Blog Features

Kombating Mortals and More

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Mortal Kombat II

Good Morning, Folks. With my brain as muddled as it currently is, I have spent quite a bit more time watching media than I normally do. This morning, I thought I would talk a bit about some of the things that I have watched recently. In 2021, we got an update to the Mortal Kombat franchise that took into account a lot of the changes that have been made since the first movie came out in the 90s. It was a bit of a reboot of the entire movie franchise, and this year, we got the official sequel that builds directly upon that 2021 movie. I’m always a bit hesitant when I sit down to watch a video game adaptation, but this movie was a heck of a lot of fun. Was it high-brow theater? Hell no. Did it drop constant references to the franchise as a whole and make it fun? Heck yes.

The real winner of the movie, though, was Karl Urban as Johnny Cage. Cage is that character that you love to hate… but also secretly love, and he has been that way since the first game. Urban nails the role of Cage so perfectly, and I say this as someone who has never watched The Boys, so I have no frame of reference to his Butcher character. Truth be told, I have pretty much liked Urban in every role he has played. I even liked him as Bones in the Star Trek reboot series. Back to Mortal Kombat II however, if you have ever been a fan of the game series, I highly suggest this movie. Especially if you have played any of the more recent outings where they tweaked the core storyline a bit. The only thing that was missing that I would have liked to have seen was Reptile. We did get a great version of Baraka, which has been one of my favorite characters since the second game in the 90s.

Daredevil Born Again Season 2

I also finished Daredevil Born Again season two, and it was a bit of a mixed bag. So much of that season is so oppressive and keeps Daredevil from getting to be Daredevil. That said it is all building to something pretty great, and when that happens in the last few episodes, it becomes a pretty phenomenal series. The longer I have sat with the conclusion to this series, the more I have appreciated it. I was not fully on board as I was watching this show, and I complained a bit on social media about it. However, they nailed the landing big time. It is going to be a bit of a chore to get through those first episodes, or at least it was for me. Right now we live in a real world where everything is going wrong…. so to watch a show where things keep going from bad to worse is a bit of a large ask at the moment. The payoff really does make it worth the effort.

The Punisher: One Last Kill

Unfortunately, we are ending on a bit of a downer. I have loved The Punisher since I bought my first episode of Spiderman that featured him, which I found in a thrift store in the 80s. I was there for the limited run comic, the standard series, and even War Zone. Probably my favorite version of the character comes from the youtube short Dirty Laundry, featuring Thomas Jane. That said, my second favorite is the Jon Berenthal version, but unfortunately, One Last Kill is a fucking mess. This is one of the more confusing projects that I have seen… it is being released like it is a movie, but it is only around 45 minutes in total runtime. It feels like the first episode of a television series, but there is no more of it coming as far as I am aware. Maybe this was a teaser for the next Punisher series, setting up the key conflict… but what we get is mostly a bunch of gunplay pornography without a satisfying climax. I do not recommend it, because you will only come away unsatisfied, I fear.

Other than that, I have been catching up on Frieren Season Two and watching a lot of Regular Show. I had never watched the series from start to finish, and I find Regular Show just about the perfect comfort television to have on in the background. It was always something that I enjoyed, but I only really caught episodes out of order while watching Cartoon Network, as they replayed past episodes. At some point, I will probably go through my backlog of movies, and for those who are interested, I have been reviewing what I watch over on Letterboxd. That essentially has been what I have been up to in my media viewing habits. If you have any strong opinions that conflict with mine, feel free to post them below. I read every comment, I just don’t always respond to them.

The post Kombating Mortals and More appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Mixtape Mondays: Road Rash Rail

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Good Morning, Folks! One of the artifacts of the 80s and 90s that I find near and dear to my heart is the Mixtape. Yes, I know there is a brand new video game by the same name, but I have been slow getting around to playing it. Essentially, Baby Bel used to make these for himself and his friends because I was constantly trying to achieve a perfect listen-through blend of music that flowed from one song into the others. I was forever annoyed by albums that had one or two good songs, and the rest was trash, so that I could not simply throw it in the cassette deck and listen without needing to navigate around. As I developed hormones, I even attempted to use Mixtapes as a sort of mating ritual, and it never actually worked. No girl that I ever gave a Mixtape to truly appreciated the effort and thought process that I went into crafting a sequence of songs that blended together into a greater whole. Now I make them for you, my readers, and each time I make one… I am essentially handing you a piece of my soul, because they all mean something deep to me. If you have ever wondered, I also almost exclusively listen to my mixtapes while driving in lieu of the radio.

29 – Road Rash Rail

This one, my friends, is admittedly going to be a bit of an acquired taste. A few weeks back, I was listening to Tapedeck Held Alot, and marveled about how positive all of that music was, and how even if the lyrics were sad… There was still a note of hopefulness. I attempted to reason why this was, and then it hit me suddenly that this was probably just the last era when I actually listened to traditional pop music. Once I graduated from the Euro Invasion 80s music, I pretty much went straight into skater rock. Middle School era, Bel was a little skater punk, and I have written about this, and the feelings that a Tony Hawk Pro Skater documentary brought up in me. The thing is, my Skater era pre-dates Tony Hawk Pro Skater by at least a decade, and since we had no access to authentic skate culture… Thrasher Magazine became our bible. Right or wrong, we used it to influence everything from the lingo we were using, the fashion we were wearing, and the music we were listening to. Those albums were hard as hell to find, because none of it was available at the local Walmart. So when we got something… we cherished it and dubbed off copies for pretty much everyone. This mix is an ode to that era, and these are the songs that we used to skate to. I have been listening to it all week since creating it, and I personally think it is rather good, but like I said… thrashcore is not going to be for everyone.

Track List

  • 01 – Bitchin’ Camaro – The Dead Milkmen
  • 02 – I Felt Like a Gringo – The Minutemen
  • 03- Don’t Stand in Line – Pailhead
  • 04 – Subliminal – Suicidal Tendencies
  • 05 – God Saved the Queen – The Exploited
  • 06 – Superficial Love – T.S.O.L.
  • 07 – Live Fast Die Young – Circle Jerks
  • 08 – Banned in D.C. – Bad Brains
  • 09 – Nervous Breakdown – Black Flag
  • 10 – Bloodstains – Agent Orange
  • 11 – Police Helicopter – Red Hot Chili Peppers
  • 12 – Silly Girl – The Descendents
  • 13 – Brave Captain – fIREHOSE
  • 14 – Waiting Room – Fugazi
  • 15 – You – Bad Religion

Listen To It Yourself

When I created my last MixTape, I was in the holding pattern before Chemo started. I had been scheduled to get my port installed, but had not gone through with anything. Tomorrow represents the start of my 4th cycle of Chemo, and the halfway point. I think maybe I have reached a point where I do, in fact, believe that there is an end to this madness. Round three was a bit of a bear, and I am still having the cold reaction symptoms because they never faded this time. They are supposedly additive each round, so they are only going to get worse from here. I’ve made it this far; I can make it a bit further. As for the mix, this one was fun to assemble, but as I said, I am not expecting many to actually enjoy it. There was one band that I specifically avoided because no one wants to listen to an album that is effectively 40 1 minute long songs. That was most definitely a thing with a lot of the indie punk bands that skaters gravitated towards. It was way more about the tempo than anything else. Last night, my sibling Ace unintentionally hit me with a challenge. We were talking about bands, and we got off on a tangent about how They Might Be Giants is effectively its own genre of music. Sure, I added Ana Ng to Push Me, Punch You, but that song has specific punk vibes to it. But how does one effectively craft an entire Mixtape that fits the greater catalog… without it simply being nothing but They Might Be Giant Songs? I have no clue if I am actually up to this Challenge that Ace never actually gave me. The post Mixtape Mondays: Road Rash Rail appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Convalescence and Cinema

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Good Morning, Folks. Last night I managed to get a pretty solid night of sleep with only three wakes, but far enough spaced out that I managed to do some proper dreaming in between. I am not sure if it is related, but this morning was also much better than yesterday, and I managed to breeze through my normal routine with minimal rest stops. This gives me hope that Thursday might just begin the “back to normal” phase and allow me to do the list of things that need to be done around the house that I have largely just pushed off for when I was “feeling better”. As I said yesterday, I am spending a lot more time consuming passive media than I normally do. Even something like an audiobook has been a bit too much for my chemo-addled brain, but seemingly, television and movies hit just fine. I know I have talked in fragments about what my recent consumption diet has looked like, but I figured today I would abuse this topic as a crutch to lean upon as I cobble together a blog post.
I am uncertain how much I have talked about it, but I wrapped up Fallout Season 2 during my first week of lying around and being useless, and it was just about perfect. This is how I want video game adaptations to work in general. They are true to the source material but doing their own thing, rather than trying to retrofit specific events that never quite translate well to the screen. We got to visit New Vegas, years after the events of the titular game, and also, in general, see what has taken place in our absence with the forces in that region, like Caesar’s Legion. What I really dig about this show, though, is the b plot that is showing the events leading up to the end of civilization and how each of the forces in that power struggle was making moves behind the scenes. The first season was absolutely a story of the Vault Dweller arriving at the wild world for the first time, and this one… is a much more nuanced take that is essentially the equivalent of Fallout 2 or Fallout New Vegas that dives deeper into the political structure of that world. Highly recommend both seasons though, and I am amped to see where we go from here.
I generally hate watching series as they are being released, and tend to wait until there is a full season run before diving in. However, with Monarch, I could not help myself, and burned through the first five episodes and then have been catching new ones as they release. I believe the full run is ten episodes, and it will be over the first week of May. I love Kaiju movies, and this show is like the ultimate companion piece to the modern Godzilla/King Kong franchise from Legendary Pictures and Toho. What impresses me the most about this show is its effects budget, because we get proper big-screen Kaiju battles on the regular in these episodes, with a shocking amount of screen time being taken by the big titans. They also continue to flesh out the backstory of Monarch as an organization, zipping between multiple timelines with the brilliant dichotomy of real-world father and son Wyatt and Kurt Russell playing the same character in two eras. I love this show, and I hope it keeps getting more seasons, because it is phenomenal… if you are into this genre.
Another show that I jumped the gun on is Maul Shadow Lord, in large part because I love Sam Witwer and his interpretation of the Maul character from the animated content. I looked it up yesterday, and I did not realize that he played the live-action Maul from the Han Solo movie instead of Ray Park, so I guess at this point, he is just the definitive Darth Maul in the modern canon. What I am enjoying the most about this series is that it gives us a view into a planet that is too small for the Empire to notice… that is, until Maul shows up. There are elements of gritty crime drama happening in this show, as well as the gangland elements, as multiple factions vie for control of the planet. When the Empire comes in, everything changes, and it is interesting to see just how hostile this is for every single player, from the local police force to the street criminals. Against this tapestry is Maul, plotting revenge against those who have wronged him and also attempting to recruit a Padawan as an apprentice. I am six episodes deep, and obviously do not know the totality of the shape of this story, but I am very interested in seeing it play out.
If you check my Letterboxd profile… You will see that I apparently watch a lot of Zombie films. I have no clue why I have such an affinity for this genre, but I do, and seemingly always have. The hopelessness of fighting against unwinnable odds, I think, terrifies me more than just about anything else in horror. Cold Storage is not one of those films, however, and it is way more Kevin Smithian Stoner Comedy, shoved into a fungus zombie package. That is not to say the film is riddled with low-brow dick and fart jokes, but rather the easy-flowing comedic banter of folks put in a bad situation as they unwittingly staff a decommissioned military facility turned self-storage. I also really enjoy the side plot of a pair of grizzled “seen everything” secret agency aging action hero types, getting called back into action to save the day. This could simply be because I myself am rapidly greying and enjoy the irrational wish fulfillment of seeing someone older than me, kicking some ass. On top of all of this, it really is an interesting spin on the fungal zombie trope, and that in itself is pretty cool to see. I had a lot of fun watching it, and I highly recommend it if your sentiments align with mine. Anyways, that is what I have been watching recently. I have a bunch of media stacked up to watch. At some point, I am going to dive into Daredevil Born Again Season 2, but I am trying to let that finish releasing before I start it. I’ve also got Starfleet Academy that I want to watch at some point, and almost the entirety of Strange New Worlds. I’ve also not watched Wonderman or the modern conversion of The Burbs into a series, and am interested in both. Finally, at some point, I will probably check out A Knight of Seven Kingdoms, even though I have been pretty sour on anything Game of Thrones connected since that series crash-landed so spectacularly. Essentially, I have plenty of media to get me through the next several rounds of chemo hell. That said, is there anything you feel that I should be checking out? Drop me a line below. The post Convalescence and Cinema appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Bad At Anniversaries

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Good Morning Folks. I am bad at realizing what time of the year it is… and that my blog and podcast anniversaries are approaching. As a result, last Friday, aka April 17th, was the 17th anniversary of Tales of the Aggronaut. The left side of the above image is one of the earliest revisions of the site as saved by the Wayback Machine. Then, of course, on the right side, you have what the site looks like now. I’ve not made any really significant revisions to the look and feel of the site in a very long time, other than to shim in more artwork from Ammo as I commission something else. There was a point where I cared about readership, but honestly, at this point, I view this blog as a sort of outsider art project. You either care about me and what I have to say, or you don’t, and I can’t be much bothered to tailor my writing to follow whatever trends might be happening. Many of you have been with me through the death of animals, the loss of my spouse of thirty years, and now, as I am dealing with cancer. I’ve tried to be as honest as I can be with my thoughts and feelings as I went through all of it. Without really intending to, I somehow built a community of folks who care about me, and I appreciate that so much when things get low.
I also completely forgot to talk about the Anniversary of AggroCha,t the podcast that I started in 2014. This past weekend, we recorded episode 656, and started this nonsense back on April 13th of 2014. Listening to the early episodes makes me cringe super hard, but I think it is more about how different human beings many of us were back then. A lot of stuff had not happened that shook the core of both our gaming roots and, honestly, American civilization, and it shows. Folks have come and gone from the roster, but the original core of Me, Ash, and Kodra has remained pretty rock solid through all of it. It’s only gotten better as we added everyone that represents our current core of Ace, Ammo, Ashgar, Kodra, Tam, and Thalen. At this point, it is way more about hanging out together at a fixed time and talking about discussions that we don’t necessarily make time for at other moments than anything else. For both the blog and the podcast, they are not money-making ventures, nor have I ever wanted them to be. However, I am still pretty proud of us sticking with this for as long as we have.
In gaming terms this weekend, I wrapped up my 36th challenge out of 40 and think that I am going to wind down Path of Exile for the moment. Mirage League was a lot of fun, but I have more or less accomplished everything that I care to accomplish. At this point, I would only be moving forward with the acquisition of currency for the sake of acquiring currency. We should be getting news on the Path of Exile II league pretty soon, and next Tuesday is the drop for the Diablo IV Lord of Hatred expansion. While I have not fallen in love with Diablo IV in the same way as I did Diablo III, it should still be fun to poke around and play with the new Warlock class a bit. I think I have also reached a point where I have wound down my interest in Last Epoch as well. Those seasons are great for a week or two, but I quickly run out of things that I actually care to do, at least much faster than I do in a Path of Exile league. All of the ARPGs are in a pretty great state, and they all become somewhat interchangible for my joy at any given moment.
On a complete whim, over the weekend, I picked up Crimson Desert and started playing that. I am honestly not sure what I think of this game yet. Combat is mostly pretty fun, but movement and the pace of the game in general are a bit on the slow end. The world is gorgeous, and there is a lot of interesting stuff going on. I was not sure what sort of game to really consider this, but after playing, I think it is more akin to something like Dragon’s Dogma. If I had my druthers, it would perform exactly like The Witcher 3, but I do not get what I want most of the time. I am not entirely certain how much I am going to play it, because I have already had moments where the slow pace was a bit too plodding for me. I was also immediately annoyed when Steam popped up the “you should play this with a controller” message, but the game itself performs perfectly fine with a mouse and keyboard. There is a rumor that we are just about to get another expansion for The Witcher 3, and if that happens, it means I am going to drop whatever I am doing and play that.
I have a backlog of a lot of recent titles that I really need to get around to playing. Greedfall: The Dying World moved out of early access to its final release version in March, and as a result, I am now interested in playing that. Greedfall was a deeply imperfect game, but it was doing a lot of things that I really liked. I am also somewhat interested in diving into Star Wars Outlaws and the next part of the Final Fantasy VII reimaginging trilogy. There is also Death Stranding 2, which might honestly be the right sort of game for the weird time that I am going through. I played the first one at the height of COVID isolation, and as a result, it felt deeply poignant. Since I am similarly greatly limiting my exposure to other human beings due to the chemotherapy wrecking my immune system, it might produce similar results. I have more games than I can ever play. If I am being perfectly honest, I just have to figure out something that lands right and brings me joy since I have wound down my old reliable partner in Path of Exile. Anyways… I have been writing this post for several hours now. I need getting distracted by either work or chemo brain, and figure I should wrap things up. What are you playing right now that is bringing you joy? Drop me a line and let me know. The post Bad At Anniversaries appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.