Compromise and Conceit
Infernal adventuring…
Category: Reviews
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The internet is all abuzz at the moment with the proud news that a men’s rights activist (MRA) has produced a woman-free version of Star Wars’ The Last Jedi, based on a low-fi cam recording from a cinema somewhere in Asia. The stated reason is to (amongst other things) cut out all the scenes which…
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There’s a moment in Netflix’s The Mist that I think summarizes the rot at the core of modern American TV and cinema. The main characters are Eve and Kevin Copeland, a preposterously young couple with a teenage child, who seem like a nice enough couple though they are struggling with the conflict between Eve and…
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Two days ago I wrote a scathing review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and since then I have been digging around for others’ views on the matter. The Guardian has an article giving some fans’ reviews, and the below the line comments are suitably critical of this awful movie. Meanwhile Vox has a pathetic,…
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens with Po Dameron pushing a ridiculous and unbelievable plan that gets a lot of people killed, and ends with him walking away a hero. He should have been killed in the middle of this movie as a consquence of a whole chain of reckless and stupid decisions but somehow…
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I am up to session 6 of a short campaign using Mutant:Year Zero, a post-apocalyptic RPG from the Free League, a Swedish mob whose games I had never heard of before I stumbled on Mutant. This game is apparently 30 years old – I’m playing the 30 year anniversary edition – and I guess it…
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Imagine if you will an anime set in the immediate aftermath of World War 2 about a man called Mr. Stonewell, a former soldier from Unit 731 who has returned to Japan and is having difficulty fitting in. He bears a terrible secret about the involvement of senior military figures in the murder of many…
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Dunkirk is not a war movie. It’s a movie about staying alive in the places between the world, a kinder of Stranger Things set in the strange space between France and England. This is why there are a million reviews comparing it to Brexit (or saying it has nothing to do with Brexit). Of course…
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I have just finished reading Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform, by John Pfaff. This book describes the growth of mass incarceration in the United States and describes a set of reform policies to reduce the prison population. In itself this is not unusual – the book…
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So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, And took the fire with him, and a knife. And as they sojourned both of them together, Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father, Behold the preparations, fire and iron, But where the lamb for this burnt-offering? Then Abram bound the youth with belts and…