Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am in recovery mode, having just spent four and a half hours leading my players through their first major dungeon crawl. Well, actually a castle crawl in this case, but regardless, it took me like fifteen hours to build that whole thing, and my party crushed it in one session. A winding stretch of countryside and full castle infiltration, five separate encounters each with their own unique mechanical dynamics, half a dozen fleshed-out NPC characters… my players are content-hungry beasts, and I don’t know how I’m possibly going to stay ahead of them. Plotting out adventures for those monsters basically consumed all my usual film screening time, but I’ve fortunately still sitting on about fifteen pages of film review buffer, so don’t you worry about any disruptions in the Week in Review pipeline. I’m sure attempting to juggle all this will catch up with me soon enough, but for now let’s not think of such things, and instead wander our way through some fresh cinematic selections. Onward!
Tag Archives: Film
Summer 2022 – Week 9 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Alas, we have reached that point in the summer season where it still being “summer” feels like a cruel joke, as leaves fall and the winter chill returns. Every year, I run a version of that me sowing/me reaping tweet regarding the summer season, delighting in the fact that “it’s still the spring season! There’s so much summer left!” through June, and raging at the reality of “it’s already fall! This summer season is a lie!” in September. Fortunately, I’ve got plenty of films here to keep my mind off things, which this week included Jordan Peele’s outstanding new feature. Peele’s films always impress me, but I think Nope might actually be my favorite of his films, and I’m eager to tell you why. Let’s get to it!
Summer 2022 – Week 8 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Though this article title claims there’s somehow still a third of the summer season to go, it certainly doesn’t feel like summer’s still in full, or even partial swing. Overcast skies and underwhelming temperatures seem determined to get a head start on seasonal affective disorder, but I’m rallying the best I can with a healthy diet of media properties. My housemate has continued his marathon of Naruto without pause, bringing us all the way to the end of the Pain arc, which is basically where I stopped reading the manga as a kid. This process has only reaffirmed that Naruto’s writing is kinda terrible, but it’s also introduced me to the remarkable talents of animator/director Toshiyuki Tsuru, so on balance I can’t really complain. And of course, there was also a fine array of film viewings, with the usual servings of horror and suspense complimented by some martial arts and musical selections. Let’s see what the week had to offer!
Summer 2022 – Week 7 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve got an unusually timely selection of films for you all, having checked out some of the latest streaming releases alongside the usual grab bag of older films. I’ve also been slowly preparing myself to actually watch some currently-airing anime next season; stepping back from the grind has been lovely, but I imagine that Mob Psycho and Chainsaw Man will be appointment viewing, with Do It Yourself also looking to be a potentially impressive production. I’m not super excited by the Jujutsu Kaisen-style visual sheen of Chainsaw Man’s trailers, but even a Chainsaw Man that’s been homogenized into anime’s current “action prestige aesthetic” should still be a fun time. In the meanwhile, my housemate’s been powering through Naruto at a truly alarming pace, which hasn’t exactly been the revelatory experience of One Piece, but has at least introduced me to terrific highlights like the 3rd Hokage’s big fight, or Sakura’s faceoff with the Akatsuki. It’s feeling easier all the time to appreciate the distinctive strengths of specific animators, which is in turn helping me embrace a more holistic approach to anime analysis. But let’s set aside the sakuga grind for a moment, and explore a fresh selection of films. It’s time for the goddamn Week in Review!
Summer 2022 – Week 6 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. You all doing okay this week? As for me, the water has currently been turned off in my apartment due to construction, a fact which is intermingling with the ongoing heat wave to astonishingly negative effect. But that aside, I’m still feeling hyped as hell about running my own D&D campaign, and have hammered out a whole introductory quest node for my beloved players. My current biggest issue is figuring out how to effectively crib from the various established modules – I don’t want to simply embrace standard WotC adventures, but the scale of invention required for a major D&D arc seems intimidating, to say the least. And of course, the house has still played host to all manner of film viewings, as we continue to extract vital nourishment from the fertile vine of cinematic history. I can sense myself getting weirdly florid with these descriptions, so let’s not waste any more time, and see what a fresh week of films has to offer!
Summer 2022 – Week 5 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. How are you all enjoying the advent of August? Though I’m certainly not happy about the speed with which yet another summer is slipping through my fingers, I can at least appreciate the dissolution of our boiling planet’s latest heatwave. As for more personal affairs, I’m currently in the process of hashing out the early beats of my first me-led D&D campaign, and am having an incredible amount of fun with all of it. I’ve been wanting to get back to writing my own fiction for years now, and hammering out area descriptions, side characters, and narrative beats has served as a delightful return to the world of pure creation. I’m taking this opportunity to indulge in my own favorite flavors of storytelling, so I’m sure it comes as no surprise that the campaign will be commencing during a Wicker Man-style harvest festival. I’ll keep you all posted on that as it develops, but for now, it appears we’re due for the Week in Review. Let’s run down some movies!
Summer 2022 – Week 4 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve got an offering of surprisingly timely features for you all, as we actually watched a couple new releases alongside the usual temporal grab bag of selections. I still haven’t checked out Nope, but the film’s universal acclaim is really testing my plague-era aversion to theaters; I compromised for The Northman, and I might just have to compromise for Peele as well. Along with that, I’ve got a wildly impressive action film, a scattering of the usual horror fare, and also a political thriller that prompted some feisty/fatigued reflections on our terrifying political climate. It’s a very strange thing, watching films from back when people had faith in our political institutions, and those institutions were kept in check by a free and respected press. But we can save those reflections for later – let’s start off with something spooky and satisfying, as we burn down the latest Week in Review!
Summer 2022 – Week 3 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. You all bearing this absurd heatwave okay? I’m currently spending my time migrating between a pair of temperature-controlled rooms, treating every sojourn into the outer world as something akin to a moonwalk through a deeply hostile alien landscape. Which, to be honest, is a regimen I’ve already become familiar with due to COVID – so I guess, just, this is what the future is from now on? We’ve surrendered the outer world to unmitigated climate change and pandemic waves, and just sort of have to accept this as the new normal. Delightful! But even if humanity cannot unite in solidarity to save itself, we can at least come together to rant about some movies. Let’s get right on with that then, as we charge through the latest Week in Review!
Summer 2022 – Week 1 in Review
Hello and welcome to the first week of the summer season! Y’all ready for summer!? Yes, the distribution of months in a year does indeed make the commencement of “summer season” feel oddly delayed, and yes, that makes for a doubly weird experience when I’m not actually tackling seasonal anime in these things. But chill out, live a little, let’s just try and enjoy what summer we’ve got left. I’m currently enjoying that delightful New England combination of extreme heat and humidity mixed with oppressive gray skies, meaning the air conditioners are working hard and the movie screenings are plentiful. Today I’ve got wuxia classics, Italian pulp goodness, and even some actual anime, with my house proving ill-equipped to defend against Bastard!!’s gleeful absurdity. Let’s run ‘em down!
Spring 2022 – Week 13 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! Today I am happy to report that this article actually has something of a binding philosophy, as all of its features fall within the same meta-franchise umbrella. This week saw us conducting a marathon of all the non-essential Alien films, skipping genuine classics Alien and Aliens, and instead commencing with Alien vs Predator. This theoretical heresy didn’t really bother me, though; frankly, I’ve probably seen those first two Alien films more than any other movies period, as they’ve both been favorites since adolescence. Alien will always be one of the greatest horror movies ever, and Aliens one of the peaks of action cinema – and as I get older, I can only better appreciate the deft, organic dialogue of Alien, the way its capitalist and sexual threats build off each other, or the masterful ebb and flow of Aliens’ propulsive run. The first two Alien films are essentially perfect, succeeding both as visceral entertainment and as embittered commentary on how capitalism will embrace any violation to perpetuate itself. So how do the other Alien features fare?