Recent viewing

"Department Q - The Absent One" (2014): Second in cracking Danish cold-case series.*

"Department Q - A Conspiracy Of Faith" (2016): Philosophical third instalment features truly fiendish crimes.*

"Finding Michael" (2023): Classily constructed, moving, geographically stunning recovery mission.

"Sea Of Thieves - Voyage Of A Lifetime" (2023): Game's fifth anniversary prompts fairly good retrospective.

"Skandal! Bringing Down Wirecard" (2022): German financial megafraud (mostly) untangled. Astounds. Grips.

"The Humans" (2021): Play adaptation. Talky, thoughtful, DEVASTATING everyday drama.

"The Matrix Resurrections" (2021): Overdue viewing. Elaborate nonsense. Hour too long.

*I caught Part 1, "The Keeper Of Lost Causes", at a film festival way back when it was new. Only just discovered these others existed.

[Seen on Kanopy x2, Disney+, legitimately free on YouTube, Netflix, Kanopy, Netflix.]

Recent viewing

"Ants On A Shrimp - Noma In Tokyo" (2016): World's best restaurant takes visionary working holiday.

"Black Crab" (2022): Swedes skate into future warzone, moral dilemmas.

"Boston Strangler" (2023): Topnotch acting. Female perspective. Courageous reporters. Questions!

"Double World" (2020): Wuxia trope-fest. Battlefield, arena and internal heroics.

"Drifting Home" (2022): Painful fairytale. Losses leave adolescents "at sea".

"Na\/alny" (2022): As shocking as it is relevant. Unmissable.

[Seen on Kanopy, Netflix, Disney+, Netflix x2, Kanopy.]

K-pod

My fascination with South Korean history and culture has amped up recently, which led me to search for podcasts on the topic. The "Korea 24" news pod has become regular weeknight listening. I'm gradually moving through the "Korea Deconstructed" back catalogue. Gradually because host David Tizzard's in-depth interviews tend to be quite long (sometimes three hours). Frankly, it's the most intellectually stimulating conversation I've encountered in an age. "NK News" is a weekly update on what's known/suspected to be happening in the mysterious north.

BDOs

BDO stands for Big Day Out, a defunct Aussie music festival. Never made it to one of those. Homebakes and Hemispheres-es. Never a BDO.

BDO also stands for Big Dumb Object, a science-fiction term for titanic plot devices like world ships. Does the Death Star from "Star Wars" count? I'd say so.

BDO also also stands for Business Development Opportunity. I'm familiar with that usage because one of the firms for whom I work has BDMs (Business Development Managers).

BDO also also also stands for internationally popular Korean MMORPG "Black Desert Online". Not that I've played it. Ignored plenty of ads for the thing, though.

Let's create a new BDO acronym for life in 2023. How about Bio-Digital Organism? No? OK, I'll keep brainstorming while I eat this banana and duck omelette.

Recent viewing

"Aimer - Aria Strings" (2018): Japanese popster goes orchestral. Wonderfully uplifting concert.

"Nope" (2022): Dazzlingly original, metatextual, Americana-steeped freaky scifi.

"Sayen" (2023): Native culture-rich revenge actioner from Chile. OR: "Prey" except the Predator's a mining company.

"The Takeover" (2022): Dutch hacker conspiracy exaggerates but never bores.

"The Trip To Greece" (2020): Comic gastronomic odyssey's finale leaves complex aftertaste.

"Unlocked" (2023): Polished, predictable, overlong psycho-hacks-phone nightmare.

[Seen on Crunchyroll, Netflix, Prime, Netflix, Kanopy, Netflix.]

Recent viewing

"A Fantastic Woman" (2017): Trans woman's happy life crumbles. Fearlessly acted.

"Call Me Chihiro" (2023): Difficult to summarise fairly, but beautifully bittersweet. OR: Real-er, ambiguous "Amelie"; heroine a former prostitute.

"Clerks III" (2022): Old habits die hard, moderately entertain.

"Men" (2022): Unsettling, shocking, mindbending. Arthouse #metoo folk horror.

"Peggy Guggenheim - Art Addict" (2015): Black sheep, blue times, amassing artistic gold.

[Seen on ABC iview, Netflix x2, Prime, Kanopy.]

Panic on the streets of Newcastle

The new episode of my all-time No. 1 podcast, "The Grognard Files", is about the so-called Satanic Panic of the 1980s, when religious nutters tried to ban "Dungeons & Dragons" and other RPGs, and blamed them for various tragedies involving mixed-up teenagers.

Thankfully, my parents never cared that I role-played, nor did I cop any grief at school. In junior high, a teacher kindly loaned me a "D&D" module belonging to his son. In senior high, in the weekly P.E. slot, one ran a group of us through an adventure written by her hubby.

I *was* advised against the hobby by my parish priest, but I believe that was just a vague warning to all of us altar boys. By contrast, my guitar teacher freaked out when he saw a "D&D" book I'd left lying around, urging me to stay away from that dangerous game. I'm sure he meant well.