Watching

Abel Ferrara is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors. Granted, I haven’t seen all of his movies but everything I have seen has been great. Great in the sense that they are grimy, ugly, cynical worlds with the softest indication of hope.

I remember seeing his 1993 take on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, just called Body Snatchers, long before I would even knew who Able Ferrara was and far too young. It terrified me. By that point I had seen Terminator 2, violence was scary but Body Snatchers felt like a for real “Adult“ movie. Like I was seeing things that I knew I should not see. It has stuck with me ever since.

I was randomly cruising Prime and was captivated by the trailer for Ms. 45.

Whoever cut this trailer deserves an award. It highlights all the elements of the film that makes it so good. The color, the sassy sax, Zoë Lund’s cherubic lips being painted in blood-red lipstick. I watched the movie instantly.

This is one of the best exploitation films I have ever seen. A woman experiences the worst encounters with men and then becomes an angel of death, a protector of women being harmed at the hands of men. Her mission becomes directionless and self-serving and ultimately leads to her doom.

Sounds simple enough but Ferrara’s ability to depict the worst of men is unparalleled. Viewing trauma and pain from the eyes of the abused. Its no wonder female vigilantes don’t pop-up more often.

Also, the last scene has one of the funkiest tracks I have ever heard. It instantly went on my workout mix.

Reading

The weird and violent deaths at Fort Bragg in North Carolina have been on the periphery of my interests since Seth Harp and Rolling Stone did a piece in 2021. So I instantly bought a copy of Harp’s The Fort Bragg Cartel when it came out on August 12th.

To be honest, I was not expecting the extensive history of “Tier 1” operations in the American military. But it serves as a fascinating prologue to how, using it’s doped up, morally defunct and completely unsupervised operators, Fort Bragg became the hub of drug trafficking that it is today. It also outlines how America’s growing distaste with the very visible forever wars in the middle east led to Obama’s head-long dive into secret operations: Same wars, just no solider death counts on the nightly news.

It also compellingly tells the stories of those weird deaths you may have heard of and others you might not have. The overall theme is that time after time, charges were dropped and murderers walked free with a slap on the wrist all the while hiding behind FOIA denials and claims to protect national security.

If you have any interest in the subject I highly recommend.

Playing

To say the least Gears Tactics, the spinoff of the popular Xbox exclusive Gears of War, scratches all the itches I want from a tactics game in the style of XCOM. Granted, it is far more streamlined. Gears is less focused on base management which keeps most of the gameplay in battles than in menus between missions.

However, it does have surprisingly deep character management systems involving choosing armor, weapons and attachments with varying levels of percentage buffs. It also has an extensive class skill tree and while there are only 6 classes, each class has 4 different upgrade paths that allow characters of the same class to play completely differently. Not to mention the vast array of cosmetic options for each of your soldiers really allow the player to create unique cogs.

I really don’t have any gripes with this game since it’s short and does what it wants to do well. If you want a tactics game to be hard as balls and put you to make tough decisions this is not the game for you. About half-way through the campaign and my soldiers have acquired so many cool and synergizing abilities that every mission is pretty much a comp-stomp. And that’s perfect for a Gears tactics game.

Listening

Brendan from the excellent Blowback podcast¹ and Felix from Chapo Trap House have referenced their love for the Metal Gear Solid series often. So it surprises no one that their first episode of their game club podcast aptly named The Players Club is on 1998’s Metal Gear Solid for the PS1.

I love long-form podcasts and I’m exciting for more episodes.

Other Notables

** Funny people do funny stuff.

** Art history rules.

**

1  I’ve praised Blowback and MGS before, in the same post.