movies: soul

So... this has been a little while coming. And a movie that we would have gone to see at Christmas, if Disney had bothered to release it to cinemas.

This is going to be one of those reviews where I kind of need to talk specifics about the movie. It's about to get semi, slightly, possibly quite a bit spoilery up in here. 

As a quick side note, I will say that I was very, very pleased that I managed to go into this movie without knowing anything of substance. I knew it was about jazz, I knew it was about a piano player. I knew there were "little cloud people". And that was that. I didn't even know who was voicing the lead characters.

Soul is... 75% of an interesting idea followed 75% of the way to a satisfying conclusion.

Let me say this also... I didn't cry. I cried in Coco and Toy Story 4. In fact I barely really got all that choked up. Which doesn't really surprise me, given that this is a Pete Docter movie. And I feel very much about this movie the same way that I felt about Inside Out.

You took a very broad and vast concept and you tried your best to define it, but you just didn't get it over the finish line for me. And left me somewhat emotionally distanced from the whole idea by the end. But slightly worse than Inside Out, the concept behind soul is... muddled.

I get what it's about, don't get me wrong, but for me at least, it went in too many directions and you didn't give me enough clarity to the point of your movie.

It's also one of the most curiously structured movies. We start out in the human world with our main character, Joe, and we're there what feels like a long time before we even get where the movie really needs to be to start the main story. And yes, some of the lead up makes sense in order to get to where we need to go structurally later, but I feel like there must have been a better way to get there.

Then just about the time I started thinking "So, is this is then, is this what we're doing for the rest of the movie, this seems weird", we switch back to the human world into what feels like a very well worn trope. In fact, I literally said right before it happened, "I bet you $50 that X and Y", sure enough 11 seconds later I would have been $50 richer if we'd been betting real actual money and it wasn't super predictable and obvious. So, now the movie starts... again. Which is fine, but the tone takes a turn every time we relocate.

And, honestly, if I stop and think about it, this part of this movie maps almost one to one onto Inside Out. Oh, we're two opposite personality types who want two different things and one of us is super uptight about it and now we're here when we need to be there, so we definitely have to find a way to get from here to there before the arbitrary deadline happens. And we learn things along the way.

Although honestly that's kind of the plot of Toy Story, Cars, The Good Dinosaur, Brave, Up, Onward and Monsters Inc. Huh... so it's a feature not a bug? Or that's just your basic buddy movie formula. Let's just say it's the latter, shall we.

Making Joe a jazz musician is all well and good... but, I honestly didn't care. I don't particularly like the style of jazz they were leaning into in the movie, it all sounds like a bunch of people working real hard at not making a decent sounding song to me. So, making that his emotional centre just didn't resonate. Also, as a person, he seems to have almost NO emotional connections.

But... you then go make him a teacher (which, honestly, doesn't factor into the movie AT ALL in any meaningful way... seriously, if you make him a... librarian giving music lessons on the side, it changes NO significant part of that movie), with a former student who is now a musician and who literally has the line "if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't even be where I am right now" and a current student who comes to him to essentially talk her out of giving up on music. And you DON'T make that the emotional heart in your movie beyond a couple of montage images at the end?

You have a character ask "why didn't you ever tell me about your life before?" and the answer be "because you never asked" and not find a way to make that more emotionally resonant. Especially given that you decide that the point of your movie is that even a "mundane and boring" life is something to be lived and experienced and savoured. I get that that's the point... I just can't get behind it.

Plus you have part of the overall conflict be between him having a day job OR a job that happens at night and on weekends. Sorry, what? And yes, I get it... in theory, and possibly in a throwaway line very early in the movie, the night job might result in "going on tour", but it never feels really like that much of an OR question. The choice is muddy which sets us up with stakes that don't feel like they matter. If he was doing something that was not connected to music in ANY way... then yes, I get it. But not this.

Like I said at the start... it's NEARLY there. It's 75% of an interesting idea. But they don't even take that 75% of an idea 100% of the way. Even that I could have gotten behind.

This was just... obtuse. In the "not clear or precise in thought or expression" sense of the word. It wasn't even that it was a "tell don't show" movie. There were times were it was kind of neither. It was instead going around telling me that it had already told me things by the end, but, honestly, I didn't feel it.

And really, the 75% idea is banging around in my brain because it's the ending where the movie absolutely falls flat on it's face. There were too many loops and hoops and i's and t's and ideas floating in the ether that don't get utilised. Too much busywork to get us to where the movie thinks that we need to be.

You set up the concept that people who really get into things they love leak over into this other reality... The Zone... and you have one of your two main characters in the real world and the other in The Zone at the end of the movie. And this ISN'T where you let Joe see the results of his decisions and choices? Instead you do that later in a completely DIFFERENT scene that is essentially repeating the same thing that we just did... but this time with a load of pocket junk?

And the thing that Joe, the person we've been theoretically rooting for this whole time, to get the thing he's been wanting, GETS the thing... and then... doesn't want it any more? Isn't feeling it? Nah, Joe, not good for you, huh buddy? No? Water is actually wet you say? What the fuck? I also realise that that is the whole point of your movie. That wanting a thing doesn't define your life, and learning to appreciate everything that makes up your life is important.

It just doesn't make for a satisfying movie conclusion. What it does make is a muddled message that spends most of the movie going zig and then goes zag in a very unfulfilling way at the last moment.

And honestly, having a character say that they could "die happy" if they got to do a thing, do that thing and then basically elect to die doesn't really make me feel good about life. And then have even that choice not mean anything because this is a Pixar movie and deus ex machina exists.

There are several things I can think of that may have fixed parts of it... but I feel like we come back to the "75% of an idea taken 75% of the way there" concept again. Or maybe it's that the idea they're trying to cram into 100 minutes is just too damn large, and the most they could actually wrangle into a movie was 75%.

I don't know.

Then we have the Sadness to Joe's Joy, the Mike to his Sully, the Queen to his Merida... 22. They kinda did 22 dirty all through this movie. Her arc feels like a lot of loosely connected dot points. I mean, yes, if you connect them up, you can indeed make a picture of a pizza slice, but it's a weird three dimensional slice that only really works if you look at it from a specific angle.

That analogy may have gotten away from me.

There are three radically different 22's in this movie. We first meet a moody cynic, which kinda works while we're in the "other place", but then stops making sense once we get back to the real world. So 22 becomes something completely different in fairly short order, suddenly she's excited about stuff and curious and joyful. Yes, the movie does dot it's i's and such to get her from here to there, but feels like a long walk. And then once we're back in the "other place" she becomes something totally different... damaged, emotional, wounded... with seemingly completely different motivations.

I'll be honest though, I didn't really like 22 that much. With the possible exception of the scenes between the barber shop and the artificially created movie conflict scene. Those bits I liked. The fun version of 22.

Damn... this movie is a big woollen lump, and any time I start to pull at any of the threads, the whole thing feels like it's going to fall apart. Or 75% of it, anyway.

Moving on to things that did work for me. The Other Place... not what it's called in the movie, but whatever. It's very pretty... and weirdly reminded me of the original Fantasia in a lot of ways. It's a vibe. I think it's the fact that the whole design aesthetic has a very 1950's/cubist feel... most notably the Jerrys and Terry, and their line art aesthetic, which I really, really loved.

The music by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor is very lovely. That sounds like faint praise... and in a way it kind of is, because, honestly, I don't notice the majority of non-diegetic music in any movie. Especially score music.

I also want to give them kudos for putting a lot of non-white voices (and animated faces, obviously) in the movie. Weirdly, the fact that I kept noticing it kind of kept pulling me out of the movie a little, as did the fact I kept recognising some of the side character voices. Speaking of which, shout out to Phylicia Rashad, because she's amazing, always and forever.

Just to circle back... I didn't hate it. Not at all. But it's a Disney Pixar movie, and I hold those to a very, very high standard. Higher even than just a regular Disney movie.

And this one just didn't get there for me.. so, given the repeated reference to 75%, I'm doing something a little different this time and scoring it at 75%...

yani's rating: 3.75 pizza slices out of 5

photo saturday: book smarts

Something slightly different for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book. A new adventure book came out this week, Candlekeep Mysteries, all set in and around the largest library in Faerun... a library that is basically a whole city/castle/keep. Hence the name.

Which of course got me thinking about the type of character I'd play in those adventures. Really dig into the theme. And these are really only character sketches, I'm not completely sure even what classes I'd pick. Maybe the Order of Scribes Wizard, possibly a Mastermind or Inquisitive Rogue, could be a Knowledge Cleric... and if I wanted to punish myself somewhat, maybe a Lore or Eloquence Bard... I gotta say, I just don't feel bards. For me. For other people, go your hardest, but, yeah (and I realise, it's the spells... I don't love the bard's spell list). But any of those would fit.

All I do know is that they're a halfling Sage author and a high (moon) elf Cloistered Sage librarian respectively. I don't even really have names for them yet... potentially something like Harland or Vadim for him... maybe Istima or Parmandur for her.

I do know that he's a writer of particularly badly written but highly popular purple prose "romance" novels, which could be very fun to play with. Possibly they're written under a pen name... say, a purple tiefling woman called Euphoria or Allure or Bliss... or if I want to lean into the stupidity, Chastity, Honour or Prudence. Or Eminence maybe. Prudence Phlox perhaps. I do like a nice bit of alliteration. Or his real name is alliterative but the pen name isn't. Euphoria Phlox does kind of speak to me. Not sure.

I also really just like the idea of him being well known in his own right. Maybe the tiefling is the main character of all his books, and people keep thinking she's actually a real person and assume she writes the books. Like I said, it's just a sketch right now, a work in progress. One that might never come to anything.

The librarian I have less of a handle on. And honestly, I made her first and then kind of wandered away from the idea and off towards the halfling. As I'm generally want to do. I do feel she's more likely the wizard or the cleric (probably the cleric, honestly, I prefer them over wizards) and he's more likely the bard or the rogue. And, honestly, him as an Eloquence Bard would kind of be amazing given that they literally have an ability that "unsettles a creature and causes it to doubt itself"... and bad fiction will do that to you.

The fact that they're mostly brown and red in their colour schemes is slightly accidental. Possibly loosely inspired by the fact that the alternative cover for the book is dark red.

But that's a little peak into how I think about putting characters together. Or at least names and ideas.

Moving on.

I made soup.

Soup season is back baby. Even if the weather at the start of the week wasn't as conducive to soup as it became by the end of the week. And it wasn't bad for a starting off point. Kind of a amalgamation of vegetable and minestrone and chicken. Basically it was vegetable soup with tomato and chicken. And a nice dose of chilli. Tasty though.

Wednesday's DnD game was... oh it was a shit show. A decision was made to move to a different venue. Which, theoretically, fine. However nobody bothered to ask if I was okay with it, and the party was just... I dunno... distracted by shiny things. I couldn't tell ya.

But it was somewhat hard to get them focussed. Which is always a pain in the ass.

No thank you ma'am.

Thursday, I went out to pick up Soul on DVD with some of my birthday money, which was a perfectly okay trip. More on the movie later.

Friday night's DnD game was much better. Even if I did slightly overcook the bread by maybe 10 minutes. So not a disaster, but definitely the first time I've done that. I also forgot to take a photograph of it... so there will be no evidence. That's not why I forgot, a consequence, not a cause.

I also lost my proverbial mind when Mr lost the concept of grammar halfway through a sentence. He wanted to say "What does he look like", but part way through it coming out of his mouth decided to go for a gender neutral "they" and it came out "What does they look like". And for reasons I can't adequately explain I found that hilarious and lost my mind for a short period of time.

Also, Fluffy, our DM, really wants to skip things forward in time, but hasn't worked out that that's not going to happen if he doesn't stop giving us story hooks related to things we care about that kinda need to happen right away or that we want to investigate or get into immediately.

He'll get there. Or he won't and we'll basically end up finishing the adventure only having known each other for a month. Which is fine, because this is really only a palette cleanser before the more long and involved adventure he's going to be running.

Today wasn't much... kinda.

We did the supermarket thing, came back here, and then the plan, which has been a plan for... a little while, was to watch Soul, which we did. And that was it really. If I'm honest, we kinda probably should have done this NEXT weekend, given that it's Easter Saturday, and who knows that the fuck we'll want to do then. I'm guessing a big fat bowl of nothing honestly.

Anyway... that was that.

Current mood:

movies: raya and the last dragon

It has been 1 year, 2 months, 21 days (or 449 days) since the last time I set foot in a movie theatre.

And while it feels like no time has passed, it also feels like it's been forever.

Which is just to give some general context to my experience with Raya and the Last Dragon.

As is my way of approaching movies for the last few years, I went into this knowing nothing. Not having seen any trailers, not reading anything. Nothing. No, that's a lie. I saw two seconds of trailer footage that was about an inch tall, when I hovered over a YouTube video thumbnail that didn't seem to be about this movie at all. Oh, and I saw at least one of the posters. But that was it. I'm not even sure that I'd seen the full dragon design.

So I didn't really have any expectations beyond the general Disneyness of it all. And knowing that it I was fairly certain that it would have both Raya and the last dragon.

And... I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Oh, it was gorgeous. The world, the lighting, the hair and clothing textures, the water effects. Everything. There were moments I was legitimately unsure whether some of the establishing landscape shots were either partially a model or real actual landscape photography. That's how good we're talking. Unable to tell CGI from reality good.

And the clothing... especially on one of the characters, where you could see the weave on the cloth of her outfit, and I just knew how that it would feel if I touched it.

But that's my general refrain at every new Disney or Pixar movie. The technology has always come along in great leaps and bounds and, as is expected, totally blew my hair back.

I also really loved the ideas and design that went into the world. It was very much based around South East Asia... Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, which I absolutely wasn't expecting. And it made for an interesting "Asian dragon story" without being China or Japan. I have no doubt that somewhere, someone who watched this movie is already writing up a RPG version of the world. Because it's absolutely perfect for that. There's very much an "Avatar The Last Airbender" vibe to the world of Raya. And I dug it.

And I also dug Raya, a flawed hero at times, but one who can definitely kick your ass all day long.

I will also say that the resolution of the movie didn't go the way I expected it to. It took a turn, but one that I appreciate, and one that made sense within the world of the movie.

But... and there sadly is a but... I don't quite know what the problem with it was and why it didn't completely grab me. I cried more at the wonderful, wonderful short, Us Again, which was AMAZING, than I did at Raya.

It may have been the pure Disney of it all. The sugar coating, the urge to dip into the wacky bucket. As opposed to the same kind of story from Pixar. Which would have had me bawling my eyes out, I'm sure.

It maybe have been that there were four directors (well, two directors and two others listed as "co-directors", whatever that means), or the fact that it had two screenplay writers and eight "story by" writers (two of whom were the same as the screenplay writers).

Especially when you compare it to something like Onward which has one director who was also one of three writers who all had a "story by" credit.

This just... had too much going on.

And I didn't like the dragon, or at least not in the way I wanted to. I'm sorry, I just didn't. The design was fine... and yes, she had her moments, and there were times I didn't mind her. But overall... I wasn't feeling it. And while I kept thinking that I recognised Awkwafina's voice, I don't know how I could have, only having ever seen her in Ocean's Eight. It's more that they were trying too hard to go for a Genie from Aladdin vibe I think. It wasn't quite that obvious, but I feel like Awkwafina did some improvising and they left it in. If it wasn't that, they the dragon was, in parts, not the most well written.

There were also "wacky characters for the sake of being wacky" as I mentioned, but which don't make any logical sense if you think about it for more than about eight seconds.

The world was going for a Last Airbender "weird animal" vibe but only a little bit (I can only think of... four animals in total, two of which are on this version of the poster)... it was like they said "well, we have these animals in the story already, we should put some animals in the world" and then added one. And it was set in a world that is like part of our world, but not... with people who are divided very neatly into different tribes who all live in geographically different parts of the land.

There were also story threads that felt like they should have gone... somewhere... but didn't. And a flashback introduction that I felt just went on entirely too long. I mean, I got the point of it (oh, and take a drink for another absent Disney Mother), fairly quickly, it just seemed to take too long to get to the place that seemed like the foregone conclusion.

And I also disliked that there aren't really repercussions to the actions of certain characters. Well, a certain character. Not having the movie calling that out, in the context of the movie, stuck out to me like a sore thumb. And yes, that wasn't the theme or moral of the movie, but still... it stood out to me.

I did appreciate that they clearly (like in Moana before it) had a group of experts they went to about the region they were basing their world on... it had a specific name in the credits, "story and cultural consultants" I think, and there were a number of names listed, which is always good.

The other thing that stood out to me about the credits was a message which read:

The making of this movie from over 400 individual homes was completely unprecedented, and relied entirely on the talent, ingenuity, and dedication of everyone at Walt Disney Animation Studios. The filmmakers would like to thank them for their tireless hard work, good humor, and most of all patience... with our inability to properly use the internet. (Dude, you're still on mute.)

Which makes perfect sense when you think about it, but was something I hadn't even considered. The fact that they made this, essentially, from home. I mean, I'm sure that a lot of the storyboarding and maybe a first animatic, maybe the temp voices, has been done by March last year, but just the fact that they, potentially, took their work computers home and worked on this remotely for almost a year is kind of mind blowing.

yani's rating: 3 crystal shards out of 5

photo saturday: fighter boys

Fighter boys... 

Macabe is one of those characters that have been in my head since before I ever played. Way back in 3e. But because 5e is a whole different beastie, I was never quite inspired to make him until the Arcane Archer subclass came out in Xanathar's. The problem is that the subclass is kind of... m'eh. So, as a character and as a design I really like him (including faking flower tattoos on both of his arms, which, on the model, are actually sleeves), the build is less fun.

Then Dembe (or Dembe Himayat Chiamaka Khamari, to give him his full name... and no, I can't really pronounce it without stumbling either) was made with a specific group of characters in mind, and then we played once more and then abandoned that storyline. Shit happens. But he's also an experiment in subclasses I wouldn't normally use. And I really don't play him all that much. But he has a somewhat interesting backstory which I quite like.

Moving on...

I treated myself a little this week... I made crepes for dinner on Monday, since I totally forgot to on Shrove Tuesday. Then Tuesday I made sausage rolls. Which lasted until Thursday.

So there was that.

Wednesday's DnD game was... okay... the second half of the module from last week was better in a lot of ways from the first half. But still underwritten and a little lacking. We got through it though.

Friday's game was a little delayed by small child, but overall pretty good. Fluffy, our DM, wanted, I think, to hustle us through an in-game week... but there were too many things going on that we all wanted to dive into, so while we technically got there, most of the session was really the first three days.

But better it taking too long than going too quickly.

Today was... odd.

We did the supermarket thing... same old same old. But I bought stuff to make soup, because, clearly, we're at that point of the year again.

And after we'd faffed around here a bit, we went to the movies. Yeah. Honestly that just felt weird. More on that later though.

But that was it really... went to the movies, Ma dropped me back here, we called it a day. Odd.

Current mood:

photo saturday: lines

Those of you who are a) still reading this shit after all these years, b) even slightly observant or c) both, maybe have noticed that it's Fringe season and I haven't mentioned Fringe at all.

There are a number of reasons for this, a lot of which is financial, and hence clearly none of your damn business, however I just didn't feel comfortable going to confined spaces with random people. I mean, yes, Fringe was doing all their due diligence, making things as safe as possible, but... I'm just not feeling it this year.

So, yeah. There's that.

But that also means that given that this is "my birthday week", culminating tomorrow... and I'm not really feeling that either. Usually though, we schedule something Fringe related specifically on or for my birthday. And with that off the table, I honestly am not feeling my birthday this year.

I'll come back to that later though.

Wednesday DnD was... a lot. We started a new adventure, I'd prepped it fine, it was a little too short and there were parts of it I wasn't feeling. But it seemed like it would okay.

And the session started well, where I introduced the scenario and the players just ended up roleplaying amongst themselves for a good ten minutes and it was everything and I loved it. Eventually we kicked off the adventure and... there are those moments when things just start to slide into inappropriate wackiness and there's nothing you can do to stop them. Which derailed us for a little bit. Well, mostly them, I was ready to move on. And also, I have not ever met a chase scene in a DnD adventure that actually works. Chase mechanics, as written for the game, just do not work. They make no sense.

It is worse when you set up a whole chase scene and then the first player to take their action ends the chase on their turn. So, what should have taken maybe five minutes took all of 30 seconds. Grrr.

Anyway, it wasn't the worst. But I still have to run the other half of it next week, but hopefully that will be less of a problem.

Friday was, first off, my chiro appointment. So I toddled off into town for that.

Then Friday night DnD was actually really good. We partially solved a mystery, investigated another one, did a lot of roleplay and had a fun time. And, I have to say, some quick thinking/adaptability on the part of our DM. Oh, and also, like last year, there was passionfruit cheesecake, which was very good.

Today was... not much of anything really. Ma was getting her hair did this morning, so I was on my own for shopping. And I may have been in a little bit of a daze this morning, so I don't really know what I bought.

For whatever reason, Ma didn't get down to my place until late, relatively speaking... 10:30, almost 11 maybe. And we'd kind of thought about going to the movies as a birthday thing, but, yeah, with that as the backdrop, we kind of gave up on it for this week. With the intention of doing it next week. Probably.

So instead we just went to Spotlight because Ma had an errand she wanted to run. And we did that, and then called it a day.

Like I said... I don't really give a shit about my birthday this year. I mean it's going to happen, the birthday that is, but I honestly don't give a shit about making a fuss about it this year.

So yeah, like I said, there's that.

Current mood:

photo saturday: pride cleric

I've talked about my favourite dumpster fire, Demyan, before. He was an NPC that got stuck in my head during a game I was running, and wouldn't go away. A human noble cleric to a goddess of pain, agony, torment and suffering. But he morphed into something completely different from what I thought he was going to be when I played him at a table of seven other people, at least half of which I wasn't that thrilled about being at the table with.

So Deyman the Contemptuous was born. Of the Seven Deadly Sins, he's pure Pride... with the occasional bit of Wrath mixed in. And I'm not going to lie, when I'm at my worst, there's a non-zero amount of Demyan in my personality.

Maybe that's why I love him so much. I mean, yes, playing him was a blast, especially in that very first game where he just came together. And there are some characters who just take up space in your brain and you need to fill out their world. Belben was one of those. And Demyan was absolutely another.

I know his family tree all the way back to the founding of the city of Mulmaster. I know the entire roster of clergy of his original church in Mulmaster as well as the one in his new home of Waterdeep. And I'm eternally grateful to the DM I had for all of his adventuring career, since she asked the four regular players to keep an in-character diary... or at least write a little bit about each game and send it to her. And in the grand tradition of the Harry Potter movie cast, I totally Hermioned that shit, and I think I'm the only one that did it consistently. Or possibly at all after the first few games.

But now I have a whole record of what I was thinking, or rather, what Demyan was thinking, for each of those games.

He's also the only cleric I've played for any extended length of time, so I had a progression/promotion track worked out for him in his temple. Which came with a new title and a new set of vestments in a new colour. Sadly, the transition from Paingiver in black to Whipmaster in red came right at the point where we stopped playing, so I never got to introduce him in game with the new look. There's also a third variation, Branded, where the outfit is white. But again, I'm not sure if he'll ever evolve into his final form.

Weirdly, because we're back in the same city with our Friday night game, and Fluffy is our DM for that, and Demyan and one of Fluffy's characters had a really intense bond (yeah, that's it's entirely own three part blog post), we were talking about it the other night when I drove him home. As we do from time to time. And so, lurking in the back of my head is either a fourth evolution or a different version of his final form. Still the white outfit, but with Exquisitor... not from any of the original lore like the others, but that idea that he becomes the... right arm... of his goddess, travelling across the land and ensuring that the temples abide by her teachings.

See, what did I say... some characters just wrap their tendrils in your brain and never let go.

Anyway... that will maybe make up for the fact that the rest of my week was... basic.

Oh, brief sidebar. Over the last week and a bit, I've watched amazing series Romulus, based on the founding of Rome. But, before all that. Even before the Romulus (and Remus) of the title. The cast is amazing... they're speaking Latin rather than English or Italian... it's very much in the Vikings mould. A little Game of Thrones-ey... but, you know, the early seasons before I stopped caring/watching.

Definitely something that I'd recommend though.

So, otherwise... Wednesday's DnD game actually went quicker than I thought it was going to. I had planned in the back of my head that this game would probably take another week. So colour me surprised when they decided to push on and finish.

At least we're starting a new module cleanly next week, rather than finishing one and starting one. So there's that.

Friday's game was good... we mostly dug into the roleplay side of things. Got to know the neighbours, did a few odd jobs, started on our house renovations. Yeah, I'm still talking about a game of DnD.

And then today we went to the supermarket. And that was it.

Current mood: