Dragonflight Beta!

I got into the World of Warcraft Dragonflight Beta and this is a bit of info and a few thoughts in no particular order.

But remember that this is a BETA and all information is subject to potential change. Nothing is written in stone.

First up, the new talent trees. Old players and those who play classic are familiar with how the talent trees used to be; huge and hard to use. Then they changed them to a choice between three options every fifteen levels or so. Now? It is amazing!

Every class has two trees, one generic for the class, and one for the spec. At first glance they look really intimidating, but once you look more closely, it's not that complicated. It pays off to go over all the talents and trace a path down to the higher level talents you want. On top of that, different aspects of the class, like AoE abilities, healing and so on tend to be on one side of the tree. You can even choose to leave abilities that you don't use. So far I'm very impressed with the new system, just be aware that once Dragonflight comes, it is going to take time to go though all your characters, and you need to let it take that time. 

Check them out on Wowhead: https://www.wowhead.com/beta/talent-calc

Lets talk about the new UI next. It is very different, and a lot of the elements are super small. Bags, buttons, character window, all is much smaller than it used to be. On top of that, most of the UI is now customizable. Right click your character portrait and choose edit layout and you can move the action bars, resize them, you have a lot of options. You can even choose where you want your character portrait to be. There is also an option in the game options to re-scale UI, so if you fiddle with that and perhaps shrink the action bars, I'm sure you can get the UI to be what you need it to be. There is also a new bag slot, but that one is for specific crafting bags only.

I haven't had time to check out the new crafting system, so we're skipping that.

I did however try out the new race, the Dracthyr. This new race of dragon people start at level 58 and have their own start zone. I hope Blizzard re-balances some of the mobs in the start area, because I died a lot. That said, it was a very enjoyable journey and they did a credible job teaching you to play this new race. But why do you need to learn how to play a race you ask? Because Dracthyr can only be Evokers, either as mid-range DPS casters or as healers. They can't take any of the normal classes at all, but that is fine because their class really lean into being a winged dragon-person. They also have a humanoid form, and holy hell do they get customization options! No other race comes even close to the amount of choices you get here. Oh, and they can fly! Not just glide like Demonhunters, (they can do that too) but actually take off and fly.

This flight mechanic uses the same mechanic as they new drakes that can only fly in the Dragonflight zones and that is not always easy, but super fun when you get it to work.

From what I have seen of the first zone in the Dragon Isles, it is nice. Nothing too stand out, but after the mess that is Shadowlands, I'm so happy that it feels like Azeroth again. Some of the changes are big and sweeping, but I have high hopes that the new expansion will feel like World of Warcraft again! Rogues can even survive getting an add in a fight again, unlike now...

I don't know when the beta ends, but if possible, I'll bring you more insights at a later date, but this will have to be enough for now. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

 

Busting Crime

It was quite by accident that I came across:

Crimebusters aka. Poliziotti Violenti (1976).

I wasn't looking for a poliziotteschi movie, but it popped up and I said why not?

Directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini and starring Henry Silva and Antonio Sabato, Crimebusters is not one of the greats in the poliziotteschi genre, but it is compelling to watch.

Some spoilers ahead.

Henry Silva who I have mentioned many times, plays Paratrooper Major Paolo Altieri, an officer, a gentleman and a moral professional. He gets promoted and moved to Rome, where he runs straight into one dangerous situation after another. He foils a kidnapping which earns him the enmity of some very dangerous people who have him beaten up. The beating is overseen by a mid level thug who can't get through a single scene in the entire movie without stuffing himself with chocolate. (He is even listed on IMDB as Man Eating Chocolate). In hospital, Major Altieri meets Inspector Tosi (Sabato) and they don't hit it off. They do however keep running into each other, especially during a shootout between the cops and some thugs with submachine guns. Guns, the Major knows should only be in the hands of his old paratrooper regiment. The Major and the Inspector join up to uncover the clear corruption that goes on.

I should warn you that there is a pretty rough scene where two thugs assault Altieri's girlfriend to get to him. 

A few fights, some chases, a hand grenade or two and things finally escalate to a violent and abrupt end.

All in all, the story in Crimebusters is very good, but the movie is let down by some questionable directing decisions. Example: the car and bike chases are very good, but the camera keeps zooming in on the spinning wheels, breaking the momentum of the chase itself. It ruins the flow and is, ultimately, pointless.

The acting is standard fare for a poliziotteschi, so no real complaints and as I said, the story is actually pretty damn good. The movie does a great job in showing the thugs for what they are; vicious, sadistic jackals that delight in violence but run desperately away as soon as the police arrives. There is no glamour here, nothing admirable, just savagery and cowardice. Our heroes could stand to be a tad smarter, but you can't get everything.

Beyond the somewhat questionable direction (and to be fair, it was the directors fourth movie), I disliked that the ending was as abrupt as it was and that so many bad guys just got away. I'd liked to have seen them get some comeuppance. Likewise, the plot itself is only half way solved. It's not that we don't know what is going on, but that the movie isn't long enough to get everything done. Maybe they ran low on money or time or they just got sloppy, I don't know. What I do know is that it was too much for a 94 minute film. I have suggested before with other movies that the story would need a short TV series to really get things done, and Crimebusters is absolutely such a movie.

So, do I recommend it? To poliziotteschi fans, and fans of 70's crime movies, yes. Just be aware that it is flawed. To others? No, skip it and watch one of the better poliziotteschi like Caliber 9, Goodbye and Amen or The Boss.

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

 

Annihilation

Today we're looking at the surreal horror movie:

Annihilation (2018).

Directed by Alex Garland who amongst other movies also directed 28 days later, and starring Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

The movies is based on the novel by the same name by Jeff VanderMeer, which I haven't read so I can't comment on how accurate the movie is to the book.

Natalie Portman plays Lena, an army vet who now works as a cellular biologist. Her husband, Kane is active in the military and is frequently away on mission for long periods of time. As the movie starts, he's been gone for a year and Lena has gotten no information on his whereabouts and so fears him dead. Then he suddenly comes home, but collapses and on their way to the hospital they are grabbed by some agency.

They are brought to a facility near a national park where Lena meets Dr. Ventress (Leigh). She explains to Lena that a meteor hit a lighthouse in the park and a strange zone popped up. From the outside the zone looks like gasoline on water, but as a huge wall instead of a puddle. The zone grows slowly and all efforts to send people inside leads to them disappearing. Kane is the first to return but he is dying. Lena meets an all female team who is set to go inside and she volunteers to go along.

Annihilation is a really strange but very well crafted movie. Most of what happens is unsettling and disturbing, so when the real horror hits, it hits hard! I have often talked about the balance needed between outright horror and other things in order to make a movie really scary. Annihilation navigates this balance extremely well which makes for a truly enjoyable experience.

I have seen this movie listed as a Lovecraftian movie, and this is neither false or true. There are clearly elements of cosmic horror at play, but there is nothing outright Lovecraftian about it. The Cthulhu Mythos is completely absent, so if you are expecting that, adjust your expectations accordingly.

From a technical aspect the movie is truly well made. Actors are great, visuals are amazing, directing is solid and so on. The choice of music is weird though. It works, but might throw you for a bit of a loop.

There are some similarities between Annihilation and Roadside Picnic, better known as STALKER, but VanderMeer swears that this is incidental, and I believe him. Some similarities are unavoidable as both books feature a mysterious zone, but that is about it. By the way, if you haven't read Roadside Picnic, I recommend it. It was really good.

That's about as much as I can tell without going into spoiler territory, but if you haven't figured it out, I liked Annihilation a lot and recommend it to all lovers of weird movies and horror. It's a strange movie that leaves you scratching your head at times, but it is a cleverly done modern horror movie that doesn't rely on dark scenes and shaky cam. Enjoyable from beginning to end.

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

 

Pieces of History

I was in a bit of a documentary mood and since I wanted to find something to share with you, I went to Youtube and found myself a couple of documentaries about WWII, more specifically Hitler as well as the still ongoing hunt for lost Nazi gold.

The first documentary is The Hidden Side of World War II: Last Secrets of Nazis. This is a horrible title as the film itself all about Hitler, his start, and his rise to power. Most of what is presented here I knew about, but there were a couple of details I had never come across before. All in all, a good watch.

The second entry is The Hunt for Hitler's Lost 'Gold Train'. This is a much better title and concerns the hunt for hidden tunnels, buried trains, gold and even the fabled Amber Room. I liked this one a lot, it has a good sense of mystery without going overboard and making myths into fact.

So enjoy and I'll see you next time. Until then, have a great and safe week!