Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We’re truly entering the holiday season now, which tends to be a period of profound self-recrimination to me personally, as I attempt to make up for missed family time and finish off a year’s worth of outstanding ambitions. But I’m trying to take it easy on myself this year, and it’s certainly helping that I’m about to pass the hundred page mark on my ongoing fantasy story. I’ve been writing dubious fantasy novels since middle school, and it feels incredibly validating to be back in that space and making steady progress, actually chasing my ambitions rather than admiring them from afar. I only sorta half-believed in this DnD writing to traditional fiction pipeline when I started off, and it sure is nice for something to turn out right for once. Anyway, enough navel-gazing for now, we’ve got some movies to break down. On to the week in review!
Tag Archives: Film
Fall 2025 – Week 9 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been writing up a fuckin’ storm; getting ahead on bounties, pushing forward on my novel, and even tossing off an indulgent side quest for my DnD party (we’re doing The Phantom of the Opera and The Taming of the Shrew simultaneously, which will absolutely involve were-shrews). All this feels like a genuine breakthrough for me, as I’ve traditionally found it extremely hard to write in multiple modes at the same time – it’s hard to think in terms of criticism when writing quests, hard to plot in terms of novels when writing songs, etcetera. Now it feels more like I’ve reached that vaunted position where work in one field actually inspires work in others; I was basically stuck at one bar scene in my book for weeks, but fiddling with quests seemed to unlodge something essential for getting momentum back. And yes, the film screenings have continued, alongside copious munching through the Brennan Lee Mulligan extended universe. Let’s break down some movies!
Fall 2025 – Week 8 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week has seen my house cleaning up various media odds and ends, as we finished off the two revival Slayers seasons, concluded season three of Dimension 20, and also checked out the last of the millennium era Godzilla films. This has left my slate open for munching through the year’s outstanding must-watch anime productions, and thus I’ve already started a group viewing of The Summer Hikaru Died, while polishing off the last of Shoushimin Series in my own time. My big blind spot is the year’s top anime films – both the Umetsu and Fujimoto films actually released this year, alongside last year’s Yamada film that at this point should be widely available. I’ll be sure to munch through those as soon as I can, but in the meantime, let’s break down a fresh grab bag of film selections!
Fall 2025 – Week 7 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With the winds of winter approaching, this week saw me putting the finishing touches on my players’ Christmas DnD adventure, which will be the third installment in our mostly annual holiday tradition. These quests have traditionally been written by one of my housemates as a break in the formal narrative action, with the first installment essentially positing Santa Claus as a Futurama-style figure of terror, and the second taking The Santa Clause’s premise in a more lycanthropy-adjacent direction. This third adventure will involve us doing a Diehard scenario with Santa as Hans Gruber, a collaboration where I open the quest as dungeon master, only for the action to be “invaded” by Santa in an active DM handoff. I’m eager to see how it all plays out, and will surely inform you folks in the aftermath, but for now, let’s burn down a fresh week in films!
Fall 2025 – Week 6 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With the original three seasons complete and the films proving a bust, this week my house munched through the 2008 Slayers revival Revolution, featuring the same director and much of the same cast as the original ‘90s entries. While the transition from nostalgic cel photography is unfortunate, this season proved itself a fine addition to the Lina Inverse canon, carrying on the spirit of the original series. Meanwhile, the introduction of Brennan Lee Mulligan into Critical Role gave us the perfect excuse to return to Dimension 20, where we’re now following the Bad Kids on their quest to retrieve the Crown of the Nightmare King. Though the team moving away from fully designed sets initially put us off, it’s actually been easy to reintegrate into this season’s Theater of the Mind-style combat, which undeniably facilitates fights of greater scope and complexity than a physical board would allow. All this DnD viewing has actually inspired me to get started on this year’s Christmas DnD Adventure, a much-loved annual tradition around my place. Perhaps more on that later, but for now, let’s run down the week in films!
Fall 2025 – Week 5 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Alongside the week’s usual scattering of films and videogames (in spite of my grumbling, I am still bashing my head against Hades 2), this week saw us screening the first three episodes of Critical Role’s fourth campaign, which trades out their usual DM Matt Mercer for Dimension 20’s Brennan Lee Mulligan, alongside essentially doubling the table size to a total of thirteen rotating players. All of this sounded like it might amplify the inherently confusing, unwieldy nature of Critical Role’s live sessions, but the results have been astonishing; to be honest, this campaign has so far been the most compelling D&D project I’ve ever witnessed.
Mulligan’s strategy of breaking his sessions into concrete scenes has made for a far more propulsive, coherent ride than the CR standard, the world they are revealing feels substantive, lived-in, and rich in thematic implications, and the cast are inhabiting a dynamite array of characters, successfully rallying back from the “everyone’s trying to be Jester” doldrums of campaign three. Mulligan’s influence and the cast’s clear renewed enthusiasm have turned Critical Role into genuine appointment television, and if you’ve never seen a live play before, I’d say this is a fine chance to see what peak performance looks like. Regardless, I have of course made time for more of our regularly scheduled movie screenings, so let’s break down some films in the Week in Review!
Fall 2025 – Week 4 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week my house finished off our rewatch of Slayers’ original three seasons, which we then followed up with the first Slayers film. This unfortunately proved a total disappointment; the film basically butchers Lina’s character, the tone shifts from fantasy adventure to outright farce, and Lina’s reliable adventuring party has been replaced by one obnoxious co-lead. Considering the other films all apparently follow this same formula, I’m now debating whether we should jump to the more recent Revolution seasons or just consider the franchise finished. I know those are generally less highly regarded than the original series, but it’s frankly hard to say goodbye to Lina and the gang – particularly knowing that with this, we’ve basically burned through anime’s apparent catalog of tabletop-reminiscent fantasy adventures. Anyway, our Slayers travels were accompanied by plenty of the usual film screenings, so let’s break down some movies in the Week in Review!
Fall 2025 – Week 3 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Our late summer weather reprieve finally broke this week, meaning I’m hunkering down for half a year of gloomy New England doldrums. I’ve never been thrilled to live in a region whose weather feels like the meteorological embodiment of depression, but I imagine I’ll bear it with roughly as much grumbling as usual, and as much media to distract myself as I possibly can. As far as that goes, my house is now done with Andor and nearly out of Slayers, meaning it’s time to add some new productions to our daily diet. I’m thinking Future Boy Conan will be our next classic series screening, and I’m eager to see a young, fire-eyed Miyazaki tackle his first TV production. In the meantime, let’s break down some goddamn films!
Fall 2025 – Week 2 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week has seen my house munching through Hades 2, which I am sorry to report we are frankly not enjoying. Compared to the satisfying weapons and copious synergies of its predecessor, Hades 2 just feels immensely clumsy; its magic system doesn’t seem compatible with its combat design, and most of the time it feels like I’m choosing between upgrade options that are all varying degrees of convoluted and disappointing. When you combine that with the game’s limited movement options and serious problems with visual clarity, it adds up to an experience where I rarely feel in control of the outcome; it feels like aggravating work, to be honest, and I doubt I’ll be playing through the narrative’s conclusion. But hey, that just leaves more time for movies, so let’s see what the week had on offer!
Fall 2025 – Week 1 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. While my house is still looking for our next anime project, this week saw us burning through the first season of Andor. The show feels like a genuine miracle – not just a novel, compelling take on Star Wars, but simply the best thing the prestige TV era has produced. The script is graceful and boiling over with taut, ferocious insights, the cast is phenomenal, and the production’s fury is palpable, its drama facilitating thoughtful, anthemic commentary on our modern world. I frankly had heard indications of all this before watching, but ended up being further impressed by how well the whole thing hangs together, as well as how effectively it contorts itself into various genre molds (the heist arc, the prison break) that end up both facilitating the overall narrative and demonstrating the greatest pleasures of their own hooks in the bargain. It’s one of the best things I’ve seen in years, and I’d suggest giving it a try even if you’re understandably fatigued by Disney’s relentless exploitation of the brand. In the meantime, let’s break down some films!