it is of course pure speculation. The movie was made in 1980 and Stanley Kubrick had his reasons for changing so much from King's novel, and what went on in his head no one will ever really know. Keep in mind that this isn't an attempt to say, “This is what Kubrick intended”, but rather “This could be what is happening”.

So what makes the video interesting, you ask? It places all the horror, all the craziness in Wendy's head and it works! So yes, its a theory and nothing more but give it a chance. You can explain everything that happens in the movie as the delusions of a very sick mind and to make it even better, there is “proof”.

It is well known that Stanley Kubrick was a meticulous film maker. “Every frame a painting” I believe he said. Fair enough but every time Wendy has a hallucination (under this theory) there is a blatant continuity error in the scene with her, signaling that she is imagining what is happening. Of course, every director no matter how good can make a mistake. But it is interesting how Kubrick of all people could have made so many mistakes and in all the relevant scenes. There are chairs missing, stickers on doors missing, missing light switches etc.

This theory even explains how Jack gets out of the storage room Wendy locks him in after hitting him on the head with a baseball bat, which doesn't make sense without ghosts. So yeah, speculation at its finest, but do watch it.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week and stay safe!

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRr_0W-9hWg