Patron Pick – The Zone of Interest

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 Matt Harris.

The Zone of Interest (2023)
Written and directed by Jonathan Glazer

A droning echo from deep in the bowels of the underworld is the first thing you hear as the screen remains black. This is a descent into Hell. The music distorts and warps, communicating this mood of decay & rot. It is also a signal that this will not be a film about the spectacle of war or even the direct horrors of the Holocaust. Instead, this will be a story from right on the periphery. The title, The Zone of Interest, was a term Nazis used euphemistically to refer to the complex of over 40 death camps in Auschwitz, Poland. Filmmaker Jonathan Glazer uses his talents to deliver a story about genocide unlike any other I’ve seen. This is a film where the details are withheld, and it is through inference that the true horror emerges.

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Movie Review – Law and Order

Law and Order (1969)
Directed by Frederick Wiseman

The police are not your friends. They are, in fact, an occupying force planted by those in positions of power who have tremendous wealth. The police are actually state-sponsored gangs, as you can see from their origins and the ongoing criminal money-making schemes so many of them have going on the side. Many articles on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s deputy gangs and their activities can be found if you want to know more. This is standard practice when you give a select group of people in a society permission to commit nearly unaccountable acts of violence under the guise of “protect and serve.” In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the police have no obligation to protect any person from harm. The police exist solely to protect the interests & investments of the ruling class. They would easily kill any one of us in service to that duty.

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Movie Review – High School

High School (1968)
Directed by Frederick Wiseman

While the asylum featured in Frederick Wiseman’s debut documentary Titicut Follies is not an institution most of us would ever experience firsthand, America’s education system is far more universal. Asylums and schools are strangely similar. They house people who would otherwise be deemed a danger to themselves and others if they roamed the streets unattended. They are run by rigid rule followers under the guise of caregivers. While the individual nurses and teachers at each respective institution may be doing their best, those higher up on the chain of command who control the purse strings often overlook great suffering that they could otherwise alleviate. In 1968, the American high school was a powder keg on the frontline of growing cultural discontent, making it a fascinating environment.

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Movie Review – Titicut Follies

Titicut Follies (1967)
Directed by Frederick Wiseman

These days, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking the documentary is purely a vessel for true crime. The media landscape has become saturated with docs that are akin to a segment on Dateline NBC about spouses becoming homicidal or people joining cults. While those things happen, they are far outside the norm of human experience. This is why I gravitate to the documentarians of the 60s and 70s when the form flourished and we got some incredible films. Few filmmakers in this corner of cinema do it better than Frederick Wiseman. During the first half of March, we will look at six of his most highly regarded works, which turn his eye towards the institutions and offices of authority that direct life in the States.

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Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Ironsworn: The City of Eternal Night Part One

You can buy Vaults & Vows here

You can buy Feats & Favors here

Read Part Two here

In March 2023, I played through a short game of Ironsworn for the first time. I loved it, but there were definitely some wrinkles Starforged helped iron out (no pun intended). I did want to revisit Ironsworn, though, with some tweaks. This was mainly an interest in seeing how some additional fan-made products worked when attached to the core system. My story hook came from my Dungeon World Solo series, and while that was very fun to play, Ironsworn’s brilliant progress mechanics stand head & shoulders above any solo system I have encountered. If the goal is to create a sense of exploration and surprise, you don’t get better than this system. 

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Comic Book Review – Carmilla, The First Vampire

Carmilla, The First Vampire (2023)
Written by Amy Chu
Art by Soo Lee

Of all the “classic” monsters, vampires have just never clicked for me. I’ve seen many different takes on vampires from multiple cultures, but I’ve never found them particularly scary. I think part of this is that the vampire has shifted in the culture from being a strange, animal-like predator to either a fetishistic totem of erotic fiction or a metaphor for Other-ed groups we’re meant to empathize with. When that happens, the monstrous fades, and they become just a storytelling trope. I stay open to new takes on vampires, hoping that someone might make them horrific again, and Chu & Lee’s Carmilla graphic novel does a decent job of it.

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Book Update – January/February 2024

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

As a teenager, I came across this book in the now-defunct Wizard Magazine. I am trying to remember the context in which it was brought up, but I do remember the striking cover. Years later, when I took Chaucer & Medieval Literature in college, someone told me Hyperion was a retelling of The Canterbury Tales. Only at the end of 2023, at 42, I picked up Dan Simmons’ acclaimed science fiction epic to read. Wow. What an incredible treat to enjoy.

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