#botolo

Botolo

Synopsis: BOTOLO is a hybrid game of keepaway and king-of-the-hill. BOTOLO is a fast paced mindreading competition. BOTOLO is a dance inside the negative space between your opponent's thoughts.

It would have been awesome to have gotten to play this game but it is either bugged or just ... not compatible with me. It's borderline impossible to play with a keyboard but whenever I try to use a console control the up and down are inverted. No other controls are inverted. I tried for about 20 minutes to try and get adjusted to this but it wasn't working and I didn't want to waste my entire evening trying to make something that was aggravating me from the jump work. There is also literally nowhere to contact the dev to ask for help. Their socials are all dead links. It sucks because it genuinely did look like fun. I liked the music and the visuals of the game a lot. It just didn't work for me at all - whether it was the intent or not. Oh well. Might do an updated review in the future if this ever gets clarified/fixed.

Silk

Synopsis: Enter the biggest handcrafted open world of all time, fifty times larger than Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall! Explore three million square miles of uncharted terrain from Roman Damascus to Three Kingdoms China in an exploration RPG that transports you onto the Ancient Silk Road of 200AD.

So I started Silk some time ago and have popped back into the game a few times since. I think that it's a fun project but ultimately just kind of fails to make itself interesting. You essentially roam around the world as mentioned in the above synposis, get to a location, either trade with or colonize that location, rinse and repeat. The world is splayed out in this really cool pop-up map style before you with potential threats moving around like chess pieces at random. You can also see places you can loot or temples, etc from a distance as well which give you a drive to keep moving forward or even veer or a bit and explore. I do really like how this game looks.

You can also build a party, gathering some very cool looking people with varying kinds of skills and abilities (traders, shamans, warriors, etc) from different cities/villages/etc you stop off at, but it doesn't really mean a whole much beyond functionality because you can't really interact with them. They're also all pretty interchangeable among each of their factions. All the warriors act the same, all the shamans act the same, etc. They have set reactions to set occurrences (praying at a shrine, resting, etc) and you can ask them for their advice on stuff at times but it all gets very repetitive after a couple of days. Speaking of days, time goes by way too fast in this game, which is also a resource management game by the way. You are also constantly under attack by one group of people or another who get incredibly hostile for like ... no reason whenever you try visiting a kingdom. Not tourist friendly at all! They're relatively easy to avoid running into most of the time and sometimes you can just bribe them into leaving you alone but they do not leave the map after this happens which will just make them attack you again shortly after if you don't immediately beeline away which sometimes is in the opposite direction you want to go.

I wish this game had a compass. It's pretty difficult to navigate and you have to constantly be looking at your map to make sure you're headed in the correct direction. Speaking of, I wish when you visited a place - the name of said place would show up on the map. As you explore, you essentially unlock more of the map visually but you can't really keep track of anywhere you went in-game which makes it pretty frustrating when you're hours in and have no idea what direction you're going in or where the place you're meant to go is and whether or not you've even already been there. Everything is timed, mind you. So imagine being told to go somewhere by a certain day, except for you have no idea where you're going. How are you meant to be an explorer without a functional map? It's like the one most important thing you need, especially if you're meant to be exploring somewhere very specific.

As you travel, especially as you uncover new cities/villages/etc, a narrator will pop in to give you some very uninteresting information about said location. It would've been cool if maybe some of the information would impact how you interacted with the place or something. Something to give you a reason to remember any of it, but it doesn't really care to make you care so you don't.

There isn't a whole lot of sound in the game, just occasional sfx and twangs of music. Nothing to write home about really.

The game has potential. I think if there was an actual story and actual characters, this game would be so much better. Top that with some UI improvements - fixing the map issue, giving us a compass, maybe even adding a mini-map in the corner. It feels like a demo, I guess. Rather than a completed game. The skeleton is there but it needs meat packed on. Lots of meat. Some sort of narrative that keeps us engaged and a UI that actually helps it so it doesn't just feel like we're walking in circles bored out of our minds would've ranked this one of the better games I've played on the BFRJAE. But alas.

The House Guest

Synopsis: A young married couple allows a female friend move into their home; this house guest, whom the wife has not seen in years, begins seducing everyone around her and people start dying.

This movie was fascinating to watch. Not exactly like a car accident but more like watching a couple argue out in a Walmart parking lot. I thought that the acting ... well, it was present. I am of the strong mind that everyone needs to start somewhere, y'know? This is an indie movie working with an indie budget and everyone is just trying to make a name for themselves - everyone! Actors, directors, camera guys, all of them. And for what it was, it was okay! It feels like a first draft, you know? A lot of it needed work - the writing, the acting, the characters. I don't actually remember any of their names at the time of writing this so I will call them WMC (for woman main character), MMC (for man main character) and Crazy whenever they come up which probably won't be much because I really don't have much to say about this movie.

My main gripe is that it was really difficult to understand Crazy's motivations for anything she did. She just kind of does a thing and we're meant to ... feel something about it, I guess. I don't know what exactly. I found myself extremely indifferent any time she killed someone. This is the thing that kind of drives me up the wall when men write insane and hypersexual women in their stories. They lack empathy and only want to show a woman being hot and covered in blood in their thing that they're making but they also don't to come off as Some Pervert (which is fine, being horny is legal) so they don't commit. Neither to humanizing them or going full camp and making sexploitation or whatever. So it's just writing an "insane person" and not writing a person who does insane things. Does that make sense? It's beyond trope. It's cardboard cutout. Even insanity has logic. If someone stabs someone because "the voices" told them to, that is a reason. If someone stabs someone because they threatened to leave and they couldn't imagine life without them, that is a reason. I don't know why Crazy did what she did.

The one thing that could've saved this movie (especially considering the low-budget aspect as well as the still-learning actors brought on to the project and the general tone) was leaning more into sex, action and violence. It wasn't thrilling at all, it wasn't scary at all, the sex scenes were extremely un-sexy and uninteresting, there is no emotional investment in any of these characters so there's no drama or tension either. I just don't get any of it. I don't know what the purpose of this movie was. It made it a pretty boring watch whenever there wasn't stilted dialogue and chuckle at. I think the WMC's friend was kind of funny. She was genuinely a hysterical person who would grow hostile at the drop of a pin, and just constantly acted like a lunatic and in a good movie, that would be something to critique and question but in this movie, it means something is actually happening on screen so we'll take it.

The thing is, right, this director - Jonathan Milton makes a lot of movies. He's made so many. This was his fourth movie he ever made, with a two year gap between this one and the previous one. So I'm willing to cut some slack. It was those early learning days, I guess. I'm considering watching one of the three movies he directed this year. I am very skeptical that there's going to be much if any improvement but I'm curious to see if the man that has made 20 movies in eight years has learned anything at all in all that time. Put a pin in this, I guess.

Anyway, this is a movie that lacked intent. It all falls apart at the seams. The beginning, middle and end is just not cohesive or interesting. That being said, I didn't hate the movie. I could tell that there was care in behalf of the people that worked on it. I dunno why. I don't think there's anything in particular that is leading me to feel that way but I feel somewhat endeared by it.

Oh right, there's also a scene in the movie where MMC is playing basketball with a friend and he starts shouting GAME POINT over and over and thank God for subtitles because I straight up thought he was shouting GAY PORN.

Also I will never get over this review for it on Letterboxd. I think about "They do their own stunts (suffocating inside a plastic bag in a ford focus)." at least once a day since I first read this.

Weapons

Synopsis: When all but one child from the same classroom mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.

Zach Cregger is really setting himself up to be one of my favorite horror-comedy directors. I liked Barbarian a fair amount but Weapons was definitely a step up. Apparently he's set to direct a Resident Evil movie (an original one independent of the story in the games) so that's kind of interesting, but I don't know if I'll really care to watch it because I'm not a Resident Evil fan. Like it's fine and all but I didn't grow up with the nostalgia for it that a lot of people have because I never played it so IDK.

Anyway, I really liked Weapons is basically what I'm saying. Something that the synopsis above leaves out is that the sole remaining child is not the only person who doesn't vanish from his class. His teacher is also very much still there, and is consequently blamed for the disappearances of these children by most of the parents/people in town. Justine (the teacher) is insufferable. She's constantly over-stepping with her students, she tries the patience of her cute gay boss (school principal) Marcus, she gets hostile the moment she's told to own up to something or is confronted about anything, she tries (and partially succeeds) to convince her recovering alcoholic ex Paul to drink and cheat on his girlfriend. She's genuinely a bad person. But in true Zach Cregger fashion, she is just absolutely fascinating to watch. I love her. And you could say the same about pretty much any character. This movie is shot in parts, similar to Barbarian, with overlap in the timelines for some scenes and I love how perspectives sort of change small details based on which character the story is following/centering.

For example, there's a scene where Paul is chasing down a known hooligan and substance abuser James (he's my favorite character in the movie) after catching him trying to break into a building. Paul is a cop btw, he's not doing this for the hell of it. After catching him and putting handcuffs on him, Paul asks James the usual schtick "Do you have anything in your pockets that's gonna poke me or stick me?" James says no and Paul goes to empty his pockets, except that James either lied or forgot, who knows, and Paul pricks his finger on a clearly used needle. In a rage, Paul punches James in the head and knocks him to the ground - only to realize in his post-punch clarity that the dash cam in his cruiser is recording him.

When the story follows him, he sits James up and asks if he's okay. He's very frazzled and shaken by what just happened. He offers him an exchange of sorts, to let him go and pretend none of this happened as long as he keeps this between them. He also says "I don't want to see you here again, okay?" which is an insane thing to say, like he lives in town. What is he meant to do? Anyway, when it comes to Jasper's perspective Paul is much less shaken up by everything. He actually speaks rather condescendingly to him. He doesn't say "I don't want to see you here again, okay?". He says, "If I see you around here again, it's gonna be a different story." He's threatening him. In Paul's version, he helps James up to his feet - still flustered and adrenaline rushing. In James', he just tells him to "Get the fuck up" before the scene ends. I think that kind of "unreliable narrator" style writing is just too cool and it's fun to have it shown in such subtle blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpses because little details like that really change so much about a situation.

This all brings me to Gladys and the point of the movie which is what I most want to talk about. I guess, my take on what the point is anyway. It'd be foolish to shrug off what the movie has to say about gun violence. Everyone has talked it into the ground, there is literally a giant floating assault rifle in the sky at one point. People have mentioned the constant reference of the time 2:17 either citing bible passages about child death or representing a gun reform bill that just barely passed by 217 (against 213) votes. I think the movie has a lot more to say than just that, though. I think it's just about violence (and the consequential grief born of violence) in general, and especially violence against children - whether it be physical or emotional. Apparently the style of running the kids do in the movie was indicated on the script as mirroring that well-known photo of Phan Thị Kim Phúc as a child fleeing a napalm attack in Vietnam - a historic instance of weapons utilized to harm children. Cregger actually talks in an interview about how he pulled a lot about what happened to Alex (the only boy in his class not to disappear) from his own childhood, and how it felt growing up with addiction in his household. The way Justine victimizes and shrinks herself as a way to manipulate those around her, the way addiction eats you up from the inside, the way Paul abuses his authority as a police officer and yes - the way Gladys literally turns the people around her into living breathing weapons - again, including children. It's all about violence - cyclical and merciless and terrifying.

With the climate of politics right now, it's not exactly a secret that children are constantly used as a tool for discourse. Oppressive and fascistic regimes of censorship and bigotry often take space while feigning that their purpose is simply the protection of children. People should be abducted and disappeared without explanation to protect children, people are not allowed to artistic self-expression to protect children, people are not allowed to live their lives authentically to protect children, people are not entitled to basic human rights to protect children. Children are weapons for parasites - parasites represented by Gladys in this movie. A witch that saps the vitality of children to go on living, to go on festering and sucking every breath out of the world until there is nothing left but it. She is a beast, the beast that is fascism. And the ending showed rather clearly what one does with that beast.

I wish a lot of what I was saying here made more sense. It feels like I'm rambling but I think I just kind of get like this when I get in over my head trying to talk about something I really like without the ability to parse any of it. But I guess the point of these reviews is that this is just something I'm doing in my spare time for fun and nothing else. Anyway, I really like this movie and the more I think about it and the more I write about it, the more I like it. There are just so many layers, so many interpretations and so many moving parts in it and I love how much Cregger really just kind of wants people to develop their own personal relationship with it. I had gone into it with really no expectations. All I knew about it was the short synopsis for it on Letterboxd. I had heard that people had really liked it but I get really skeptical when there's a lot of hype around something, especially in this day and age. But I was really pleasantly surprised and I'm really glad I gave it its fair shot. I figured I would've gotten around to it eventually but it might have not hit as deeply as it does in this exact time and it makes me wonder how many movies in the past will never carry the weight it did when it first released because of the world it existed in when it was first born.

All that being said, this movie also looks amazing. The violence is visceral when it does happen. A lot of flinching and looking away from me whenever something particularly nasty was about to happen. (The potato slicer to the face was a hard pass for me LOL) I did anticipate it but I can be squeamish here and there so bare with me. I loved the scene at the end with the kids and Gladys. I just know they have a blast filming it. The energy was insane, the practical effects were fantastic. The action, everything - oh my God. I can not remember the last time I was that captivated by a scene in a movie. i literally could not look away. The acting was solid. Everyone, even Cary Christopher who played Alex (WHO IS 9 YEARS OLD) was absolutely amazing. I know there were a lot of casting issues when filming this but I can not overstate how much I can not see another cast for this movie. I'm NGL, I do not remember there being music for this movie. I don't really feel like it detracted much from it either way but I don't really feel like it did very much either. I definitely have plans to rewatch soon so I might pay closer attention the second time around?

Oh, one last thing. While reading about Weapons, I found an interview where Cregger talks about how he had to change the ending of the movie to add a narration sort of giving closure about the whole story because initially, it just cut to black without really explaining things. A woman in the theater during the previews negatively reacted to that ending and Cregger decided to change it, which I found very strange. He didn't really strike me as the type to really give a shit, personally - but anyway. I think this sort of stuff is stupid and annoying and that art shouldn't be made to be more "marketable" but I also understand that it's also not super up to him and all that. I did just want to mention it because it really pissed me off. Artists should get to make the art they want to make and if people are confused or upset or whatever - so bet it.

Ummm, yeah. I think that's like a lot of what I had to say. I think I'm gonna keep thinking about this movie forever.