Edward's January 2018 Mix

January was infamous for its cold temperatures and according to mass media, the worse bout of influenza since 2009. There hasn’t been much to do except stay in the house, and with that I took full advantage. This was a busy month for me. I’ve finished a game already! I acquired numerous CDs and books I’d been on the prowl for. Yes, indeedy, it’s been a good month.

1.      Morrissey The Best of Morrissey on CD: Like some modern day Dickens novel narrator, Steven Patrick Morrissey’s lyrics are replete with visions of failed criminals, beaten boxers, hapless hitchhikers and social misfits. Critics swoon over his lyrics, which for the most part are quite simple, “The more you ignore me, the closer I’ll get,” but for me it’s his singing voice. And this album showcases it. It truly is a “best of.” Morrissey’s music is upbeat, and sounds almost as if it was mixed with bubble gum pop music slowed down in tempo and then spit out of a 1960’s time machine, and that’s the great deception, back to the lyrics. They are usually bleak. That’s just the Morrissey trademark. Like one reviewer wrote about him, “he’s terminally romantic, yet hopelessly unlovable.” Check out “Everyday is Like Sunday.” You’ll see what I mean.

2.      Back to the Future on Blu-Ray: Oddly, and you won’t believe this, but I’d never seen this movie. I’ve always been a fan of Michael J. Fox and I can see why they scrapped Eric Stoltz in the title role for Fox after six weeks of filming. (Don’t get me wrong—I’m a fan of Eric Stoltz, too.) This wasn’t gut busting funny, but quite entertaining nonetheless. I admire what I’ve seen of Robert Zemeckis’s directing. He seems to be more known for his producing, but it’s directing where he’s going to prove his worth. But the real star of this show for me was Biff Tannen, the bully played so effectively by Thomas F. Wilson (who drew upon his own experiences being bullied in school to play Biff.)  I picked up the Blu Ray trilogy, and though I’ve only seen the first one, the resolution is stellar. The film was shot in an intentional “technicolor” type format to hint at its vintage 1950’s setting. The effect is beautiful on Blu Ray.

3.      Gangs of New York on Blu Ray: Kind of like a prison movie, but without the visible bars. Imagine being a fresh immigrant from Ireland in 1860, escaping poverty and famine, and finding yourself trapped in a borough in early New York City, unable to leave because of a lack of finances. It would be like leaving poverty to land in more poverty. This is Martin Scorsese at his finest, and Daniel Day-Lewis is simply brilliant in his character portrayal of Bill “The Butcher” Cutting. If you haven’t seen this film, watch it for Day-Lewis’s performance alone. So worth it. The sets are spectacular, and the authenticity of this film is backed by painstaking research. The only negative is the Blu Ray edition I have. It’s a poor transfer. Disney remastered the film a few years back; that’s the one to watch.  

4.      NOS4A2 by Joe Hill: I guess the proverbial apple really doesn’t fall too far from the tree. This novel, scribed by Stephen King’s son exudes the same comedy, profanities, vulgarities and compelling writing as his old man. Shoot, Joe could probably give Stephen a run for his money truth be told. “In the glare of headlights, the mist was revealed as a thousand fine grains of water trembling in the air. Too light to fall, they blew around instead, a rain that wouldn’t rain.” Beautiful imagery there. An old man kidnaps children with his Rolls Royce Wraith and steals them away to “Christmasland,” where he vampirically steals their youth. It’s been done before in Clive Barker’s Thief of Always, which was an excellent yarn, but for sheer entertainment I found this book incredibly hard to put down.

5.      Euro Truck Sim 2  on PC: Through Christmas, World of Trucks was offering special prizes for doing long haul contracts. The prizes included truck paint skins and special holiday ornaments to hang from mirrors and mount on dashboards. I couldn’t resist. My company is growing, I’m now up to six drivers and three garages. My cash flow is getting more consistent. All my loans are paid in full, and the moolah is in the black. I’m almost at 60% of the map explored, but I still have a long way to go.

6.      The Police Synchronicity on CD: Like friction forming a pearl within a clam, The Police were disputing so much that they recorded this album with the three of its members recording in separate rooms with occasional overdubbing, and what spawned was an album that had numerous number one hits. It’s a remarkable final album with The Police’s main influences, jazz, reggae and new wave all making a presence. According to the rag mag, Rolling Stone, “Roxanne” is ranked the 388^th best song out of the top 500 of all time. Personally, “Roxanne” sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard, and conversely, Synchronicity was one of my favorite albums of the 1980s. In 1989, the album was ranked No. 17 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s.” Now this, I could see. It makes sense. I picked up an original made in 1983. No remastering here. This is pure Police.  

7.      Top Gun on Blu Ray: Having just gotten out of the US Navy less than a year when this movie was released I thought it was the ultimate in coolness since I could relate to so much of it. My A school in San Diego, CA was used for much of the filming. And I was just becoming acquainted with Tom Cruise who was a guy women wanted to be with and men wanted to be around. It wasn’t released to the highest critical acclaim in 1986, but having this movie on Blu Ray with its excellent Dolby 5.1 and DTS-HD 6.1 and all of the many supplemental extras on the disc make this a Blu Ray everybody should own. I never got to see this movie on DVD, but the color transfer on Blu Ray is exceptional. See it on the biggest screen you can.

8.      Neverwinter Nights on PC: I originally bought this way back in 2002 on opening week. I was new to RPGs and characteristic of my real life writing and creativity I decided to tackle this game as a bard. Accompanied by my cousin, Justin Rexroad’s disparagements, I didn’t get very far at all. This time I’m playing a Paladin. I’m just about to hit level 9 and I’m about 1/3 of the way through Chapter 2 of 4 chapters total. The game is still pretty to look at despite its 2002 release, yet one could run it on a cheap Walmart laptop in all of its splendor given it’s so old. The story lines are compelling and the soundtrack spectacular. I found the game on gog.com for a paltry $3.49. Money well spent, and I’m glad I decided to revisit this remarkable game.

9.      Dunkirk on 4K UHD Blu Ray: Dunkirk was shot with a combination of IMAX 65 and Panavision 65 cameras, and it was released to theaters in a variety of formats, including 70mm, IMAX and IMAX 70mm. It's an ideal source for 4K presentation in the home, and Christopher Nolan reportedly regards Dunkirk's UHD as its definitive representation on video. Nolan is a big fan of UHD and is pushing to get all of his films released on the medium. Warner is hoping that this new 4K disc will give the UHD medium a needed shove toward general acceptance, and their hope may pan out, because—whatever one's view of the film itself—the disc is a beauty I’m told. This is the first 4K movie I’ve picked up, and amusingly, I got it home, put it in the player and then realized my Blu Ray player wasn’t 4K. Doh! So, now I have something to save up for. Luckily, the set contained a standard Blu Ray disc as well, and having watched it I can proclaim Dunkirk is the best movie I’ve seen in 2017. It’s a movie with little dialogue and much action. The way in which the characters come through by their actions (and not words) is truly magnificent and on par with the best Christopher Nolan work I’ve seen period. Foreshadowing the world’s first complete air war, The Battle of Britain, on which my second novel manuscript is based, this movie based on the mass exodus of allied soldiers from France during Germany’s takeover has inspired me to get busy doing edits on my manuscript to get it to completion. So, in effect, this movie was much more than just entertainment.

10.  Silent Hunter IV on PC: I've played this series through the years and enjoyed every one I've played. I have to say this one has been the most dazzling as far as beautification and spit and polish go. The opening cinematic introduction is accompanied by the haunting poem, “On Time” by John Milton, and leads you to believe war is above all other things, hellish. I’ve just been granted command of my first submarine in the summer of 1939. (Of course this is an anachronism being we didn’t go to war with Japan until the end of 1941). It does let the player experience our first submarines of WWII, however. Firing a torpedo into a large wooden Japanese merchant ship at midnight I could hear the booming explosion. I peeked outside and it was pitch black, cold ocean, hard rain. The sub buoyed like a cork in a tempest. In the lightning flashes I could see the ghostly bulk of  the Japanese ship I’d just destroyed. I felt terrible. All of those men going into that choppy deep sea on such a black night. I was thinking it would have been a horrible way to go. I used the external camera and watched the ship sink, and I caught glimpses of life boats full of men wearing life jackets. Some of them survived. I suddenly didn’t feel so bad.

11.  Delta Force on PC: Exuding personal history, this was the first game I played online back in the glory days of telephone dial up. With its amazing voxel type graphics that bragged “3D!” the game was anything but. But it was a tour de force of fun back in 1998 when it came out. I actually played it in 1999 with my nephew Neftali Garcia who has since departed the family. How I miss him and those days of playing Delta Force death match until the wee hours of the morning. Supposedly inspired by real life Delta Force operatives, this game was about realistic as a midway duck target/cork air rifle shooting gallery. And the graphics look like puke by today’s standards. Still, the death screams were laugh out loud funny, and the AI one to be wary of. This was the days before we realized the programmers created an artificial difficulty by simply amping up the dead eye accuracy of the AI bots. I picked this one up on gog.com for under three bucks. In the 40 missions I played I racked up 1091 kills. It took me 19.5 hours to beat (thanks to that dead eye AI accuracy). It was a sweet trip down memory lane, but I was thankful when it was over.