Due to my frustratingly fluid interests AKA short attention span, which can change severely over the course of a single day, signing up for a long-term membership (a month is long for me), be it gym or streaming service, is not in my best interest. So, apart form those services for which I am confident I will use regularly, such as Spotify and YouTube and Audible, I am practically streaming service free. However, films and TV shows do get recommended to me, either directly or through passive social osmosis, so I keep a list of cultural items to cram into a month’s subscription. In the gaming world, people who like to take the fun out of things and apply peer pressure to others, would call this something similar to “save scumming”. Basically, a sensible way of going about a hobby that doesn’t earn you bragging rights. I am not an ambitious soul, so save scumming or online auction sniping or stream service cramming or whatever you want to call it is of no consequence to me. I do what I gotta do, you do what you gotta do. Ne’er the twain shall meet!
So, to get to my point, over the next month these digests will include a few items that I’ve come across while browsing a well-known steaming service that begins with an “N”. I’m sure they have a marketing department that is paid to push their brand, so, being a supporter of job creationism, I shall not take their work away from them.
Let us, indeed, flick the net!
THE DARK CRYSTAL: AGE OF RESISTANCE
The relief I felt when I fired up this television miniseries and found it to be filled with practical puppets and not DGI monstrosities cannot be captured in words. But it was a pretty intense feeling, I can at least communicate that much. I was also surprised to hear Sigourney Weaver as our narrator, although the weighty tome she is required to prattle through is pretty joyless and painful. That’s not her fault though. But, yes, any Child of the 80s, such as myself, will know of The Dark Crystal movie. It and Labyrinth was when muppets went dark. And we fucking loved it. My generation has been hungry for more, be it in the form of sequels or comic book continuations or stage musicals or street theatre, wee don’t care. Just give us more evil muppets and shut up. So, finally, after about 40-long-years, we got our wish. I don’t have much to say thus far, as I have officially only watched about 10 minutes of the first episode to check that it was the right thing, but I’m sure there’ll be a follow-up to this rambling paragraph. Now all we need is an actor who can do a really good David Bowie impersonation (I’m looking at you, Jemaine Clement) and a production company with enough cash to lure back Jennifer Connolly and we’re on our way to Labyrinth: The Return!
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000: THE RETURN
Speaking of returns. It is of comfort to note that, whether through television reruns or physical distribution of old episodes or new revivals, MST3K will be around forever. It’s just a concept that works. I’m sure that fans, in this amateur podcasting age of ours, make their own versions of the MST3K format, but there’s nothing quite like watching somebody else sitting down to make sarcastic remarks about a movie, good or bad, that just takes itself too seriously. It seems the creator of the original, Joel Hodgson, bought back the rights to MST3K and, in a show of magnanimous restraint, decided to let a new generation of kids take over. He does show up now and then, apparently, but he is very much taking a backstage role this time. For some, this incarnation didn’t last very long, signifying some sort of failure. A mere 5 years. But I say this is long enough. Brevity is the soul of wit, as the man said. Any sitcom lasting after about four or five seasons is only going to go downhill in the most depressing of ways. Society as a whole wouldn’t still be talking about Caroline in the City and NewsRadio if it weren’t for their brief tenure. Okay, bad examples. Anyway, apart from its dull Joel stand-in, Jonah Whatsisname (Joel was dull, but in a fascinating way), the cast is solid, with the delightful Patron Oswalt batting cleanup admirably. Felicia Day, the Dr Forrester stand-in to Oswalt’s Frank stand-in, sings the “I’ll send him cheesy movies” part of the theme tune in such a Sean Young-sultry way that it cemented (as graphic as I’m prepared to be) my interest in watching more. What?! I’m only human. Actually, most of the music in the new title sequence is mixed-down bizarrely low, which was a bad decision. I mean, we all love singing along to that song, right?! I don’t believe there are many episodes of this revival available anymore, so I started off on Season 2 with Mac and Me (which actually looks surprisingly good, perhaps even worthy of a revisionist review). There are plenty of laugh out loud moments, but so far I’m missing the likability of a bunch of late-80s schlubby nerds. Just like my problem with Mad Max: Fury Road missing the dangerous-charm of Mel Gibson, apparently Joel, Trace, Kevin, and Frank brought more to the party than just the concept and jokes. Only time will tell if my fondness level increases or not.
PROMISE MASCOT AGENCY
This adorable video game was recommended to me by my longtime gaming-buddy-turned-pen-pal, who, like me, isn’t terribly into games steeped in physical conflict and anxiety-inducing time limits. We both seek peace in this short life of ours, which Promise Mascot Agency appears to be a useful weapon in defending. It’s essentially a work simulator, where you have to revive a dying business and regenerate the crumbling district of a broader city. There are no button-mashing brawls. No time limits. No car chases. And no big bosses. Well, as far as I know. You just drive around being nice to people. Why the flip aren’t all games like this?! I’m not usually a fan of work simulators, as, being an adult, the last thing I want to do after a day’s work is sit down to even more work. Work simulators are for kids, basically. Kids who have no commitments or dependents and are generally shoved from bed to breakfast to bath to school to dinner and back to bed again. I’d have loved work simulators when I was little, as I was rubbish at being a kid. But now I’ve actually felt the sting of a hard day’s work, so otherworldly pleasures call to me. Saying that, I’ve been dependant on handouts for quite awhile now, so perhaps that’s why work simulators are starting to appeal to me again. I’d like to make a contribution to society again, just not in the real world. Maybe I should start a cultural review blog. I jokingly call this game “Promise Escort Agency”, as I believe it is really set in the world of prostitution. But it’s trying desperately not to say that explicitly. Instead, you send yokai to birthday parties, rather than hookers to, erm, “birthday parties”. Either way, it’s cute enough not to feel sleazy or depressing, and at least acknowledges the oldest profession in the world without being judgmental. Or not too judgmental. I guess not being judgmental at all would require just being open about what the game is implying. Hopefully I will commit to more game hours and provide you fine folk with further reports!
HIGH-RISE INVASION
Somewhere between The Prisoner (1967) and Predators (2010) lies High-Rise Invasion, a potential short story crammed into a mere-12 episodes of anime. Actually, the series performs more like a survival horror video game, to the point where I kept expecting the camera to drop into a third-person POV and a quest marker to loom somewhere off in the distance. For a simple story about (deep breath!) a young girl finding herself thrown into an alternate universe with access only to the upper-floors and roofs of skyscrapers while brainwashed masked assailants try to coax her into committing suicide, there’s a surprising amount going on in High-Rise Invasion. I’m already passed the second episode, which, for me and my short attention span, is pretty good going. I often struggle with post-90s anime, as they all seem more like tongue-in-cheek pastiches of earlier works. To me, there used to be an organic quality to films or shows or OAVs that featured coquettish schoolgirls running around in distress. Now it feels more like: “Hey, remember how silly those old anime were with schoolgirls running around in distress?! Let’s do that, but ironically!”. Hmm, I guess I could have shortened that point to just saying there’s an ironic quality to modern anime, but who has the time?! Anyway, despite my usual prejudice against most modern anime, High-Rise Invasion feels pleasantly genuine and lacking irony or cynicism. Sometimes the action is a little frustrating, with characters standing still during a tense moment discussing internally or to others about their feelings, rather than running and hiding, but it’s fine. I’m curious and slightly anxious about what the remaining ten episodes will do with the story, but so far I really am appreciating the minimalist tone of it all. I just hope it doesn’t go completely off the rails with epic mecha battles. Hey, remember how silly old anime were with epic mecha battles?!
Well, that’s all for now. I’m sure I’ll have another digest’s worth of bollocks to whittle on about soon enough, so stay tuned! I may also start watching Magnum Force later, so hopefully that review will be up by the weekend. Don’t hold me to that though.
If you have any recommendations for films or shows to watch on said well-known-streaming-services-beginning-with-“N”, then please drop me a comment below. I’m so terribly lonely!
Do stay in touch, darlings.
Toodles!
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