Secretary

Secretary (2002 film) - Wikipedia

Lee Holloway is a troubled young woman who just got released from a mental institution after a nervous breakdown. After her sisters wedding and remembering how crappy her family is as well as feeling back into empty depression, she begins cutting herself again. It’s suggested she get a part time job to kick off her new beginning; she finds herself applying to be a receptionist for prominent but dysfunctional lawyer Edward Gray. He takes her. Gray is a hard boss to lock down, kind one minute, demeaning the next, Lee finds a fascination with him; then comes the day he spanks her. But instead of anger or humiliation, Lee feels alive. After punishing her again, and again, the two form a unlikely bond as dominate and submissive but what’s the boundary between love and obsession?

So off the bat, I’d say this dark dramedy is a way better representation of a BDSM relationship than anything from 50 Shades. Maggie Gyllenhaal does a fantastic job as Lee and she has really good chemistry with James Spader as Gray; they are both exceptionally flawed people that evolve through the story and had well done character arcs. I will say the movie is a slow burn and the humor is a special brand not for everyone. There are some triggers like mental illness and self harm but the movie doesn’t mock these subjects and I feel were covered tastefully. While I laughed my ass off at parts and the movie is also a good character drama. Honestly, while I’m not much for comedies- I was expecting a raunchy sex romp- I was pleasantly surprised to find a damn well done dramedy I’d highly recommend. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Wonder Woman: Bloodlines

Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (2019) - IMDb

Diana Prince, the Wonder Woman and princess of Themyscira, is everything most women crave to be: Smart, strong, and beautiful. But Diana feels like a failure after being banished by her people for leaving to help save the world of man. Reinventing herself as a hero, Diana tries to make her sacrifice worth it but despite all the lives she’s saved, she has plenty of enemies. When two of her greatest enemies, Dr. Poison and Dr. Cyber encounter Vanessa Katapelis, daughter of one of one of Diana’s dearest friends who always envied the Amazon; after her mother dies and Diana fails to save her, Vanessa falls into the promises of Cyber and Poison for a chance at revenge…enter the Silver Swan. Can Diana save her people and redeem her friend before its too late?

I actually like this movie better than Wonder Woman in a few ways; surely this movie could’ve been a way better sequel than Wonder Woman: 1984 . We actually a get a nice take on the origin story and a look at some of Diana’s regrets and her flaws; Rosario Dawson sells it as Diana as well as a really good voice cast. There are plenty of villain cameos and a surprise last act but honestly Silver Swan makes for a relatable villain that challenges Wonder Woman. The movie does good between being serious and having light heartened moments. In the end, I really enjoy this film as one of the DCAUs better if not in the category of their best films to date and I hope WW 3 takes pointers from this movie. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

IT (the novel)

It (novel) - Wikipedia

Are you ready to float with me on one of those strange kind of reviews where I go off the beaten path a bit? Yep, IT, the King classic about seven childhood friends haunted by a interdimensional spider clown who vow to meet when the creature would inevitably would return in their hometown of Derry, Maine. So between Savior and I we covered It (1990) , It (2017) , and IT Chapter Two (Review) but neither of us covered the book until now. All seriousness, IT is a 1,163 page novel so it takes a bit of time to get through and you shouldn’t read this unless you are really in it for the long haul.

My biggest question going in was which iteration was the closest: the quirky melodrama of the 90’s, the super dark fright fest of 2017, or the WTF extravaganza of Chapter Two? Well, honestly all 3 but mostly the 90’s and Chapter Two are the closest in tone. I imagined Pennywise being way more Tim Curry than Bill Skarsgard; your personal fear of clowns weighs heavy on how much this book will freak you out. There’s a lot of different shapes Pennywise takes in the book than the movies but for the most part, they are B movie monsters ( he basically becomes mini Rhodan at one point as well as a mummy, werewolf, and a fucking dog at one point). Honestly, if I had to sum the book up, it’s a B movie epic combined with a drama.

For positives, the book is well written and you really do care about the characters. The first chunk of this book, about 300 pages, is actually pretty strong and Georgie’s Death is a well done intro. The book is strongest as a coming of age story and when it’s dealing with the trauma the adults must face going forward. As a horror story, this book is pretty damn subjective, even more so than most as I said before. Either you’ll shit your pants from fear or piss your pants laughing.

For the negatives, there’s 3 that royally kill the book. First, as I’m sure you’d surmise by the page count, this book is padded to hell. Easily there’s 300 pages that can be chopped out and not really make any difference.. Secondly, the last act, flipping constantly back and forth is jarring as hell; quite a few times I lost track of what was past and present. The last is the actual finale which just feels both anticlimactic but also insanely over the top at the same time. With this, I’m kinda obligated to mention the infamous Chud ritual towards the end of the kid half; it is pretty WTF, its as bad as you’ve heard, and I feel like King was on some pretty deep drugs during the Chud/ turtle moments- you’ve been warned.

So, I’m going to say IT isn’t a terrible book but holy shit its overrated much like The Shining . I’m disappointed but I can’t say its far from the worst books I’ve read. I can’t recommend reading it unless you are a very dedicated reader, super fan of the movies, or like myself, a writer studying the craft; for most of us, stick to the movies. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Alien: Prototype

Amazon.com: Alien: Prototype: 9781789090918: Waggoner, Tim: Books

After a near death encounter with the infamous Xenomorph species along with Amanda Ripley, Zula Hendricks has taken a security lead gig on Jericho 3, a a developing colony. The aliens haunt her nightmares and have taken a toll on her body but her drive to rid the galaxy of the beasts is still ablaze; at least she’s nowhere near Wey-Yu. But the terror never stops for long, a deranged scientist gets his hands on an egg and the experiment kicks off to study the beast, but something’s different; the host was a longtime medical guinea pig infected with the traces of a highly contagious flesh eating disease. What does this mean for the new born Xenomorph? One of the universe’s deadliest monsters has evolved…

Prototype is a actually a pretty good Alien story, despite the stock movie cover which originally put me off. The plague alien ( they call it a Necromorph in the book but I don’t want to compare Alien to DeadSpace ) is actually pretty badass and a really cool idea. Hendricks is a pretty good protagonist dealing with the pressures of being a leader and dealing with new kind of monster. I like that this story is a damn good case of how much devastation 1 Xenomorph can cause. While it’s connected to Isolation and a follow up comic, the book stands pretty well on it’s own. It’s well paced and it doesn’t take long for things to happen. In the end, Alien: Prototype is a fun Alien standalone that adds something new to the dreaded acid blooded monsters and is worth checking out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Doom Patrol season 3 trailer

I’ve caught a few episodes of Doom Patrol but honestly, this show is amazing. With season 3 coming out, I want to catch up and season 3 looks great so far. I can’t wait to see what’s next for The Chief, Robot Man, Elastic Woman, Crazy Jane, Cyborg and Negative Man. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

FORT TRIUMPH PS4 Review

Fort Triumph is a tactical RPG blended with a turn bases strategy almost board game like map that I would like to thank my friends from CookieByte games and Plan of Attack for hooking with a review code for.

Taking many plays from the XCOM play book, the game plays in the usual turn based way. The place this one changes is the world itself not only can be, but is encouraged. Many battles are won and lost on manipulating your enemy behind a tree you can knock over onto them or your mistake of where you stand.

The battle system itself is both fun an intuitive and while it can be harsh at times I never really felt it was unfair or that losing was anything other than me screwing up. You also have the option of turning permadeath on or off, which is great if you want that extra challenge. Even with it off however, if someone does you do essentially have to rehire them.

The story itself is a bit harder to get into as it broken into different campaigns, such as humans or goblins etc. The stories are entertaining and have a nice sense of humor.

The game itself is a lot of fun to play, and it is honestly one of the better games like this I have played on the PS4. There were no graphical issues that I came across, the story made me laugh and the gameplay was challenging but fair. The only issue I really had was there was little to no explanation on how to build up your base or why you should build each building an because of this it was possible to find yourself in weird situations where you would need upgrades that weren’t available to you. This also could be from the fact the world is procedurally generated though. The game is still a great 8/10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods smile upon you.

Chapelwaite series trailer

I was confused at first when I heard of this show, seeing it was based on a Stephen King story; I wasn’t familiar until I saw it was based on the short story Jerusalem’s Lot. Yes Salem’s Lot is the same place but much different time period and there is no vampires as much as I remember. The show looks interesting enough at least. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

WitchSpring3 Nintendo Switch Review

Some of you may remember me talking about this RPG from ININ Games and STUDIOARTDINK a couple weeks ago, and once again thank you to them for hooking me up with a copy of this one to review. It was very much one of those games that caught my attention because it just seemed oddly fun, and truthfully it was hit and miss in a lot of areas, but fun was not one of them.

The story was very basic, you played as the name of the game implies, a witch. You are living alone in the forest not far from your grandmother and you are using a magical stone she gave you to attempt to being dolls to life. It isn’t really explained why all that well but it’s basically because as a witch living in the woods you have no friends.

In the true RPG trope, this doesn’t last long as our good witch Eirudy will as you expect meet a human boy that she becomes friends with and their life quickly gets tipped upside because his old man, a rich guy, wants to burn the witch. Ok well they never say burn but he definitely wants them all dead. You get where this is going.

The story is as you would expect and offers nothing new but does it all fairly well. The combat however,also is about what you would expect if I am completely honest with you. You enter battles and as the game progresses you can summon stronger dolls to fight at your side. These dolls can heal you, cast different buffs to up your defense and such or simply smash the enemy. Deciding what to summon and when is a key sort of the strategy and it’s a bit of a grind to level them up.

The fun part for me tho was the training of the witch. See as you complete different side missions and story missions you can go back to your home and train, maybe you want to get stronger and do push ups or cast more spells and study how to make new items all these things increase your stats and by doing this you get to customize the witch how you want her. You can realistically have a witch that is just busting skulls while your friend just flings endless fireballs.

The game is not without it’s issues. For example the characters felt a bit flat and the game itself seemed short, almost like a port of a mobile game and that’s because honestly, it almost is. The game was originally a mobile game but they have substantially upgraded the sound and graphics, and it is the 3rd game in the series but to my knowledge it’s the only one on a console. And true to that mobile beginning you can beat the game in around 15 hours.

Nothing about the game is overtly bad, I honestly found the game fun in its own way but there also isn’t anything I would say hey this is great. It’s worth picking up for some RPG fans,plenty of my friends already have and enjoyed it. They all however also enjoy older RPGs than most newer ones. This game is definitely a solid 7/10 tho, and I enjoyed my time with it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Junji Ito Collection (anime)

Watch Junji Ito Collection | Prime Video

So as much of a nerd I am and how much I love anime, I don’t read manga. I have heard of the tales of horror legend Junji Ito so just by the cover of the anime, I was pretty excited to see what I was in store for. I wasn’t disappointed. This is an analogy series based off of a variety of stories; each episode containing two stories. A horrific model, a deadly fortune teller, a family obsessed with puppetry, and a wannabe menace trying to cause mayhem are just some of the stories. I have to give major credit to the quality of story telling in such short of a time span. The imagery is pretty damn effective and honestly some of it I found pretty creative and disturbing. The animation is top notch and I enjoyed the performances and music. In the end, if you like horror but need a quick fix, the Junji Ito collection is a anime I really recommend. May the gaming gods bring you glory.