Bildungsroman Blitz: October 2021
The October media log is, surprisingly, not that spooky.
Hey y’all - remember me? The one who enjoys Spooky Season? The one who is having a Hot Girl Halloween? The one who calls this Scream-inspired Scooby Doo commercial Art with a capital A?
And yet when it came time to compile the media log for October, I found that what I wanted to recommend was mostly not spooky. Part of this is because I am still devouring new spooky shows like Midnight Mass1 and have yet to watch current buzzy horror movies like Halloween Kills. Part of this is because I have been watching and playing Pokémon non-stop (more on that later). So if you were hoping for spooky recs from me, you won’t find any here, but you can talk to me on Twitter and I will be happy to provide some
The Film Reroll: Memento (podcast episodes, 2020-2021)
Have you ever watched a movie and thought, “I wonder how the rest of the movie would go if Character A made a different choice here?”
Have you ever GM’d an RPG and thought, “Movie X has such fascinating potential worldbuilding, I wish I could play around in that sandbox.”
If either of these sound like you, I have a podcast I’d like to tell you about. The Film Reroll is a podcast that started producing episodes in 2015. Each batch of episodes depicts a different RPG campaign based on a real movie. All episodes start off fairly close to the plot of the original movie, but since each choice a character makes is now subject to a dice roll, things can go off the rails fairly quickly.
I have been a fan of this podcast for a while but fell out of regular listening shortly before the pandemic. I recently decided to catch up with it and was blown away by their sprawling and surprising Memento campaign.
Memento is a 2000 neo-noir film directed by Christopher Nolan. It’s notable for two things: putting Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception) on the map, and being told primarily in backwards chronological order. The protagonist of Memento is Leonard Shelby (played by Guy Pearce in the film), who has anterograde amnesia as a result of a brain injury and is unable to create new memories. The film is told in reverse order so that the audience has an experience similar to Leonard’s—beginning each new scene without any knowledge of what came before.
The Film Reroll’s resident GM, Paulo Quiros, conceived of a Memento campaign that could create a similar experience for the players and the listeners. But how? In a normal Film Reroll campaign, each central player character is played by one consistent actor. For example, in the Jaws campaign, Chief Brody, Matt Hooper, and Quint are each played by Jon Miller, Pitr Strait, and Andy Hoover respectively.
However, in the Memento campaign, Leonard Shelby was played by Jon Miller…and Pitr Strait...and Andy Hoover…and Carolyn Faye Kramer…and so on.
To effectively recreate Leonard’s short-term memory loss, Quiros made it so that Leonard was re-cast after the earlier player failed three focus check rolls. This way no meta-knowledge would color how the player approached the game. This approach—where Quiros had to schedule 1-1 sessions with several different players—seems like a nightmare in normal circumstances but is fiendishly clever during a global pandemic. Scheduling remote sessions meant that special guests—like Steve Jackson, the creator of the role-playing game GURPS and the card game Munchkin—could be part of the campaign.
On the audience side, while the campaign was conducted and recorded in forward chronological order, the episodes were edited and released in reverse chronological order. Talk about commitment!
What is unique about The Film Reroll is that even if you are intimately familiar with the source material, the campaigns more often than not end up being wholly distinct from the original. I can guarantee you that if you have seen Memento twenty times, you haven’t experienced the story that unfolds in these podcast episodes. What is great about The Film Reroll is that each campaign is always the right blend of funny-on-purpose and play-it-straight sincerity.
Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar (film, 2021)
I wasn’t kidding when I said this media log is not spooky at all. Heck, this isn’t even a fall film—it’s a summer romp! But I had to include this because it was so refreshing. And I have to get this off my chest: More! High! Concept! Comedies! Again!
I recently re-watched Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. It was not a movie I was particularly expecting to hold up well. In my opinion, it did hold up well, and also in my opinion, here’s why: its commitment to living within the utterly silly fantasy world it inhabits. Yes, there is never any real danger in Austin Powers. But the characters—spies and mad scientists—absolutely believe there is. No one questions the captivating power of Powers dancing to “Soul Bossa Nova”, or the validity of Scott Evil’s parental angst. The High Concept Comedy is a place where you can make a lot of jokes at the expense of the tropes you are parodying/deploying—in Austin Powers, James Bond/spy fiction—but you can also have characters in a heightened world making us feel those heightened emotions.
As one review for Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar says, “if you’ve got a soft spot for the Technicolor silliness of Austin Powers…Vista Del Mar should be your next destination.” So what’s the high concept here?
What if two nice midwestern ladies—Barb and Star—took their first vacation ever to a place that just so happened to be the target of an international supervillain’s revenge plot?
Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar is written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, who also play the title roles. Wiig and Mumolo previously co-wrote the 2011 smash success Bridesmaids, a movie that is on the opposite end of the comedy spectrum from Barb and Star. I happened to like both, but I just want to emphasize that if you are more of an Apatow/Rogen/free-wheeling realistic improv comedy person, Barb and Star might not be for you.
This movie is definitely for you if you love:
Fully-choreographed musical numbers
Annie Mumolo and/or her undeniable chemistry with Kristen Wiig
Visual gags akin to this classic moment in Not Another Teen Movie:
A lot of the reviews, even the positive ones, mention that Barb and Star is not as “deep” as Bridesmaids was. While I’m not here to write some galaxy brain take about how Barb and Star’s fish out of water set up is actually a metaphor for middle America’s polarization from the coastal elites or something, I do think it’s worth pushing back on what makes something “deep”. Is Bridesmaids “deep” because it’s a comedy that is also very sad? Is it “deep” because it features women swearing and making poop and sex jokes, normally the domain of men in 21st century comedy?
Much like the Austin Powers example above, there is never any real danger in Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar. But the characters believe there is. And while the characters believe they are in danger, they have a chance to realize just how valuable their friendship is, or realize they are in an emotionally manipulative relationship with someone else. It’s goofy and silly, but it’s still real. Is that “deep”? Maybe not, but it is fully engaging.
Link Roundup
“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”, Sheila O’Malley writing for RogerEbert.com
“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar review – goofy Bridesmaids reunion”, Benjamin Lee writing for The Guardian
“Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar Review”, Ben Travis writing for Empire
Pokémon Shield (video game, 2019)
I did not have “develop an increasingly deep attachment to the Pokémon franchise” on my 2021 bingo card, but here we are.
I have written before in this newsletter about my experience as a latecomer to Pokémon. The abbreviated version is that I never watched the show or played the games as a kid, but my boyfriend began watching the seasons of the show he had never watched, and I got sucked in. He then decided to buy Pokémon Sword for the Nintendo Switch and playing that was an important lifeline for him during the pandemic. Until recently, I stayed a passive observer of the Pokémon video games, the way I am a passive observer of all video games.
And then, for an anniversary present, my boyfriend bought me Pokémon Shield.
As I mentioned in my earlier newsletter entry, I never played video games as a child and remain intimidated by playing them now as an adult. So, I was scared about being “good” at the game. But do you know what’s great about Pokémon? It’s that being good at the game simply means spending time with your Pokémon pals!
Sure, the main function of the game is to train your Pokémon to beat other Pokémon trainers in battle, and I get desperately worried for my team when they’ve had a tough battle. But it’s also fun to have your Pokémon learn new moves and to watch them evolve. You can also just spend time with your Pokémon playing with them and petting them, which I highly recommend.
I’m still very early on in my game play, but I look forward to furthering my journey, growing my beloved team, and making sure they are all happy and healthy. If that sounds like fun to you, and if you are a video game novice, I highly recommend.
Author’s note: by the time I finished writing this newsletter, I had actually finished Midnight Mass and became fully obsessed with it. Expect some writing about it in the future, possibly for a bonus issue.