YouTube Obsession

Battle Brothers developer Overhype’s hotly anticipated follow-up is finally dropping into early access this week: MENACE.

So of course I was inhaling all the playthroughs while I was out of town and away from my PC.

My current favorite is from Party Elite a creator who plays games in the classic informative style.

I love his videos because his playstyle is usually more helpful than tutorials and I need all the help I can get with these kid of games.

The game is looking great too. I played the demo a few months ago and it was really bare bones. Without the meta layer the combat didn’t really engage me all that much. And without a proper tutorial I felt really lost.

The early access build shows massive improvement to how it conveys information and with the help of PE’s videos I have a much better understanding of the mechanics of battle.

Watching

When I travel long distances I usually have my go to of downloaded movies on YouTube to watch while on the plane. Run Ronnie Run, The Wrong Guy, Windy City Heat. Just a few comfort comedy movies that pass the time and I don’t mind falling asleep to.

This trip I decided to knock a few movies off my backlog…

Dawn of an Evil Millennium (1988)

A schizophrenic interpretation of an 80’s action movie trailer. Worth watching for sound design alone. Violent, chaotic and endlessly creative. I really enjoyed this one.

It happened One Night (1934)

Hilariously, the thumbnail is not from this movie.

The proto-RomCom. Every trope seen in every Julia Roberts movie from the 90s is here from the beginning. Charming even if the gender dynamics are outdated. An interesting artifact that slipped in just before the Hays Code made it illegal to be horny.

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

 Birth of a Nation is to the KKK, what Battleship Potemkin is to the Bolshevik Revolution. Battleship is an hour and a half shorter, way better and actively anti-racist. Really enjoyed the Bro energy that radiates off the first part of the film. It’s easy to get your Bros to unite against the proletariat when all they serve is rotten borscht.

An effective propaganda piece through and through. Its most effective scene is made up. The events depicted at the Odessa Staircase are entirely untrue but entirely pivotal to the film. Masterful sequence.

Timescape / The Grand Tour (1991)

The Grand Tour is a way cooler name than Timescape given the context of the film but whatever you call it, this movie deserves more praise.

A simple time travel movie that doesn’t bog itself down in scientific explanations and over complicate its themes. Mostly focused on being entertaining it honestly feels like a feature length episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation: Just a small sci-fi story that is fun to watch and some light delving into the philosophical questions of human nature.

It’s so easy to watch.

Cutie Honey (2004)

Bizzare, campy, funny and impish.

I was a junior in high school in 2004 and was already deep into Asian cinema. Samurai flicks, anime you name it. And I remember hearing about this movie before it was released by looking at the upcoming release/imports binder at a Sam Goody store¹ an hour away from where I lived. I got in a lot of trouble that year so it’s no wonder I never got the chance to watch it then.

I’m so glad that I was able to watch the live-action Sailor Moon show before seeing this because I would have been ignorant of the elements directly lifted from Sailor Moon. The big difference being that the titular, “Born Sexy Yesterday” Cutie Honey is definitely trying to titillate the audience.

Other Notables

** “In fact, the brewing scandal has provoked what can only be described as an outpouring of schadenfreude.”

** A good review from DKW_Skidoo

1  I am 38 years old.