movies: toy story 4

If the previous movies can be summed up as "replacement", "abandonment" and "loss", then Toy Story 4 seems to be concerned with obsession.

I'll be honest, after the amazing end to the trilogy with the last movie, when I first heard about this one I did wonder why they were going back to the well, but Pixar knows how to put a movie together, and this was no exception.

Surprising nobody, I cried at the end... but in more places than I expected.

As I said, this movie's overarching theme is obsession. Not just Woody's obsession with making sure everything is set right for Bonnie (although Bonnie becomes a stand-in for Andy for much of the movie), but also the "villain", talking doll Gabby Gabby (voiced by Christina Hendricks), who is obsessed with the literal storybook version of being loved by a child, a feeling she's never known. Then there's Duke Caboom (Keanu Reeves) who can't move on from his past. And the way toys react when one of their own reveals that they "have a child"

I did realise at the beginning that Woody's obsessions throughout all of these movies, while they felt apt in context, also seem like they could very easily go to (or are on the road to) an unhealthy place. And the fact that he believes that all toys would be better off if they were owned/loved by a child.

This is much more Woody's movie, even than all the others. The first one is a buddy movie, the second is a rescue movie, the third is a prison break. They all feature varying degrees of the two leads and the ancillary characters, but this is primarily a movie about Woody. You could really take out all of the usual gang of toys and not really lose a ton from the majority of the movie.

It's also Bo Peep's movie though, which is nice that she came back as such a self assured and self reliant character, the opposite of Woody in a lot of ways. Especially given that she was so ignominiously written out of the third movie, and if memory serves is barely in the second one.

Bo is also where the advances in technology are most keenly felt. Now she looks like she's made of porcelain... she's shiny and reflective. In fact lighting and surfaces are where this movie really kick it out of the park. From the opening sequence (and yes, I got a little glassy eyed when they included part of the TS3 ending in the opening) with the rain and water effects, through to the myriad of lights of both the antique store and the carnival, this movie looks amazing.

And yes, I know I say that every time. In fact I say that I say that every time. But it's always true. Pixar kicks it out of the part with each new iteration. Just compare the almost photo-realistic cat with Sid's dog from the first movie to see how very far they've come in the last 24 years.

I didn't see either of the plot lines that make up the end coming either to be honest. And once again, without spoiling things, they make sense. I'm sure they tried out a lot of different options, but the final fates of these beloved characters happen in a way that is both melancholy and triumphant.

yani's rating: 4 skunkmobiles out of 5

photo saturday: king of the forest

One of these things is not like the others... but you know, with two possible answers...

Anyway.

I made the usual spicy tuna mornay this week... not the spiciest I've ever made, but still pretty tasty.

Monday didn't particularly go to plan, but it all worked out in the end. It started when I headed up to see Tink to get my hair did. Only to discover when I got there that it was supposed to be Tuesday. But fortunately she'd had a client not show up for an appointment about 45 minutes earlier, so it all worked out better for both of us.

And we went a little more silvery with the colour... to try and avoid it just settling out to generically blonde between visits. We'll see how well that works out.

Monday night was the first DnD session at the new game store location. A game that is supposed to be 4 hours, but which my players knocked over in two and a half hours. Partly that was because of my players, but also because the module isn't as complex as it thinks it is. It's fun though. Which is also why I ran it again for different people on Wednesday.

As far as the new store location... I have many opinions, not about the location, but about a number of other issues that are very "inside baseball" and not particularly interesting either to anybody else or to future me with any luck. Suffice to say, the move is problematic, for me anyway.

Like I said, Wednesday I reran the adventure from Monday, and it went much better... or rather more to time. Then the evening game was perhaps a little calmer than last week... we're still perhaps a couple of people too many though. I think we definitely got a wake up call this week, we're not really prepared for the endgame... or at least we aren't thinking about the endgame enough. But interestingly my character came down with some madness that made him really angry, so I got to have very interesting interactions with the other characters. Including having a text based role play session after the game with one of the players who isn't usually the best at stepping up for roleplay. I was very proud of him, and it is definitely something that will come up later, or at the very least it opens the door for our two characters to have further conversations.

Thursday's game was equally interesting and irritating. As usual, character interactions and roleplay, interesting... actual adventure design, mostly irritating although it had some moments. I say irritating, but possibly we're just bumbling through without really having a clear plan. Or the most balanced party to be honest.

That was about it for the week though.

Today was wet. This week has been exceptionally mild for the end of June, but today Winter came back with a vengeance, it basically rained on and off for the whole day.

We did the shopping thing... I didn't really know what the hell to make for this week, so I defaulted to my old friend chicken soup.

Afterwards we wanted something to do that kept us out of the rain and the cold, so we went to the movies (more on that later), then called it a day.

Current Mood:

photo saturday: city greys

We're going to do the speed round of this week today I think, given that it's relatively late and the story is easy to tell.

I made unexciting vegetable and barley soup this week, unexciting except for the fact I put too much chilli paste in it.

• Monday was DnD, not a bad session, but not spectacularly memorable.
• Wednesday was two DnD sessions, but the morning session wasn't the adventure it was supposed to be, and I didn't have any other character folders with me, so I ended up running a character I haven't played it over a year, copied from the app on my phone.
• Wednesday night's session was our first return to the Abyss in, I don't know, over a month. There were too many people (by which I mean 7), so it was less cohesive and roleplay tended to happen in small groups, which is fine but not ideal.
• Thursday night's game was some quality roleplay followed by some average dungeon crawling. Nobody cried (specifically me) though, so we were ahead of the game.
• Thursday was also the last game I'll play in that store before them move, first game in the new store on Monday.

That's really about it for the week to be honest. Although I spent some time yesterday prepping for Mum's (belated) birthday DnD game, and then looked at the clock and realised it was 1am and I should really go to bed.

Today was/felt calmer than last time.

• As mentioned last week, I'm making tuna mornay this week, which should be good.
• We ended up buying a lot of stuff, and I don't completely no why, because I bought less stuff to make food throughout the week.
• Afterwards we came back here and I unpacked, then rearranged things for the game.
• Then I made veggie slice... which is really just a low rent frittata which looked awful before I put it in the oven but it came out relatively okay.
• I think I was less tense because a) everybody was making their own way here and b) we've done it once before and c) I wasn't trying to make food and start the game and do all the things with not enough table/loungeroom space.
• We would have gone massively over time if people hadn't needed to leave, I honestly wasn't keeping track of time and there was some jiggerypokery going on.

It's not a bad adventure to be honest, but I feel like it could definitely run overtime very easily as it's quite full of stuff. We'll see when I run it for other people in a couple of weeks.

And that's it really, bing bang bosh, done.

Current Mood:

photo saturday: brick back

Something of an atypical week this week...

But more on that later.

For reasons that are not really a surprise (because who doesn't love a potato), I generally do really well at soup that is primarily made of potato. This one was more of a chowder, two kinds of sausage, chicken, potato, leek and assorted vegetables... and I thickened it up with some flour, so it ended up that kind of thick and gloopy soup I love (and much like the style of tinned soup I was talking about the other week).

Monday's DnD game was pretty good... we had two drop-ins on my table, one of whom came in with his mum (he was probably 16-17) just to check things out and while he was at times a little over excitable, he seemed to have a good time which was the main thing.

Wednesday's games were not as advertised. The day game that was supposed to happen didn't. The DM was otherwise engaged, so we fended for ourselves. And I got to run for a small table (which I always prefer), using a module I really like. The evening game we didn't have the usual group (in theory everything might go back to the plan next week, but we also need to have a group conversation... fun), but we did have a ringer who has joined us before and who I really enjoy playing with. I also got to test out my dice tray, and it isn't bad at all. Mostly I just need to get used to actually rolling the dice IN the tray.

Thursday was... trying. We dipped back into the "home game" and it turned out to be a game that ticked off all the boxes on shit that I hate. Levels of madness, check. Being a different character due to story reasons, check. Psychological manipulation of characters when I'm not in the mood, check. Totally not the DMs fault, but I just wasn't in the mood given that particular style of game. It was still a well put together session, just not my style.

That was then followed by a one-on-one roleplay session with our usual Thursday DM that was both cathartic (the two characters in question did not get on when they met) and interesting.

But most of my week when I wasn't playing DnD was going back to my roots and editing, proofreading and otherwise shaping/commenting on three upcoming DnD modules. I was asked to do it by the person who is coordinating the creation of the modules, and given that once upon a time (actually a few times, not just once), that was essentially my day job, so of course I said yes. Turns out I can make my way through a four hour module in roughly the same amount of time it takes to play/run.

I'd forgotten how damn much I love editing, and making suggestions for improvement. And how deep I fall down the rabbit hole. And how exhausting it is once you're finished. But also how good it felt to do something useful and constructive.

I don't know yet how much of my feedback will make it through to the final modules, but it will be interesting to see.

And that really consumed all of my week this week.

Today wasn't much of anything really. We did the supermarket thing, I think I'm defaulting back to vegetable soup this week, but something chunkier than a couple of weeks back. The week after I'm thinking about making a big batch of tuna mornay.

But afterwards we suffered from the same affliction we've had the last few weeks... "not-giving-a-fuck-itis"... we didn't have anywhere we needed or wanted to go, there are no movies on currently worth leaving the house for and so there was a definite element of "poking ourselves in the eye" this morning.

We ended up just taking a drive down the road and wandering around Big W, to not much end, grabbing a sausage sizzle and then calling it a day.

At least we have a plan for next weekend.

Current Mood:

photo saturday: peli can

Back in the days when I went to Camera Club instead of DnD (clearly my next hobby needs to start with an E), my friend Stu and I had a theory... every major competition had to have at least one photo of a pelican. In one particular competition it was my photo of a pelican.

This is really just because I saw a display of Camera Club photos in the Myer Centre today. And, in fact, there was a photo of a pelican. Because it's just the rules.

The meatball soup worked out... okay, I mean it had meatballs (even if it was only three per serving), but I think I chopped all the vegetables up way too small, it just ends up taking way too long to eat (because that's not a first world problem).

DnD this week was... maybe it was weird. I think it was weird. It feels like it was weird. And yet when I describe it, it's not going to sound that weird.

Monday I had two new people on my table... both new to my table and new to DnD in general. But they were nice people, so I wouldn't be mad if they returned. And the module was fun and a little silly, and I ended up doing (bad) American accents for all of the NPCs, which was fun.

Wednesday we didn't play in the comic shop, because they're redoing that section of the store, so we ended up in the game store. And it ended up being only the one table, in a mostly empty game store. So it was pleasant.

Then we finally got our shit together and played on Wednesday night. I mean our DM is still away (probably, fucked if I know), and I offered to run a reasonable module, so it wasn't a bad evening.

Thursday was... okay Thursday was the weird game. It's always a weird game when at a certain point we decide that the module is stupid and broken, so we end up with some very intense roleplay. So intense that there were (in character) tears. And by in character I mean, I as a player cried, but the emotion was coming from my character.

But it was so stupid, because it happened because one of the other characters told me something that I as a player already knew, but my character didn't... and possibly because the other player said it in their character's voice, but it just hit me in the feels. Have I mentioned lately that this is a fucking weird game/hobby?

And said game kind of put me in a funk for most of Friday.

Friday was also Chiro Day, so I did that in the afternoon. Otherwise, a quiet week overall.

Today was both Ma's birthday weekend and also her Haircut Day... so I did my own thing for shopping, including coming back and tidying up the apartment.

As she's been slowly going through seemingly everything she owns after the move, she brought down some very, very, very old photos of me, almost all of which could most charitably referred to as fashion disasters. I mean what the fuck was the late 70's and early 80's obsessions with extremely short shorts?

So we wasted quite a bit of time on that to be honest. Plus she didn't get down to my place until just after 10am.

She wanted to spend some of her "birthday money" (actually I don't know why I put that in quotes, it was actual money La Cousina gave her for her birthday)... and go and buy a new frypan and a set of digital scales to replace the big ugly cumbersome scales I gave her because I never used them. Granted she doesn't use the scales either... which confuses me a little... but she thinks that if they're not as much of a pain, she might actually use them. We'll see.

I also wanted to look around and see if I could make myself a dice tray after seeing a video on YouTube... and one $5 box frame and a $1 piece of purple felt later (plus some glue and little felt stick on circles I already had), I have a very pretty if impractical for travel dice tray.

Then we stopped off and had a pleasant if unremarkable lunch, stopped off at the Haighs Factory and called it a day.

And for the record, my present to Ma this year is another DnD game with my friends, but not for a couple of weeks.

Current Mood:

photo saturday: stone women

Why is it always the cough that just hangs around and hangs around and hangs around when you've been sick? And why does it end up so limp and pathetic? It's not even like it's a real cough, you just end up going "aheh aheh".

Clearly I'm feeling better. Because I'm being sassy again.

The chicken soup I made this week possibly helped as well. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I make a pretty damn good chicken soup.

I also went to DnD games this week. It was good to get out of the house again to be honest.

That also included a game on Sunday at one of the Thursday player's house. The adventure was a bit shit (welcome to most of Season 8), but we had fun, like we usually do.

Monday's game was a playtest of an adventure being written by the very first (and second I think) DM I had. And it was pretty good. The party split itself up and one of the characters made a platform collapse, plus the writer (who sat and watched) ended up with five pages of notes, so I think we helped.

Wednesday was most of the same group who did the Barovia adventures (including the DM) taking on the newest book. And we (almost) all made very setting-appropriate characters, and then got our faces eaten by a series of giant animals. Which was great for me as a druid, since now I can turn into said giant animals.

Wednesday night didn't happen due to people not being around and/or also being sick.

Thursday we did something different... given that there were only four of our usual gang of five. We went completely off the reservation and did a "home game"... or at least a "non AL-legal" game. My main issue going in was that I was playing a character I wasn't overly invested in. And I still don't know if I'm invested in him, but at least now I can play with his concept a little. The adventure wasn't bad. Perhaps a tiny bit "look how clever I'm being" in spots, but overall a fun time.

We are back to the regularly scheduled adventures this week though. But we have a few gaps in the schedule, so we may go back to it.

Otherwise, not a lot going on this week.

Today was basically "go shopping, run errands".

What I'd really love to do is make my own version of the chunky beef canned soup I really enjoy. The problem is, I have no idea how they make it so that the beef is all falling apart and amazing. Because either I'd end up cooking if for 9 hours and it would turn into stew, or I'd just end up with boiled beef, and ain't nobody got time for that.

So instead I'm attempting to make beef soup with meatballs. We'll see how it turns out.

After the supermarket portion of the day (same old same old really), we headed into the city for the aforementioned errand running.

The Foodland just off the Mall finally opened, so we had a bit of a poke around. It's very much a city supermarket, but it's so cute... and given the way the store is laid out, I can see them making a ton of money from both the Department of Health in the building above and the student accommodation across the Mall.

Then we headed over to Lincraft so Ma could get some fabric and I could begin a slightly pointless quest for split pins. I mean I found them eventually, but I looked in four different places.

And that was it really.

Current Mood: