Weekly Geekly Rundown for February 9th, 2024

So much to talk about, so little time.

Christopher Nolan and the “List of Films You are Supposed to Like.”

While I haven’t written about him in my newsletter before, I am a big fan of Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker. I remember when I first saw Memento in the theater. My wife was in her first year in film school and the film had received some buzz from critics and industry folks who had seen the film at Sundance. It was a modern interpretation of some very classic noir tropes. It was very much on that season’s “List of Films You are Supposed to Like” and it had many of the hallmarks typical of a film of that type. It was experimental. It was dark. It was seen by many as a deconstruction of a genre and of tropes. That buzz made the film something my wife and I had to see. After all, she was in film school at USC and one needs to see the films that are influencing and exciting your peers.

Before I continue, you might be wondering what I mean by “List of Films You are Supposed to Like.” I’ve written about this implicit (or in the case of USC explicit) taxonomic list before when discussing why I share film reviews by Luke Y Thompson and Courtney Howard instead of some other critics. Essentially it’s my shorthand for the way many critics separate “important” films from “popcorn” films, a shorthand I find largely meaningless. Many of the best films ever made (The Awful Truth for example) are straight popcorn, while many of the worst (I’m looking at you Ulysses Gaze) are among the most “important” and pretentious. At some point in the future, I’ll do a post entirely about the list and why it’s a bad thing, even as I believe having some form of canon is a good thing. For me, it isn’t the existence of a canon that is worthy of criticism, it is the elitism of the canon. To be fair, according to this recently shared version of USC’s list which is pretty similar to the one Jody got, the USC list includes films outside of a typical “Supposed to Like” list.

The long and the short of it is that I think that film reviewers should actually like movies and should spend more time praising and championing films that others might overlook than in engaging in screeds about how a film is bad. My friend David Chute, who died in 2021, was an advocate for Hong Kong action films and for Bollywood films. I became his friend by accident and it was only after I became his friend that I learned that he was one of the major reasons I became as big a fan of Hong Kong films as I am. There were three things that fueled my watching of HK action, and later drama and comedy, films. Watching Kung Fu Theatre on USA Network as a kid, playing the Feng Shui role playing game from Daedalus Games as a teen, and watching Hard Boiled starring Chow Yun-fat. What I didn’t know at the time was that David Chute was influential in the films of John Woo getting recognition in the US and that he introduced John Woo to Universal executive John Jacks. Chute was the behind the scenes critical advocate of a thing I loved and his advocacy shaped how I view the role of the critic.

That role is to expand the “List of Films You are Supposed to Like” and not to edit it to only the important films. It is to create a filmic and artistic dialogue that helps to create more and more art that “educates and delights” (to bring Aristotle into the picture and note the inclusion of delight) the audience at large.

That’s why I was so happy to see snippets of this Stephen Colbert interview with Christopher Nolan regarding his films and the films he loves. Nolan’s films have long been a bridge between “Films You are Supposed to Like” and “Films that are Fun.” He makes entertaining genre films that include references and techniques from “important” films. He has provided hours upon hours of entertainment and discussion for me and my friends and I loved watching him advocate for pure popcorn in the interview when he mentioned his enjoyment of the Fast and Furious franchise. It’s a franchise I love and it’s a franchise that is so off the walls popcorn that it could never be on any pretentious person’s “Supposed to Like” list.

After all, the franchise starts with the premise of people stealing from Semi trucks by using harpoons, freakin’ harpoons man, as a part of their robbery supplies. But that’s just the tip of an iceberg that includes using cars to race a submarine across frozen harbor and using a Pontiac Fiero to go into outer space. None of it should make sense and yet it does. Because the franchise raises the stakes step by step by step, the audience goes from NOS to outer space without breaking the suspension of disbelief. Had I watched the Fiero be launched to space in the first film, I never would have accepted it. I’d have walked out of the theater laughing. By the ninth film in the franchise, I was all in. That’s the kind of myth building that Nolan is referring to in this interview. It’s also the kind of myth building he engages in with his own productions. Check out the interview. It’s a wonderful discussion.

Glimpses from the Substackosphere and Bloggerverse

Rediscovered Realms Examines an Overlooked Gamebook Series

J.Q. Graziano

has a very interesting post this week where he discusses TSR’s old HeartQuest adventure books at his

Rediscovered Realms

page. In it, he touches on how products aimed at particular audiences can earn a mixed reaction, both from fans outside the subgroup and within the target audience. Releasing romance novel themed adventure books resulted in such a reaction. It’s a shame that these books caused controversy as, like J.Q., I think these books are pretty fun. Then again, I like the “Kid’s” books that were released for Warhammer a couple of years back too, if that gives you a sense of my taste when it comes to crossover fiction.

Dungeons & Dragons HeartQuest Books

What are You Doing for Zine Month?

It’s “Zine Month” in the independent gaming community, which means that there are a ton of new small offerings across the internet and across Kickstarter.

Jonah White 🎲🎮🧩

is doing us a great service this month and highlighting some of the better entries. Zines are how the rpg hobby grew and it’s awesome to see how vital they still are.

Zine Month Recommendations Week 1

Does a Lack of Mechanics Mean a Lack of Ability?

Thomas M

, formerly of Substack, reviews Metamorphosis Alpha over at his Indie RPG newsletter. The review contains a paragraph that is very striking to me and highlights a mentality that I’ve encountered from time to time in rpgs. It’s what I tend to refer to as a mechanic based mentality. Thomas’s evaluation below, is an almost definitional example of the mentality.

“So outside of being irradiated, trying to recruit a follower, or fighting, the game doesn't really have any rules to invoke. There is no core mechanic as you're probably used to. People who have played OD&D will recognize this but for others, I have to explain how weird that feels. You don't just roll the dice when making a jump or when trying to persuade a person or examining a door or literally anything outside the situations mentioned above. There is no ability check or saving throw. It was honestly like playing a PbtA game with four very specific moves and nothing else.”

It’s not a wrong way to play, in fact some of the best role playing games ever made are mechanic based mentality games (Hero, GURPS, Runequest), but it is one that I find limiting. I’ve got an upcoming post entitled “I Liked D&D More Before it Became GURPS” that discusses this trend in more detail. While I don’t think that games having a mechanic based mentality are bad, I do think that players and GMs shouldn’t limit themselves to such a mentality and I found most of the complaints I was countering/fielding regarding 4e were often rooted in it.

A very reductive, and probably unfair, example of this mentality would be a person saying “how do I climb this wall? There is no climb skill in the game, so clearly this game isn’t a role playing game.” In this mindset, the lack of a mechanic implies a lack of capability. It can be a limiting mindset, but I don’t blame players for having it. Post-GURPS, and ironically post-PbtA storygames, players and GMs are not often provided tools to navigate situations without mechanics. This lack of tools isn’t just because games don’t discuss the tools, but because the community doesn’t teach people these tools either. Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition is one of my favorite editions of the game and, in part, that is because it removed the GURPS-like skill granularity of 3.x where you rolled a d20, added mods, and this told you exactly how many silver pieces your performance or bartending earned, or how much work you completed in forging your sword. There is comfort in that certainty, and a level of expected fairness without subjective bias on the gamemaster’s part, but there is also a constraining element.

I’ve already written too much for a Rundown on the topic, just know that a pretty long discussion is coming on the horizon and I’ll be quoting Thomas in it too. I also want to make clear that I don’t think that a mechanical mindset is bad, but I think players should be able to play both with and without one if they want to maximize the kinds of RPG experiences they can have.

Weekly Film Article Cavalcade

The Lamentations of Luke Y. Thomspson

Luke has a couple of very interesting articles this week that includes reviews of films, television shows, action figures, and a brief “whatever happened to” article. They are all worth your time.

Luke’s review of the 4K release of Willy’s Wonderland is largely positive and examines the argument that Willy’s is a better Five Nights at Freddy’s than FNAF. While I’m not in that camp, I do understand the mentality of those in it. I really liked FNAF for what it was and as a parent whose twins watched playthroughs of the original games on the YouTube channel of the “kid friendly, but no longer calling himself kid friendly because YouTube will demonetize him if he’s kid oriented content” Dan TDM, I really appreciated what they did with the movie. They made a movie for people who “grew up” with FNAF, which is a different audience than those who grew up with Chuck E. Cheese and ShowBiz Pizza Place. Let’s just say there was a particular kind of terror one experienced as these restaurants decayed while still eking out the last few dollars their businesses could muster. As the animatronics broke down, the horror increased and the nostalgia withered. Willy’s is for those of us who had nightmares of the ShowBiz band breaking free of the stage to murder the last few customers, while FNAF is for the teens who were kids with the FNAF series. There is room in my world for both and only one still gives me nightmares.

Taking on yet another controversial property in his review of season 2 of Halo. Like Willy’s and FNAF, the fan community is divided on Halo regarding what the property should be. Should it be a faithful retelling of the game, or should it be an engaging science fiction property based on the games but that acknowledges the differences that come from different media and budgetary constraints. Luke wades right into the controversy and compares the challenge to the challenge Transformers films have faced. I would have used Starship Troopers as a comparison, especially given the need for human connection etc., but that’s just my own frame of reference. Luke’s use of Transformers is equally effective and doesn’t rely on readers having read a 65 year old juvenile novel.

I’m really enjoying Luke’s action figure reviews, especially because of the vignettes he creates in his photo oriented entries. That enjoyment continues in his review of an action figure inspired by John Carpenter’s The Thing. Carpenter’s film was a financial failure at the time, but it was a fantastic adaptation of the John W. Campbell story (writing as Don A. Stuart) “Who Goes There?” It’s a tale of aliens and paranoia and the film is a masterpiece of psychological horror that still has people speculating on its ending, which is the point. Oh, and the movie has inspired yet another cool action figure.

Luke stepped delved a little into Robert Osborne-land this week, with an informative piece on Tina Majorino. The actress is one of that rare breed of excellent child actors who continue to work as adults. Luke’s piece was just in time for Napoleon Dynamite’s 20th Anniversary celebration at Sundance (I don’t know if Luke meant to time it), which my friend Chris “Doc” Wyatt attended. Majorino’s performance in that film, like in most of her work, is charming and understated. She is, like Jena Malone, is an actress whose work I follow and who I believe are tremendously underrated. I look forward to seeing whatever the projects Majorino “cannot currently discuss” turn out to be.

Courtney Howard’s View from the Center Seat

Courtney Howard had two well written reviews this week. She reviewed Upgraded, the latest film entry in what may be signaling a resurgence of the romantic comedy. It’s a genre that had been downplayed for years during the super hero explosion, but it’s my absolute favorite genre. In her relatively positive review over at Variety, Howard makes sure to touch on the Cinderella and Devil Wears Prada comparisons, but misses the Working Girl (also a Cinderella story so no biggie) one. Given how much of the review screamed Working Girl to me, I’m wondering how I’ll receive this film.

I consider Working Girl to be a perfect movie, right down to the glass slipper that requires a knowledge of US communication law, and it’s a much higher bar than Cinderella or Devil Wears Prada to meet. While there have been great Cinderella movies, I only need them to be mid to enjoy them. Similarly with Devil Wears Prada, so long as the antagonist shines I’ll love the film (as I did with Devil Wears Prada where I hated the protagonist, but adore the movie). Working Girl is a great Cinderella movie with a marvelous antagonist and a compelling lead. Upgraded won’t have to be perfect for me to like it, but my hope is that it will add something more and not just be a reminder that I need to rewatch Working Girl for the 50th time (not an exaggeration as Working Girl, Twister, Big Trouble in Little China, and The Thin Man are the films I’ve seen most in life).

Having read a lot of Courtney Howard’s reviews, I can say that Lisa Frankenstein has as its foundation exactly the kind of high concept narrative that should receive rave reviews from her. It is right in her wheelhouse. That she gave it a middling review is going to get me to wait for this to come out on a streamer before I give it a view. There aren’t many films that I actively dislike, but the “aiming for cult classic” film is a genre that doesn’t typically impress. I love cult films, but I don’t tend to love movies that start out attempting to become cult films.

It’s the difference between the sincere brilliance (the brilliance is in the sincerity) of Birdemic, versus the tryhardness of Birdemic 2. I haven’t seen Birdemic 3 yet, so judgment on that will have to wait. A great cult film is a film that had some form of limitation such as a lack of budget or lack of skill, that has a deep heart and sincerity. The Room works because it is so undeniably sincere, so too do the films of Ed Wood or Rocky Horror for that matter. The lack of sincerity in Rocky Horror stems more from the “fans” than the film, which I think is genuinely good. Yes. Genuinely good. Why? Because it is a sincere love letter to RKO movies and I love those too.

Mendelson’s Melodic Meanderings

Scott Mendelson

has added a podcast to his

The Outside Scoop

Substack. That’s a good thing too because so much of his best work is hidden behind a paywall.

Scott Mendelson Finally Has a Podcast!

Classic Role Playing Game Recommendation

This week’s classic role playing game recommendations comes from the brief lived Maverick Games. The San Francisco Bay Area has been a hot bed of role playing game innovation since the earliest days of the hobby. The outpouring of creative output from the Bay Area includes Chaosium’s Runequest, Pendragon, Superworld, and Call of Cthulhu; Hero Games’ Champions, Justice Inc., Espionage/Danger International, and Hero System; R. Talsorian Games’ Cyberpunk, Castle Falkenstein, Teenagers from Outer Space, and Mekton. While these games vary in mechanical complexity from the simple to the arcane, they all share one quality. They are all games with rich and evocative settings. All of these games have a “feel” that informs everything about them and all of them tend to end up with story focused games with long periods of improvisational role play.

You might use points to calculate the most minute abilities of your Champions character, and the combat system may be one of the most tactically robust ever designed, but you’re going to spend more than half of your game sessions chatting like Giffen/Maguire/DeMatteis’ Justice League and engaging in romantic subplots like Claremont and Byrne’s X-men. You’ll also spend your share of time complaining about how EuroStar completely worked over your team last session. Champions has a deep and compelling IP.

The thing is, even Bay Area Gamers sometimes just want to get together and shoot stuff and getting together and shooting stuff is what The Hunt: The Ultimate Arena Sport is all about. The Hunt is essentially a modified version of The Running Man where the PCs play the Hunters attempting to win money and fame by killing the criminal “Fox.” I’ll give a full review of the game later this week, but suffice it to say that the game is a complete role playing game, but it isn’t a mechanical based mentality game. All the attributes in this game are used for one purpose, combat. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a complete role playing game, but it does mean that it can be a game where you set all of the improvisation aside and just shoot villains and compete with your friends. The game was created as part of a subgame within a Cyberpunk campaign, but the players had so much fun with the subgame that they created their own mechanics and setting and shared it with the world. The Hunt games were frequent, and fun, convention events in the Bay Area in the 1990s and I think the game is ready for a revival.

Music Recommendation

Since I went overboard last week and shared a variety of musical entries, including the one I intended for today, I’ll keep things simple this time. Every now and then the YouTube algorithm with bring up new that I’ll have to check out and the one that hit most recently was a channel called Desmond Doom. Near as I can tell, it’s a parody/nostalgia channel for those who love British alternative rock and post-punk music. The creator has made a couple of “how to write a ____ song in 1 minute” videos where he creates compelling, at least I found them compelling, fake songs by The Smiths and The Cure.

Here’s his video on how to write a Smiths song, followed by the full version of his fake song. I think it’s pretty darn entertaining.

And here’s the full song.

I think he captured the vibe.

Classic Film Recommendation

This week’s classic film recommendation, and 20+ years old counts as a classic (right?), is The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. I remember when this film first came out. Jody was at film school at USC and every weekend we would go out to watch every film that was released. We watched, on average, ten movies a weekend in the theater during that time. I know that wasn’t really “every” movie that was released, but we caught every major film and many smaller films as well. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra was one of those smaller films and it’s a film that I adore and still watch today.

As I described above, a good cult film has a deep level of sincerity. You can see the creators’ (and films have multiple creators) love of film and of the subject in every frame. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is no exception. The movie is a paean to the science fiction horror films of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. It is simultaneously a parody of films like Them, Cat People, Santo vs. the Martian Invasion, and It Came from Outer Space and a worthy entry into several b-movie genres.

There is a ton of It Came from Outer Space DNA in the movie, but the film has so much more to offer as well and is highly quotable. My own favorite quote from the film is “I sleep now.” I know, it doesn’t seem funny on its own, but in the context of the film it’s hilarious. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull both play homage to the same catalog of films, but The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is the film that truly channels the era and is a better film because of it. I’m not as critical of Crystal Skull as many Indy fans, I actually like the movie, but I find The Lost Skeleton far more satisfying an experience and I find myself watching it again and again.

Until later this week…I sleep now.