July is birthday month for Tom, and boy what a month it’s been. I put on a wetsuit for the first time. Started a new job. Have been really focused on taking care of myself, trying to untie the knots of a thousand bad habits. I finally gave in and got a PS5, and I’m enjoying the very much just ok Final Fantasy XVI in small chunks but mostly using this offensively expensive machine to watch Spanish recipe videos on youtube.
Beyond that I’ve engaged with all manner of mediums for an absolute bumper crop of hot takes and cool offerings. Some omissions in here based on having already written about them. I don’t ever want to think about Tears of the Kingdom again, but if you do, the latest Static Canvas video has you covered.
With enough being said, let’s get started.
GAMES
The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales
A compelling if slightly janky series of inventive literary scenarios built around a somewhat nonsense premise this is a point and click adventure with a keen narrative hook that doesn't outstay its welcome. The writing is a little basic, but it keeps coming up with creative ways to keep you engaged with the story throughout. Much as I feel it could have done better, I was never bored playing it, and I’d be up for whatever that team ends up doing next.
Rumu
Hard to place this one, especially since I'm annoyed at how easy it was to accidently delete my save and start a new game from the pause menu. Game itself is another point and click-esque thing with an interesting premise, some Stanley Parable-esque leanings that many of you would appreciate i’m sure. I need to return to it at some point and figure out how I really feel about it. That pause menu thing properly pissed me off though. How did that slip past playtesting?
Assemble With Care
I'm going to be honest, I have nothing to say about this one. I liked it. There's something immediately satisfying about opening up trinkets to replace broken parts and put them back together again. The tactility of such things makes for some great post-work catharsis, and each of the ‘things’ has it’s own puzzle-like elements to deal with. I didn't think it really needed a story, but what was there was fairly inoffensive. A nice way to spend a couple of hours, if they ever did a sequel I would play that too.
Pendragon
Playing an Inkle game is an invitation to a compelling storytelling mechanism with some light capital G gaming in between, and Pendragon is no different. Designed to be played dozens of times, I can’t really give it a proper verdict as I've only reached *a* conclusion once so far, but I really enjoyed this tactical take on Arthurian legend and look forward to playing more of it soon.
Maquette
A technical marvel that sadly doesn’t back up it’s central idea with particularly interesting puzzles and builds everything around a bit of a milquetoast story of love and loss. I didn’t hate it, but I feel like if you exist in the wake of titles like Superliminal and Manifold Garden, you really need to step your game up, and this one didn’t. Also had a very buggy experience with the game, having to restart whole chapters on more than one occasion. Feel bad for focussing on the negative, it’s a nice looking game and has a lot of heart, it just didn’t quite catch me the way I needed it to.
Venba
What did catch me the way I needed it to was this charming narrative adventure following the lives of a Tamil migrant family in Canada and their trials and tribulations as they find themselves increasingly alienated from their cultural roots. It’s honestly perfect, akin to the wonderful Wide Ocean Big Jacket in both scope and the quality of the writing, backed up with some great animation and a lot of *really* delicious looking food. The best couple of hours you will spend all year.
FILMS
The Lobster
Yorgos Lanthimos’ weird autistic artistry is something I was surprised at how much I gelled with, having previously watched and loved the excellent Killing of a Sacred Deer. He has a way of seeing the world that is so rarely presented in contemporary mainstream cinema, so very literal in many ways but no less empathetic. Weird premise aside, The Lobster is very much a film about what it feels like to always be under the thumb of other people’s expectations. You can’t be too emotional, because that makes society fear you, but hide your true feelings away and they won’t trust you. Normality is such a fragile thin line that unless you exist as a masterful archetype of humanity, you have little hope of seeking happiness. The film is also very funny, which helps to cut through the bleakness of its story. A+. A great time.
Shin Kamen Rider
I have little to no experience with Kamen Rider or Tokusatsu in general, beyond watching the weird and lame american adaptation Masked Rider as a child. I gave Shin Kamen Rider a go because I like Hideaki Anno’s work, and I enjoyed his previous film Shin Godzilla. What I got was a peculiar reimagining of a classic TV series, where a lot of the context was lost on me, but I nonetheless had a great time watching. There’s something really crisp and clean about Anno’s use of CG in his live action work, which after years of enduring muddy, incomprehensible guff from the most overworked and underpaid animators in the world for western popcorn slop, felt like a breath of fresh air. I also ended up seeing a LOT of Shin Kamen Rider memes on twitter immediately after, so I was able to join in on the merriment in that sense too, and that was fun.
Nope
I’m in two minds about Jordan Peele. I think his body of work is amicable and often brilliant but I also feel like people should really calm down with how they’re talking about him. Get Out was good, Us was choppy but compelling, Nope is…well, Nope is the one that does actually live up to the hype. A really interesting take on alien abductions that ties in its themes of man vs nature and the way the entertainment industry exploits both man and beast with a great cast of compelling characters. The brother-sister duo of Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer is an undeniable pleasure, but I also got a kick out of seeing Brandon Perera again. I miss The OA dearly.
They Cloned Tyrone
A great bit of daft social sci fi in the vein of Sorry to Bother You and Get Out. Societal ills and mad scientists meet violently in an outrageous plot about cloned drug dealers and mind controlling fried chicken, held together perfectly by the dynamism of its central trio of John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris. Would not be surprised if this ended up being one of the best films of the year. A raucous time.
Solaris
Can you imagine the emotional whiplash of finishing that previous film and immediatley firing into this one. A slow, slow, slow burn of a psychological horror that has that impeccable Tarkovsky thing of stretching out a pathetically small budget with some very cleverly placed sets and an adventure of ideas not actions. I need to watch more of his body of work, but while he’s clearly a master filmmaker, and this tale the progenitor of basically all the good cerebral sci fi that came after it, i have to admit I did find large stretches of the film excrutiatingly boring, and ended up finishing it on 1.25x speed. Looking forward to being killed by film bros any minute now.
MUSIC
Citizen Sleeper - Amos Roddy
After returning to the game to finish the dlc episodes I found myself once again enamoured with Roddy's brilliant score, a collection of moody, ambient sci Fi soundscapes that implicitly compliment the themes of this wonderful game. It’s a very sensual soundtrack, you feel these bubbles of warmth pitted lonely against the vast coldness of space. I love it.
I Inside the Old World Dying - PJ Harvey
Let England Shake is one of my favourite PJ Harvey albums, a wounded, echoing collection of fake civil war anthems that was so damn atmospheric. After finding The Hope Six Demolition Project a little disappointing, I Inside the Old World Dying being essentially LES2 pleases me greatly. The impact is lessened this time, even though the songs themselves are brilliant, but I hope whatever comes next diverts to something wholly different.
The record - Boygenius
I wanted to know what all the fuss is about this girl band supergroup, and the fuss is… a good album full of cool songs. It's Haim for lesbians. Punky, soulful, often thought provoking. I'm not a huge fan of Phoebe Bridgers so the tunes that are definitely the ones she wrote don't really gel with me as much but I can't really fault the album as a whole.
PHD (Portable Headphone Dancefloor) - 2 Mello
2 Mello just really has a knack for producing hip hop beats that make you want to beat your chest. An immeasurable talent, but I’ve always really liked his music more than his vocals, finding some of his rapping to be a bit too nerdcore for my tastes. PHD luckily is way more instrumental than his last album so it’s remained in my daily Spotify rotation since it came out. A great album.
BOOKS
Not so much in here, I’m still reading Stanley Tucci’s Taste, and working through BLAME! for a project that will be coming out eventually. Other than that I’ve been getting into the following:
Hunter x Hunter Greed Island arc
Greed Island is such a bizarre concept and the way it's used to facilitate incredible drama in this arc of the classic Shonen manga works so well. Not one to rely just on a good idea, the journey and conclusion of this weird collectathon has its own heroes and villains, and expands the lore of this world in interesting ways. What's more it's followed up by an immediate tonal change into the most fucked up part of the story I've read yet, so look forward to an update on that at some point in the future.
The Diabetes Weight Loss Cookbook - Kate and Giancarlo Caldesi
It's a complicated relationship I have with my weight and the horrible condescending way most diet plans present themselves. Being fat is not a moral failing, you should not have to make yourself miserable to appease a boring conception of health and beauty. I wish folk would mind their business about Lizzo. Beyond these issues, books like this always run the risk of presenting a foolproof plan that only works for people of a certain socio-economic caste, and to be honest given some of the recipes found here you're unlikely to be able to follow these guidelines if you're on minimum wage. However, I have learned a great deal about the Glycemic Index and how to make some very simple swaps to give myself a fighting chance at being healthier for myself. While not diabetic, as I creep towards 40 I am way more conscious of my health and the way food reacts with your endocrine system. I've made a few changes already that seem to have stuck. My mother swears by it too, having said it's helped reduce the arthritic inflammation in her hands. Your mileage will inevitably vary, and I must reiterate that this is not a recommendation, even as a healthcare worker I know it's not my place to advocate such things. It is, however, an interesting read and something I will be spending a bit more time learning from.
So that’s July done. What have you lot been up to?
Currently on my way to get you over the Solaris take
(The book is also very good)