Weekly Geekly for July 12, 2024
On Time this Week!
Sharks in Idaho and Stunt Men Discussing Stunt Men
One of the things I love about living in the Boise, Idaho area is that our local news crew on Channel 7 really cares about covering local news stories. I grew up in both a medium sized (Reno, NV) and large (Bay Area) media market and in both cases there was a dearth of real local coverage. Sure, we’d get coverage of Hot August Nights in Reno or the latest “Whale Stranded in the Bay” story, but daily stories about the community weren’t as common as I’d have liked.
I understand why it was this way in my youth though. We didn’t have hundreds upon hundreds of ways to read or watch about national and international news, thus our local papers and local channels had to spend some part of the time covering things outside the area. This was even more true before I was born. Local news might have been the only news around and so covering big national stories was important.
That necessity doesn’t really exist today. When you can subscribe to the NY Times (or the Washington Post or whatever national paper) for super cheap and read the headlines of all of them for free, it seems odd for the local paper to be covering national news. They don’t have the staff or resources of the national paper and they’re not “there” either. I’d love for our local papers to be…local. That’s why I roll my eyes at the Idaho Statesman, while liking the Idaho Press and loving the BoiseDev. My attachment grows and the salience of the news to my immediate surroundings increases.
So too it goes with television/internet news. I can watch the national news on ABC/CBS/NBC’s national broadcast/stream for straight news. I can watch the cable news channel of my choice for my daily dose of partisan motivated cognition. I don’t want my local news to try to compete with those. Maybe one or two stories, where the issue is locally salient but the news is national/international, but not more than that. I want to learn the news and history of the place that I live.
Channel 7’s Brian Holmes understands this. He may have grown up on the Central Californian Coast and graduated from Cal State Northridge, but as a broadcaster he’s all about Idaho in general and the Treasure Valley in particular. So much so that he and his team have created a half-hour newscast called The 208 that focuses entirely on Idaho related news. It’s glorious and as a transplant it has helped me learn a ton about the state and community I now call Idahome.
I would go as far as to say Brian Holmes’s show has been a part of what makes the place feel like home. He’s cued me in on the lore and local trends, like how to pronounce Boise (it’s Boy-see not Boy-zee) and Kuna (Kyew-nuh), great places to eat (Bardenay is the bomb), or where the local corn mazes are.
A perfect example of the kind of story Brian and his team tell day to day is this story about Ancient Sharks in Idaho. Since I grew up in the Great Basin, I knew that most of the Mountain West had been underwater. What I did not know was that a salmon shark somehow ended up on the Salmon river (sadly it died), likely due to human interaction/assistance. Channel 7 used this as an opportunity to not only investigate the Salmon Shark story, but the history of sharks in Idaho, and they connected that with a small Western Band’s performance of a song about Idaho’s ancient sharks.
Just like the Montgomery Biscuits are a combination of everything that makes minor league baseball special, so too is The 208 everything that local news should aspire to be.
Weekly Film Article Cavalcade
The Lamentations of Luke Y. Thompson
Luke’s been on the documentary beat a bit lately and his most recent article is an interview for Documentary magazine with the directors of Sorry/Not-Sorry. Luke was a long time fan of Louis CK, so this interview was an important one for him to participate in. The film was produced by The New York Times, which means the film isn’t “pure documentary,” rather it straddles the Venn Diagram of news story and documentary. In a manner of speaking this is a theatrically and streaming released equivalent of a long 20/20 segment. That’s not to diminish what the film is doing, or its subject matter, rather it’s a commentary on the changing nature of both journalism and film. In many ways having journalistic standards for a documentary film is an improvement over the genre’s past which has focused more on manufacturing the interesting than it has on reporting and reflecting.
The interview covers very difficult subject matter, so it’s not for everyone.
Courtney Howard’s View from the Center Seat
Over at A.V. Club, Courtney Howard reviews Dandelion, the new film starring KiKi Layne as a struggling songwriter. Like many of the critics of the film, Courntey highlights how Dandelion borrows heavily from the 2007 film Once. It’s a comment that comes up so often that I began to wonder if comparisons to Once were a part of the marketing materials for Dandelion.
Given that more than one review says Dandelion is Once with Terrance Mallick imagery, I’m even more interested in seeing the media kit or a time travel device that would let me listen in on the post-screening kafeeklatch to find the origins of the comparison. I get that Days of Heaven is one of the most beautiful movies ever shot and recently received a 4k Criterion edition (that is on sale for 50% on Amazon so buy it), but Mallick’s imagery in that film draws from Andrew Wyeth and the Regionalism movement and in particular the Christina’s World painting (a painting also referenced in Marvel’s The Eternals).
That’s a minor quibble with what is a very thoughtful review that touches on a number of elements in the film and as usual the research Courtney puts into her review comes across, particularly when she discusses the writing of the songs for the film. For me, that was the most interesting part of the review as whether or not a film in this genre works for me is very dependent on the quality of the music. One of the things that makes Crazy Heart a fantastic movie is that it has a fantastic soundtrack, so too with Once. If you are making a movie about singing/songwriting, the songs had better be good and it sounds like they are here. That doesn’t mean the rest of the film works, and Courtney highlights some of the ways in which the emotional beats are a bit off, but it at least meets a threshold.
There is Hope for Indiewire Yet
Indiewire has a very good article about the chemistry that makes Twister work as a film. The article is mostly coverage of commentary from the new 4k’s bonus features, but having a “prestige” site cover Twister brings a warmth to my heart. It’s a break from their almost exclusive celebration of films on the “you are supposed to like list,” and into the realm of celebrating films people actually like. That, and the fact that they do have a couple of excellent editors, give me continued hope that the site will one day transform into a true celebration of film. In a world where Criterion Channel includes Cocktail in a curated list, such hope is not unfounded.
As longtime readers of this newsletter might recall, or maybe not, I love Twister. We often see movies, or tv shows, where a husband and wife tells their children that the radio is “playing their song.” We don’t do that in our house because that conversation is “they are showing our movie.” Jody and I were dating when the film came out and we watched the film at least eight times the summer it was released. We were both students at the University of Nevada and we were driving to the Bay Area to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium on a “getaway.” Our relationship was at the “very serious point” where overnight trips provide test runs for what might, and did in our case, a more permanent relationship.
As we drove through Sacramento (Sacto) on I-80, we say a sign for one of the many Century Theatres in the area advertising Twister. We had plenty of time to get to Monterey and were going to stop for lunch anyway, so it became lunch and a movie. We then watched the movie almost every day of the getaway. It’s what Stanley Cavell called a “remarriage” film, a genre that includes magnificent films like The Awful Truth, My Favorite Wife, and The Parent Trap. It’s my absolute favorite genre and Twister is a worthy entry. We watch it every year on our dating anniversary and we are eager to see Twisters.
Glimpses from the Substackosphere and Bloggerverse
writes about a subject near and dear to my heart, or at least my experience, this week with her “It Came from the Game Closet…” post. Like Jennifer and her family, my family own a lot of games. In our case, it’s half a garage and not a closet, but the effect is the same. There is a lot of “Someday” lurking around our home and it was nice to see a “Someday Game” get some time in the sun, so to speak. What makes Jennifer’s post so fun to read is the way she interacts with the Someday Game in this piece. I recently stated, in my interview with Alan Bahr, that the games he creates don’t merely have art in them, they are a kind of art in and of themselves. In the case of Jennifer’s most recent post, she engages with a game as art that inspires more art. It’s touching and cool to read. over at keeps reminding us that rock and roll, including progressive rock, is not dead and that fantasy author Michael Moorcock is still in the think of things. I’ve long been a fan of Michael Moorcock’s and my fandom of his writings, and the strange friend envy that can occur with Middle Schoolers, eventually led to a friend on friend conflict I call “The Sweet Pickles Bus War of Sparks Middle School,” but that is a tale for another time.In this week’s entry Matt gives a shout out to the band Battlesnake and their album Demise of the Motorsteeple. I haven’t listened as I write this, but I love the cover. It’s very reminiscent of Mortal Engines, a fantasy film I thought I’d hate because the premise was silly. Only one thing, I didn’t end up hating it and the premise I initially found silly ended up working as a very strong metaphor. It’s not the first time my initial impressions have been wrong.
Role Playing Game Recommendation
One of the interesting developments in role playing game design since the heyday of GNS theory discussion on The Forge is the growth of a robust storytelling rpg community. That discussion led to the creation of a number of popular games like Apocalypse World, My Life with Master, and Blades in the Dark (to name a few). These are all games that minimized the tactical/combat elements of roleplaying games and focused on the story creation elements.
A lot of modern gamers think that the storygame movement sprang whole cloth out of either the usenet discussions where Mary Kuhner proposed and John H. Kim expanded the “threefold model.” Such discussions overlook the early discussions in Different Worlds Magazine by Larry DiTillio, Lewis Pulsipher, and Glenn Blacow in Different Worlds Magazine. Glenn Blacow’s discussion of role-playing styles in issue 10 of Different Worlds set off a years long discussion of story-based play.
An almost immediate response to Blacow’s article came in the very next issue of Different Worlds when Jeffrey Johnson proposed the “Fourfold Way of RPG.” There is nothing in the “Threefold Model” or the “Gamist, Narrativist, Simulationist” model that isn’t covered in Johnson’s Fourfold Way and Johnson’s use of an axis adds a layer of subtlety that the pure GNS/Threefold taxonomy lacks.
What is more, like the discussions on The Forge, Johnson’s and Blacow’s discussions had real world consequences in design. Their models were discussed heavily in zines, especially in the California scene. This is not surprising given Different Worlds’ connection with California rpgzine culture, but it ensured that these ideas would be planted in the minds of future designers in the California scene. Among those designers were the folks at Better Games.
Better Games was a Southern California based company that was vital in the development of modern storytelling rpgs. They don’t often get as much credit as they deserve, but their games remain innovative and vital today decades after they were created. They were truly decades ahead of their time. Characters in Better Games Free-Style Role-Play games have no numerical statistics, instead they have a number of narrative descriptors that describe how their characters function.
It’s an innovation that works in a number of settings ranging from Fantasy to Horror, but my favorite example of it was in Better Games two comic book inspired games Good Guys Finish Last and Villains Finish First that were published by Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer magazine when Better Games owned the rights to that title.
Good Guys Finish Last has been rereleased by postworld games with a much improved layout updated by jim pinto and I highly recommend checking it out. While I could go on and on about how important Better Games was to the storytelling game scene, I will share jim pinto’s introduction instead. Given that jim has gone on to design a number of excellent games in the storytelling game space, his praise speaks volumes about the direct influence Better Games had on the genre.
To give you another example of what characters in Free-Style systems look like, though you are free to look at the link to my blog post above, here is a glimpse at a character sheet in Good Guys Finish Last. You’ll notice that all of the abilities are named and the only number listed is the modifier. I wish jim had opted for the actual wound chart for each character, rather than listing numbers, as that shows which keywords add to which damage type and help give the game even greater narrative focus.
Music Recommendation
I mentioned that a small Western band had written and performed a song about Idaho’s ancient sharks and I couldn’t mention that without sharing the song. Though the song is outside my typical musical tastes, it is a fun and whimsical song.
Speaking of whimsy and fun, there was a time when the internet was less angry and more filled with fun. Okay, that’s not true. The internet has always been angry and it's still fun, but it never hurts to share ancient memes and All Your Base is one of the best memes.
Okay enough meme-sic. I don’t think I’ve recommend Godsmack yet as a part of my weekly recommendations. Voodoo is one of my favorite Godsmack songs, though the CD version was a tad annoying as it had minutes of dead air before picking back up making it odd to listen to when driving.
Classic Film Recommendation
It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, is one of the fundamental films in the Romantic Comedy canon. While often classified as a “screwball comedy,” the film has a lot more gravity and jokes with a slower burn than most films in that genre. Colbert is magnificent in this film, but she’s no Irene Dunne or Myrna Loy with regard to rapid fire delivery. Additionally, the premise is far more down to Earth than a film like Bringing Up Baby.
If one views it through the more general Romantic Comedy lens, one can see the movie for the masterpiece that it is. Not only is it funny, very funny at times, but it is heartfelt and it contains no small amount of social commentary regarding class and work ethic and the nature of love. The film was made during the Golden Age of the Hollywood picture, an age that overlapped with the Great Depression and the effects of the Depression are in every shadow. From the early theft of a suitcase, to the presentation of “hobos” riding the rails, to a grifter who picks up hitch hikers in order to steal there property, there’s a darkness underlying the story. This may be a tale of a spoiled rich girl falling in love with a working stiff, a trope used masterfully in My Man Godfrey as well, but it’s very open about the dangers the average person might face when travelling from Miami to New York during the Depression.
This isn’t to say that the film focuses on class and the struggles of the common person. No, like most films of the era the effects of the Depression just ARE. They aren’t fetishized, they are just reality. For all that people think that films like this were designed to distract viewers from their daily reality, I’m always surprised by how many of the great films of the era acknowledge the time they are in and just tell stories that take place in a real place. Just as films like Rocky, Midnight Cowboy, Wolfen, and Saturday Night Fever present an accurate view of America’s economy in the 70s, so too do films of the Golden Age show the very real poverty and class divisions of the time. That neither groups of films wallow in that suffering makes them more, not less powerful in their depictions.
All the social backdrop aside though, It Happened One Night masterfully tells the tale of a woman “who falls in love at the drop of a hat” experiencing real love for the first time. Real love, in this case, has expectations, expectations of honesty and integrity, but no material expectations. As in Pride and Prejudice, the principals have some misconceptions about each others’ motives, but the resolution of those misconceptions leads to wonderful revelations. Not the least of which is the final moment of the film, which is both risqué and heartwarmingly sincere. The Awful Truth attempted to capture a similar combination of suggestive and romantic with its clock sequence, but as good as that movie is the ending doesn’t make one laugh at the humor while sighing at the romance the same way as It Happened One Night.
Thanks for sharing the “It Came from the Game Closet” article. I could relate and subscribed to Jennifer M. Baldwin's newsletter. Also, consider me anxiously awaiting the tale of “The Sweet Pickles Bus War of Sparks Middle School”!
The Twister fans are coming out of the woodwork (Owen Gleiberman? Really?), making me wonder whom I can count on to tell me if I'll like the new one, given that I'm the opposite of a fan.