Seth Harris

Patron Pick – Shanghai Noon

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month, those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Bekah Lindstrom.

Shanghai Noon (2000)
Written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar
Directed by Tom Dey

“The feeling of belatedness, of living after the gold rush, is as omnipresent as it is disavowed. Compare the fallow terrain of the current moment with the fecundity of previous periods and you will quickly be accused of ‘nostalgia’. But the reliance of current artists on styles that were established long ago suggests that the current moment is in the grip of a formal nostalgia.” – Mark Fisher

If you were raised in the US or live there, you are in a period of artistic decline. The big movie studios, always focused on the dollar, have genuinely given up on any pretense of their output having long-lasting cultural meaning. In the golden era of the studio, some executives and presidents understood they had to make crowd pleasers but always tried to push the medium forward. They would give money to some smaller pictures that ended up being the ones remembered all these decades ago.

Movie Review – The NeverEnding Story

The NeverEnding Story (1984)
Written by Wolfgang Petersen and Herman Weigel
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen

This movie is a formative piece of many of my peers’ childhoods. I think I saw it twice as a kid. I remembered parts of it vividly, but The NeverEnding Story was never a picture I sought out or felt a strong connection with. That is odd because I was also a child who spent much time alone and read many books. You would think much of the story would resonate, but it did not. I think revisiting the movie as an adult made me appreciate it more, though I could see the weak points more vividly now, too.

Solo Tabletop RPG – Worldbuilding: Solo Microscope

You can purchase Microscope here.

Read our previous world building session with The Location Crafter here.

Microscope is not a solo tabletop RPG by design. As I didn’t come to ttrpgs until I was nearly thirty years old, I got tired with Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (the current version at the time I started) and began seeking out other games. Microscope was one of the first I found – a game centered around collaboratively building a timeline. I’ve been lucky enough to play it a few times with other people, but now in my solo era I wanted to see if I could shape it to fit that. I also wondered how better to shape it for a superhero campaign as I am working on one. I found that with Signal Light, a superhero-specific Microscope add-on.

Movie Review – Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Written by John Milius and Oliver Stone
Directed by John Milius

In 1932, pulp writer Robert E. Howard began to pen the tales of Conan, a barbarian fighting in an ancient time of magic. He’d write 21 Conan stories before his tragic death by suicide at the age of 30. The trademark for the character passed through several hands over the following decades, leading to numerous reprints of the original stories and new authors adding to the mythos. Marvel Comics acquired the license in the 1970s, leading to Conan finding his widest audience yet. During much of this time, John Milius had been a fan of what he read. This would lead to a film adaptation that was undeniably made by people who loved the source material.

Movie Review – Dragonslayer

Dragonslayer (1981)
Written by Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins
Directed by Matthew Robbins

Genre films have always existed in cinema, but it wasn’t until the breakout surprise success of Star Wars that these spectacles gained increased budgets and audiences. Dragonslayer was the second collaboration between Disney & Paramount Pictures. Their first was the Robert Altman-directed Popeye, a film that did not end up how the companies had hoped but which has found a robust cult following in the decades that ensued. The special effects are handled by Industrial Light and Magic, which marks the first use of these special effects outside of a Lucasfilm production. Derek Vanlit, the cinematographer responsible for 1979’s Alien, is behind the camera here, adding rich texture to the screen. The result was a film that was a fun fairy tale/adventure but failed to find an audience, likely because it was up against Raiders of the Lost Ark that summer.

TV Review – Northern Exposure Season Three

Northern Exposure Season Three (1991-92)
Written by Martin Sage, Sybill Adelman, Ellen Herman, Robin Green, Stuart Stevens, Henry Bromell, Dennis Koenig, Jordan Budde, Craig Volk, Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, Jeff Melvoin, David Assael, Mitchell Burgess, Kate Boutilier, Jeffrey Vlaming
Directed by Nick Marck, Bill D’Elia, Miles Watkins, Jim Hayman, David Carson, Sandy Smolan, Michael Katleman, Jack Bender, Michael Fresco, Lee Shallat, Dean Parisot, Rob Thompson, Matthew Nodella, Steve Robman, Tom Moore

This was the season where the awards started coming in for Northern Exposure. It was also the first season to have a complete order, twenty-two episodes. The budget has been increased, and the amount of care put into many of these episodes approaches cinematic levels. I had to check what year these episodes came out, 1991-92, but they feel more complex than something you would expect from CBS then. It’s become clear to me how this show was one of the experimental US programs of the 1990s that paved the way for the prestige TV of the cable era.

PopCult Podcast – Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes/Happer’s Comet

Two very different films in runtime, budget, scale, and content are featured in this episode. From a post-human Earth to a ghostly night in Long Island.

Solo Tabletop Actual Play – Kids on Bikes Solo Part Three

You can purchase Kids on Bikes here.

You can purchase the Plot Unfolding Machine here.

Read our previous session here

Scene 4 – Rising Action 1 of 8 – Waldo’s House

Modified proposal: Add some trouble or bad news
Oracle question: Is this trouble a person? No, not yet.
Danger: Expose one weakness

Waldo and Bopper pull into the driveway. Waldo immediately notices his front door is open.

Comic Book Review – Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying & The Caped Crusader Volume Three

Batman: A Death in the Family (2011) – “A Lonely Place of Dying”
Reprints Batman #440-442 and New Titans #60-61
Written by Marv Wolfman
Art by Jim Aparo, George Perez, and Tom Grummet

Batman: The Caped Crusader Volume Three (2019)
Reprints Batman #445-454, Detective Comics #615, and Batman Annual #14
Written by Marv Wolfman, Alan Grant, Andrew Helfer, and Peter Milligan
Art by Jim Aparo, Norm Breyfogle, M.D. Bright, Chris Sprouse, and Kieron Dwyer

In November 1988, Jason Todd, the second young person to hold the title of Robin, was murdered by the Joker in the pages of Batman. In March of that same year, The Joker shot & paralyzed Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) and kidnapped & tortured her father in the one-shot graphic novel The Killing Joke. Things had taken a dark turn for Batman. Tim Burton’s 1989 feature film furthered that with a Gothic, haunting version of the character and his world.

Solo Tabletop RPG – Worldbuilding: The Location Crafter Part Two

You can purchase The Location Crafter here.

Read my brainstorming session in our first part here.

The Location Crafter is another solo play tool created by Tana Pigeon, designer of the Mythic GM Emulator. This module is intended to solve a problem of solo play – how to keep the fun of being surprised during exploration in a way that mimics traditional tabletop roleplay rather than Choose Your Own Adventure. In this way, you can have a framework but not feel like the story is on rails.