Prose & Codes.

 It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog that I am an avid reader. I've been one my whole life, and that is not likely to change.

I am also a gamer so I was very happy to find the game Prose & Codes on Steam. This is a letter substitution cypher game, based on quotes from classic literature. There are over 400 puzzles in 8 genres to choose from, and the game has super low requirements so that is not an issue either.

The publisher gives a portion of sales to Project Gutenberg in order to support this wonderful library of out of copyright books. They are free and legal to download and come in a variety of formats from .txt to PDF and ePub. 

When you have solved a puzzle, you learn where its from and there is even a direct link to Gutenberg so you don't even need to go looking for the novel yourself if you want to read it. Now that is service! They even recently added more puzzles to the game for free, which is really cool.

There is also a sequel, Poems & Codes, but I'm not done with the first game yet, so can't guarantee its as good, but I assume it is.  

If you like reading, I highly recommend this game. I'll embed the trailer below for your convenience.

 

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

Sorcerer

Basically on a whim, I watched:

Sorcerer (1977).

This William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) suspense movie has nothing to do with magic, despite the title. It is based on the novel Le Salaire de la peur which was made into the 1955 movie Wages of Fear. Many claim that Sorcerer is a remake of that movie, something Friedkin always denied.

In a nutshell, three men are hiding from their misdeeds in a small hellhole in South America. The only available work is for a US owned oil well, and even so, the pay is garbage. They all want out, but are nowhere near rich enough to be able to escape. A ticket to Argentina and a passport would cost almost 2000 pesos, and one of them has managed to save a hundred. Then a mysterious hitman arrives and the tension rises again.

One day, the local guerrillas blow up the well and the only way to put it out is with dynamite, but the only available dynamite is 351 km (218 miles) away, and it's old and sweating. In case you didn't know, dynamite sweats pure nitroglycerin and nitro doesn't like sudden movement.

The oil company promises 8000 pesos each to the four men who can and are willing to drive the sweaty dynamite through the jungle, down bumpy roads and across rickety bridges. Only the most foolhardy or desperate men would take on such a task.

Sorcerer opens with four short vignettes showing what these men did to end up in the hell hole. Make no mistake, these are not good people but you still can't help sympathize with their plight once the job is on.

Clocking in at two hours, the first hour is basically all set up. The vignettes, the back breaking work, it's all misery and pain. But it is important misery. You could watch the most suspenseful scenes by themselves, but without the buildup I think you'd loose so much. You need to follow these men to understand them, to truly get why they are putting themselves through such suffering. It's easy to dismiss a lot of Sorcerer as theatrical nonsense but I firmly believe that this is a masterfully crafted thriller with well managed slow burn.

The actors are good, with Roy Scheider as the “main character”. The music is by Tangerine Dream and works well, but the star is actually Friedkin and his cinematography. Each scene is meticulously crafted, with a blend of the gritty realism from The French Connection and the overhanging sense of doom from The Exorcist. During the vignette in Jerusalem, I almost expected to see Father Karras, but that would of course be silly. That is however the atmosphere Friedkin managed to create.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes but not to everyone. If you like to have a movie on while you do stuff on your phone, this is not the film for you. Sorcerer demands attention and if you can give it that, it will reward you. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a masterpiece, but it is a really good movie, and that is enough.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week with no sweaty dynamite!

 

Stereotypes

 Hello,

I've had a pretty busy week, so unfortunately I have nothing concrete to talk about this week, but you showed up and deserve something for it.

What I have today is the comedy of  Foil Arms and Hog, a comedy trio from Ireland. I want to highlight their amazing getting past immigration interview series, where the answers are true but never what you expect. I'll link the playlist below for your pleasure:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBhpqVyEFbg&list=PLQYUb9JUs7E_-jkxbSykWTB7NfPOIpYk2

 

Beyond that, join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Nosferatu

I watched:

Nosferatu (2024),

by Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse).

This is a remake of the 1922 Nosferatu, which in turn is a ripoff of Dracula. That's why the major story beats are more or less identical to Dracula.

Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), newly married to Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) is sent by his boss, the sinister estate agent Knock to Romania to finalize the purchase of an estate. He visits Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), our titular vampire, and has a very bad time. Meanwhile, Ellen who is staying with friends, suffers worse and worse seizures and walks in her sleep. Turns out she has a sinister connection to Orlok, and just like in Dracula, he is coming for her. Thomas has to fight to save his wife together with Dr. Sievers (Ralph Ineson) and scientist turned alchemist, Professor von Franz (Willem Dafoe).

First off, Nosferatu looks incredible. Every shot, every scene is a Gothic painting come to life. A grim fairy-tale full of horror and suffering. I sound melodramatic, I know, but this movie genuinely looks amazing. So amazing in fact that it almost becomes distracting. I suppose the sound is good, but I actually can't recall it, that is how mesmerizing this movie is. Count Orlok's caste is in fact Castle Hunedoara, where the real Vlad Dracul spent some time.

The actors are likewise fantastic, especially Hoult and Depp, who in case you didn't guess is the daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis. Both portray terror and despair incredibly well, and the scenes where Ellen has her hideous seizures were not shot with a body double, Depp really did them herself. Strong stuff. It is worth noting that there is a bit of overacting in this movie, and I wonder if it is a homage to the original, since early movies were incredibly over acted.

The titular character deserves a separate mention. Count Orlok is played by Bill Skarsgård, the same man who also played Pennywise the clown. He again goes above and beyond to be terrifying, succeeding so well that several cast members wanted nothing to do with him while in makeup. A makeup that took 4-6 hours for 6 artists to apply. He also worked with an opera trainer to lower his voice an octave, which Gary Oldman also did for Bram Stokers' Dracula.

One can't watch a remake without comparing it to the original, so lets do that. A hard comparison though since Nosferatu 1922 is a silent movie shot in black and white, while Nosferatu 2024 is in color. Pale colors, this is an Eggers movie after all, but color nonetheless. Eggers has added a few scenes while omitting others, but nothing that harms the movie in any way. The most noticeable change is Orlok himself. In the 22 version Orlok is a thin, emaciated and rodent like figure, very creepy, sinister and unsettling, whereas the 24 Orlok is massive, intimidating and brutal. The 24 version is also somewhat decayed and rotten, and sports a large drooping mustache. Eggers wanted him to look like a eastern European aristocrat which is something the 22 version does not do. Skarsgård stands 6'3 normally and in makeup he was a towering 7+ feet, making him even more menacing. Orlok also seems to have difficulty breathing, which is so labored and rattling that Darth Vader sounds healthy in comparison. This detail puzzled me until I realized that as a vampire he doesn't normally breathe and so he has to force air into his decayed lungs in order to talk. Awesome detail.

My biggest gripe with Nosferatu 24 is the pacing and storytelling, which sadly is a bit choppy. Several scenes feel like they forgot them and forced them into the only spot they could go. I of course have no idea of what Eggers wanted, he might have wanted to make the experience more jarring and thus more unsettling, but several times I got annoyed at the flow being interrupted by a new scene popping up. I'll give a small example. At one point the movie cuts to von Franz opening an occult book at a random page, flipping forward a few pages and immediately finding the key to defeating Orlok, complete with illustration. Then the scene ends and cuts to something else. Jarring!

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, absolutely. The visuals alone make it worth watching and it holds so much more. Nosferatu 2024 is the least sexy vampire movie I have ever seen, and I like it. If you have any interest in vampires or Gothic media, then do watch Nosferatu 2024.

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

 

Dead Man's Shoes

On a friends recommendation I watched:

Dead Man's Shoes (2004).

This British revenge drama is directed by Shane Meadows who also co-wrote it with main star Paddy Considine.

The story is this; A soldier, Richard (Considine) returns to his small home town to get revenge on a group of local lowlifes for tormenting his mentally impaired brother Anthony. The group deals drugs, takes drugs and likes to mess around, but against an angry paratrooper they have little to show.

The Roaring Rampage of Revenge trope is an old one, and I have seen a few in my time. Tarantino's Kill Bill movies exemplify the trope, but Dead Man's Shoes is a different beast. There is no glamour, no real cathartic moment like when John Wick gets revenge for his dog, and really no action. It's gloomy, miserable and sad, but in a good way if that makes sense.

The movie is told in two parts, flash backs in black and white and the present in color. We see everything the group does to Anthony, especially the groups leader, Sonny (Gary Stretch). He is the dark soul that pushes things too far, the one who laughs the loudest, gets the angriest and the one the group follows and fears. He doesn't even walk, he swaggers.

Dead Man's Shoes is extremely well made. It takes realism to a level where it almost becomes surreal. The camera is often right in there, putting you in their dingy living rooms, even right up in their faces, essentially trapping you in the grim narrative with no way out but through to the end.

Staying with the gloomy mood, the soundtrack is sad and melancholy, but good. The actors are likewise good, with several being veterans of the craft, amateur hour this is not.

I think the central theme of the movie is guilt. Not just the guilt of doing something wrong, but the guilt of not putting a stop to it, the guilt of being away and the guilt of revenge itself. They say two wrongs don't make a right, and Dead Man's Shoes is an example of that, but it's also about justice.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, absolutely. Dead Man's Shoes is extremely compelling even though it is the kind of dark movie that saps the light from the sun and leave a bad taste in your mouth. I wouldn't go so far as to call it brilliant, but more than worth watching at least once.

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

 

She's a witch!

I finally watched:

The Witch (2015).

Written and directed by Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse, Nosferatu), this horror movie is more of an experience than a regular film.

Set in New England in the 1630's, a family leaves / is exiled from their community due to religious differences. The family consists of the father William, the mother Katherine, the eldest daughter Thomasin, her younger brother Caleb as well as the twins Jonas and Mercy and the infant Samuel. They set up a farm on the edge of a dark forest and try to survive. Things soon take a sinister turn.

The Witch or to be more exact The VVitch (since W wasn't a thing back then) was meticulously researched and is as much as possible based on books, letters and diaries from the period. Likewise the props department did an outstanding job getting the costumes as correct as possible.

The downside of this is that the dialogue is all thees and thous, which is fine, but I'm not used to listening to it and when a scene has pouring rain and someone screaming in the background, it becomes hard to follow the dialogue.

The Witch is one of the bleakest looking movies I have ever seen. It is shot in color, but it almost feels like black and white, as all the colors are washed out. This together with the excellent soundtrack creates an incredibly doom laden atmosphere, which is appropriate for the plot.

The actors deserve a special shout-out for their excellence. Ralph Ineson (William) and Kate Dickie (Katherine) are great, but they are veteran actors so no surprise there. The stand outs are Anya Taylor-Joy (Thomasin) and Harvey Scrimshaw (Caleb). Both were in the early stages of their careers and do an incredible job, particularly Scrimshaw who was only thirteen and the time. Caleb is a hard role for such a young actor, and he knocks it out of the park.

I think it's important to reiterate that The Witch is more an experience than a regular movie. Not only is it confusing at times, but I found it almost impossible to predict what would happen, something I love in a movie as long as things make sense.

What I do find weird is that it was apparently Eggers intent that the happenings would be ambiguous, in other words that it may be a real witch or that it could be superstition and religious hysteria. But since you see the witch, the uncertainty falls apart. I have seen movies that operate under the “is it / isn't it” method, and The Witch is in my opinion not one of those.

So, do I recommend The VVitch? Yes, it is incredible. Just as The Lighthouse, it left me both a bit bewildered and very impressed. I was afraid that it would have been too oppressive with accusations and denouncements together with lots of beatings in the vein of “spare the rod, spoil the child”, but I was pleasantly surprised. The characters are mostly likable which makes the tragedies hit harder. Make no mistake, this is a horror movie, but not what normally comes to mind when one says horror.

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

 

Too many options.

When you decide to play a new game that has too many options, whether of the video or tabletop variety, you may run into the problem of analysis paralysis.

I'll give you a couple of examples. In Blood Bowl you have to pick a team. In Total War you have to pick a faction/nation. In Cyberpunk 2077 you have to pick a life path and a character build. These are the games currently spinning around in my head, but there are so many others. In Magic the Gathering you have to pick a color or colors for your deck, in Warmachine you pick an army, in chess you pick... no there are only two choices in chess. I'm sure you get the idea by now.

So how do you pick a side? This is my system.

Step 1. The Rule of Cool.

What looks the coolest to you? Which style speaks to you the most?

In Total War Warhammer, I went with the Vampire Counts first, because I like fantasy Gothic and the undead, simple as that. In Blood Bowl I went with Dark Elves. On my first Cyberpunk 2077 character I went with a nomad and stealth and pistols.

In these examples I had an idea that it would work, because I knew a little about the games, but my choices were based mostly on style.

Step 2. Playstyle.

What kind of playstyle speaks to you the most?

In Blood Bowl, some teams are slow, tough and hit hard, some are fast, agile and dodge trouble and some are a hybrid. In Total War Warhammer, some factions are masters of ranged combat (usually the elves), some are slow and “indestructible” (dwarves) and some do both (Empire). In Cyberpunk 2077, you can't spec your character into everything, so you need to choose the style you need. Fast brutal frontal assault or sneaky precise infiltration? Quick hacks or a time slowing sandevistan?

Before making a choice try to look at how the faction you like the looks of, actually plays in reality. 

 

Step 3. Try Again.

Never be afraid to start over and try another team.

Sometimes Step 1 and 2 don't fit together at all. You may really like the aesthetics of a faction but hate the way they play. This is when you have to re-evaluate. In video games that is easy enough, just grab the next team/faction etc. and try again, but in tabletop that is harder. After all, if you have just put a couple of hundred monies on an army and you don't like it you can't switch just like that.

This is when research becomes important. Read some guides and watch some games before you decide, and you'll be in a better position. If you are talking about video games like I am, then starting over is completely valid. There is no point in forcing yourself to finish a game with a team you don't like just to be stubborn. Re-roll and be happy.

Step 4. Research.

This final rule may seem like a bit of an obvious point to make, but watch some videos before you decide, particularly with strategy games. Story driven games like RPG's can be spoiled, but strategy games are all about the experience. Then again, you should probably do a bit of research before you put down your hard earned money on any game.

Hopefully this is of some help to someone, your method may be different, but this is how I like to do it.

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

 

Who makes the blood flow?

When it comes to the wide world of horror and sci-fi movies, special effects are beyond important. Creepy aliens, gushing blood and dramatic fights would be nowhere without the creative geniuses who apply the makeup and the effects. 

Some names will live forever in this world, names like Rick Baker, Bud Westmore, Dick Smith and Stan Winston. Today I have a documentary about two others, Tom Savini and Greg Nicotero. 

Be advised that this video contains disturbing images, so if that's not your thing, stay away. There may also be some spoilers, well known spoilers but be aware.

That said, enjoy, and join me again next time. Until then, have a great week!

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOaqAVwFr5Y 

 

 

Too intimidated to try.

As a bit of a Christmas present to myself, I bought Total War: Warhammer One and Two together with some of the DLC. As an old school Warhammer Fantasy fan, I've been eyeing these games for years. So why haven't I gotten them before? A small part of the answer is money, huge games are expensive, and I hate paying a lot for something I'm not even sure I'll like, but the discounts on the Steam Winter Sale were really good.

The bigger part of the answer though, is intimidation. I'm not much of a strategy player to begin with, and the Total War games are in themselves a bit daunting. I did play Total War: Empire ten years ago, and it was fun but I never went back. Now I figured it was time to get back on the warhorse.

That is the topic for today, being too intimidated to try something you want. This can cover anything really, learning a new language, taking up sewing, joining a club etc, but I'm looking at it through the lens of gaming.

When I first fired up Cyberpunk 2077 it intimidated me in no time flat. Everything seemed threatening, and I had no idea what kind of consequences my actions would have. Then I did the tutorial which appears just before your first proper mission and wow that was a lot to take in! Sneaking, hacking, quickhacking, melee with parrying and dodging, cybernetics and so on and so on. I closed the game and it was over a year before I tried again, but now it is one of my all time favorite games. It is absolutely superb! What I came to eventually realize is that you can't do everything in Cyberpunk, you also don't need to even try to. Don't feel like melee? Stick to guns. Annoyed at hacking? Get a time slowing Sandevistan and kill your enemies in slow motion. Once I understood this, I was liberated and free to just have fun.

Back in 2010 I watched a Skyrim preview event and saw the hero dual wield weapons, sling spells and cause a storm that forced a dragon to land before killing said dragon. Epic stuff, but I wondered how I was ever going to manage all that. Turns out that none of it was difficult once you got a bit of practice, and certainly nothing you had to do immediately. I have over 1000 hours in Skyrim across several versions.

I have never been a Soulsborne player, in part because of the intimidation factor. FromSoft are geniuses at making their enemies terrifying. The most likely first boss in Bloodborne, The Cleric Beast is a perfect example. How it looks, how it moves and definitely how it sounds are all intended to scare you into screwing up and failing. But if you look at an experienced player you'll see that they are not intimidated. They know what they are doing and although you can never let down you guard in games like Bloodborne, they can kill The Cleric Beast with ease.

Getting over the intimidation factor isn't always easy, but at least in games you can ask “what do I have to loose?”. Time is the answer. Even if you screw up so badly that you have to restart the game, you have learned something, which is never a waste of time.

Applying this logic to other parts of our lives isn't an exact comparison. If you're learning to sew, the fabric can get ruined if you really mess up, but with all learning, you need to start small, start with raw materials you can sacrifice on the altar of knowledge and try. Theory and Practice are two different things.

This brings me back to Total War: Warhammer. I have watched a lot of lets play's from different creators. What they have in common is practice and lots of it which makes it looks so easy. Then I fire up the game and nothing works like what I saw, and of course it didn't. I haven't practiced yet, but I'm getting there.

I'm not sure I've made any sense today, this is just something I wanted to get off my chest. I guess I want to encourage you to do something you've wanted to, but haven't yet. Besides, if you mess up, you don't have to tell anyone.

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