TwinIon

I still need to gather my thoughts on this film, but the D cinemasore absolutely does not surprise me. This is a film that doesn’t care that this is a comic book character at all, and honestly doesn’t care for the character at all either. This Joker is a miserable, sad, pathetic little man that deserves none of the fame or adulation that the public gives him and the film has no interest in exploring much beyond his misery. As a character portrait of a delusional and pitiful man enduring prison, I think it’s rather effective. I might have liked it better than the first one, though it helps that it’s not just a worse version of a Scorsese movie.

Surprising good news!

Speaking of underbaked, I just remembered another thing that seemed like an interesting idea but hasn't really proven to be, which is the skill tree system. The idea of meeting different scoundrels or mentors or whatever and having them introduce you to new skills is kind of cool and different. In practice you don't really continue communicating with those characters, so really it's just a skill tree with less organization and some normal story based progression unlocks. I thought maybe unlocking new abilities would trigger a conversation or something, but nope, you just finish the requirements and get your new ability, no sign of who taught you or anything. If anything, I think this system is probably worse than a typical skill tree because you have to navigate around the UI so much more to even see what new abilities you can unlock and what you have to do to unlock them.

The empire wanted system is pretty silly. There was an unlock that required killing some death troopers, so I figured I could just stroll up to an empire outpost and just start something and eventually they'd show up like a SWAT team in GTA. Not so much. I attacked three different outposts, allowed a trooper to call in backup, didn't go hiding, and no one showed up. Sometimes I'd get one small wave of reinforcements, but then they'd just lose interest and stop showing up, despite all the radio messages about my position and hunting me down. I attacked three different outposts and couldn't get my wanted level up high enough and they always gave up after a short time. Eventually I just had to go to a full on imperial base. Reinforcements still were not showing up, but at least there were enough groups of troopers around that I could go find more trouble. After a while I was able to get my wanted level all the way up, and the death trooper logo showed up and I heard the imperial radio messages to leave things to the death troopers, but they don't actually hunt you down. Maybe there are death troopers that will hunt you, but none would come for me, so I had to go hunt them. I did that and the wanted level went to zero. I suppose to some degree I'm grateful that I can attack an outpost and not have to spend too long shrugging off my wanted level, but overall the wanted system feels odd or underbaked.

I've honestly never heard of this man. Looked up his wikipedia and nothing clicked at all. The monkey thing seems like the only notable part of this film. Otherwise it doesn't really look any different from any other musician biopic. I guess I'm interested to see if they actually do anything with the monkey aspect of it or if it's pretty much just a visual thing that goes unremarked.

I have no qualms with longshoremen being paid well, but it's hard not to feel like this strike is mostly a political attack on the party that actually supports unions (however imperfectly). Also, a ban on automation in docks is insane. The lack of automation in US ports is criminal and I hope that this speeds up that process more than it hinders it.

Finished the game last night and that last chapter actually left me wanting more. They finally started to combine multiple elements of the puzzle systems and there was a good amount of action with a reasonable mix of both 2D and 3D action. It makes me hope for a sequel that can really build on what they've got and push the gameplay farther.

I'm currently on the last chapter and while the Plucky Squire is undoubtably adorable and full of clever concepts, there just isn't enough gameplay to be as compelling as something like Astrobot. It very much is a playable storybook, but it's far too much storybook and not enough play. You're constantly being slowed down by dialog and slow page turning to largely empty pages with little to do on them. Actual adventuring gameplay is probably something like half the time in game, if that, which is a real drag for a game that shows such brief flashes of brilliance. Nifty gameplay concepts are littered throughout, including a fun "Baba Is You" type mechanic where you can move words between sentences to change the level, but they're so infrequently and insufficiently used. I think the game is just inescapably aimed at a very young demographic, so even though you have hints available at every puzzle, it seems like the developers are always worried about being too clever or putting to many puzzles in. The combat is both simple and largely beside the point. There isn't any challenge and there isn't much variety to it anyways. When there is variety, and the game changes art styles or works in different sources, it really does put a smile on my face. It's usually in those moments that they'll also switch up the gameplay for a brief moment, like the Punch Out style mini-boss at the very beginning. The game shines in those moments, but they're exceptionally brief. There is a ton of heart and a million beautiful little touches in The Plucky Squire, but ultimately it's too much of a children's storybook to feel essential to adult gamers. My Astrobot game disc will probably make it's way around to my friends, but I think the Plucky Squire is a recommendation I'll keep to my young nieces.

The more I play, the more I'm convinced that this game should have been an Uncharted style linear adventure experience. I think the best open world games are the ones that allow you to make choices in how you approach each gameplay scenario, or at least can convince you that your playing on your own terms. Outlaws wants to pretend that you're free to play how you'd like, but it's so heavy handed in how it does so that it makes a big open game feel small. The best example so far is in how every single restricted area has such a similar "hidden" path just to the immediate side of the front entrance. Maybe there are a bunch of routes and I'm only finding the most obvious ones, but I really don't feel like I'm finding my way in anywhere, just looking for the obvious back door. Most Assassin's Creed games manage to avoid this trap to some degree. Most of the places you sneak into in AC don't have a glowing neon "hidden path this way" sign, and even those that do have more obvious holes in the walls usually have multiple options for how to approach them. In AC It's a common occurrence for me to sneak in one way and stumble on a more hidden path during the mission or on my way out. So far in Outlaws every path has felt very prescribed. The mechanics of the game suffer similar issues. I just had to sneak into a compound run by a faction that I had max reputation with. I'm sure it's because it was a main story mission, but it would have been interesting if I could leverage my rep and have that sequence play out differently. Unfortunately, it seems it needs to play out a certain way. As with nearly every story mission, even if I keep perfect stealth, I still end up having to shoot my way out of it. The way the game is structured, that feels like I failed, or at best it feels like control was taken away from me. If this were a more linear story, that would just be another story beat to mix up the action, but there wasn't a story moment to go along with it, just stepping through the only way out automatically triggered everyone knowing where I was and what I was up to. There is a lot to like about the game. I'm consistently impressed by the set dressing. Everything looks amazing. It all bleeds Star Wars and there's a ton of variety that is all so detailed. It's very impressive. Nix is a great companion, even if he's not always the most interesting gameplay mechanic. The music is good. It just seems like so much time was spent building this world out and not enough time was spent making it a fun place to spend time. I'm a very easy mark for these Ubisoft open world games. I'm usually clearing out the map and trying to take advantage of every bit of gameplay freedom they give me. Outlaws doesn't inspire that in me at all, at least not so far.

Yeah, I don't like that either. I went way out of my way to be sneaky and not be seen, I shouldn't be docked for that.

After a crazy month of work, I'm finally able to get back to this. I'm pretty early in the game, just recently I've unlocked the ability to go to each of the different planets but I haven't yet actually visited them all yet. I realized that I was in pretty good standing with one of the factions, so I went a bit out of my way and just did their contracts to max out reputation with one of them. I got the gear rewards, but is there anything else valuable to do while you have max rep with a faction? My guess was that it's just the loot, but I'm pretty sure I'll be double crossing them soon so I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything worth doing while I'm in their good graces.

I’m not big on horror, but Eggers is one of the few directors that I’ll watch whatever he makes. Probably won’t be there opening day though.

It’s a 1/5 movie that I don’t really want to discourage people from seeing, but feel bad about recommending. It’s a disaster as both entertainment and art, but it comes from a place of earnestness that I admire. It’s a curious artifact in modern cinema, untouched by the studio system but with a legendary director and at a budget over $100M. This movie fails for reasons few movies fail, and that alone makes it much more interesting to me than a bad comic book movie or some $200M ‘so average it may as well be AI generated’ Netflix movie. If you see one or two movies in a theater a year, should this be one of them? Hell no. It’s just bad in nearly every way a movie can be bad. If you’re more broadly interested in film, there will never be another movie like this playing at your local IMAX, and I doubt it’ll be playing long. So yeah, you should go see it.

I saw it in IMAX last night with a pretty small crowd of maybe 50 people, not all of whom made it through to the end. I feel like the seating chart was unchanged from the day tickets were first available to today, which doesn't bode well for the box office success of the film. I went in expecting something crazy and maybe off-putting, perhaps something grandiose or overly ambitious. I was looking forward to being challenged. What I got was probably the biggest cinematic disaster that I've ever seen in a theater. This is not a film that misses it's mark because it aimed too high. It didn't seem to be aiming anywhere at all. It's as if the film is allergic to coherently completing a thought, much less a plot or subplot. Every once in a while there would be brief moments that assured you that this was a film being made by competent people, a feeling bolstered by the recognizable faces behind every character with speaking lines, but virtually no scene plays out fully before it either ends prematurely or something breaks. Characters will suddenly shift topics or moods without warning or reason. Stakes will appear and disappear without warning. It's like seeing a film playing through a kaleidoscope, with alternative versions all being displayed at once, but instead of forming a complex and beautiful pattern, this kaleidoscope is out of focus, and the light is haphazardly bouncing around into an incoherent blur of technicolor. The film is subtitled as "A Fable," but it seemingly can't make itself believe that. It's set in "New Rome," but is really New York. Aside from the magical buildings that Adam Driver's Cesar creates, New York is essentially unchanged, with every establishing shot focusing on the quintessential New York landmarks. The police cars say New Rome Police Department, and city seals re-enforce that fact. New Rome is mentioned as the greatest country in history, but the money says United States of America and the flags are recognizably the stars and stripes. The production and costume design are bold, but inconsistent, a fleeting fantasy seemingly at odds with itself. A number of notable actors appear in the film, but most are so listless that they hardly bear any mention. I feel like only Shia LaBeouf and Aubrey Plaza channeled sufficient chaos as to seem like they knew what movie they were appearing in. Adam Driver is also unhinged at times, but he's given too much to do and with too little character to actually do it with. Nathalie Emmanuel is charming, but far too down to Earth to feel like she belongs amongst the inanity of Megalopolis. So much of this would be excusable to some degree if it felt like the film had something to say, and it desperately feels like it wants to say something, but it has no idea how to express it. Coppola is clearly obsessed with the idea that we can live a different way, but never seems to express what is wrong with civilization as we know it or what to do about it. I don't really want to discourage people from seeing Megalopolis, but it is every bit the mess that it seems the production was. I have yet to dive into other people's reactions and reviews, but I'll be interested in reading what other people thought of it.

Fingers crossed that Indian Jones is good, though I seem to have more reservations than most.