Permit me to squeal like a little girl in delight at the announcement of the next installment to the Fallout franchise, Fallout 76. Full disclosure, I'm a shameless slavish lover of Fallout. It's my all time favorite game series. I can't overstate my love for the setting. I want to have it's children. Get the picture? Good.
https://bit.ly/2IXy5Af
Now, I don't know much about the trailer. I don't know what the story is, when it's coming out, what will happen or... well, anything at all really, except its in Vault 76. Good enough for me! Now I will work extra shifts to hoarde money until such time as I can throw it all at Bethesda and promptly lose around two weeks of my life in an unblinking waking coma that is my in depth gaming mode, in which all other physical activities are kept to a bare minimum as I lose myself in an immersive world with androgynous body builders and retro 50's culture.
It's a good time to be alive.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Monday, May 14, 2018
My Abusive Relationship With Tremors
Okay folks, ranting time. I honestly didn't want to talk about it, but I'm somehow feeling drunk without a drop of alcohol in me, so let's do this.
Tremors is one of my favorite movies of all time. I grew up with the movie. It came out the same year I was born. When I first watched it as a tyke it scared the daylights out of me. For two weeks I didn't put my feet on the ground of I could help it. And heaven help me I loved it. I've watched it hundreds of times. I can recite the entire movie from memory. Every line, every shot, every sound, absolutely everything is burned into my memory. It became a family favorite. Anytime it was on everyone would rush to tell me. It captured my imagination. It fascinated me endlessly. Even now it's as close to a perfect movie as you can get.
And, like any thing that has a dedicated cult following, soulless producers have sought to turn my passion against me to siphon money out of my wallet. See, a movie with such a dedicated following was destined for sequels. Tremors 2: Aftershocks is a very worthy sequel. I really like it. It has some of the absolute best buildup and spooky atmosphere I've seen in any horror movie. Tremors 3: Back to Perfection was dumb, but had a good soundtrack and actually makes me laugh. Tremors 4: The Legend Begins was a genuinely interesting prequel with some fun twists and really good storytelling. Tremors The Series was doomed to failure with a tiny budget and a fundamentally limited area for writing. You couldn't make a show out of it. But bless it's heart, it tried. While the effects and stuff were dumb, I really did enjoy the writing.
Then came Tremors 5. I didn't want to watch it. I was afraid. I knew it wouldn't be good. I knew there would be pain. But I had to watch it. At this point in the series it was banking purely on the good will of the previous movies. But it was worse beyond all my expectations. After I first saw it, I started typing up a scathing review here, but got burned out on it then forgot. Well, forgot might be the wrong term.
Okay, to be truly honest, I think my brain deliberately made me forget. A suppressed memory. Now, most people only think they have such things. Most times they don't. I don't like to claim that I do. But I genuinely think that this movie was so bad that my subconscious buried it so I wouldn't have to deal with the emotional fallout. Anytime it came back up it would somehow just kinda fade from my mind. Normally things that make me upset I dwell on so I can mentally punch them into bloody paste. It's only things that truly leave an emotional scar on me, like a breakup or a loved one dying, that my brain shifts away from my waking mind.
It's one of the few movies that actually hurt me. I know that sounds silly. Trust me, I do. But... I really loved this series. And to see it go from such heights to this was like a punch in the guts. Worse, I get the feeling that whoever directed this movie hated Tremors, hated what it stood for, and hated everyone that liked it. Never before have I felt quite like this towards a movie. It felt like it loathed me personally as a fan, and it wanted to do everything in its power to hurt me for it.
I can never actually review it. I'd have to watch the movie again. And I don't want to go through that pain again. I could write a novella on everything wrong with that movie.
It's easily one of the movies I hate the most. But now a sixth one has come out. It still seems to be doing everything wrong. And yet I will probably see it. My love for the series, even with this brutal emotional kick to the shins, is too great.
At this point, it's not a healthy relationship. It's not the series doing what it can to entertain me and be awesome, and me in turn loving it and giving it my money. It's now leaching off of my former good will. I get the feeling that soon this new one will be pounding at my door and demanding to know where the cigarettes are. It's going to rip my manly blouse open, scream in my face for being an unfaithful wench, and yet for all my loathing and terror, I will look back on our early days of frolicking through Horror Lane and keep coming back with the faint hope that I'll find that movie has come back to me.
I had this same media co-dependency before with Alien vs Predator. But it seems like I went from one bad media relationship to another.
I'm now going to say something I never thought I'd say: Please stop making Tremors movies. I want this pain to stop. Just let it die. Let Michael Gross, Kevin Bacon and all the other actors get on with their lives. If Gross is trapped in some sort of contractual obligation, find the mercy in your hearts to let him out of it.
Tremors is one of my favorite movies of all time. I grew up with the movie. It came out the same year I was born. When I first watched it as a tyke it scared the daylights out of me. For two weeks I didn't put my feet on the ground of I could help it. And heaven help me I loved it. I've watched it hundreds of times. I can recite the entire movie from memory. Every line, every shot, every sound, absolutely everything is burned into my memory. It became a family favorite. Anytime it was on everyone would rush to tell me. It captured my imagination. It fascinated me endlessly. Even now it's as close to a perfect movie as you can get.
And, like any thing that has a dedicated cult following, soulless producers have sought to turn my passion against me to siphon money out of my wallet. See, a movie with such a dedicated following was destined for sequels. Tremors 2: Aftershocks is a very worthy sequel. I really like it. It has some of the absolute best buildup and spooky atmosphere I've seen in any horror movie. Tremors 3: Back to Perfection was dumb, but had a good soundtrack and actually makes me laugh. Tremors 4: The Legend Begins was a genuinely interesting prequel with some fun twists and really good storytelling. Tremors The Series was doomed to failure with a tiny budget and a fundamentally limited area for writing. You couldn't make a show out of it. But bless it's heart, it tried. While the effects and stuff were dumb, I really did enjoy the writing.
Then came Tremors 5. I didn't want to watch it. I was afraid. I knew it wouldn't be good. I knew there would be pain. But I had to watch it. At this point in the series it was banking purely on the good will of the previous movies. But it was worse beyond all my expectations. After I first saw it, I started typing up a scathing review here, but got burned out on it then forgot. Well, forgot might be the wrong term.
Okay, to be truly honest, I think my brain deliberately made me forget. A suppressed memory. Now, most people only think they have such things. Most times they don't. I don't like to claim that I do. But I genuinely think that this movie was so bad that my subconscious buried it so I wouldn't have to deal with the emotional fallout. Anytime it came back up it would somehow just kinda fade from my mind. Normally things that make me upset I dwell on so I can mentally punch them into bloody paste. It's only things that truly leave an emotional scar on me, like a breakup or a loved one dying, that my brain shifts away from my waking mind.
It's one of the few movies that actually hurt me. I know that sounds silly. Trust me, I do. But... I really loved this series. And to see it go from such heights to this was like a punch in the guts. Worse, I get the feeling that whoever directed this movie hated Tremors, hated what it stood for, and hated everyone that liked it. Never before have I felt quite like this towards a movie. It felt like it loathed me personally as a fan, and it wanted to do everything in its power to hurt me for it.
I can never actually review it. I'd have to watch the movie again. And I don't want to go through that pain again. I could write a novella on everything wrong with that movie.
It's easily one of the movies I hate the most. But now a sixth one has come out. It still seems to be doing everything wrong. And yet I will probably see it. My love for the series, even with this brutal emotional kick to the shins, is too great.
At this point, it's not a healthy relationship. It's not the series doing what it can to entertain me and be awesome, and me in turn loving it and giving it my money. It's now leaching off of my former good will. I get the feeling that soon this new one will be pounding at my door and demanding to know where the cigarettes are. It's going to rip my manly blouse open, scream in my face for being an unfaithful wench, and yet for all my loathing and terror, I will look back on our early days of frolicking through Horror Lane and keep coming back with the faint hope that I'll find that movie has come back to me.
I had this same media co-dependency before with Alien vs Predator. But it seems like I went from one bad media relationship to another.
I'm now going to say something I never thought I'd say: Please stop making Tremors movies. I want this pain to stop. Just let it die. Let Michael Gross, Kevin Bacon and all the other actors get on with their lives. If Gross is trapped in some sort of contractual obligation, find the mercy in your hearts to let him out of it.
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