"Accomplishments"
At home: There's no denying Foundation's second season is more exciting than the first even if it leans into two things that are suspect in terms of adapting Asimov's seminal series. One is that it prefers action and spectacle to conversational solutions, as I think is proper for a "filmic" television series. There's no denying the show looks amazing and the Imperium offers varied locations and peoples. Of course, when you consider Hober Mallow's actual solution to the Second Crisis in the books, it's ridiculous how "active" he is. The other is that they go through some pretty insane convolutions to keep the same cast employed, even if they do sacrifice SOME. One side-effect is to blow the secrets about the Second Foundation way too early, but needs must. Another is to pursue the notion of exceptionalism that psychohistory would seem to deny, or at least, condemn. Ironically, it's the tri-fold Emperor's plot - a complete invention of the series - that seems to integrate the books' themes best, as there's nothing they can really do to stop history from happening. That said, Season 2 shines brightest when it's focusing on its new characters - Riose, the general trying to save lives, and his husband thought lost; Mallow, the con man turned hero; and Constant, the frank and touching monk in the Foundation's "church" - she had me breaking into tears at the end there. I know I make a lot of comparisons with the books, but Foundation does stand on its own by this point and works on its own merits, where perhaps Season 1 was a little slow to set things up in comparison.
Entergalactic, Planetary. Planetary, Entergalactic... No wait, wrong hip-hop artist. The companion film to Kid Cudi's 2022 album of the same name is a very sweet animated romcom vaguely in the style of the Spider-Verse films, but more grounded despite some flights of fancy justified by the two leads being visual artists. It's a little steeped in weed culture, to tell you the truth, but the characters are well-drawn (ha) and the supporting cast provides a lot of laughs. It's certainly the most filmically accomplished of the synergetic music album tie-ins (a subgenre that includes Janelle Monáe's Dirty Computer and Childish Gambino's Guava Island), essentially a live-action film - the animated models look like the actors - that uses animation to create gorgeous effects. Though there's a "high concept" romcom premise - should you date your neighbor? - the gimmick is fleeting as we focus more on the evolving relationship. Cudi is sympathetic; Jessica Williams is the real star. And on a personal note, the art gallery stuff's subtle satire is very relatable (I say subtle because it's closer to the truth than you expect, even if I've never been to a vagina party).
In Lamb, Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snær Guðnason are a farming couple who have lost a child in the past, so when one of their sheep gives birth to a half-human hybrid, they don't see it as the ill omen folklore would predict it was, and instead adopt it as a surrogate daughter. The fact that the sheep are initially introduced as if they were people, or at least a community, gives this action a sinister resonance. The child is ripped from its real mother and a point of contention in the farm yard. So while one possible theme is how childless/lonely humans can imbue pets with a kind of child surrogacy (sometimes to toxic extremes), that's only chilling to the most sensitive of animal rights activists. More powerful then is the notion of adoption as a form of child trafficking, at least in situations where the rich feed on the poor to get them (whether by denying abortions, or situations such as happened on the US-Mexican border only a few years ago). It's not entirely clear, and while family drama, the bleak cinematography of rural Iceland, and the chilling attitude of the Guðnason's brother coming to visit are all quite good, I can't help but feel let down by the ending. The real-life ram patriarch seen in a cut-away mid-film is a more powerful presence than what we see in the climax, and seemed to presage something more mundane and terrifying.
Swedish for "The Witch", Häxan is a silent documentary, or at least essay film, about witchcraft, particularly in the Middle Ages, and using some of the tricks of Méliès and German expressionism in its recreations. Like the best of that latter genre, it's full of interesting images, and the demons and devils these women cavort with are really well realized. And here the first reel made me think it was all going to be pencils pointing at specific details in Medieval illustrations (not that there isn't a certain old-fashioned charm to that). Director Benjamin Christensen addresses us directly and means to show that the scapegoats known as witches were in reality often struck with mental health issues, which is more instructive to his 1922 audience than today's, and if the final chapter is weaker, it's in part because the psychology is so primitive, well-meaning though it is. He does suggest that trading witch trials for mental institutions (and how the rich and poor are sent to different places) is only an incremental improvement. But whether or not the film is informative today, that's a little besides the point. Check it out for the cool visuals, and though told in vignettes, there's enough story in the middle chapters to keep you interested.
So William Peter Blatty, writer of The Exorcist, gets to write and direct an adaptation of his novel Legion, but the suits want to call it The Exorcist III, so okay, let's create some tenuous connective tissue between the original film and this police investigation into religion-fuelled murders. And then when there's no exorcism in it (well, duh), they ask for reshoots and the insertion of an exorcism scene. The result is naturally schizophrenic, but that's perhaps thematically consistent. And who can begrudge the sudden exorcism scene when it's the first time Blatty cuts loose with effects and gore, up to that point presenting the savage, gory murders only in dialog and suggestion (which are still quite effective). George C. Scott is great as the haunted detective - I love his bantery relationship with his priest friend - and then you get Brad Dourif as the possessed killer, well... That's just perfect. A witty script, a spooky atmosphere, and imposed or not, a cool resolution. I was told this was the only Exorcist sequel worth its salt and I wasn't steered wrong.
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge is a strange animal. It connects directly to the iconic original, but its final girl Nancy doesn't appear; we have to make do with her diary and of course, the house. And of course, there's the matter of Freddy Krueger manifesting in the real world after possessing a boy and acting like pyrokinetic poltergeist (a pyrogeist?), tricks entirely unknown across the rest of the franchise. The movie took a lot of heat (ha!) for changing the rules, and yet has also attracted a following on the basis of its gay subtext, which is both amusing (to those who think it accidental) and transgressive (to those who don't). Its big move is to make Jesse (Mark Patton) the Final Girl/Scream Queen, not his girlfriend Lisa (Kim "Not Young Meryl Streep" Myers). The unisex name Jesse might even point to a version of the script where a female Jesse moved to Elm Street. In any case, it's a decision that pushes the film into the homoerotic (and not just because the gym teacher frequents the Blue Oyster), and where a true self yearns to be released (in this case, also a serial killer, so it can be interpreted as homophobic, but the fact that all the authority figures are unreasonably hard on the kids - an Elm Street trope, remember, this generation burned Freddy alive - makes it relatable to closeted teens of the era). So it's interesting, but it suffers from feeling like its makers didn't see the first film.
Pop culture's image of Freddy Krueger as an ever-transforming nightmare demon is cemented in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, probably the best of the Nightmare sequels. Its effects are insane, varied and well-designed. It has a tighter story focusing on a mental institution where kids are targeted nightly, but learn to use their dream self powers to fight back. And it adds to the lore, expanding Freddy's world beyond the Elm Street house and its boiler room. Wes Craven is back contributing to the story, as is Nancy, now a dream therapist (Heather Langenkamp isn't a strong actress, but she IS an iconic Final Girl and I'm always happy to see her). This is also Patricia Arquette's first movie, here as Kristen, whose dream abilities are the key to surviving Freddy's attacks. And it's director Chuck Russell's debut too; he would go on to make other inventive flicks like The Mask and The Blob remake. They even get Dick Cavet and Zsa Zsa Gabor in on the fun. Dream Warriors is Crazy with a capital "C" and though it feels like a definite ending to the saga, it also shows the way in terms of producing further sequels thanks to it cool gags and dark humor.
The surviving Dream Warriors return in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, even if Patricia Arquette's character has been recast, and of course, so does Freddy. He's got a great resurrection scene and it doesn't feel like a cheat even after the previous effort's finale. Since Part 3's cast was pegged as the last of the Elm Street kids, Freddy in fact needs a new crop, so as the baton passes to new Final Girl Alice (Lisa Wilcox), the "Dream Master" of the title with new abilities to fight the nightmares (after Dream Warriors set the tone with its D&D party/superhero team element), and through her, he accesses more dreams and more teenage cannon fodder (bad acting and all). Again the horror gags are pretty loopy and original, and this is, I think the first in the franchise to have some actual bangers by name artists on the soundtrack. Plus, it really does advance the greater story, even when you thought everything had been said, bringing some piece to Freddy's victims. Part 4 justifies my up-til-then-not-entirely-tested opinion that Nightmare was the best (or at least, my favorite) horror franchise.
Though A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child has its moments - everyone seems to like the opener when Alice is in the skin of Freddy's mother and the would-be comics artist getting A-Ha'ed into his comic book, and I did too - it's too badly put together for me to give it a good report. Lisa Wilcox's Alice has made a bunch of new friends, is graduating, and has become pregnant. But Freddy's returned and wants to reincarnate (or something?) inside her baby (right?). He's also now able to attack her friends without going through her dreams, and indeed, when they're not sleeping, provoking waking nightmares, and it's sold as this big mystery and then never solved. Alice's abilities from the previous film are completely ignored. And then you have that finale that's hard to follow as shot, and goes all "magic glowing baby" on us in lieu of a proper victory against the nightmare demon. I felt very disconnected from it, so I agree, it's time they killed Freddy for good.
Future Doctor Who director Rachel Talalay has been hovering in the Elm Street production team for a bit, and she gets to put the final(?) nail in Krueger's coffin by directing Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, for which she also gets the story credit. Within the first minute, she gives us our first WTF moment, as we learn that Springwood is now empty of children and teenagers. Freddy's killed them all. It's all so very post-apocalyptic. There's one survivor though, and Freddy lets him slip to the next town over where he might connect to other teens (ones in trouble at a shelter, in fact) so he can get at a fresh batch through his dreams. And off we go again. The kids are helped by Lisa Zane as a therapist with a strange connection to the Elm Street dreamscape, and Yaphet Kotto as a dream specialist slumming it at the shelter. I dare say this is the best-acted film in the franchise to date, by which I merely mean it's generally competent. It's also got some amusing cameos. AND it's still giving us new lore! Who WAS Freddy before he was killed? To end him, we have to go back to his beginnings. The kills? A mixed bag. Some great, some silly - you know, the usual.
I love the kind of meta shit that Wes Craven's New Nightmare serves up on a bloody platter, and I'm almost sorry that I couldn't have amnesia and see it without the benefit of knowing what it was about. What a great surprise it would have been. Basically, as the movie we're watching is being written, things start to take a dark turn for scream queen Heather Langenkamp (surely her best performance in the franchise) - a crazed Freddy fan keeps calling, everyone associated with the franchise is having terrible dreams, and her kid is having the worse of all. Then, people start dying. Freddy hasn't been this scary since the original, more a partial presence than a dude in a rubber mask who can be hit and humiliated (like Craven's other monster, about to premiere, Ghostface). Though he's that too, in the third act, when Heather gives in to the "film" and becomes Nancy once more. In New Nightmare, Craven says everything he wants to say about his dream demon, locking in one final bit of lore, and about his experience making horror films. It's darker, but the meta element create the humor we associate with Elm Street. Very cool, ballsy stuff.
A trippy, lo-fi Lithuanian sci-fi film, Vanishing Waves has a scientist called Lukas deep-dive into a comatose patient's mind as part of an experiment. There he finds a beautiful young woman, Aurora (the original title), who is, in many ways, all body. Cue as much sex and nudity as possible in a mindscape that grows more complex with Lukas' visits. There's a lot we can question about this reality, and so does he. Breaking all the rules, he falls in love with her, meddles in her care, and even dares go too far inside her psyche. Just how far he might be willing to go is what we're watching for. Psychological interpretations might yield some interesting results, especially concerning a third presence who I was sure would amount to more, at least in terms of plot. Vanishing Waves is often dialog-free, a sensual experience more than a surreal one. I haven't seen The Cell since it came out, but this is the thinking person's version.
A thematic sequel to Gen-X Cops (which is why the Chinese title has that big "2" in it), Gen-Y Cops is principally remarkable for having an early role for a blond Paul Rudd trying to act macho as an FBI agent. But the bloom on that particular rose soon wilts in a mess of very broad comedy (Sam Lee is particularly cartoonish and annoying, and yet the one memorable character in the movie), forgettable action scenes, and bad special effects. Taking a page from Robocop, the American-Hong Kong collaboration has both the FBI (including Maggie Q who feels sidelined) and the HK police (represented by young guys with cool haircuts and little sense) try to capture Edison Chen playing a robotics expert called Edison Chan (I kid you not) and recover a stolen cop-bot. There's a Chinese dub, but I saw the American dub. It's pretty bad, as you might expect. Amusingly, they seem to have lost the sound on Rudd's last scene (or else wanted to change his dialog), so he's suddenly dubbed with a silly voice. Shot with some energy by Jackie Chan collaborator Bennie Chan, it nevertheless collapses under the weight of its slapstick, too-large cast, and ridiculous plot. Hey, where's our Millennial Cops movie? And should I be poking the bear?
RPGs: Our Halloween Special! Gave me a chance to take a break from all the Aysle stuff thanks to a Nightmare Tree planted inside a spooky cave. On the world calendar, Day 159 also coincided with a full moon, which meant our Monster Hunter would turn into a savage Were-bat. I called it "Buried Deep", for the tree, for the monster within, and also for the traumas exposed in each character's dream invaded by the Mara, a creature from Northern Europe's folklore that has cousins in Indian Orrorsh. I sort of picked elements from three different scenarios in Delphi Missions: Orrorsh and threw in the fact that one of the PCs was a lycanthrope. They throw him in a cave as the moon rises, and only then hear the voice of a child coming up through vents. Then it's a race to get to him before the beast does. They don't. Very ill-prepared. The Monster Hunter's player still made his Man-Bat's rolls and basic decisions, but I gave him a Swedish soldier to play who had more volition. In the end, they are visited by their greatest fears, but destroy the Mara and some wake up in time to kill the Were-Bat (who of later walks out of the cave, half-naked, without a mark on him... well, maybe one on his conscience, but he passes his Corruption test, so he can live with it.) Added touches to make the horror come alive included GMing without the lights on and some pretty gruesome descriptions. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Best bits: Warning - borrowing a goat for "reasons" may lead people to think you're going to have congress with it. As it turns out, it survived the adventure unscathed. I don't know if this is a good bit, but Orrorsh seemed to influence the dice and nothing above 10 (on a d20) was ever rolled for the first couple hours of play. Our Realm Runner, faced with a dead team mate and disbelieving the illusion threw up his first Reality Storm... but did it happen? Well, once the Mara was revealed, he gunned her down with dream bullets in a rage that forced a Corruption test. Which is about the same time he realized how much Charisma he had and how easily he could have lost his PC to the Gaunt Man. The Super Wrestler, having spent too much time underground as a justification for missing a session, played up a nascent phobia of dark spaces. Uthorion got to show up... as a dream, but it's still fun. Our Paladin is the one person who doesn't know one of our own guys is a monster, and he's of course devoted to destroying the dark beasts. So twice he did massive damage to the Were-bat, and dealt a killing blow using a Lightning Strike even as the "guest" soldier who was being eaten (yes, the player was eating HIMSELF) played a Martyr card to keep him in place. The bat died half fried, half shot to hell by the also-electrocuted soldier (the rest of the crew wakes up to this grotesque tangled sculpture). Thing is, because the Paladin didn't know, he played a Nemesis card on the creature, and those things are PERMANENT, so now if the Monster Hunter ever willingly transforms in front of him... I also consider some of the gore descriptions "best bits", but I don't think they're suitable for this forum.
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