A year and a half ago I wrote a thing recommending a bunch of movies I’d watched and enjoyed during the OG national lockdown and lately I’ve been burning through a movie most nights. So I figured, damn, might as well make like the movie industry itself and dish up a sequel.
Dune. Written by Frank Herbert, published in 1965. A landmark of science fiction set on a distant desert planet in a distant future, a planet which is the only known source of a consciousness-altering spice which is propping up the imperial economy.
Comedy movies tend to get a bad rap compared to other genres. You don’t see comedies scooping up Best Picture Oscars very often, don’t see their lead actors and actresses getting nominated.
Righto, so you polished off The Last Dance. Every single episode. Perhaps you even watched it twice, three times, poring over the little details and tumbling down your own various rabbit holes chasing ideas inspired from the Michael Jordan story.
These are just ten books that I love, ten favourites in no particular order, ten books that have influenced me greatly in one way or another. Books that I hope you can get something out of as well.
It’s been a year since the Game of Thrones finale. Twelve months of simmering after that blockbuster final episode which was instantly savaged by fans and critics alike.
These last few weeks have provided a unique opportunity to absolutely binge on the wonders of cinema, to watch a bunch of those movies you always wanted to but never quite got around to before. Here are a few of the gems that El Wildcardo’s indulged in during levels three and four.
Films can be scary without being horrors. Films can be horrors without being scary. Genre’s tend not to fit like gloves at the best of times and the only reason to learn their rules is so you’re able to break them.
Welcome to the lockdown, dear friends. No need to panic, we’ll get through this, just gotta play by the rules for a while. Hey and think of it this way: you’ve finally got time to watch all those classic films that you never had time to before because of pesky old work.
Oscar Winner Taika Waititi. Get used to hearing that sentence all over the place whenever he does anything ever again. He might as well change his name to ‘Oscar Winner Taika Waititi’ and we can call him Oscar for short.
It took a while to get a grasp on that one. The Rise of Skywalker wasn’t as terrible as some folks have immediately decided, though it’s a lot further from being a masterpiece... it’s just that it’s completely baffling and then kinda forgettable.
It didn’t take long for Joker to take on a life far beyond the big screen. After opening to rapturous praise at the Venice International Film Festival, where it won the top prize, it pretty soon became a bit of an internet punching bag.
In the end it turns out the clue was in the title all along. This was a fairytale. A story that was destined to have a happy ending, a tidy ending, even at the expense of our expectations.
Are you aware of the demon child Bart Harley Jarvis? Have you stumbled upon the meme of that old fella dabbing in a boardroom? Has anyone tried to sell you fifty Stanzo branded fedoras lately?
Realistically there was never gonna be an ending that satisfied everyone, the show was simply too big and too popular for that. And the same online bandwagon effect that rose this show to international phenomenon status kinda turned on it at the end there.
Everybody has a choice to make, Varys left us with that wisdom last week and he died for it this week. Varys made his choice. He made his choice definitively and he stuck with that choice, accepting the risks that it took. And in the end he was proved right but he didn’t live long enough to see it thanks to a pair of his closest allies who each refused to make their choices.
Game of Thrones has always been about the politics and the avoidable drama. That machinery of power, where snappy decisions have huge ramifications and any mistakes are fatal.
Arya’s hide and seek game in the library, Melisandre lighting the trench torches, the Dothraki charge witnessed from above, and the utter silent tension in the crypts... until it wasn’t silent no more. Drama that was loud and drama that was quiet, contributing to an almost overwhelming experience across 80 minutes.
The big moments are the ones that get people talking about this show. Ned Stark’s execution. The Red Wedding. The Battle of Hardhome. But it’s the little moments that make it so special, those moments when it’s just a couple characters in a room talking with subtext deluxe and every line means a hundred different things.