Three Fun-Size Film Reviews

Some movies, I can very easily ramble on and on about. Others don’t capture my attention/imagination quite as strongly, and I find it difficult to write about them. The following three films are of the latter variety.

~ Arcadian ~

It kind of seems like this one was marketed as whatever the movie equivalent of a “killer app” is for Shudder. I got a lot of emails promoting it! Although, it is a Shudder original, so maybe they just pushed it harder because it’s theirs. Anyway, it’s somewhat similar to A Quiet Place but with Nic Cage. Also, it’s not stupid due to major plot holes and braindead characters, but rather because stupid is just kind of the vibe it’s going for, which I can appreciate.

Plot is as such: About fifteen years after humanity falls to… something, Nic Cage lives on a farm with his two teenage sons. Every night, they maintain a stoic vigil to protect their home from attempted invasions. Obviously, the sons are polar opposites: one a hot-blooded tough guy, the other a quiet inventor. Their inability to reconcile their desires (girls vs learning) ends up ruining the balance that they’ve maintained for years and puts everyone’s life in danger. Because of course it does. Teenagers, am I right?

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Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Completionist

You know what’s weird? I didn’t ever write all that much about Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door when it was originally released on GameCube. I did a thing where I critiqued a TV Guide review of the game, but that’s effectively it. In retrospect, it’s a bit weird because I think about TTYD all the time. Mostly because the battle victory theme is what plays in my head every time I achieve a personal victory. It’s a bit of a stretch, but it counts!

Anyway, there’s a new Switch remaster that came out a while ago, which I’ve now finished playing. Like Super Mario RPG before it, it’s unfortunately the same game with a new coat of paint, some localization tidying, a few quality-of-life improvements, and a teeny-tiny portion new content. Oh, and also both games have fantastically re-arranged soundtracks. I would actually argue that the new soundtracks are reason enough to buy and play either game, because they are marvelous.

With the TTYD remaster, I’ve finally put in the effort to actually finish the game. And not like, just get to the end of the story. I did that already back in 2004. No, this time I finished the game. I found all the badges, I collected all the star pieces, I made all the recipes, I solved all the troubles, and I beat all the optional bosses. I truly got 100% and earned the special new badge that turns Mario gold.

And it was not at all worth the effort!

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Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: July 2024

~ Game Over ~

Froggo’s Adventure: Verdant Venture (PC) – A cute little game highly reminiscent (like, suspiciously so) of Kirby’s Adventure. Only it’s like seven levels long. Very reminiscent of Whipseey, only it looks more NES than GBA.

Froggo Swing ‘n Grapple (PC) – Simultaneously better and worse than its sequel (mentioned above). Better because it’s about twice as long, is much more challenging, and has more gameplay mechanics in general. Worse because the central “swing ‘n grapple” mechanic is a little too loosey-goosey and doesn’t feel great.

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars (PS4) – An old-school RPG represented entirely in cards. It’s a bit slow and much too easy, but it’s a Yoko Taro game, so the story, characters, music, and art all make it worth the price of admission.

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Garage Sale Surprise Bags

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that my surprise bag articles are the most popular content on this website. At the very least, they’re the ones that the most strangers have e-mailed me about. If we wanted to drill down even more, said e-mails were all in relation to the Dick Turtle surprise bags in particular.

Even with that fact set aside, I always got a kick out of opening surprise bags and writing about the strange things found inside. But a few years ago, I noticed that times had changed, and surprise bags weren’t all that, you know, surprising anymore. They got generic. You’d always get the same kinds of boring stuff in each one, and it’s become very difficult to find any that seem unique. Gone are the days of getting a random assortment of Baby trading cards and Spanish Tic-Tacs!

However! There appears to still be some light left in the world, localized entirely within the garage of someone in a nearby neighbourhood, at that. A couple of friends routinely go garage saleing during the summer, and they just happened to notice that one household was selling (presumably) home-made surprise bags. They very thoughtfully purchased a couple bags and delivered them directly to my doorstep. What a kind gesture/obligation!

Right off the bat, I think it’s obvious why I’m assuming these are home-made. They’re basic paper bags with some low-effort doodles on them. Not that I’m judging! It’s just… even the Big Dollar surprise bags were printed, and those are by far the cheapest-looking surprise bags I’ve ever seen on sale in a store. If I were to see any that looked even cheaper? My eyes would probably transform into beating cartoon hearts as I scoop them all up into my arms.

“Sketchy” is exactly the trait I’m looking for in a surprise bag, is what I’m getting at.

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TE Video: Coming Soon (Aug 2024)

Happy Friday! I don’t know if I’m going to do this every month, but I like the idea of writing up a preview of all the video content I’ll be releasing in the next month, so here we are.

Please note that while the original home of TE Video is on YouTube, I’ve got my Rumble channels up and running now, and they’re actually earning me money. Only a few cents so far, but considering that all the videos I’ve uploaded to Rumble have a total of maybe 150 views between them, that’s not bad! It should go without saying, but if you would be so kind as to watch my stuff on Rumble instead of YouTube, that would mean a lot to me.

(Also, I think I listed most of these last month, but ehhhhhhhhh)

Quest For Camelot (GBC) – The first episode went live yesterday, and second half will be up on August 1st. This is a weird, little game, and it’s not good! The first episode, to my best recollection, is pretty normal, but you’ll get to watch my sanity unravel in real time in part 2.

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Hunter Hunter: A TE Film Review

After the big win that was Loop Track, I was ready for another good random horror movie, and let me tell you that I struck gold. A little bit of searching around on Google and Reddit for recommendations of similar films yielded the most perfect result I could have asked for: Hunter Hunter.

Just by the name alone I was intrigued. Hunter Hunter, eh? So it’s going to be a movie about a hunter becoming the hunted, in some way or another. But then the very vague description given, “a thriller that goes full-on horror in the last 10 minutes” sounded like precisely what I was in the mood for. So I plugged in my Apple TV for the first time in months and watched a movie on Shudder for the first time since I initially subscribed to it three years ago. I’m good at money :p

Now, I’ll be honest here, I’ve been struggling with trying to figure out exactly what I want to write about this film. I have been thinking about it almost non-stop since I watched it, and I just can’t get a good mental picture of what I want to put in this review. That’s why I don’t do this professionally. So I’m just writing. I guess we’ll just do the synopsis thing and see where it goes.

Hunter Hunter is (at least at the beginning) about a fur trapper named Joe, his wife Anne, and their teenage daughter Renee. They live in the wilderness outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba (I, uh… I like this setting) and lead a very simple life. Joe is the kind of man who is set in his ways and is training Renee to follow in his footsteps, but Anne is starting to notice that their way of life is becoming unsustainable and wants to move into a town so that she can get a job and Renee can go to school.

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Have you played PokeDoku yet?

Since sometime around Xmas last year, I’ve been playing a little online game (almost) every single day. That game is PokeDoku – something of a twist on sudoku, where you fill in a grid with pokémon instead of numbers. It’s also only a 3×3 grid instead of sudoku’s traditional 9×9. It’s perfect for poop breaks!

How it works is along the top and left sides are six conditions. You have to select a pokémon for each cell that matches the two conditions that intersect on that cell. For example, in the top-left corner of the screenshot below, you’d need to choose a pokémon that is ice-type and can learn the move earthquake. Avalugg was an easy choice there: it’s obviously ice-type and is a big behemoth so it was a pretty safe bet that it could learn earthquake. Galarian Mr. Mime in the top-right corner, on the other hand, was a lucky guess since I knew it’s an ice-type but wasn’t sure if it has a secondary typing (it is in fact ice/psychic).

The screenshot above is actually a perfect example because it uses one of almost every kind of condition; though there are also conditions for each region, as well as starters, mega evolutions, and gigantamax forms. Technically you could also say it doesn’t show “mythical” or “ultra beast” or “paradox” either, but let’s be honest: those are all just different ways of saying “legendary.”

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Loop Track: A TE Film Review

I happened to catch a glimpse of a very distressing illustration while clearing my Facebook notifications the other day. But like, distressing in a good way. In the way that, when I learned that said image was inspired by a film called Loop Track, I immediately looked up the most convenient way to watch it (Tubi). And then I proceeded to watch it that very same evening.

Loop Track is a horror/suspense movie about a weird, little guy that goes on a hike through a New Zealand forest. New Zealish? New Zealandian? I don’t know. It’s irrelevant and this bit works better in VO. Anyway, off the bat, we learn that this guy is very on edge and isn’t terribly interested in any sort of human interaction. He’s also poorly equipped for the expedition: he starts off the hike in a sweatshirt and jeans, and is visibly winded once he reaches the first trail marker, which is only 10 minutes from the parking lot. In fairness, he does at least have a big ol’ pack of supplies with him and apparently the nights get very cold, but still… I can’t help but think that you’d be so much better off without that sweatshirt, man.

After barely managing to avoid coming into contact with a couple other hikers on the trail twice, our hero is accosted by an excessively friendly man named Nicky. Nicky seems like a nice enough dude, but completely fails to catch the hint that our main character would rather hike alone and insists that they continue on together. At this point, about 20 minutes in, we finally learn that the main character’s name is Ian.

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