Shmee.Me

September 4, 2015September 4, 2015

The Paladin Post-PAX Write-up

As Shmee has so ably done already, I’d like to share a few thoughts about PAX Prime 2015. Like anything, PAXen have an ebb and flow, bountiful years and lean years, the best of times and the worst of times. This year seemed to be one of the lean years, at least for me. The games on the show floor or in the tabletop rooms were all great, but there wasn’t that new exciting thing, that stand-out game that I left the show either in my arms or earmarked in my bank account for when it released.

Sure I played Tom Clancy’ The Division and I enjoyed it, but the game play we got to experience wasn’t the gameplay that drew me to the game in the first place. Fortified, a game I loved last year, was also great and more refined but it didn’t do anything to move the needle (but it didn’t drop either). I even played Netrunner and after twenty minutes kinda liked it, sorta, maybe??.

The thing I realized looking back at PAX this year was that there wasn’t that one unifying thing or fun event that marked PAX Prime 2015 – last year it was RPG’s for instance. This year was more smaller, less exciting events strung together to make a decent outing, but ultimately a less memorable PAX.

Not to say that things like attending a Wedding and a Magic show at the Gearbox Software Panel wasn’t memorable because it totally was! Or that hanging out with friends, playing games, and watching the final rock fall right in front of them crushing their dreams of escape after all the mocking because I pulled every snake and scorpion card in the stupid desk!!! I also got to hug a unicorn from a game I haven’t played.

I later found out it was a sex unicorn... Wonderful! — I later found out it was a sex unicorn… Wonderful!

Those things did happen and I enjoyed them.

PAX is what you make it of course and my advice to future PAX attendants – travel in small groups of 2-3 made up of people with similar interests and be up for anything, even panels and games your not really interested in. Also drink water and wear sunglasses. And paint doors black.

I hope to see you in the throng next year.

July 21, 2015July 21, 2015

A series of reviews by The Paladin

A truth of our time is that there is a lot of entertainment for us to consume. Also true is that we have only so much time to watch it all. Average shows or movies tend to slip through the cracks or fall down the TV schedule, so it’s nice to have Netflix or Amazon Prime to catch up on a TV series or Movie you meant to watch but just didn’t. Assembled below are three short reviews for some things I’ve watched recently and maybe you should too.

Ant-Man

Although Shmee has already reviewed Ant-Man, I’d like to add that Payton Reed did a fine job jumping into a difficult situation as Director. Audiences were excited for Evan Wright’s take on the Marvel Superhero Brand that we were all a little disappointed he left. Absent Wright’s direction, the film could have been slap-dash and paint-by-the-numbers, but I came away from the film really happy; having enjoyed my one hour and fifty-seven minutes (not counting the stingers at the end). Ant-Man had it problems, but I think it does something recent Marvel movies have not done – be small and deal with more ordinary people. Arguably that’s what draws us to Superheroes in the first place, the people behind the mask. Ant-Man explorers that just a little bit more and better.

Agents of Shield

Another Marvel property that I like, because it too follows the little guy (namely Agent Phil Coulson). Agents of Shield has its faults though. ABC has thankfully kept the show going, probably because someone in a meeting used the word “Synergy”. Agent Coulson and his team have changed a lot since the last season, which was slow to build and then after Captain America: Winter Soldier went sideways. Agents of Shield Season 2 builds on that last half of Season 1 and tells two stories that build into each other. A critique of Agents of Shield would be that the final story arc had a good section of the show taking place in a new-age massage parlor set that just really took me out of the show. All together though I enjoyed this season a lot and look forward to Season 3.

Ascension

Ascension was a SyFy event movie about a generational ship build during the days of Kennedy and sent off into space. All of the crew have not experienced the cultural revolution, 9-11, or any of the other events that have shaped American culture so they are a unique microcosm of society that has developed in their own way. A murder on the ship throws everything into chaos and we see the cracks that have formed in everyone’s relationships throughout the ship. Ascension then plays a slight of hand, by changing the show to something else… something not as compelling by episode two. Also there is a lot of hanky-panky. A lot of the appeal of Ascension for me was the idea of a generational ship half way to its destination and the society that has grown because of that reality. Ascension starts with that same premise, but then stops its world building to do something else. About half way through I was just watching to finish the series; which doesn’t really end with any real satisfaction since SyFy didn’t choose to turn the miniseries into a full blown series. All of the pieces seemed right for a compelling science fiction drama (beautiful sets, nice costumes, and even some compelling characters), the end rest though was just flat.

June 30, 2015

The Paladin wants off Fury

Fury came out in 2014, starring Brad Pitt, motivational speaker Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, and Jon “Shane” Bernthal as the tank crew of the Sherman Battle Tank FURY. I’ll cut to the chase… I didn’t like it. Fury when it is an actual war movie is tense and brutal. Fury when it is being introspective is awful and stupid. The fighting is done in the new style of Hollywood war films – brutal, bloody, and dirty. This makes the climatic set piece, the part we suffer through the rest of the movie to get to, really quite good. The battle is intense, swinging from hope to despair and then back again with each attack. It’s that desperate Alamo-like last stand we just love in ’MERICA!!! The rest of the movie is the standard Hollywood post-Vietnam war movie that makes every effort to suck the heroism and even humanity out of the soldiers the movie is portraying. Except for Lerman’s wide-eyed clerk turned machine gunner, the rest of the crew of Fury are terrible people. Even the soldiers around and intertwined with the events of the film are terrible people. I don’t doubt that American soldiers killed prisoners in World War 2, but I find fault with the movie’s depiction of soldiers reveling in it.

To me the film was trying to show how war changes those who fight in it, but it does it without us seeing who the men were before the war. For all we know they were all terrible people, the Army just gave them license to kill. So we don’t see the loving family man, the idealistic college student, the friendly mechanic, or the pride of the family go off to war and have their lives forever changed. HBO’s Band of Brothers and American Sniper do a much better job at showing how war changes lives, without glorifying war or wrapping war up in an idealistic American flag.

April 7, 2015May 21, 2019

The Paladin loved that dog

John Wick. In the post-Matrix Keanu Reeves era it is perhaps his best film. The story is simple, man loses his wife, wife gives man a dog, punk kills dog, man cuts a swath of death and destruction across New York avenging his dog. The concept itself it pretty funny, but in the little time we have with the dog the directors, Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, make you the audience actually love the dog too and you wouldn’t mind taking a baseball bat to the entitle Iosef (Alfie Allen).

More than the excellently scripted fight scenes, dialog that plays to Keanu “Whoa!” Reeve’s strengths, and a plethora of exceptional character actors from Ian McShane to John Leguizamo, the thing that really stood out to me was the style and weight to the world this movie was taking place in. The Continental is this world within a world, a hotel and club for hitmen and assassins with its own rules and currency. You get a sense of John Wick’s deep history in this world as he walks the halls so easily, yet he feels very foreign because he doesn’t really want to be there.

For a brief time John Wick was 100% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes (it eventually settled at 83%) which should tell you this movie is something special. It’s the revenge movie with heart, style, and substance that doesn’t come around very often. If you missed it in the theaters, like a lot of people did, you can rent it on Amazon or pick it up at a RedBox and join me in my morning for the dog.

Why? Why the dog?!

March 25, 2015

The Paladin, The Fall

Mrs. The Paladin and I just finished watching The Fall on Netflix. Weighing in at only 11 episodes (5 episode in Series 1 and 6 episodes in Series 2), The Fall follows the Northern Ireland Police as they investigate a series of murders perpetrated by a serial killer. The Fall’s unique take on the police procedural is that we know who the killer is and even follow him for large chunks of time. This gives the show a much more psychological thriller vibe as you are watching the game of cat and mouse between the killer Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) and Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson (a very NOT Agent Scully, Gillian Anderson).

The Fall is pretty adult, dealing with adult themes, and can be very uncomfortable at times; especially when it juxtaposes Paul Spector’s life as a husband and father with his life as a killer. It can be difficult to watch the man you just saw sneak into a woman’s house in the scene before kiss his daughter goodnight in the next scene. Another facet of the show is how Paul is an interesting foil to Gillian Anderson’s Stella Gibson because the two are similar in some ways – they are both highly intelligent, bristle at authority (in Gibson’s case it is patriarchy), and are driven by strong sexual urges. Of course in Gibson’s case she upholds the law while Spector shirks the law.

Series 3 was just announced this month and should be out by the end of the year, which helps with the ending of Series 2 which doesn’t end with a cliffhanger per-say, but left room for the story to continue. Neither Mrs. The Paladin and I were very satisfied with the ending however. The whole time you’re thinking Spector’s got one final trick up his sleeve… and yet it just don’t happen.

If you are looking for a dark, patient, psychological thriller than I suggest giving The Fall a try, although you might want to wait until Series 3 comes out to give you a better ending.