Weekly Geekly Rundown for August 23, 2024
Ice Cream Potatoes, Burgers, Marvel, Movies, and Music
Two Things I Love About the Treasure Valley
My family and I moved to the Treasure Valley in Idaho in November of 2020. The story of our journey is an interesting one that is deserving of its own post and I’ll share it on the anniversary of the move. Needless to say it involves very short timelines, some magical moments, and the one and only “Apple Pie Thanksgiving” I’ve ever celebrated. Not Apple Pie ON Thanksgiving, rather a Thanksgiving where all we ate was Apple Pie. At the end of the journey, we arrived in the Treasure Valley and have been happily situated ever since.
I grew up in Reno, Nevada and the Boise, Idaho area (aka the Treasure Valley) reminds me so much of where I grew up that I’m frequently overwhelmed by nostalgia. It’s like all the great things about the Reno/Sparks area, but without the casinos. The lack of those casinos makes the area a much happier place to live. Having worked a small stint, when I was an undergraduate, at a couple of casinos, they are places of despair for me and not places of friendship and fun. Sure, I made many friends there, but I saw far more despair.
The lack of those engines of despair means that residents of the Treasure Valley have lots of time to explore creating entertaining things for their friends and neighbors to do. There is a vibrant and growing table top gaming scene here. There are wineries, distilleries, and microbrews, but there is also our famous Ice Cream Potato.
Yes, Idaho’s Treasure Valley is home to a wonderful creation, the Ice Cream Potato. Most people experience it for the first time at the West Idaho Fair. After all, what better time to each a meal’s worth of ice cream than at the fair? But the creation is a regular feature at the Westside Drive-in where it was invented.
Oh, I forgot to mention mom and pop Drive-in burger joints as something the Treasure Valley is amazing at. Even as someone who lived in SoCal for decades, I’m actually shocked that anyone would ever go to In-N-Out instead of one of our wonderful local burger joints. There’s Big Bun which is fantastic, Neighbor Tim’s BBQ (if it’s BBQ, not Barbecue, you know it’s good), Gyro Shack’s all over the place (though you might want Kostas Taverna for a sit down meal), Hawkins Pac-Out, Fanci Freez (especially the original one), and the Westside Drive-in. If you’re willing to drive up to Emmett, and it’s worth it for a number of reasons, you have to visit Roe-Ann Drive-In. When you drive into Roe-Ann, you pull up next to a floating menu that has a phone instead of speaker and you pick up and order. It’s a great experience.
There are also Delsa’s Ice Cream Parlour which has great home made ice cream as well as making great burgers, Boise Fry Company where you can get a bison burger, and Burger Belly but those aren’t technically Drive-Ins. The fact is that the only place I’ve seen a comparable percentage of high quality mom and pop fast food joints is the San Gabriel Valley and that’s a huge compliment to the Boise area.
Back to the Ice Cream Potato though. It is a regular feature at the Westside Drive-in and a must have at the West Idaho Fair. Our local Channel 7 did a great report on them back in the day and it’s worth revisiting. While it might not look like it in the video, when you get one of these they do actually look like a baked potato. I’ve got to be honest though as much as I like a good baked potato, an Ice Cream Potato is better.
Another wonderful offering in the Boise area is The Flicks. It’s our local art house theater that has somehow managed to survive having massive development build up around it, even as that development towers over and surrounds the facility. The Flicks recently got some competition from the Idaho Film Society’s Station Theater when it comes to the screening of older movies, but The Flicks has a restaurant and video rental service. You read that right. They have video rentals and it’s a pretty decent list that’s very heavy on the Cult film.
Weekly Film Article Cavalcade
The Lamentations of Luke Y. Thompson
Luke tells us how he really feels about the new Crow movie right in the headline of his new review at SuperHeroHype. Let’s just say, it’s not a stellar review. The Crow is one of those iconic titles in comic book history that was released at the exact right time to have massive influence. There was a wave of appreciation of independently published books that were made more widely available than they might otherwise have been with the rise of the direct market comic book store.
Some of the important books of this era include The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Elfquest, Scout, Sable, Cerebus, Warlock 5, Nexus, Grendel, and a host of other books. Many of these books were merely flashes in the pan. They were big at the time, but faded into obscurity because they never had the chance to connect with larger audiences. As much as the rise of direct market comic stores made distribution possible for independent publishers, they also meant that many of those books would never see the ubiquity of release that a newsstand or being on the shelf at a convenience store could bring.
Some of the books that connected with a wider audience were published by the “Big Two,” who could get good distribution for books that “violated” the Comics Code Authority and that grocery and convenience stores might not carry. I put violated in quotes there because the Comics Code Authority was really just a set of self-restrictions that the Big Two put on themselves and not any real kind of authority. Regardless, books like Watchmen would not have been release on the newsstand and were targeted at the direct market.
The direct market was edgy and dangerous and The Crow channeled all of that. The Crow also happens to be a story that hasn’t necessarily aged well in an era when audiences are tired of “fridging” and revenge tales. Yes, they will watch a revenge tale, but it has to have something unique to make it worth reading or watching. In the original tale, and in the movie, that hook is that the core characters are likeable and lovable. The original and Brandon Lee’s movie Eric Draven have dreams, loves, and are in love. They also die along with the one they love before coming back. To make the couple’s relationship less than beautiful, and to make one of them tied to the villain, takes the narrative from the level of archetype to cliché. That’s a sad state of things and Luke’s review shows step by step how the movie fails on this level. After reading his review, I’ll be waiting for streaming.
Courtney Howard’s View from the Center Seat
Coming at the movie from a slightly different point of view than Luke did last week, Courtney Howard’s review of Alien: Romulus over at Fresh Fiction is largely positive. This latest entry in the Alien saga seems to spark mixed emotions among critics and while the overall rating is at 80% Fresh, reading a lot of the reviews reveal that that “freshness” is often of the “almost at the expiration date, but still good” variety. Courtney’s is more positive than that. She argues that the film manages to both balance the conflicting tones of the past movies and channel nostalgia. Yes, that channeling of nostalgia does result in her major critique, but overall it’s a positive review.
I’ll definitely have to see to find out which side I fall on.
Glimpses from the Substackosphere and Bloggerverse
Richard Iorio Tells Us How to Plot Adventures
That’s not a critique of what Richard has done since I think the Smallville role playing game’s campaign mapping “technology” is nothing short of genius. It’s one of the reasons I think the game is highly underrated.
The Retroist Feels Nostalgia for Pac-Man Stickers
Every now and then a “memory” pops up on my Facebook feed. The other day one popped up that reminded me that I’ve been following
long before the Substack days. It’s no surprise that I follow the Substack as, to paraphrase a favorite film, “I’m nostalgic for right now.” In the latest entry, Retroist waxes on about Pac-Man stickers. It’s a great read, but I have to tell you that I am far more excited about the “scratch off” games than the stickers. I loved the Fighting Fantasy Battle Cards and a Pac-Man equivalent sounds like a blast to me.
Metal and Dungeons and/or Dragons
Metal, or Metal adjacent, music has been a part of the D&D community from day one. In one of my 3.x campaigns a player’s character had a Tiger animal companion and when that companion qualified for “Dire” status, the character used the Tiger as a mount and yes, every time he hopped on he screamed out “Ride the Tiger!” as if he was Ronnie James Dio. I’m not saying the moment was Metal, it was a fantastic and fun, but it was referencing Metal and Metal references have been a part of my D&D experience since childhood.
over at ’s most recent post is about the band Dungeon Crawl and links their latest album. I’ve listened to a couple of tunes and think you should check it out too. I don’t know if Matt has done a discussion of Sabbat’s Blood for the Blood God Flexi-disk in the November 1987 issue of White Dwarf, but if he hasn’t he should.
Halflings “Half” More Fun?
I apologize for the pun, but it had to be done. It was either that or Halflings are more than Half the fun and I liked this segue better.
over at Barrel Rider Games is releasing a new role playing game through Gallant Knight Games called Halfjinks that is a roleplaying game centered on playing Halflings. I don’t normally cover Kickstarters here, but the combination of subject matter and connection to Gallant Knight made it a must include. I’ll be checking it out.Role Playing Game Recommendation
I’ll be doing a more detailed review of this game in the coming weeks as I get to play around with it and run a few sessions for my daughters and their friends, but this week I’m recommending the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game. Like a lot of licensed games, especially those with the Marvel brand, this game has received a great deal of criticism. Most of that criticism is of the “I’d have given different stats to that character” variety and can be easily ignored, but some is directed at the mechanics.
Having read the game and run some initial statistical analysis, which will be in the review, I think it’s a strong game and critiques of past versions were similar. Let’s take a look.
As popular as the FASERIP version of Marvel Super Heroes is today, fans forget that it was hated back in the day. It was viewed as simplistic, “for kids,” and made characters like Captain America and Wolverine all but useless against anyone with an iota of Body Armor. Want to play the amazing fight between Wolverine and the Hulk in FASERIP? Nope. Not going to happen. It also had bad rules for advancement.
When the Marvel SAGA edition came out, it’s use of cards to determine success or failure was ground breaking, but confused the heck out of people. While the Dragonlance SAGA game was broken, all of the issues from that game were resolved by the time the Marvel SAGA version came out. It was not beloved of the fans though and was very short lived.
The last time Marvel published their own super hero role-playing game, it was a strange stone shifting resource management exercise that lacked any random elements at all. The books were pretty, but I don’t think anyone played it…ever. I know I didn’t. It didn’t feel like a game.
Fans complained that the Margaret Weis Productions Marvel Heroic game lacked character creation rules and didn’t understand how the game actually played because it was “too narrative” oriented. The game did, in fact, include character creations rules, but that didn’t stop people who merely skimmed the book from saying it didn’t. It was a cutting edge game that built on the Smallville engine and is one of the most innovative and fun games I’ve ever played. But its sales were poor enough that Marvel ended the license midstream through the product line. Cam Banks and crew had a three tier release schedule that would have included Civil War (that did get printed), Annihilation (some of which got printed), and more over a multi-year period.
Marvel seems committed to the new game and I think it has real potential. This video gives a quick rundown of the game play, and now that the dice are actually available I think more people will be playing the game.
I do, however, wish that all of the character sheets that they published were as comprehensive as the free ones they made available for convention use. The powers can be quite complex in Marvel and it’s nice to have a description of the power on each datafile rather than in only one place. I understand not having that in the main rulebook, as you can just turn the page, but in the character supplements it’s a real bonus.
They have also provided a free adventure to play around with and I’m looking forward to seeing more.
Music Recommendation
Since I mentioned Ronnie James Dio earlier in the Rundown, I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind everyone that he was once a DooWop singer and performed a version of Love Potion No. 9 with The Prophets. It may not be Metal, but Ronnie’s vocal on this song are fantastic.
Keeping with the “it has to refer back to earlier comments” theme of this week’s music recommendations, I think I’ll give a shout out to Boise’s own Proto-Punk band Paul Revere and the Raiders. Paul Revere was a big part of Hot August Nights when I was a kid and I’ve always liked his music. It’s another connection between Boise and my childhood.
I don’t know that this is exactly a recommendation, but I don’t think it would have been fair for me to mention Sabbat’s song Blood for the Blood God without sharing the actual song. The song was released on a Flexi-Disck in an issue of White Dwarf magazine, securing the connection between Metal and Warhammer forever. Classic Warhammer Fantasy fully embraced both Punk and Metal sensibilities. Where D&D was inspired by Sword & Sorcery, as was a lot of Metal, Warhammer Fantasy seemed to channel the Metal and Punk interpretation of Sword & Sorcery and social criticism. It’s lost a bit of that sensibility, and in some ways is poorer for it.
To break from theme for a second, but to guarantee that this is one of the most random seeming music recommendation lists I’ve done here’s Upside Down & Inside Out by OK Go. It is, as my daughters might say, a vibe.
Classic Film Recommendation
When my wife was looking into going to graduate school she applied to both UCLA and USC’s Film and Television programs. She eventually got accepted into USC’s program, made some great life long friends, and learned a lot about the industry. Since it was a graduate program, and thus more informal in some ways than the undergraduate program, I sat in on many of her courses, including all of her film theory and criticism courses, and I was there many late nights helping to edit film or mix sound. Film school is a hectic time, but it’s a wonderful experience, even second hand.
After applying to film school, Jody got called for a follow up interview at UCLA to help them place her with the team she would be with if she was accepted to the program. We drove from Reno to LA, booked a hotel, and went to watch Brian De Palma’s Mission to Mars.
Jody’s not a fan of De Palma in general because she think’s his pastiches are often too pale a shadow of what they are referencing. She’s not opposed to pastiche, but a good pastiche has to stand on its own in her opinion. If she were a Sword & Sorcery fan, she’d like David Gemmell’s Druss but scoff at Lin Carter’s Thongor. I’m more forgiving of pastiche in general and even love L. Sprague De Camp’s Conan stories, though I recognize their failings.
I may be more forgiving than Jody in general, but when it came to Mission to Mars I was just as disappointed. We both really disliked the film and we complained about it for hours before going to bed.
The next day, we drove to UCLA and parked in the parking lot. We entered the film school from the side closest to the parking lot and I found a place to sit down while she went through the interview process. Jody’s an award winning cartoonist, so the interviewers seemed to be pushing her towards animation. Since she was more interested in live action, she pushed back against this and this alone might have been enough to persuade them she wasn’t a fit for their program. But then came the big question.
“What’s the best film you’ve seen recently?”
She responded adamantly, “I’ll tell you what was the worst film I’ve seen recently, it was Mission to Mars.” She then shared a litany of the failures of the film produced by UCLA’s shining son Brian De Palma. She offered what she thought were detailed and fair criticisms. She noticed some nods of agreement from the interviewers, but also some troubled looks. She felt “okay” about the interview, but thought that it wouldn’t be a good fit because of the push towards animation. She walked out of the room and over to me and we walked out the opposite side of the building we walked in from. We wanted to explore the campus. That’s when we saw it.
A huge Mission to Mars display discussing how Brian De Palma was doing a screening and Q&A for the UCLA Film students. At that point, we both issued an “Oh” reminiscent of Michael Nyqvist in the first John Wick film. Needless to say, she went to USC instead of UCLA and her opinion of Brian De Palma didn’t improve.
As I mentioned though, I’m more forgiving and I like a number of De Palma films, so when Blow Out with John Travolta, Nancy Allen, and John Lithgow came up on the Criterion Channel I convinced her to give it a shot and I’m glad I did.
It’s not a perfect movie. The end of the film is terrible. It’s terrible in the “I’m pastiching the depressing ‘70s ending, but not having any real motivation for it” kind of way. Outside of those last 15 minutes though, the film is brilliant as a pastiche/mashup of The Conversation and a couple of other 70s classics. De Palma doesn’t always pastiche Hitchcock, sometimes he pastiche’s Coppola and we are all better for it.
The best sequence of the film, by a mile, is when John Travolta’s character is reconstructing the murder at the center of the film by editing sound and self-made film elements to create a movie that shows the murder happen. It’s one of the best sequences in film I’ve ever seen and it shows how much De Palma loves the medium. The scene made both of us not only appreciate De Palma more as a film maker, it increased our love of film by reminding us of the process of film making. The scene was a gift. It is art. It is everything De Palma fans claim he is capable of and it is a must see.
So this week’s recommendation is Blow Out it’s failures are mundane, but its successes are brilliant.
I have not yet covered Sabbat's White Dwarf flexi-disk in Critical Hit Parader, but it's in the queue. I have the issue with the flexi-disk still intact, but I plan on covering it in a more expansive way than my usual newsletter content by augmenting with a corresponding video.
Ay lmao, I've been in Jody's situation, but less professional, where I've insulted someone to their peers. It's funny in hindsight how my curt manner of speech was taken as a joke.