Ah, the throes of winter. It’s a good time to be inside, isn’t it? And what better way to spend inside time than doing inside things. Books, movies, music anyone? Not to mention the occasional game or three. It’s shaping up to be another weird year. Prices are through the roof. A neighbor of mine had a new roof priced: $25,000. I got an oil change for my Mustang at the dealership: $331. (Of course, I talked them down from that, but the thing is, it’s still a thing.) And the sad part is as you already know, once prices go up, they don’t come down. Whoever said what goes up must come down, but that doesn’t apply to prices. It never has.
Alien on Blu Ray: Playing Aliens FireTeam Elite last month got me motivated to revisit this old favorite in the land of cinema. The Blu Ray transfer is excellent, and now I see the original has been released on 4K. That’s something I may have to look into. One thing I noticed on this perhaps 4th or 5th viewing was how slow the pacing was for the first 45 minutes of the film. And I truly see Ridley Scott’s ingenuity behind it. That ever long pacing is to get you to care about the characters, to really get to know them. And it just works. If you like good horror movies, this is one of the all time greats.
Casino Royale on Netflix: My guitar mentor, Michael Stevens got me excited to watch this one. I’d never seen a Daniel Craig James Bond film, and so why not start with the first one of the five movie series? It’s typical Bond fare with over-the-top villains, gadgetry, lovely looking women but this time with a James Bond who, though rough and rugged, has a sensitive side. I’m told the next movie in the series takes place six hours after this movie ends. So, I’m wholly looking forward to seeing it. James Bond has been a steadfast companion through all of my years. It’s nice to see how the series has evolved, and the different iterations of Mr. Bond, himself.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie: I remember receiving a Guinness Book of World Records for Christmas as a kid. One record which specifically intrigued me at the time was Agatha Christie's then current record of being the most prolific author on the planet (with over 2 billion copies of her books having been sold). It's a shame over forty years later and I'm just now finishing my first book by her. But wow, what a book! Mysteries were never really my thing, Sherlock Holmes seemed boring (I know now that is not the case) and Murder, She Wrote seemed uninteresting to me. I'd always heard this book was a great introduction to Christie's works. It concerns a cast of characters who receive mysterious (but compelling) invitations to a small ritzy island off the England coast. Over the course of a few days, the arrivals are killed off, and like any good open mystery, we don't find out until the last of the book who the killer is. I never saw it coming. I agree with her fans. Agatha Christie had a flair for this type of thing. I look forward to more of her books.
Beck Sea Change on CD: I remember hearing Beck back in 1996 with his big hit, “The Devil’s Haircut.” It was such a fun frolicky song to listen to. And then I bought the CD and found the whole album highly enjoyable. But there was a certain sameness to his music. And then Sea Change was released in 2002. And it is here we see a much more serious soulful side to Beck. Filled with beautiful acoustics and Beck’s crooning voice, the album caught me off guard when it came out. It is listed in Rolling Stone magazine’s top 500 albums of all time. But does that really matter, I mean, come on, 500 albums are a lot to choose from. Heh. Still, Rolling Stone did say it was Beck’s best album. I couldn’t agree more.
Hunt: Showdown on PC: I’d been following this game on Steam for quite the while, but never pulled the trigger because I am absolutely abysmally bad at battle royale games. I finally took the plunge, however, and boy howdy! This game is the most fun I’ve had in a PC game in ages. It’s a simple concept. You are thrown onto a map in the southern bayou area of Louisiana in the late 1800s, charged with tracking down, killing and harvesting monsters. Simple enough, yeah? Well, when you harvest one of these monsters you have to make it to an exfiltration point to cash in. Other bounty hunters (real players) attempt to rob you of your booty. It’s more fun than any game has a right to be, and with a couple of good team mates, even moreso. The music, the environment, and the murky swampy graphics just add to the experience.
Night Gallery Season Three on DVD: I loved this show as a kid. And it’s great seeing all of these actors like Sally Fields and Burgess Meredith do these old roles from the 1970s. Rod Serling and producer Jack Laird butted heads when it came to the show’s format. Serling insisted upon a certain seriousness, and Laird insisted on inserting these small comical two-to-three-minute comedic episodes that distracted from the show’s horror element. In my opinion, this doomed the show to an early retirement. It’s wonderful to be able to watch the whole series in its entirety via DVD.
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: Kurt Vonnegut is to literature what Bill Murry is to film comedy. Have you ever overheard a stranger telling another stranger about a bad day he's had, a series of unfortunate events that are so sad and pathetic you find yourself looking away to avoid a guffaw? In his beautiful and bleak style, Vonnegut introduces us to such a character, Howard Campbell, Jr., confined to jail, about to go to trial in Israel, seeking redemption after being ousted as a Nazi war propagandist. Abetted by an American, he's actually employed as a double agent. But at the time of his capture and incarceration the American contact can't be located. Campbell had better think fast. Kurt Vonnegut is a master with the pen and metaphor. His writing is beautiful. “We crossed the deserted parade ground together, dust devils spinning here and there. It was my fancy to think of the dust devils as the spooks of former cadets at the school, killed in war, returning now to whirl and dance on the parade ground alone, to dance in as un-military a fashion as they damn well pleased.” A thousand words, indeed, does paint a pretty picture.
Color out of Space on Blu Ray: Thanks to my good friend, Gene Clifford, I was able to procure a copy of this whacked out movie for this mix. When I announced, I was going to watch this movie to my friend, Brian Bartley, his gaze intensified and he told me, “There are certain lines you don’t cross in movies, but this one does. And I’ll know you will have watched it by your face the next time I see you.” How’s that’s for a compelling reason to watch a movie? It was a rather unsettling intro to a movie. I felt like I was going to sit down to a viewing of The Ring in which after you watched the movie you only had a set number of days to live! Starring Nicholas Cage, the movie is an adaption of a story by H.P. Lovecraft, and what a story it is. It’s so sadly pathetic and heart rending. It’s a movie in which you’ll be glad it’s only a movie. H.P. Lovecraft lived a dreary bleak life, he hung out in morgues, and strolled around his house in winter coats, refusing to put the furnace on. He had an air of macabre about him, and this movie captures that perfectly.
Terminator: Dark Fate on Blu Ray: A redux of the storyline, more “woke,” a little more outlandish, and not as dark and sinister as the original. The special effects were worth the cost of admission alone. The terminator, this time around, was a bit more interactive, preferring to talk his way out of things than simply going all in and killing everything around him (certainly not that he was above doing that when the situation required it, mind you.) It’s worth checking out if you’re a fan of the series. An interesting thing I learned while watching the “behind the scenes,” during most stunt driving, the guy actually driving the car is inside of a small roll cage equipped with a steering wheel, gearshift, clutch, etc. affixed to the front bumper section of the vehicle. So, when you see the protagonist/antagonist inside the cab whipping the steering wheel around, it’s not connected to anything. They’re not even driving!
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