The Jabberer

And so the stalker becomes the stalkee... Last night I saw Enemy since I couldn't bring myself to watch Gemini Man , and it's pretty good, but pretty weird. A lonely and surreal tale of doppelgängers and stalking, Enemy is a film that combines the grounded with the fantastic. It also has some fantastic acting throughout, and some ambiguity notwithstanding, it's a great and relatively brisk (clocking at almost exactly one hour, thirty minutes) film that I think more people should see for its performances and editing. In terms of plot, Enemy 's is pretty out there. It's even stranger the more you think about it, especially since the larger plot only starts from pure chance that an offhand film recommendation would lead to a guy discovering an actor who looks exactly like him. This kicks off an obsession with his double (the title of the book that the film is based on) that leads to the professor stalking his double. He does this not really out of a desire to

Yeah, the cover doesn't leave the best first impression, but trust me, this book is leagues better than the crappy 3-D dwarf would lead you to believe. The Dwarves was a book that I started reading at a pretty convenient time, having just finished The Travels and being somewhat bitter about it. The Dwarves is similar to The Travels in that it's about travel, but as one can assume, The Dwarves takes place in the fantasy land of Girdlegard, which is essentially an island of tranquility separated into various kingdoms and magical realms that stands defiant against the forces of ruin and chaos. I admit when I started I was somewhat skeptical, even from just the name of Girdlegard, but the more I read the more charming and cozy I found the book to be. The Dwarves offers a more nuanced take on the archetypical dwarf characters that are a hallmark of the genre, in addition to offering a story that feels uniquely dwarven in its delivery, attitude, and themes of resilience, k

Relationships are...interesting to say the least, and I still can't tell if breakups are random or a separate system, they just seem random a lot of the time, which somehow makes them very entertaining. Rimworld is a game that I struggle to categorize. I've heard it described as a lot of things, including a colony management sim, a story generator, a war crime simulator, pure crack, and so on. Truth be told, it's all of those and more, being a game that were it not for the existence of Dwarf Fortress and other simulators would be a genre of its own. Rimworld is a game that is entirely what you make of it, and that's its strongest suit. It's a game that I've sunk a lot of time into, and I'm continually surprised that more people haven't played it, especially as it's fairly accessible. So what exactly is Rimworld ? The beginnings of Brantford, a truly unpleasant place to start despite the good location. Yes, my colony is home to a wookie, a

Looks like somebody missed the Biology class where they covered that some ambush predators having the ability to go into a dormant state... So this past Sunday I went and saw a 40th anniversary showing of Ridley Scott's iconic 1979 film Alien , continuing an inadvertent trend of me watching my first horror films again. Before watching this film I believed that is was one of the 'universal films', films that everyone has watched at least ones, but it seems like I'm in the minority among my friends, so there's another reason to cover it. Once again I am impressed at how well some of these films hold up throughout the years, though Alien is not unique in having some instances of things that have aged like milk. However, the overwhelming majority of Alien remains stellar, being a breathtaking example of exceptional set and costume design, suspense, and lighting from start to finish. The flamethrower. Is it ever used on the alien? No. Does it look badass and c

I make it no secret that I by and large dislike rogue-likes or rogue-lites, to me the appeal makes little sense to me. Why would you play a game where any and all progress is effectively moot as soon as you die or quit? Occasionally however, there's a game that every so often breaks through my almost instinctual dislike of procedurally generated single-life games, and with odd happiness I announce that Slay the Spire is the most recent to have caught my attention for a good bit of time. A rogue-like by every dimension, Slay the Spire combines turn and card-based combat into an oddly compelling formula, one that encourages on-the-fly strategizing and unexpected experimentation/discovery with every (potentially) short run. The Defunct is the most unconventional and initially weak of the three classes, but when the cards on your side, you really  feel it. As with most rogue-likes, there is a story to Slay the Spire , but it's essentially window dressing to the game. You&

So Tuesday night I went to see Joker , and while I did enjoy it I don't think that it warranted the amount of hype and controversy that surrounded it before its opening. Offering a glimpse back to the grit of seventies urban centers, Joker is surprisingly less of a story of the forces of chaos as opposed to the commentary on the greater need for people to be politically and socially recognized. Even more surprisingly however, Joker is an example of great cinematography and directing coupled with fantastic acting (by Joaquin Phoenix et al), but it really just could have been better. In stark contrast to the supposedly macho rebellion against society that the character of the Joker represents, Arthur is practically effeminate, complete with a high voice and relatively submissive demeanor. Hailed as some sort of subversive call to violence, the only concrete message Joker delivers is a parable on the necessity and addictive nature of societal/political recognition. Hell, the

I'm generally not an enormous fan of multiplayer-only games. To me they each feel like a flavor of the month, without any real reason to stick around besides gameplay and continual updates which often only introduce new ways to make poor financial decisions (lord knows I've made a host of them). This summer however, Mordhau was able to win me over with this slick and updated Chivalry -like game, enticing me to spend hours playing on the maps on offer in brutal medieval combat. The invasion game mode can see some of the most ferocious engagements  I've ever seen in this game, truly on the last point there is no mercy. The gameplay of Mordhau centers around objective-based multiplayer medieval combat, which is often lost on players of this game in the pursuit of chivalric combat. The combat is pretty complicated, with a mix of feints, morphs, kicks, throwing, blocking, and attacks to defeat your opponents with. By and large it works, though the ability for people roc