Category: *.AVI

Another interesting fighting video game history video.

There’s a lot of speculation, as usual, but the design of one character blew my mind 😆

I’m simply amazed how much meaningful content they managed to squeeze into two hours of screen time. Time to wonder why Star Wars are not able to do the same. But we all know the answer, don’t we?
There is clear motivation for every character, there are brief but accurate explanations of the world setting, and each episode has it’s own well defined mood. Just the episode where heroes had to speak with dead barbarians could redeem another movie in my eyes.

Underdark action scenes are mind-blowing.

Standoff between two wizards is even better.

And there is a lot of respect to the source material, tons of references, instead of just making stuff up.

I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much. Christian Bale and the guy from Blade Runner are great, but there is also the guy from Midnight Mass, and hilariously Kendal from Succession . And the evil guy from Umbrella Academy. Damn, I forgot the Umbrella Academy.
Breaking the 4th wall, led by Ryan Gosling, is something that movie does hilariously well.
The general tone reminded me of Dopesick, though. Everyone was “just doing their job”, “playing a system just a little”, and it all ended up in a huge disaster. But nobody paid the price for it. Except us, of course.

– Bombs?
– Moths. It’s Italian wool, and I love it.

At least this movie understands some signature elements. The sniper rifle, the .45s, the garrotte, changing uniforms.

It’s still ridiculous at times, like shooting a handcuff chain with a sniper rifle. But still.
The bait-and-switch with John Smith is pretty good. The idea of a female assassin is pretty good, considering we already had Hitman: Absolution.
The airport scene is pretty amusing. Again, a play on both changing costumes and avoiding cameras.

I decided that I need to fill the gaps in my education by watching American Psycho. And I didn’t get it. Maybe I wasn’t watching closely enough.
Like some bits of it are hilarious. The introductory monologue about vane morning routine. The “competition” around business cards. Or how during sex Patrick mostly interested in how he looks in the mirror.
And someone spoiled for me the fact that he didn’t kill people for real. But I expected that this was all more figural fantasies. While it seems that the story was about a mentally unwell person all that time.

Snake Plissken is a cult character. Although I’ve seen Escape from Los Angeles a couple of times as a kid (and I remember nothing), I’ve never seen Escape from New York. So, I decided to remedy it.

There are still some key elements that Kojima will exploit in the Metal Gear Solid series. Like Snake being tricked into accepting a lethal timed poison under the guise of “antitoxin,” or rescuing the president, where the goal is actually not to extract the president himself, but what he carries. An audiotape with nuclear secrets, apparently.

Also funny how Snake carries that now-iconic gun of his. In fact, it’s just a MAC-10 with a large silencer and a useless scope, but then every gun has a scope in this movie except the M16, which is the only gun that should have a scope. But he rarely even uses it.

It is basically a strange zombie movie, where the “Crazies,” cannibals living in the sewers, play the part. There are two “zombie” scenes. First, when the girl gets dragged under the floor, and Snake has to block a window with a bookcase. Then later, an escape in a car.

Then, there’s a “bum fight”. Snake and a former restler are given bats with nails.

And the most irrational bit is the mined bridge. This is the most irritating bit. This is a prison island. Who would place mines in a pattern that could be avoided with a map? And Snake acts as an asshole without any clear reason, just blowing up a Cabbie on a mine, then Brain blows himself up on a mine without reason too. It’s like they just wanted to get rid of all of those characters, so they wouldn’t need to carry them over a wall.

Interesting how, by the middle of the movie, Snake gets an arrow in his leg and limps for the entire rest of the movie. And how almost every other character has heard about him, saying things like “I thought you were dead” or “What are you doing here?”.

Kurt Russell plays badly. Actually, everyone plays badly, except Adrienne Barbeau.

There’s a very interesting note that Peter Molyneux wasn’t involved much in Syndicate, because he was always focused on a single game at a time.