It’s been a crazy year. Of course you don’t need me to tell you that. Covid and its variants, the nation’s paradigm shift in politics (and its moral bearing). There’s the complete blowout of any credibility of mass media. And then there’s the “Great Resignation” of the nation’s workforce which has affected me most of all. This year has made me a shut in. My whole wide world has become invocative rather than evocative. But the good part of that is there’s always plenty to find that makes that not such a bad thing.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite on PC: Making its debut from a seemingly small developer (message flash: they’re not, these are the guys who made Star Trek Online and had a hand in creating City of Heroes) we have a fast and frantic 3rd person action shooter set in the universe of the Alien movies, the original trilogy. The character classes gain different weapons and perks as they level up which is the real draw here. There are challenge cards you can play before each mission as well. The game is a 3 player co-op, and it’s fun with other players. You can flesh out blank positions with the working joes (as featured in the much more elaborate Alien: Isolation.) Unfortunately, the game is withering because nobody plays.
The Italian Job on Blu Ray: I’ve owned this movie on DVD for years. I recently picked it up on Blue Ray, and the transfer is absolutely beautiful. The film looks like it was filmed this year on sets depicting the 1960s. Folks, this is why Blu Ray is such an important medium. Stream until your heart’s content, but support the Blu Ray medium. It can’t die out. This movie features Michael Caine in his young days, masterminding a gold heist in Italy during a huge soccer game involving Italy and the UK. He’s got it all figured out, even employing Benny Hill as a computer hacker (yes, they even had hackers back then!) to tie up the city’s traffic light system thereby causing a massive traffic jam which will enable the robbers to make a clean getaway. But the main star of this movie is the Mini Coopers used to expedite the robbery. Watch it. You’ll laugh out loud.
The Art of Alien:Isolation by Andy McVittie: This is one of those niche coffee table books that could pass for a bowling ball with its weight. The book is so lavish I’m tempted to wash my hands every time I pick it up. It’s full of color plates, artist interviews and sketches by the people who lovingly crafted the video game, Alien: Isolation. Not only does the book make me want to play through the game again (this would make the third time I’ve played through it) it also makes me want to watch the original movie again. This book is based on a game that is in fact, a love letter to fans of the original movie.
The Cowsills The Cowsills on vinyl: 1967. I was in kindergarten (the morning class to be precise.) I remember my mother having a small white radio and through it I heard the song “The Rain, The Park and Other Things.” I was just discovering music and how cool it was, but the song became an integral part of my memories back then. And now, seeing the album with the Cowsill family forever frozen in that time on that lemon sunny day, the song and the rest of the album have become really bittersweet. 1967 and my boyhood youth are gone, but this album allows me to hold a piece of it in my hands.
Singularity on PC: Flying in under the radar in 2010, this game was made by the same team that made the equally inconspicuous Wolfenstein (2009). This game borrowed elements from numerous other shooters at the time. It had time travel, and a sort of gravity gun that acutely forwarded or reversed time. Find a broken staircase, torn apart in an explosion, simply use the gun on it and watch it “recreate” itself to its former glory as a functional staircase. And then use it to traverse the next level. Stop those annoying Russian soldiers chasing you by using the gun to forward time on them. Grossly, but oh so efficiently, they age, becoming wizened and then crumble into skeletal piles of dust. This was a cool gimmick, but unfortunately, about six hours into it I reached a level in which I had the wrong weapon against a virtual indestructible enemy. I was done. I uninstalled it out of anger. I love my first-person shooters, but time has become precious. It’s not to be wasted.
The Meeting Places Find Yourself Along the Way on CD: I first heard this niche band on Pandora way back in 2005 with their catchy and haunting, “Blur the Lines.” I immediately Amazon wishlisted the album and just recently picked it up. If you look up dream pop music in the dictionary, don’t be surprised if you see this band as the accompanying picture. Since my infatuation with The Ocean Blue, I’ve always loved this type of music. Founded in 2001 by four guitarists, members had to switch and learn to play other instruments to get the band going. If you want to hear Fender Stratocasters couple with great reverb and chorus, you’ll want to give this band a listen.
The Witcher The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski: I’d read this book some time ago before it became a thing. And now that it has because of the venerable Netflix series, the books have climbed in price. This introduces us to Geralt of Rivia, a monster slayer, mutated with special fighting abilities, in effect a medieval Jedi knight. This is some of the best fantasy I’ve read in years, and reading it again didn’t take any of that away, which is surprising, given I rarely (if ever) read a book more than once. This is basically a collection of short stories, but if you pay close attention, you’ll see the Netflix series episodes in each of these chapters, albeit with much more detail. I plan on revisiting the second book as well, and then continuing the series. If the rest of the books continue like this one, I’m in for some great reading.
The Drop by Dennis Lehane: It seems that Dennis Lehane was a gray sky, bleak weather mobster or a jaded homicide detective that tossed his Styrofoam cup of bad coffee and decided to go home and write novels. And boy does it show. I’ve read a few of his books. They all concern Boston mobsters and angry cops, guys who did terrible things in their youth and now carry around the grizzled wrinkles and 5 o’clock shadows to show for it. This book, I’ve read was based on a short story Lehane made into a screenplay. I hate movie tie ins. As a matter of fact, I simply don’t read them. This book fooled me. It concerns a single guy stewing in loneliness, working as a bartender at a neighborhood dive, who, while walking home one evening discovers an abused pit bull puppy in a trash can. He nurses it to health, and his life begins taking all kinds of changes for the better, that is, until, a shifty eyed patron at the bar tells him, “You have my dog and I want him back.”
