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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: May 2016

The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film #27: Throne of Blood [Macbeth] (1957)

29 Sunday May 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Shakespeare, The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film

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Rogues Guide to Shakes on Film

#27. Throne of Blood [Macbeth] (1957)

When your humble rogue reviewed Akira Kurosawa’s Ran, he asked if an adaptation of Shakespeare can be meaningfully Shakespearean if the language is changed from English to Japanese, without the sense of the screenplay even trying to translate the poetry and psychological trains of thought in the original texts of the plays.

Throne of Blood poster

Imagine: No “tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” soliloquy.

Imagine: No porter.

In the hands of a master filmmaker like Kurosawa, the story becomes a beautiful hybrid, with enough of Shakespeare’s ideas and grand sweeps of story and psychology that the question of how Shakespearean the movie is seems like a petty concern. One could ask the same question of garbage like Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet that actually does use the original text, and readily conclude that the result is not Shakespearean.

But we are talking this time about Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, or Spiderweb Castle. I mean, a Scottish title for this movie wouldn’t work. Nor do leaders of feudal Japan use thrones, and the title Blood would have been weird.

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The movie really isn’t that complicated.

This movie stars the sublime Toshirô Mifune, who is, quite simply, the shit.

Throne of Blood 11

Throne of Blood features a single taunting Japanese ghost in lieu of the three weird sisters, which simultaneously surprises us with this originality as an adaptation, plus makes the weirdness more vivid since we are not watching for the nuance of how the set pieces with the weird sisters will play out. The ghost, a trickster who appears in the fog in a cage, may or may not be boilerplate Japanese mythology, but his behavior is erratic enough that it persuades me that our Macbeth figure, (1) should not be listening to him and (2) is not being lured to his doom by his own dick. What a relief.

Throne of Blood 1

The setting is, mostly, a fortress by the mazelike Spiderweb Forest, which is likely to be enshrouded by fog. There is a lot of fog in this black and white masterpiece.

Throne of Blood meets my primary requirements for a Macbeth—it’s under 2 hours, and finds some authenticity in the crazy.

Throne of Blood 4

Because Kurosawa isn’t translating the Shakespeare, we get to hear our hero give a rousing speech to his troops before the final battle. But Kurosawa also undercuts the traditional sense of glory of such a speech by never quite having that final battle, and when the forest appears to march to the fortress, a la the ghost’s prognostication, his own troops kill him with fusillade after fusillade of arrows, in an assassination scene to rival Sonny’s murder in The Godfather.

Throne of Blood 6

Toshirô Mifune isn’t going down without a fight, after all.

_______

1flip

John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.

Episode #208: Mark Leyner!

28 Saturday May 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Postmodernism

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Episode 208 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I interview fiction writer Mark Leyner,

Mark Leyne David Plakke Media NYC, 2015

Photo by David Plakke Media.

plus Catherine Carson writes about how Kelly Groome’s I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl changed her life.

Catherine Carson PhotoTEXTS DISCUSSED

Gone with the Mind

The Sugar Frosted Nutsack

Et Tu Babe

Let's Play Doctor

War Inc

I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a GirlNOTES

The music accompanying Catherine Carson’s essay is “Wingspan” by Carlton Melton, from their album “Photos of Photos.”

Check out the music of The Tequila Worms.

_______

Episode 208 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

The Curator of Schlock #130: The Pyjama Girl Case

27 Friday May 2016

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The Curator of Schlock #130 by Jeffrey Shuster

The Pyjama Girl Case

(It’s spelled pajama, guys!)

The-Pajama-Girl-Case

I heard a gentleman on a podcast once refer to the giallo genre as “pretty close to terrible.” That’s a little unfair. There’ve been some brilliant giallos like Dario Argento’s Deep Red or his animal trilogy or Tenebre, but then, alas, we also have The Pyjama Girl Case, a movie that made me want to shower afterwards. Oh boy. This one’s a stinker. It makes me wonder if I was a sucker for dropping a ten spot on Blue Underground’s Midnight Movies volume 13. Oooh. It seems like Blue Underground is preparing another Killer Thrillers collection on Blu-ray. This set will feature Baba Yaga, Night Train Murders, and Strip Nude for Your Killer. Huh? Why would I want to strip nude for my killer? He’s going to kill me anyway. I should at least keep my dignity.

Ray Milland is in this movie.

I don’t know what Ray Milland was doing in the 1970s, but between this turkey and Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, I have to imagine his acting career was on the rocks. This guy used to be a Hollywood leading man. What else did he star in during this period? The Uncanny, a British horror anthology focused on feline revenge. A cat revenge film? Cool!

But the DVD is only available in Region 2. Sigh.

Pyj2

Anyway, Ray Milland plays some retired Canadian gumshoe who wants to investigate the death of an unidentified woman. She’s unidentified because her body was found naked in an abandoned car on the beach with her face burned black. The Australian police let him investigate since he agreed that they don’t have to pay him. So Ray Milland goes about interviewing every pervert in town, all the while rolling his eyes each chance he gets. He even makes the jerkoff gesture at some guy who has a dirty magazine obsession.

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At some point he gets too close to the murderer and gets shot to death.

The police exhibit the body for the public.

The Sydney Police Department thinks it’s a good idea to put the naked woman’s body with the charred face on display for everyone in town to take a look at.

Pyj3

Maybe they’re hoping a friend or relative will come forward after viewing the body.  That doesn’t happen. Instead, every sicko in town treats this like some kind carnival sideshow, eating snacks and snapping pictures while they view the body. You’d think they’d have better things to do on a Saturday afternoon.

There’s really only one murder in this movie. 

 If you’re expecting a mysterious, black-gloved murderer, stalking and executing his victims in poetic ways, you’re in for disappointment. There’s only one murder in this movie, that of the “pyjama girl.” Actually, there are two murders if you count Ray Milland. You also get to see an Italian immigrant run over by a bus filled with Australian girl scouts so there’s that.

The movie is based on a true story?

Pyj5

Yeah, apparently there really was a pajama girl case in real life. It’s considered the most famous unsolved murder case to come out of Australia. The police eventually pinned the murder of the mysterious pajama girl on an Italian immigrant who admitted to murdering his wife. Case closed, except for the fact that it’s highly likely that the mysterious pajama girl was not the immigrant’s wife. Details. Details.

_______

Jeffrey Shuster 1

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

21st Century Brontë #20: Campaigning a Novel

26 Thursday May 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in 21st Century Bronte, Dungeons and Dragons

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21st Century Brontë #20 by Brontë Bettencourt

Campaigning a Novel

Since the launch of my Dungeons and Dragons campaign in early October, my players have engaged the world in surprising ways. In the first few sessions, one of my players chose to travel to a city that I had only a vague outline for. I needed to rapidly generate ideas as the player traveled in order to keep him entertained and the story moving forward. I invented several impromptu characters due to players inquiring about directions to a brothel, or information on the calendar year, or other details. I’m grateful for the world building practice, even if I will, probably, never use brothel information for YA fiction.

bruegel carnival-life-in-the-middle-ages

Since life is hectic these days, I have decided to try working through my novel as this very role-playing campaign.

I am required to scrutinize the campaign story’s events in order to make sequential sense to six individual players; one player is sure to notice a flaw due to any laziness. A Dungeon Master can only theorize what actions the individual players may or may not take.

There are extraneous elements that won’t necessarily be included in the novel.

But that’s why I’ve orchestrated the main quest so that the group must follow Ellie, a vital NPC since she’s the protagonist of my story.

Ellie Elibine Sketchbook

Because of her, the eclectic cast of players have banded together to accompany her on her journey to reunite her family. The direct contact with her informs me about whether she is an effective protagonist. I’m also gaining insight on the array of responses that readers would have to her and my cast of characters.

So far I have acquired six fans for my novel. Yay me!

Thanks to D&D, new life has been breathed into the project that I’ve been stuck on, despite the fact that these characters haven’t left me the hell alone.

Last time I wrote about D&D, I brought up the issue with unlikable likeable characters, and whether it’s worth writing a story that no one will read if one is not willing to follow the narrator.

Dungeons and Dragons

Since then, the player in question has become a unique character who, though rough around the edges, is now working alongside the party while remaining true to those flaws. Most of the players by this point have assimilated into a functioning unit.

But the character who is now in question isn’t a player’s creation, but mine; in fact this character is a pivotal force in my series. He is supposed to be an inherently good character but in the campaign he has been acting against the intention that I want.

In the most recent campaign session I devised a courthouse scene where the characters had to present evidence before government officials, in order to clear the name of a woman who the players deemed innocent. One of the players called my character out before the entire court due to his anxious behavior. He acted against the group’s intentions, placing a target over Ellie’s head and upping the difficulty of the campaign down the road.

This character is Ellie’s brother.

The more I learn about him the more uneasy I feel since I haven’t had an unknown variable in my series for years. But I can’t apologize for his actions because I can sympathize with his motivations, even if it goes against my protagonist. And I shouldn’t have to apologize for how the story wants to be written, even though it might not be the ending that I originally intended. If anything, these complications have added to convoluting a clear cut goal. A villain doesn’t fight for a cause to be evil but because he believes the cause is right.

I’m using the villain term loosely since this character hasn’t gone out of his way to inhibit the party. But the players were definitely thrown off by the happenings at the trial, and they have learned to be afraid of whenever I’m grinning, since that means pending torment for them. But overall, being a DM doesn’t mean that I know everything; I’ve also signed up for this crazy campaign.

No one gets out of here without surprises about our identities.

_______

21st Cen Bronté

Brontë Bettencourt (Episode 34) graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelors in English Creative Writing. When she’s not writing or working, she is a full time Dungeon Master and Youtube connoisseur.

McMillan’s Codex #40: The Order: 1886

25 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in McMillan's Codex

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McMillan’s Codex#40 by C.T. McMillan

The Order: 1886

When criticizing a work of entertainment, one standard practice is often to acknowledge the piece from a basis of style versus substance. Either the title has qualities that transcend superficiality, or the work is more concerned with looking good. Take for example the Watchmen movie: the comic was an examination of superhero archetypes in the context of the real world, but the movie was an adaptation that did not translate the ideas that made the comic so important. The film was style over substance because the movie was focused on being faithful to the visuals without considering the themes. The substance of videogames is gameplay and story, and style is graphics and presentation. One must establish a balance between the two and The Order 1886 cannot stay on two feet without falling over.

 

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I first heard about Order at the Sony presentation during E3 2013. I was taken aback by the idea of playing Victorian Era monster hunters in a steam-punk London using sci-fi weaponry. While I am not fan, the genre is at least interesting and the anachronistic qualities mixed with futurism is very appealing. When the game was finally released, however, the critical reception prevented me from making a purchase. After the game was cheap enough to buy with a single 20-dollar note, I picked up a copy to play for review.

From the outset the game visually amazing with pitch perfect graphics and animations. Character’s bodies and faces move realistically compared to traditional motion capture. The lighting is elegant, reacting to glass and metals with a beautiful shimmer. A hazy filter over the picture not only unifies the game’s visuals, but also creates an air of antiquity consistent with the period. The sound design is very physical with distinct effects in addition to expert voice acting. While these are the makings of a good game, the same craft and artisan touch is lost on the rest of the game.

As a standard third person shooter, the combat should have been the easiest to get right if the developers were not so concerned about looking good. The fluidity and realism of the animations may be a nice touch, but when you are trying to move you must contend with restrictions to how you move. Navigating your character is like driving a heavy truck that requires precise timing to turn corners. When not facing the right way, you must go through a slow turning animation. In combat this choice is especially frustrating when trying to get into cover takes forever. There is also stun locking where if you are hit, your character goes into a reeling animation to convey pain. This is an old practice in videogames that was for some reason brought back. All stun locking does is stop combat and compound frustration when you just want to play the game.

the-order-1886-screen-01-ps4-us-12aug14

The reason I did not buy Order the first time is because the total runtime is 7 hours and I heard the story was incomplete, which are true. The game tries hard to be visually impressive while the narrative was unfinished in anticipation of a sequel that will not happen. Trying to build a following with an original yet incomplete first entry is suicidal and the developers have paid dearly.

The game has everything awesome: a knightly order that gains immortality by drinking from the Holy Grail, werewolves, vampires, and airships. Order seemed like a playable League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but when the game came time to use those elements in a narrative, the game was left open on purpose to point of ignoring the qualities that made the concept interesting. The werewolves are a small part while the vampires show up twice and do nothing. Both are background details that make way for an uninspired plot involving human enemies. There was a nice touch with an airship providing air support for your team of knights, but only in a cut scene and not in gameplay. Also, there are not many interesting weapons apart from a lightning rifle and thermite cannon. You use them only a couple times before you are stuck with conventional assault rifles and pistols.

The game takes place when imperialism was rampant and the main conflict involves antigovernment dissidents retaliating against a corporation with enough influence to manipulate institutions of authority. You are a part of one such institution who discovers the truth, but you do not change anything. You find the villain, learn what he wants to do, and by the conclusion he basically wins and the only agency you had was killing his lead henchman. The last time you see the villain is the moment you discover who he is an hour before the end. All you are left with after the credits is regret for wasting money.

the-order-1886-screen-02-ps4-us-12aug14

The Order: 1886 works best as a playable movie that gets by on looks if you ignore the glaring problems. The gameplay is standard and that would not be a problem if the story were actually complete. When you are spending a lot of money on a game, you expect to enjoy at least the story or gameplay, but when the former is mediocre and the latter ruined by hubris, Order is not worth consideration.

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CT McMillan 1

C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

The Global Barfly’s Companion #25: La Otra Embajada

23 Monday May 2016

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The Global Barfly’s Companion #25 by Jeremy DaCruz

Bar: La Otra Embajada (Rest in Peace)

Location:  Managua, Nicaragua

LOE

In the consciousness of most Americans, Nicaragua brings to mind images of camo-wearing, assault rifle toting guerrillas trekking through the jungle, but the Nicaragua of 2016 is an entirely different animal.

LOE 1

Nicaragua is a country in the midst of a tourism boom. This is largely resulting from it being the safest country in Central America and its wealth of sights, both natural and man-made. From beautiful colonial architecture to cloud forests inhabited by howler monkeys, Nicaragua is in many ways an undiscovered paradise.

LOE 2

Traditionally, nightlife in Nicaragua has long centered on large and utilitarian bars serving one of two national beers, Toña or Victoria, with food that is often an afterthought. However, change is on the horizon, as a result of a gradually globalizing populace with international tastes.

LOE3

For a short period of time there existed a bar called La Otra Embajada. It was a member of this new wave of Nicaraguan nightlife before it closed. It was one of the few bars where one could find craft beer, in their case locally made Pinolera, as well as international cuisine in a relaxed setting. Personally, I preferred the Pinolera Stout, a smooth, tasty beer with hints of cinnamon. LOE also carried other varieties of Pinolera, standard national and imported beer, as well as a fully stocked liquor bar. Particularly notable from the liquor bar were the Irish Coffee, White Russian and Sangria.

Hispamer

La Otra Embajada was situated behind the Universidad Centroamericana and shared the neighborhood with the highly lauded Hispamer bookstore, a slew of bars and restaurants, and oddly enough a number of homes and apartments. The neighborhood was walkable and lively even on weeknights.

Although unassuming from the outside, the interior design of LOE was sleek and modern. White walls were lined with a conglomeration of paintings, including a portrait of Frida Kahlo, and cult movie posters. Movies were often projected on a wall to add to the ambiance.

LOE 6

The menu had influences from nearly every corner of the world. Tacos, pizza, hummus, and paninis were all on offer. Their Media Noche sandwich brought me back to my formative years in South Florida.

LOE Food

La Otra Embajada also had delicious artisan coffee. It was one of the few places in the country where one could find a Vietnamese Iced Coffee, a delicious coffee drink made with condensed milk, and other international takes on Nicaragua’s top export. La Otra Embajada was popular among the business lunch crowd and often had promotions or one-off meals directed at those patrons.

LOE Wine

The vibe of LOE was relaxed and extremely conducive to catching up with old friends, or playing board games over a beer or sangria. If there wasn’t live music, the owner Roberto was usually playing laid back tropical house or hip-hop over the speakers. It often felt more like a cafe than a bar but this was a positive in LOE’s case.

La Otra Embajada had a dedicated following that made it to most of their events. We will remember LOE with fondness. In a country where most bars only host cover bands, LOE regularly hosted live bands playing original music. Some nights, one could catch a showing of an independent film or sing karaoke at the top of their lungs. The variety of events was a major selling for locals and foreigners.

LOE may have been more than Managua was ready for. It was eclectic yet engaging, relaxed yet lively in a city that runs at a very high pace. A bar that featured a book club and allowed a space for alternative culture to flourish. I will miss La Otra Embajada and I wish its owner and manager Roberto success in all his future endeavors.

_______

Jeremy Da Cruz

Jeremy DaCruz (Episode 154, Episode 197) is a recent graduate of the University of Central Florida and is currently living with his mother and his dog in Asheville, North Carolina. His time is divided between carousing about in Asheville and the surrounding countryside, reading books, and writing in anticipation of his move to Managua, Nicaragua in December of 2015. There he will be doing humanitarian work for the next two years.

The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film #26: Strange Brew [Hamlet] (1983)

22 Sunday May 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Shakespeare, The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film

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Tags

Dave Thomas, Elsinore Beer, Game of Thrones, Hamlet, Max Von Sydow, Rick Moranis, Strange Brew, The Force Awakens, The Seventh Seal

Rogues Guide to Shakes on Film

26. Strange Brew [Hamlet] (1983)

Ever since I noticed that Jon Finch, who played the title role in Polanski’s Macbeth, looked like Max Von Sydow, I’ve been suffering from some degree of Sydowmania.

The Seventh Seal

The Swedish actor who played chess with Death in The Seventh Seal has recently lent his gravitas to The Force Awakens and Game of Thrones. He has played Ming the Merciless, Jesus Christ, and one of the incarnations of Bond villain Ernest Stavro Blofeld. He is 87 years old, and a titanic talent.

What shocked me is that he has never actually been in a Shakespeare film, as far as I could remember. Is this possible?

strange brew

Oh, right. He starred in Strange Brew, the zany comedy starring the lowbrow hijinks of two dimwitted Canadian brothers, Bob and Doug McKenzie, whose lives are devoted to the consumption of beer, not that this consumption has any bearing on their general moronitude.

Strange-Brew 1

When Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas transferred these clownish characters from the small screen to the big screen, they decided that these two buffoons could best serve a larger, more epic story than a silly one of their own. At first, Strange Brew seems to be a metacinematic experience about Bob and Doug McKenzie’s failure to produce a Hollywood film. The plot takes a turn, however, when they make a visit to the Elsinore brewery to try and cadge free beer, and find themselves, like Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, in a tragic story of a family broken by betrayal.

Strange Brew 9

Max Von Sydow plays a part that should be familiar to any fan of Hamlet: the mad scientist.

Strange Brew 1

So Elsinore is transferred to a brewery, the way so many modern productions of Shakespeare’s work reinterpret his settings. And the brewery just happens to adjoin a mental institution run by the brewmeister of Elsinore beer.

Strange Brew 2

You know he has to be evil, because, you know, the turtleneck sweater.

Strange Brew 8

Because scientists often practice in separate disciplines of science, such as beer-making and psychiatry, no one was curious when aggression and mind-control experiments were performed involving chemically-treated beer and hockey players.

Strange Brew 6

Okay, so maybe the thread leading our way back to Hamlet happens to be rather slender, but then why have the scene in which Claude cajoles his daughter-in-law Pam (presumably short for Pamlet) for being mean to her mother, Gertrude, and holding on too hard to her grief over her father’s death?

Strange Brew 12CLAUDE

You know, Pamela, I don’t want you to think that your mother and I don’t understand how you feel about losing your father.

GERTRUDE

If it had been ME, you’d have been over it by now.

CLAUDE

It’s easy to wallow in self pity–the hard thing is to go on living….

PAM

Don’t you think it’s a little unusual to get married so soon after the funeral?

I find this moment touching, since Strange Brew follows a classic Marx Brothers plot scheme, which is to say that the clowns subvert the story of straight, serious characters around them, and the existence of these straight plots is merely to provide a comic armature and maybe some eye candy. (I am looking at you, Zeppo Marx.)

Marx BrothersThat the seriousness of the A plot becomes momentarily real and Shakespearean is moving. The implication later on that Pam will be perpetually drugged into an unresponsive state is also an odd touch of bona fide storytelling. (Basic catatonia is what Gertrude wanted for her son, isn’t it?)

Strange Brew 13Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis wrote and directed this movie, and while this appropriation of Hamlet is more of an in-joke than a real engagement with the text, nevertheless, the dynamics between the Elsinore family were thought out carefully. The film would have been more memorable if there was just a little bit more tension between telling a real story and relishing in a comedic romp.

In Shakespearean comedy, the rougher clowns tend to be clearly secondary characters who do threaten to steal the show, but ultimately never quite do.

One of the interesting implications is that in this retelling of Hamlet, Claude is a boob, whereas the truly dangerous person is Polonius. The part, though, is written as boilerplate 1970s TV show villain. Max Von Sydow, nevertheless, seems to have had a good attitude about the work.

Strange Brew 3

_______

1flip

John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.

 

Episode 207: Jeffrey Ethan Lee!

21 Saturday May 2016

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Episode 207 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I interview the novelist and poet Jeffrey Ethan Lee,

Jeffrey Ethan Lee

plus Heather Whited reads another travel memoir essay, “Masada.”

Heather Whited 2

TEXTS DISCUSSED

The Autobiography of Somebody Else

Invisible Sister

Identity Papers

NOTES

  • Check out Jeffrey’s first appearance on TDO, back on Episode 111.
  • The Pink Fire Revue is a Modular Collective Art event on June 4th at 7pm at the Gallery At Avalon Island.  Poetry by John King, Nicole Oquendo, Tod Caviness, and Mary McGinn. Visualizations by Synthestruct. Improvised electronic music by Jon Curtis, Dudagruv, and Pressure wave. The Pink Fire Revue is presented by Functionally Literate, The Drunken Odyssey, and The In-Between Series. This event is free and open to the public.
  • Follow The In Between Series here.
  • Listen to the powerful surf rock of The Intoxicators.

The Intoxicators


Episode 207 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

The Curator of Schlock #129: The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion

20 Friday May 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #129 by Jeff Shuster

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion

(I don’t know if that’s the greatest movie title ever or the worst)

 We’ve got another Ennio Morricone soundtrack. This man is the unseen hero of the Giallo genre. It’s like these scores are half swinging 60s, half slasher movie fare. Yeah, that’s all you get. I’m not a music critic. I wish I had lived during the Swinging 60s or just Italy in the 70s. I could have been a visiting American writer in Rome who gets caught in a murder investigation of one of the local serial killers. The killer would turn out to be an elderly woman who sold peaches for a living. Her motive would be hatred of the Italian bourgeoisie who imported their peaches from Georgia.

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Tonight’s feature is The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion from director Luciano Ercoli. The Italian title is Le foto proibite di una signora per bene, which sounds even more sophisticated. The movie opens with a woman named Minou (Dagmar Lassander) taking a bath and ruminating via a voiceover on how she’s going to tease her husband by telling him she’s having an affair with another man. Minou also makes the decision to quit smoking and, obviously, taking tranquilizers.

Forbidden2

While Minou is walking the beach during sunset, she has a run in with a sex fiend (Simon Andreu). He’s got some kind cane affectation, but this cane has a spear hidden inside. He uses this to cut open her dress while he licks his lips, but he wants to “beg for my kisses.” He also informs Minou that her husband murdered one of his business partners. The sex fiend scuttles off after this. When Minou meets up with her husband, Peter (Pier Paolo Caponni), he tells the guy was probably just pulling a prank on her and that there’s nothing to worry about.

Forbidden3

Minou decides to go out dancing with her friend, Dominique (Susan Scott), who may or may not be a former lover of her husband, Peter. Dominique invites Minou over to her place to watch her slide projector. Instead of some slides of Dominique’s trip to Branson, MO, we are treated to pornographic photos of Dominique! She knows a photographer in Copenhagen who takes them for her. Minou then notices the sex fiend from earlier in one of Dominique’s photos.

 Forbidden5

The sex fiend calls Minou later that night and plays a tape recording of her husband admitting to murdering his business partner. The sex fiend demands that Minou meet him at his hotel room or he’ll send the tape to the police. Minou acquiesces and I’ll leave it to your imagination as what happens next. I think the real mystery of this picture is whether the sex fiend is real or whether Minou is just plain old crazy. You’ll have to watch to find out.

Next week, I’ll be reviewing The Pyjama Girl Case. I’m so glad I only paid ten bucks for this set. You can watch The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion on Amazon Prime.

_______

Jeffrey Shuster 2

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

McMillan’s Codex #39: Mass Effect 3

18 Wednesday May 2016

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McMillan’s Codex #39 by C.T. McMillan

Mass Effect 3

Rich Evans of Red Letter Media put it best when he referred to the games following Mass Effect 3 (ME3) as a funeral march. Up until then, you had this sprawling and complex universe for which you could change at will. Your decisions in ME1 carried over to the second game and you would expect those choices to pass on to ME3 before coming to the cold realization that it was all for nothing.

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First off, the combat was the only improvement of note. The shooting is smooth and responsive with the ability to modify your weapons. You can add scopes, barrels, and other items that improve fire rated and accuracy. Such enhancement is another dimension to already serviceable mechanics, but does not make up for the glaring downgrade in the narrative.

Everything is wrong when you discover none of your original team is present. At the end of ME2 it was implied the people you worked hard to recruit, form relationships with, and struggled to keep alive in the final mission would stay by your side to fight the Reapers, sentient robots that cull the galaxy of life every 50,000 years. Instead, a majority of your team shows up in cameos with about three available for your squad, another from the first game, and two who are brand new.

The new character Javik is quite interesting, but the other, Vega, is so flaccid he did not need help from the voice of Freddy Prince Jr. to be boring. The teammate from the first game, Ashley, is a one-note human I did not care for in the slightest. Those from ME2 are background characters that help with the main conflict and nothing else. You do not talk to them for very long or see them often, serving as glorified plot devices. If they die it is meaningless because you do not spend enough time together for their deaths to be impactful.

The fact you cannot use them in gameplay is more frustration as they have the most useful abilities like Kasumi’s cloak or Grunt’s charge. They are also better characters with a ton of realized personality. Mordin was the fan favorite with his quick speech and whit, and Legion had a unique naiveté. Furthermore, any romance you pursued is rendered irrelevant because ME3 separates characters. I developed a relationship with Jack and all I could do was talk to her a few times with no chance to take things further. There was, however, a downloadable add-on that let you have a reunion in a fan-service kind of way, but it did not provide adequate satisfaction and did not it matter in the end.

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The story is where ME3 falls the farthest. What could have been a compelling narrative about gathering resources to save Earth in the midst of a Reaper invasion turns into an unfulfilling pay-off that does not change no matter what you did. The ending is a selection of three outcomes: Control, where you take over the Reapers, Destruction, where you kill all synthetics, and Synthesis where you assimilate with synthetics. How you get there is superfluous because it does not have any general affect on the finale. You recruit allies, attack the Reapers, and push a colored button for your desired ending.

This is another case of missed opportunity because the lead up could have been dramatic and compelling. Your goal as Commander Shepard is to gather military assets to save Earth as the galaxy itself is trying to stave off the Reaper incursion. While that is exactly what you do, you are never really involved in making a difference. You go to a planet under attack, get what you need, and leave. There is no heroism or innocence to save like you would expect as you progress in a technical manner.

What if you had to sacrifice more people to gain allies? Earth is just one of a billion worlds and you have to convince aliens to abandon their own cause in exchange for yours. If the previous team were available, the process of saving worlds by giving up your friends would have emotional weight and meaning. You have to decide if letting go of the people you care about is worth saving the galaxy, when in reality both choices lead to significant loss. The fact this is not the case makes the actual losses especially insulting when you do not spend time with those characters like you used to and the ending makes their sacrifices worthless.

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Mass Effect 3 is good for the wrong reasons. The improved combat and epic scope is punctuated by probably the worst executed narrative I have ever played. Not only does this game contradict the intent of the series; this game destroys everything you loved from its predecessors. ME3 is an affront to fans and I cannot in good conscious recommend it unless you are a completionist. I would have imagined Mass Effect: Andromeda to be a return to form had the lead writer and development director not left before the game was finished.

_______

CT McMillan 1

C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

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