J. Hamlet's Blog: Scarred Earth: A Serial Novel, page 9

Unsung Metroid

I never played all of the Metroid games. My experience was mostly confined to Metroid, Super Metroid (3), some of Metroid Prime, and all of Metroid Prime 2. Playing the original Metroid, you don't think much of the creepy bird-people statues and monsters that you're mowing down. There's an evil Mother Brain End Boss thing to destroy, so get it done! Something always made me wonder about what it was all about, though. Especially once I played Super Metroid. Metroid, the original, was fun. Super Metroid was one of the first games I remember playing that actually made me feel emotions, mostly for the poor little Metroid that sacrifices itself to save you. Then there were the Prime games, where all of a sudden I started to realize that there was some deep lore and history going on. You could stop and scan things and read stuff forever in those games. I didn't, of course, because sometimes you want to get the next armor upgrade. Looking at this Kotaku post, though, I've realized the byzantine backstory of the whole thing. It puts a whole new light on things, even making the whole Mother Brain situation a tragedy in its own way. It also makes me hate Dark Samus even more. But overall, what always struck me about these games was the darkness. Sure, there's literal darkness in Metroid Prime 2, but I mean how bleak and lonely the games felt. To this day I struggle to think of a game series that had that kind of loneliness, where you truly are the lone hero out to avenge entire civilizations, the literal last line of defense. Meanwhile, you're surrounded by ruins and archaeology telling epic tragedies. There are no happy endings in Metroid, just a bleak sci-fi march that puts The Song of Fire and Ice to shame. It's a hell of a thing for a simple vidya game series.

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Okay, Fallon. I'll Give You This One

The impressions are actually quite decent, and clocking in at 13 minutes it is quite the parody labor of love. Better Fallon than Freidberg and Seltzer any day, too.

The Book of Matt and Small Town Fear and Loathing

The Matthew Shepard case turns out to have been a lot more complex than most people have been led to believe. Jimenez seems to have uncovered exactly the sort of seedy underbelly in Laramie, Wyoming that's usually reserved for basic cable dramas. Matthew was, of course, a victim of it but his relationship with his attackers was a lot grayer than a simple hate crime. I'll definitely give this a read, mostly because it sounds like top-shelf investigative journalism and a microcosm of so much. 

The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard

By Stephen Jimenez

Herzogian Rumination on Dishes

This gave me a lot of flashbacks of the dishes situation at my college apartment. Giving it the Werner Herzog treatment was especially brilliant. Chaos unites us all. The 5 Second Films guys continue to show that they are some of the best indie comedy filmmakers out there. 

The Double - Dostoevsky Goes Contemporary

I've always thought that Dostoevsky's The Double was rich material. The surrealist trip of a novella that is either a kind of dark fantasy or a frighteningly accurate depiction of mental illness setting in is chilling and unsettling. Adapting it to present day with Jesse Eisenberg, well, that just adds to the unsettling part. He can certainly do creepy when he wants to, and that creepiness should be especially interesting when played against himself. I had myself thought of a dark fantasy or sci fi work that echoed The Double, but it looks like this adaptation is going to be better than anything I might pull together. Now, if only we can get another adaptation of The Idiot, another one of my Dostoevsky favorites. 

The Unbelievable Frustration of Watching Merlin (Netflix Binge)

In the beginning they were all happy. Sort of. Okay, none of them were happy.

I enjoyed watching this show, but it could be tough at times. Let's imagine briefly what the writer's room must've sounded like: 

Let's tell the Arturian legend, but let's begin with Uther still alive. He's also sort of a tyrant and a hardass, but not completely unsympathetic. That'll make for a lot of fascinating questions of political theory! Oh, and Uther hates magic because he tried to use it once and shit went real bad so now he executes anyone caught practicing it. That's going to make things really uncomfortable for someone like Merlin and will let us make all sorts of half-assed metaphors for homosexuality, religious fundamentalism, and the like! To really drive that home, let's make all the magic users "born" with magic, so they can't help it. They're just being who they are! Let's also make Merlin young, so this is a coming of age and hero's journey sort of thing for him, but he has to hide his greatest talent because of #2. We'll also make him Arthur's servant, because why not. Also, let's make Guinevere a servant too! And she'll just go by "Gwen." Then we can also tell a story about classism when Arthur falls in love with her! Let's also put together a half-baked love triangle between Arthur, Merlin, and Gwen, then abandon it immediately.Let's also make Arthur young, also very fratty and brotastic so we can show a lot of character development as he slowly grows from being Fratty McFratterson to an actual decent guy. Nevermind that both the characters and the viewers will be left wondering "The once and future king? THIS guy?"You know what? There's too much "gritty" fantasy on TV, what with the Game of Thrones and all. Let's make it family-friendly! This may hurt us when we have to deal with torture, murder, and battle sequences, but think of the ratings!

This sounds like the setup for both a great show and a colossal disaster. In this case, it was yes and also yes. I liked this show, which delivered a lot of solid episodes, decent acting, and plotlines, but it could have been something truly special. Instead, it ended up overusing a lot of tropes over and over again because the writers straightjacketed themselves with the premise (and likely with the beeb's production budgets). Some of these oft-reused stories are:

There's a tournament, and someone is using magic to cheat and/or get an opportunity to kill Arthur or Uther! (This happens almost once a series)Some mythical creature is pretending to be human and has used magic to bewitch Arthur or Uther into loving them or falling in love with some minion. (Not only did this happen more than once per series in the early going, it was a two-parter!) Arthur and his knights encounter some situation that can only be solved with Merlin's magic, but he can't use it or Arthur will know his secret! Thankfully, Arthur will somehow be knocked unconscious during an action sequence, giving Merlin his opportunity! There's a spy in Camelot who's feeding information to Arthur or Uther's enemies. This was the most frustrating, because it was the main source of dramatic conflict for each series as everyone attempted to find out who the spy was and Merlin or his mentor Gaius would inevitably be accused.  Merlin witnesses some knight/noble doing something terrible, like magic or treason or what-have-you, and can't do anything about it. Why? Because he's "just a servant" and no one will believe him over said knight/noble.  Nevermind that, of course, Merlin is always eventually proven right and saves everyone's asses every episode. You think it would be a guy some cred, but nope! Titles are everything.

This recycling made binge-watching it particularly annoying at certain points. Especially in the first two series of the show, before it actually unleashes its master-plot. As most BBC shows go, it's finding its footing in the first few series before it really delivers the goods. Morgana, becoming the villain we've all been waiting for, cranks up Series 3 and becomes a real threat going forward that really ties the room together. The show begins to recycle less and less after that, except with the ridiculous spy subplots. Way too much of the stories also count on Arthur's overall obliviousness, which undercut the whole idea that this guy is some miraculous "once and future king" that Merlin must save from himself at all costs. 

The actors do surprisingly well with the often problematic material. I'd particularly single out Anthony Head, who turns Uther into so much of a believable anti-villain that io9 wrote this very persuasive argument that he wasn't such a bad king at all. Most of that I credit Head with as his portrayal made his villainy seem rooted in pragmatism and caution more than sadism. Also, there's John Hurt as the dragon. The dragon alone kept me watching the very trying first series. There's just something natural about hearing John Hurt's voice come out of a dragon. He is exactly how I would expect a dragon to sound if it spoke english. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out Katie McGrath, though. While she isn't always given the best plots and is basically turned into evil incarnate by the end, she sells it with every fiber of her being. Sometimes it's scenery chewing, but in the classic way that all genre fiction needs deep down. She's a relentless villain who is often much smarter than the heroes, though one wonders where she gets her inexhaustible supplies of gullible mercenaries. Her motivations for turning on her former family at Camelot are also understandable, if a bit abrupt and a bit extreme. 

In the end I would recommend skipping the first series. You're not missing much and will be able to get the context.  

 

 

The Illusive Donut Banh Mi

I'm all for kooky local food mashups. DC's maturing local food scene would inevitably lead to such off-beat creations and collaborations, but this donut banh mi thing sounds like a true prize. Who cares about a cronut if you can put a vietnamese sandwich inside of an artisan donut? I've had both Astro Doughnuts (the coconut cake doughnut almost killed me tasty) and PhoWheels separately, I can scarcely imagine their powers combined! Now to find that PhoWheels truck again . . . and not gain 50 pounds once these things turn into my primary diet. 

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Tapes? Really?

I'm all for nostalgia. I can remember taking awkward boxes of mix tapes on long bus rides with my various Sony Walkmen (I broke lots of them) , but what? Vinyl has something to bring to the table, and that's a different kind of sound quality, but TAPES? This quote really drives home how this micro-trend is probably the worst manifestation of hipsterism yet:

“Oh, none of these kids even have cassette players—that’s admitted by the people that buy them,” says Patrick Kindlon, best known for his work in the bands Self Defense Family and Drug Church, and for co-writing Ghostface Killah’s Twelve Reasons To Die  comic book. “That makes cassettes a true, true widget: a true, nonfunctioning product, a true non-purpose product. And the only purpose is to support a band. You could hand them $5, but that might be awkward. You bought something because people love to purchase things, and that’s just a natural fact, and it’s a low-cost item.”

So it's a collectible then? Is that what we're supposed to do with this? Apparently:

Much like a pin or a patch used to, cassettes put a name and face to an artist. Instead of having to remember a Bandcamp link, they serve as a way to commemorate the experience of a show—for less money than a T-shirt or LP—and, potentially, keep fans coming back.

 At least you can wear that other stuff. 

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Kyle Kinane Philosophizes. As a Goomba.

Existential questions always turn to Batman.  

The Horrors of the Billy Goat Trail. And a Bonsai.