Movies, Muffins And More

Phew! It's been a busy few days. I'd apologize for there being nothing to see here other than the Advent Calendar posts but honestly, if it wasn't for those, there'd have been nothing at all, so be glad for anything you get, I say.

Not that I'd have had a great deal to talk about if I'd had more time. Gaming of late has been an hour of EverQuest II in the evening and that's it. TV, I'm still working my way through The Good Place. Just a handful of episodes to go there. Something about that soon, probably, but not until I finish it all.

I have a slew of music-related topics bookmarked to cover but I think we may have enough music here already, somehow. Also, there are end-of-year lists to think about. Don't want to compromise those.

I did watch a new movie, which is unusual for me these days. It wasn't new new but it did come out this decade. I might say something about that later.

No, y'know what, let's do it now. Let's make this a Grab-Bag post because that seems to be about all I'm capable of at the moment. Then again, I like writing them and I like reading them when other people do them, so why am I even apologizing?

Flash! Oo-er!

Keen readers may remember I was watching The Flash TV show earlier in the year. I managed three seasons before I decided I really didn't much like any of the characters and took a break. I still haven't picked that one back up but I have now watched the movie of the same name that came out about a year and a half ago.

What I most remember about it from back then is all the fuss and palaver over the antics of the actor in the title role, Ezra Miller. Miller seems to be something of a throwback in cinema terms inasmuch as they don't manage their private life to benefit their professional career. The opposite, if anything. 

They behave more like a movie star from a bygone age, a time when behaving in a disturbingly off-kilter manner off-screen served to make you more in demand rather than less. As the farrago progressed I thought of Richard Harris, Nicolas Cage, Crispin Glover...

Whatever's going on with them, I like Miller in the role a lot more than I liked Grant Gustin in the TV show, even though Gustin is far more like the Barry Allen of the comics. And that, really, is the problem. 

The Flash is dull, isn't he? I own a lot of Flash comics and I always thought he was boring. I mostly bought them either because they were in continuity with other titles I was reading or because they were easy to find for cheap because everyone else thought he was boring, too. 

He was never one of my favorites. Happily married, living in the suburbs, working in a police lab. He made Clark Kent look like a livewire. Barry never seemed to have much of a personality at all, not until his wife got murdered and he went psycho - but even that didn't make him any more interesting.

As for his powers, running fast isn't conducive to either good comics or good cinema. It's basically all motion blurs and speed lines once you get up there. 

Some of his speed gimmicks are more visually arresting but it's notable that both the TV series and the movie go hard on the time-travel schtick to hold the audience's attention. Unfortunately, as well as being impossible to plot coherently, time travel stories have no specific speed-related requirements. 

You can go fast to break the time barrier but you don't need to. Plenty of people do it with devices that don't involve any running at all and frankly all of those look less daft than a guy going flat out on a treadmill while pumping his arms like a six-year old.

The plot is The Flash is pretty much the plot of the first season of the TV show so I'm guessing they're both taken straight from one of the iterations of the comic. It's a dumb plot, wherever it comes from and best ignored. 

The fun is in the set pieces, some of which are very intricately staged and come off quite well, and in  Ezra Miller's performance, which is idiosyncratic, assured and fundamentally weird. The script is about okay, not much more, but the playing carries it.

That's in the first two acts, anyway. In common with quite a few viewers it seems, I thought The Flash was two-thirds of a good movie. Miller playing Barry Allen both as a teenager and a decade or so older is worth the price of admission, which in my case was effectively nothing, since I watched it on Netflix. 

As a comedy, then, it's more than decent. As an action movie, it's not too shabby either. At times it's lively and exciting. There are some exhilarating fights, some even more exhilarating rescues and along the way we get lots of cameos and supporting roles for other DC heroes, which is fan service of the better kind. 

As a long-time DC fan, I felt well-served by it, anyway. Michael Keaton was lots of fun. So was Gal Gadot, for the ten seconds she shows up, and I really enjoyed seeing Sashe Calle as Kara. 

I knew about Supergirl's role from a couple of comics blogs I follow and I was quite pleased with the way she was handled here. Odd to see her not blonde but it's fine. Anyone can change their hair color. I've done it.Looking forward to seeing her in her own movie, now.

The problem, as it usually does with superhero movies, comes in the third act, when all the smaller-scale, emotionally impactful stuff goes straight out the window in favor of huge spectacle and massive explosions. Sometimes they pull it off. This is one of the times they don't..

I've seen the failure of the narrative ascribed to the multiversal elements. They certainly don't help but I feel it's the way they're handled here that's the real problem. No-one should expect the climax to make sense but it's not unreasonable to hope for it at least to look good. It doesn't. It's just messy and chaotic without any sense of visual style.

I don't mind multiverse stories per se, even if they do tend to devalue every significant event that comes before or after, an intrinsic problem with the everywhere all the time at once concept of the universe. But there are narrative ways to get around that. What there's no way to get around is making the whole thing look like it was storyboarded from an idea Nigel Tufnell came up with for a Spinal Tap video while he was high on mushrooms. And even that makes it sound a lot more engaging than it is.

All the same, for all its many flaws and faults, I broadly enjoyed it and it did make me think I ought to watch more movies, so that's good. Haven't actually watched any yet but I have thought about it. So that's progress.

Are You Ever Going To Get Started?

On the Scars of Destruction expansion for EQII, that is. And no, thanks for asking, but it seems I am not. Not for a while, anyway.

The expansion has been out for over two weeks and so far all I've seen is the staging post in the starting zone. I wrote a couple of posts about all the things I needed to do to get ready for some actual adventuring. I had to hit the level cap of 130 with the character I planned to take through the storyline, so he could wear the free upgrade gear and get the quests, but once that was out of the way I was ready to get started.

Or so I thought. Then I made the mistake of doing some comparisons between the maximally upgraded Ancient combat arts I was using, most of which were from two spell tiers ago, and the Expert versions from the current tier. To my surprise, it seemed the CAs and spells I could craft for myself would be upgrades, so I thought, before I got stuck into the new content, I'd just get my Alchemist out to do some quick crafting...

Yeah. Nothing's ever that simple. First, there was the minor issue of the rares he'd need. It takes two rares per combine at these levels and I only had a handful of the right ones. Making Expert versions of all the Berserker's CAs would require well over a hundred rares. They're not impossibly expensive on the broker but they are just shy of two million platinum each so I'd bankrupt myself before I'd even made even the really key ones.

That can be fixed relatively quickly by selling some of my vast supplies of Collectables. I just put the few I happened to be carrying around in my bags up for sale a few days ago and I've already made over 30 million plat. No, the real roadblock turned out to be something I'd completely forgotten.

In recent expansions the Advanced recipe books for the Expert spells and CAs have to be obtained through Research. This used to be very easy because "Research" meant a collective effort from the whole server. There were a few NPCs who wanted stuff made and after enough people had made it for them, they were ready to sell their recipe books to anyone. You had to do some of their quests to get faction or special currency but it didn't take long.

Now, you don't technically have to do any quests or make anything for the NPCs. They'll sell you their books as soon as you have the correct crafting level, which my relevant crafters all do. They don't actually have the books in stock any more though. They have to research them for you. And that takes ten days. Per book. And there are three books.

Basically, from the moment you decide you want these books, it's going to be a month before you get them all. Obviously, I should have done this during the year the Ballads of Zimara expansion was current content but I didn't, so I'm doing it now.

I ought to have it all done by Christmas because there is a way to halve that thirty day waiting period. You do daily quests for a little golem in Aether Wroughtlands. They're exactly like the quests the old researchers used to give out, just annoyingly placed in a different zone from the researchers themselves. If you do the golem's dailies, one of the rewards you get is a page you can read that knocks a day off the research timer. Do them every day and you can get your research done in half the time.

My current EQII session consists of getting those dailies with my Sage and my Alchemist then knocking the quests out as quickly as possible before swapping to my Berserker to go mining for whatever time I have left, in the hope of digging up some of the hundreds of rares I'd need if I'm ever going to upgrade everything for everyone.

It's pointless in a way because my Berserker seems perfectly capable of doing the entry-level content in the new expansion just as he is. But it's also really relaxing and ideal for the hour or two that's all I seem to be able to find for gaming most days right now. 

It does mean I probably won't see much of Scars of Destruction until the New Year, but that's fine. I'm in no hurry. As must be obvious.

Muffin, Miffin, What's The Diffrin?

I saw this on MassivelyOP the other day and because I have no sense of perspective when it comes to how many free MMORPGs I can feasibly play, I became momentarily excited by the prospect of a new one. This time it's a cosy fantasy MMO for mobile, developed by the people who made Torchlight Infinite (Which I have not played.) and published by NetEase.

It looked like it might be amusing so I went to give it a go. The website has download options for Android and iOS as you'd expect but it also has a button to download the game for Windows. On closer inspection, that turns out to be by way of a NetEase proprietary emulator called MuMu.

I already have two mobile emulators installed on my PC - BlueStacks and Nox, both of which I've written about before. Neither of them is perfect so I was willing to try a third. 

I got as far as downloading it and starting the install process before I thought I ought to do some basic research as to the safety of the thing. It seems it probably is the best emulator currently available and also that it's every bit as safe as you'd expect, by which I mean not very safe at all.

I might still have carried on - I mean, as one redditor put it, everything steals your data. At this point, who even cares? What put me off in the end was the way whoever copy-edited the "Muffin's Story" page on the website couldn't even get the title character's name right. Is it Muffin or Miffin? (It's Muffin, blast you!)

I'll probably come back to this one at some point. It looks mildly interesting. Maybe I'll just see if it runs on one of the emulators I already have installed. If those are stealing my data it's a bit late to worry about it now.

Humpty-Dumpty Syndrome

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

"Intentional Fallacy: term used in 20th-century literary criticism to describe the problem inherent in trying to judge a work of art by assuming the intent or purpose of the artist who created it." - Definition as per Britannica

"I wrote the lyrics and ought to know what the lyrics I wrote is really about" - Victor Willis, lyricist and singer, The Village People.

I recommend reading Mr. Willis's lengthy explanation of why Y.M.C.A. is not, has never been and never will be a "gay anthem" in full. You can find it here on Stereogum. As one of the comments puts it "this is one of the funniest things i've read in a while, but if i was in a different mood it might have made me quite irritated and frustrated".

End With A Song

I think it's time for everyone to just...

Chill Out - Witch Post

What Makes Barry Run?

I just finished Season Three of The Flash last night and I'm more than half-way through Season Three of Roswell: New Mexico, from which the astute reader will conclude I'm taking the reckless step of watching two CW series at the same time. And without a net, too.

I can't speak to the whole of the CW's output because mostly I've just watched the DC superhero shows and not all of those yet, either. Also a few of the Sci-Fi/Supernatural ones, I think. Based on the shows I have seen, there are more than a few tropes that are just hard to miss.

The Plots Make NO SENSE! - Seriously, do they even run these things past a grown-up before they put them into production? It's like a seven-year old telling you the plot of a movie he just watched. There's a lot of hand-waving and nothing connects with anything else. I pity the person who has to write the summaries for the TV Guide, assuming such a job still exists. Never mind about the plot, though, because...

The "Science" Makes Even LESS SENSE! - Okay, I get it. This is comic-book science we're talking about. No-one expects it to make sense. But this is another level of gibberish entirely. I'd say it might as well be magic (A character in The Flash actually pulled out the old plum about "Any advanced science..." in an episode I watched last week.) but weirdly magic, when they feature it, seems to be more grounded and cosnsistent. I gave up even trying to figure out what they were on about in both series weeks ago, which is a pity because every damn episode of each of them features at least ten minutes of pseudo-scientific gobbledegook. And that's mostly because...

Everyone's A Genius. - I mean, it's just as well, because they'd need to be to keep up with anything anyone else is saying. The ratio of pseudo-scientific jargon to regular conversation is off the scale half the time. I pity poor Max Evans, one of the Roswell:NM leads, who's playing a small-town cop (Who also happens to be the alien clone of an interplanetary Tyrant King but let's not go there right now.) surrounded by savants, scientists and seers. Half the time he's the action hero and the rest he stands there looking confused, as well he might. The viewers certainly have to be. Detective Joe West performs much the same roll in The Flash so I guess every CW show needs at least one player who can hold up his hands and say "What, now?!" on behalf of the audience. But no-one cares about the science because...

It's A Soap Opera - Okay, soap opera first, superhero/SciFi/supernatural drama second, like Third Rock From The Sun is sitcom first, SciFi second. It's why they work so much better as comic book shows than almost anything else I've watched in half a century. I've been telling people all my life that superhero comic books are first and foremost soap operas but no-one ever believes me. Finally, someone gets it. Of course, if I'd grown up elsewehere, I might have said...

It's A Telenovela! - Liz even makes a sly, metafictional reference to it in one episode. Admittedly, I'm on shaky ground here because I've barely ever seen a telenovela but I feel I have a basic understanding of the form and cross-checking against the Wikipedia definition confirms my thesis: "...telenovelas tell one self-contained story, typically within the span of a year or less whereas soap operas tend to have intertwined storylines told during indefinite, continuing runs...This planned run results in a faster-paced, more concise style of melodrama compared to a typical soap opera." They left out the part about them being bat-shit crazy but otherwise that pretty much sums it up. Or it would, except  for the very un-soap-operatic, telenovelistic fact that...

Everyone Is So Damn NICE! - It's like someone watched Friends and thought, y'know what, that'd be quite a good show if it had people in it you didn't want to slap. There's a relentless, almost demented positivity about the whole thing. Everyone is someone's best friend or soulmate or perfect parent, even when they're acting like the exact fucking opposite, which is about every other episode on a conservative estimate. After a while you feel like they're your best pals, too. I know all TV does this but it's another level of emotional appropriation when...

Even The Villains Are Friendly - Well, some of them. It feels bad when they get caught. I don't know what Peekaboo did to deserve the treatment they give her for a start. She's just trying to make a living. Half of the bad guys seem like they'd be good company on a long road trip and the rest look like they'd be cool as hell to hang out with, even if they would get you into trouble then bail. Of course, there are the total psychopaths, the ones who just want to set the world on fire to watch it burn, but even they have their moments. And it's hard to hold anything they do against them because...

Absolutely No-one Has Any Kind Of Moral Compass. The heroes? Ha! The police? Are you kidding me? The authorities? Are there even any? Everyone does whatever they think they "have" to do or "need" to do at all times because the end always justifies the means. Screw due process! Screw human rights! Lock people up without trial in cells the size of postage stamps with no facilities of any kind and keep them there in solitary confinement, for life, the justification being that they're bad guys and... no, that's it. And they're the lucky ones! Some just get killed. Some get sent to other dimensions like convicts on the ships to Australia. And it's all because...

Everyone Has A God Complex - It's like fascism and altruism had a baby and that baby grew up to believe it was God. Some of the people they lock up or execute haven't even killed anyone, just committed a few robberies. So what? Bang 'em up for life! And the goodies don't even lock up all the baddies. They pick and choose who they imprison based on... I don't know... how nice they think they could be if someone was only nice to them? If they had similar childhoods? Whether they're physically attracted to them? If they have a "connection"? Maybe it's what color costume they're wearing and whether it clashes or co-ordinates. Might as well be. Still, you can't tell these people anything because...

They're The Best At What They Do... NOT! - This applies to many CW/DC heroes but The Flash is the king of incompetence. Does he ever win a fight? Not on his own, that's for sure, and not with anyone that matters, either. No wonder he needs about twenty people to help him. No wonder they call themselves "Team Flash". They're doing all the work! About the only thing The Flash is consistently good at is rescuing people from burning buildings. He can put out out fires, too, mostly by running in circles, which is what he does best. He should leave his day job with the Central City Police Department and join the Central City Fire Department instead. Added to that, his tagline is "The Fastest Man Alive" but it seems as though every other episode someone gets to say "I think they may be even faster than Barry". The whole conceit is a lie, which is only fair since... 

Everyone Lies To Everyone Else ALL THE TIME! - Here's a good drinking game. Take a shot every time any character lies to a friend, lover, relative or colleague about something it is absolutely obvious they should not be hiding from them. And two shots every time anyone comes out with some variant of "From now on, no more lies." when the lie is inevitably revealed. You'll never see the ending of any episode because you'll be totally shitfaced. Still, I guess it doesn't much matter whether you tell the truth when...

There Are No Consequences - Lies are always forgiven just like life-threatening injuries always turn out to be no more than a flesh wound. Almost every episode of The Flash has someone, usually The Flash, since he is the world's least-skilled, least self-aware, most overconfident superhero, being stabbed, blown up, set on fire or beaten to within an inch of their lives. It happens less frequently in Roswell:NM but it still happens several times every season. Sometimes, when it happens, people just get up and carry on as if they'd tripped on a kerb. Other times, they need life-saving surgery. Either way, on average it seems to take the unpowered civilians at most a couple of days to recover while all speedsters are fully fit in minutes thanks to the mysterious and previously undocumented healing powers of the Speed Force (Really, do not get me started on the Speed Force...). If it ever does turn out to have been something fatal, no problem! Just go back in time for a do-over or pop across to another Earth and grab a doppleganger to replace whoever just died. Swapping deaders out for alts always seems to work. Going backwards or forwards in time to fix your mistakes? Not so much because...

The Multiverse Is Fine But Time Travel's A Bitch - This mostly applies to The Flash which, although I did not realise this until I watched it, is a show about time travel. I knew Legends was, because the guy who put that team together is called Rip Hunter, Time Master but I haven't watched that one yet so I'll save any comments about it for the future, which seems appropriate. I do remember The Flash time-travelling in the comics. He did it sometimes because it's well-established in DC continuity that anyone who can run (Or fly.) fast enough can break the time barrier but I don't remember it being the main subject of every storyline, which it certainly has been in the three seasons of The Flash I've watched so far. Unfortunately for the writers - and the audience - as everyone certainly ought to know by now, it is quite literally beyond the ability of the human mind to conceptualize time travel so naturally not one of the storylines make any sense. The concept of the multiverse, on the other hand, is surprisingly easy to get your head around. Just give all the Earths a number and we're fine with it, especially if you throw in a monorail or two for visual reference so we  always know where we are. Wait, what do you mean, that's outside the...

Special Effects Budget? What Special Effects Budget? - Super-speed is very hard to illustrate with a static 2D image, which is why all you get in comics is motion lines and freeze-frames. As anyone who's seen the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie knows, it used to be even harder to portray someone running superhumanly fast convincingly on film but that was several special effects eras ago and now super-speed looks pretty good even in a cheap TV show. Of course, motion lines and freeze-frames are still pretty much all you see but they look really pretty and very dramatic. Meanwhile in Roswell: New Mexico the budget stretches to some 1970s disco lighting and people holding their arms out and pointing but it doesn't matter because...

Acting > CGI - The visual effects may be, shall we say, variable but the acting in all the CW shows I've seen is way, way better than it ought to be. Okay, Max is a plank but the same actor plays Max's clone, Jones and Jones is creepy as hell, so clearly Max is a plank on purpose. This becomes especially apparent in The Flash where, thanks to the aforementioned multiple Earth situation, half the cast end up playing various versions of the same character, which gives the actors a fantastic opportunity to show off their versatility. Every time it happens, the new variant character is significantly and convincingly different from all the others. It's impressive and also highly entertaining...

And I could go on. Believe me. But I'll leave it there for now. I can't imagine anyone wants to hear much more of my sarcastic, back-handed praise for some old TV shows no-one watches any more. 

Maybe I'll come back for another round when I've finished the two series, which at the rate I'm going is likely to be sometime next Christmas. I'm pretty sure I'll have a lot more to say by then. 

Or maybe I ought to wait until I've watched Legends too. And I know if I'm doing this at all I ought to watch bloody Arrow, even though I really don't want to...