Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Everspark Part Six

Read the previous part here.

(I realized I had forgotten about the overarching Spark of Qazid Icebreath’s journey across the sea. So, I went back and made Spark checks for each failure in the previous session. I closed the Spark, meaning Qazid emerges from the waters and decimates Cypress’s hometown of Slumbering Bay.)

The waters beyond Slumbering Bay churned, turning from sapphire to an ice-rimed gray. Then, with a sound like glaciers colliding, Qazid Icebreath rose from the depths. The beast’s massive form, a mountain of jagged frost and barnacle-crusted scales, shed seawater in torrents as it emerged. Its icy mist breath rolled over the docks, freezing fishing boats in place and coating the wooden piers in ice sheets.

Continue reading “Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Everspark Part Six”

Movie Review – Henry V (1989)

Henry V (1989)
Written by William Shakespeare & Kenneth Branagh
Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Many millennials’ earliest film experience with Shakespeare was probably Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, which we will review soon. However, that was not the start of the Shakespearean renaissance in film. While the Bard’s plays have always been popular in one form or another, Kenneth Branagh’s work produced several of the most complete film adaptations of the stage plays. Henry V was Branagh’s directorial debut, followed by four more pictures (Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and As You Like It). 

Continue reading “Movie Review – Henry V (1989)”

Patron Pick – Soundtrack to a Coup D’état

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.

Soundtrack to a Coup D’état (2024)
Written and directed by John Grimonprez

Being a media-obsessed person for my whole life, I have come to a new understanding since my university days about the United States and the way it uses media as a weapon. Depending on how far along your understanding of the mass media’s purpose and how power becomes gained & is wielded, you might not see the reality just beneath the surface. As Michael Parenti said in his book Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media, “Power is always more secure when cooptive, covert, and manipulative than when nakedly brutish. The support elicited through the control of minds is more durable than the support extracted at the point of a bayonet. The essentially undemocratic nature of the mainstream media, like the other business-dominated institutions of society, must be hidden behind a neutralistic, voluntaristic, pluralistic facade.” 

Continue reading “Patron Pick – Soundtrack to a Coup D’état”

Comic Book Review – Top 10 Compendium

Top 10 Compendium (2022)
Reprints Top 10 #1-12, Smax #1-5, Top 10: The Forty-Niners, Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct #1-5, Top 10: Season Two #1-4, Top Ten: Season Two Special #1
Written by Alan Moore, Phillip De Fillippo, Xander Cannon, and Kevin Cannon
Art by Gene Ha, Xander Cannon, and Jerry Ordway

In 1999, Wildstorm Comics announced a new imprint, America’s Best Comics (ABC). This initiative would be centered around the work of Alan Moore, best known for comics like Watchmen, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and more. Titles published under this banner included Promethea (a personal treatise from Moore on his magic beliefs), Tom Strong (an homage to pulp heroes), and the book Top 10 (a police procedural). Moore worked with artist Gene Ha on the first Top 10 mini-series and the follow-up graphic novel The Forty-Niners, with other creatives handling later series. The idea behind Top 10 is an intriguing hook: what would the police be like in a city full of superheroes and other fantastical beings?

Continue reading “Comic Book Review – Top 10 Compendium”

Movie Review – Prospero’s Books

Prospero’s Books (1991)
Written by Willliam Shakespeare & Peter Greenaway
Directed by Peter Greenaway

I’ve always enjoyed The Tempest most of all Shakespeare’s comedies. I think it’s a fun, beautiful celebration of Shakespeare’s work in the theater. This isn’t a unique analysis on my part, but it is a widely accepted reading of the play. Prospero is the Bard; this island is his stage, and the magic he employs is really just imagination & writing. The story seems to be a revenge tale at the start but becomes a celebration of life by the end. Our protagonist realizes the revenge he seeks is not as important as the happiness his child could have, so he cedes to the future rather than dwells in the past.

Continue reading “Movie Review – Prospero’s Books”

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Everspark Part Five

Read the previous chapter here

I think this is a good point in the story where my Spark of Qazid Icebreath’s Journey kicks in, which I have written up below.

N – Qazid Icebreath’s Journey
A – Make a Fate Check, advancing on unfavorable results or with failed Skill Checks.
C – Only from the second ray forward.
H – Jump to a scene of Qazid wreaking havoc on Slumbering Bay on his way to the Whispering Mountains
O – Qazid is intercepted by the Imperial Navy and appears to sink to the bottom of the sea
S – None
Qazid Icebreath’s Journey – 0/5

Fate Check roll: Has Qazid been spotted recently? The higher, the closer he is. Rolled 19.
Yes, and he has obliterated a trio of naval ships in the area.
Qazid Icebreath’s Journey – 1/5

Continue reading “Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Everspark Part Five”

Comic Book Review – Iron Man by Christopher Cantwell Part Two

Iron Man: Books of Korvac III – Cosmic Iron Man (2022)
Reprints Iron Man (2020) #12-19
Written by Christopher Cantwell
Art by Angel Unzueta, Cafu, Ibraim Roberson, Julius Ohta, and Lan Medina

Iron Man: Source Control (2022)
Reprints Iron Man (2020) #20-25
Written by Christopher Cantwell
Art by Angel Uzueta

There’s a new type of superhero story on the scene now. Well, it’s “new” because it’s only been prevalent for about a decade. I think it started with writers like Tom King, who, if you regularly follow this blog, you’ll know I’m not a fan of. His great concepts hook me, but the execution is woefully insufficient. These are stories where the writer seems to impose themselves onto the protagonist somehow, and I can honestly say most comic writers aren’t as interesting as people. Alan Moore or Grant Morrison can get away with it because they are incredible writers, so any self-referential nods are brief and don’t interrupt the greater narrative. Christopher Cantwell falls in the “not that interesting” camp as he turns Iron Man into such a story during this run.

Continue reading “Comic Book Review – Iron Man by Christopher Cantwell Part Two”