Succession (Season 3) This show just gets better and better. It is now up there with Better Call Saul as the only series to which I salivate as I await new episodes (I’m not the only one). The cast is just phenomenal, as is the writing. And I have no idea where it will go next.
Squid Game This was terrific. Mind you, the style and themes do all the heavy lifting. Without the distinctive visuals, intense subject matter and class war themes, you might be left thinking more about that dead end plot line with the cop (whose phone battery seems to last days), an organ harvesting storyline which went nowhere, and the overly drawn out nature of the story (that last episode in particular was a drag). Still, a highlight of the year despite these pet peeves.
Dexter: New Blood The original run of this show had the worst final season and final episode of any show, ever. Somehow, I was still up for more eight years later. Thankfully, it’s a return to form (thus far anyway. At time of writing there’s still four episodes remaining). Worth a look for fans of the series before it turned bad.
Ted Lasso What a great first season of a show, followed by a clusterfuck of a second to undo all the good vibes of the first. Season one is a great mix of drama, comedy and warmth. Season two was hot garbage. Much like Mythic Quest it doesn’t seem to understand what was appealing about the show in the first place (keep it light for a start), and overestimates my interest in the “world” of the show. I give zero fucks about B-characters. I don’t need to know more about them, or watch them go on LENGTHY side quests to find themselves. I sure as shit don’t need to know about the issues they had or continue to have with their father. It’s a simple light breezy show and the tone was set in season one. Keep it there. Suffice to say I won’t find out if they get back on track for season three because hit the ejection button on this rickety plane before I got to the end.
Foundation Well this sure was pretty. Some incredible and unique sci-fi visuals. Unfortunately that was about all it had for me. Perhaps my hopes were too high, but this was a chore to get through.
Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 11) This season had a few weak moments, but Larry still makes me laugh. Will I continue to watch? Sure. Would I be sad if they stopped making it? Nope. Always Sunny on the other hand keeps me wanting more.
You (Season 3) Yes I watched this. Yes it is trash. Yes I knew it was trash going in.
Movies
Dune I’ve been waiting many many years for this one. When I heard Villeneuve was attached to direct, my anticipation only increased – and it did not disappoint. My first visit to the cinema in two years and it was well and truly worthy of the big screen.
The Father One of the best of the year. Very cleverly structured and perfectly executed. The less you know before hitting play, the better.
Free Guy Enjoyable enough but wouldn’t recommend. Plot wise, a bit like The Lego Movie meets The Truman Show with Ryan Reynolds doing his usual thing (which while fun, is really getting a little tired). Taika’s character shat me off too. But what really got to me was the godawful ending. The female lead is sold as a highly intelligent girl, yet somehow she is completely oblivious to her male friend overtly crushing on her for years. So, she’s not interested right? Or she became interested because he grew and changed? Nope. He does fuck all, goes to get a coffee and she suddenly notices all the creepy messages he left in the game for her. So when he returns with his coffee she’s *all over him*. What a steaming pile of Hollywood horse shit.
Jungle Cruise Does what it says on the label. Entertaining fun in the vein of Indiana Jones and The (Brendan Fraser) Mummy.
Nitram Fantastic performances and overall a very chilling film. My only gripe is that by the end I wasn’t entirely sure of the point of it all. Perhaps that it was all preventable? I guess that sense of unease might be the whole idea.
Docos
Woodstock 99 Where the 90s died. Pretty alarming to watch now but they make the argument that a lot of what grunge and rap seeded in the early 90s mutated into an angry white male beast by the name of nu-metal. Somehow the messages within the lyrics were lost on a lot of people. I guess that same angry crowd is storming the US Capitol these days.
Watch The Sound This made for an interesting dive into different technologies, effects and concepts of music production within the last 40 years. Especially interesting given I was diving into some of these effects myself during lockdown.
Shirkers Really quirky and fascinating doco. I went in blind, which is best. You never quite know where it’s headed or what the point is, but come out of it feeling as though you’ve watched something unique.
Inside Central Station I love this stuff. In another lifetime I could see myself involved in infrastructure somehow. It was pretty eye-opening to see the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to keep Sydney moving.
New York Super Airport Similar to above, a doco about infrastructure and engineering, and I lapped it up. It covers the impressive reconstruction of New York’s LaGuardia airport, completed whilst the airport remained functional.
Q: Into The Storm I’ve stayed out of the loop with the ins and outs of this cesspool. This HBO doco was pretty thorough and engaging. Really makes one reflect on where the balance sits between pros and cons of the internet.
Games
Walking a dystopian version of Vancouver in Backbone
Backbone I fired this up knowing little about it and found myself on the streets of a dystopian version of Vancouver (albeit not named as such – but the inspiration is clearly there right from the game map to the scenery). Beautiful artwork, engaging story. Good to see a story-driven adventure work so well on a console.
Mini Motorways Well this just consumed a lot of lockdown time. Addictive, fun, and frustrating. Sim-City meets Oilswell.
Sydney’s Super Tunnel Truth be told – this was my favourite show of the last quarter. Goddamn I love this shit – trains, infrastructure, design, engineering – and in my home city. What’s been done for public transport and infrastructure in the last five-ish years in Sydney has been impressive (and long overdue). I can’t wait to see more.
Feels Good Man I discovered Matt Furie in the relatively early days of the internet. I still own three t-shirts with his designs which I bought back in the days where I prided myself on my unique tee collection. His art and illustration was unique and I loved it. Fast forward a few years and I started seeing his Pepe character being used for memes. His art had been hijacked by a bunch of Trump fanboys. I had NO idea how deep the rabbit hole went, and felt sorry for him. Great doco, which raises questions around who owns art.
Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds This was really charming and showed both the strengths and limitations of the two age groups.
Seaspiracy Hang around me long enough and I’ll have a rant about “pescatarians” who won’t eat meat for animal cruelty reasons (which has merit) – but yet happily consume a product (fish) whose industry wipes out one species after another with little scrutiny. So what I’m saying is, I watched this for validation of my meat consumption and minimal seafood consumption.
Series
On Cinema Oscer Special 2021 I am amazed by how brilliantly this show continues to deliver year after year. This special in particular was innovative in that it ran two separate live streams at once (one for Timheads, one for the Greggheads) as we witnessed the repercussions of Gregg’s murderous car attack last year. Heidecker in particular continues to impress by subverting expectations and playing with the medium itself.
For All Mankind (Season 2) This season started way too slowly and took far too long to get to the meat of the story – but it ended so well and reminded me why I loved the first season so much. That Mrs Robinson plotline was a little forced – but I’m willing to forgive it for Shantel VanSanten. Oof. One gripe – it doesn’t have enough fun with the alternate history of the world. Most of the history of the world outside the space program is identical to our own. Same songs, same leaders, same culture.
Manhunt: Deadly Games I remember the Atlanta bombing back in the day, although at only twelve years of age I was unaware of the details. Richard Jewell went through hell and this captures it in a really engaging way. Clearly the militia plotline was tacked on. I’m not sure how wise it was but I get why they did it. It rounds out the end of the story a lot better.
Wellington Paranormal (Season 3) Good for a laugh as always. Some gags hit, some miss. All a bit of fun.
Made For Love There’s been no shortage of shows which have clearly been pitched as Black Mirror or Twilight Zone -inspired. Any mention of the aforementioned shows will pique my interest. The trouble is though, for every brilliant Zone story there were six lacklustre ones. This is a lacklustre one. And one of my pet peeves – implausible bullshit sci-fi tech – was in abundance.
Mare of Easttown How about you assemble a whole bunch of characters I couldn’t give a fuck about and follow a bunch of dead-end plotlines, then introduce some more characters who have no relevance to the plot – and culminate them in a weak ending – but next time don’t tell me to watch it.
Last Week Tonight John Oliver is a funny guy, but this show is not particularly funny any more. It used to be a nice balance between comedy and insightful commentary and information. I’m not sure if it was Trump that broke him (like Trump-super-fan Stephen Colbarf) or the lack of an audience, but he just comes across as preachy and condescending now – which is guaranteed to shit me even when I agree with the points being made.
Movies
The Dry Beautifully made Aussie murder mystery. Cinematography and acting were fantastic.
I Am Mother Another clever Aussie sci-fi movie I missed from 2019. Really slick, great cast, the last act was a bit too long but not enough to spoil it.
Coherence Really clever sci-fi grounded around a group of friends at a dinner party. Must see for anyone who loves a thinker or a twist.
Richard Jewell I followed up the Manhunt series covering the same content by watching the Clint Eastwood cinematic version and found it felt a lot cheaper. While the series tacked on a phoney militia plotline, at least it handled the main story points a lot better than this.
Bad Trip Hilarious. Andre is brilliant.
Waterworld I’d never seen this and had known only three things – at the time it was the most expensive movie ever made, it was a flop, and it was a Mad Max ripoff. There isn’t even any subtlety to the ripoff. I enjoyed it enough, but it felt like a hard slog.
Run Simple thriller, well executed.
Godzilla vs Kong About what I expected.
The Mitchell’s vs The Machines Stunning visuals, with an oddly dated feeling plot (that dad is, say, 40 maybe? And he doesn’t understand smartphones? Screen-time as a theme feels more 2010 than 2021). Hopefully more animated features push visual experimentation.
Happily This sucked massively.
Games
Prey This was really cool and gave me flashbacks to the original Half-Life. The story was engaging and intricate, the balance between tasks and combat was right (I get so bored by too much of the latter), and the visuals weren’t anything remarkable but they were solid. Loved it.
Control Loved the visuals, the geometric art, the story, the concepts, and throwing bodies around. However, this game has such a godawful map and confusing spawning system which makes you replay sections of story and dialogue even though it remembers your progress beyond that point. Enemy spawning seemed buggy as hell in some sections too, with endless respawns. I’m certain it’s a bug, not a feature. Still, all in all, a fun ride, but I was bored of it long before I got to the end.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps Wow. This occupied my Christmas break. As rain came down and Covid threatened yet again, I wore my thumbs numb playing this highly addictive platformer. When the batteries on my controller ran dry I ran through torrential Sydney rain for fresh ones. The gameplay is fun, the scenery is beautiful and the soundtrack incredible. That fucking spider boss though. And her babies. They can get fucked. I’m sure my new neighbours thought I had Tourette’s.
The Medium I loved this. I didn’t care a great deal for the plot but the format is almost exactly what I’ve long had in mind for how I would make my own adventure game (albeit with more structured camera angles & less camera changes and a less hand-holding in the gameplay). The spirit world split was also a very clever game device.
Series
How To With John Wilson Oh, how I’ve missed Nathan For You. I wasn’t sure about How To after seeing the first episode. It felt like a poor attempt at Nathan Fielder’s style, but as each episode progressed I realised John Wilson was truly doing his own thing. His style and approach is unique and subtly hilarious. Structurally it’s just as impressive as it manages to wrap the entire set of episodes up in a way you don’t expect. It’s a very visual show – if you play on your phone you’ll miss 90% of the jokes. Notable mentions: the foreskin guy (what!) and the absurdity of the art commissions.
Friday Night Dinner (Season 1-2) Another Robert Popper classic. Somehow this passed me by when it first aired but the advantage is I now have some comedy to watch – which I’ve been needing. The father is a classic, as is Jim (in smaller doses). Can’t stand the blonde son though – he reminds me too much of the kind of aloof motherfuckers I can’t stand in real life.
Your Honour This was a like a quality streaming show written by a broadcast television writing team. I enjoyed it, but there were a lot of moments of the story which were a bit too convenient. The cast carried it.
The Undoing I got right into this, and enjoyed the ride – but I’m not quite sure I liked how it landed. You’re led to assume that the most obvious ending can’t be what happens – and somehow the twist is that there is no twist.
The Mandalorian (Season 2) Even better than last season, each episode better than the last. It looks and sounds fantastic and not a moment is wasted. No other show makes me feel like a kid again better than this.
WandaVision I only really caught this because I have free Disney+ now. I enjoyed all the sitcom references, hated the pseudoscience and was lost by the references that went way over my head since I don’t have a PhD in Marvel.
Movies
Nomadland McDormand was great, cinematography and scenery is stunning (set in a region of the world that really represents a happy place for me). Script and plot are minimal, yet the themes of personal loss and the larger economic and societal issues still come through. Most of the characters in the film are real people – not actors – and at times it almost feels like a documentary. I really enjoyed it.
Mank Love Fincher, but I was far too distracted by the visual quality of this to enjoy the story. I’m guessing the idea was to pull the audience into the world, but it did the exact opposite for me. Plenty of beautifully framed shots regardless, as you’d expect. The Lighthouse used a visual style to great effect. This felt like a gimmick.
Before Sunrise Great script which plunges you right into a chance encounter between two travellers on a night in Europe. Enjoyed this a lot more than I anticipated. Soz for the blue balls Hawkie.
Soul I don’t tend to watch a lot of animated features these days. They generally bore me. I gave this a go when I heard a lot of hype surrounding it. The hype was unjustified. The story was boring, the visual quality was more “cinematic” than Pixar’s usual fare but generally bland. The one positive was the “Soul-world” where they tried something new for a change, but overall even that wasn’t worth it.
Docos
Some Kind of Heaven
Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult This was fascinating and shocking. Organised religion IS abuse, there really isn’t any other way to cut it. What’s particularly bizarre about NXIVM is the players in the game. Keith Raniere, the self-proclaimed “third best problem solver in the world” (lol) would have to be the most bland, uncharismatic cult leader to have ever existed. He’s the annoying guy in a group who you let come along cause you feel bad for him, not the guy you follow.
The Vow This doco covers the same content as the aforementioned Seduced, just a hell of a lot more bloated. The “bloated doco series” has been a plague since Making a Murderer – find yourselves an editor and get some perspective as to how much meat your subject matter has on its bones. This only had to be 5 episodes at MOST.
Some Kind of Heaven This was fascinating, sad, heart-warming and bizarre. It follows some of the people at Florida’s famous The Villages retirement village as they live out their twilight years. The Villages is a carefully constructed world designed to resemble the lives they might have had in their twenties. It’s beautifully shot and it’s nice to see these people having fun, but incredibly sad to watch some of them still dealing with the kind of relationship stress and jealousy they had in their hey day. It made me reflect on my own life a little too much. Van life handy-man is a real piece of work.
A Glitch in the Matrix Rodney Ascher of Room 237 fame directs this feature length doco about simulation theory and, indirectly, the future of gaming and entertainment to come. He builds most of it around a 1977 Philip K Dick lecture where he emphatically suggests the likelihood of such a reality existing. This was really cool, and cleverly constructed. I particularly liked the use of avatars for interviewees. It doesn’t seek to convince you that we live in a simulation (would it even matter if we did?) but the ideas and people make for fascinating discussion, including some really disturbing takes. Long story short, I’m surrounded by NPCs.
Alien Worlds I loved this. I thought it was a great concept, well considered and executed. It mixes information from life on Earth and hypothesises how potential alien life may exist. Shout out to the guy getting excited watching beetles have sex.
Framing Britney Spears Had to jump on this bandwagon. Spears was my top celebrity crush when I was 18, and Toxic is still one of the greatest songs of all time, so I didn’t exactly approach it kicking and screaming. The main thing that struck me was just how different things were in the 90s. It’s easy to forget even though I lived through it, but some questions from journalists and jokes from late night hosts are just shocking and cringey when heard with modern ears.
Pods
Smartless Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes chatting with random celebrities, and paying each other out. Yeah, it’s in the celebrity-interviewing-celebrity circle jerk genre, but the dynamic between these guys really works and often hilarious. I powered through all of them in two weeks.
My collection of PC games which still lives at my parents’ home and I can’t bring myself to get rid of them
As I’ve mentioned previously, when I think back to my childhood, two images come to mind – riding my bike around the endless suburban streets of western Sydney, and playing computer games as much as I was allowed. Name a PC game from 1983 to around 1998 and chances are I’ve played it. From Commander Keen to Command and Conquer; Castle Adventure, Descent, Prince of Persia, Scorched Earth, Eye of the Beholder, Lemmings, Supaplex, JetPack, Earthsiege, Alone in the Dark. The list goes on.
But most of all I loved Sierra games. In the 80s and early 90s, Sierra On-Line dominated the PC gaming market. I loved them so much that I had dreams of one day working there. But in the late 90s, as the company deteriorated and eventually closed down, so too my interest in gaming dwindled.
At this time, every other game seemed to be another shooter with little-to-no story nor characters with whom to interact. Funnily enough, one of the last Sierra-published-games I got into was Half Life (which I loved). But mostly all I saw was a sea of sameness and as such I switched my attention to teaching myself 3D animation, website design and coding – all of which revolved around making fan content for my favourite series Space Quest. My goal switched from playing to creating.
Two books (the first two listed above) have been released in the last few months which have given some insight into the history of Sierra On-Line – how it began, how it thrived, and how it spectacularly fell apart. I devoured both books in only a couple of sessions.
At 8 years of age I tried to win over girls as Larry
King’s Quest was always their crown
Police Quest keeping it gritty
Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist
Space Quest. There’s nothing like it.
The Sierra Adventure is a work of love, written by a fan with the backing of a number of other fans via Kickstarter. It chronicles the company from its early days to its unfortunate end, highlighting the key games, designers and technologies along the way. Sierra’s success was found in its designer-driven approach and its technological boundary-pushing. No great work of art is designed by committee. As a Sierra fan, you always felt like part of a club or family, and got to know the game designers in the same way you would the author of a book. In the early days you could even call the designer to talk to them directly when you got stuck.
Unfortunately this approach was also expensive. An adventure game requires, story, dialogue, and characters. A successful game would sell around 250,000 copies and require a budget of around a quarter of the expected revenue. By the mid-nineties these numbers just weren’t competitive. Shawn Mills says it best:
A cultural change occurred in the early nineties that saw computers become a staple in most homes. They were no longer just for the tech-savvy, and as more and more people began using them throughout the decade, games and software were simplified to reach a broader audience.
More importantly, the technological advancement to 3D would become one of the major downfalls of the point-and-click adventure. While fast-paced, action-oriented games increased in popularity, the more cerebral adventure genre no longer dominated the market.
Shawn Mills, The Sierra Adventure
Sierra pushed the boundaries of what was possible in a PC game by embracing new technology. Soundcards changed everything and enhanced the experience. I still listen to these regularly.
Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings – written by Sierra’s co-founder and CEO for most of the company’s life, Ken Williams – covers similar ground from the perspective of the ultimate insider. It’s far more business-oriented, which becomes fascinating when considering what led to both the successes and failures of the company.
A few highlights:
Sierra made an offer to purchase id Software following the release of Wolfenstein 3D, which failed mostly due to stubbornness. Pride can be a bitch. Imagine the future which might have followed.
Ken Williams was adamant about games being driven by the singular vision of an individual designer – a belief I strongly agree with for any decent creative endeavour (“if you were to take the two greatest book authors in the world and have them collaborate on a book, the result would not be as strong as their producing two independent books“). When new management took over, they used numbers and spreadsheets to assign people to projects. Original game designers were placed on games for which they had no passion while others were placed in charge of their original creation with little to no understanding of the world which had been created over fifteen years.
Sierra (and Microsoft) benefited from IBM’s fear of government anti-trust laws. IBM wrote into their contracts that each company must make their product available elsewhere. As such, when IBM caught a cold it hit them harder and allowed Sierra to sail off with other manufacturers.
The concept of a game “engine” which could be repurposed for new games without having to be coded from the ground up was pioneered by Sierra’s SCI. It’s what allowed them to push out ten times more titles than their competitors. It was also amusing the see the parallels with my own experience in the VFX industry as creatives would become frustrated with updates under the hood.
It struck me how much the experience of working in the gaming industry at that time lines up with my own experience working in the film industry. Bill Gates is paraphrased in the book: “when you are in a business that depends entirely on having a series of hits, it’s just a matter of time until you fail“.
What other game besides Space Quest III tasks the player with rescuing its own designers from their bosses who whip them as they work
Invariably, in a company that grows the way Sierra grew, innovation gives way to emulation. Whereas Sierra’s management once strove to make it solid, profitable, and yet fun, they now strive to dominate other companies, force annual growth in the double digits, and (Like so many other companies) cut jobs mercilessly to improve the bottom line and thrill the stockholders.
Josh Mandel, echoing a sentiment true of any company
Not All Fairy Tales was written thanks to Ken being trapped indoors during the pandemic. In a similar way, my desire to explore again the possibility of creating my own game has risen with all the time I’ve had stuck indoors this year. I’ve been learning Unreal Engine and making my own digital art again and my mind has exploded with ideas of how one might tackle an adventure game in 2020. I’ll save that for another time.
The Forest My interest in this game resembles the bell curve of New Zealand’s COVID-case chart. I was lured in by two things – the “plane crash on a mysterious island” setup will always catch my eye; and quite simply that the required machine specs suited my laptop. So I got right into it, after some initial frustration with what I was meant to be doing (video above captures my mood). Building, exploring, discovering new weapons, fighting cannibals and mutants, and piecing together the story somewhat. The “somewhat” is the problem for me. I quickly grew bored as the game’s hazy goals, stacked up on some frustrating UI quirks and an impossibly dark nighttime look. More than half of the things you can build are purely decorative and serve no value or purpose to the game. Maybe it works better when played with friends? Possibly, although I doubt it. It needs more purpose, story and characters to hold my interest.
Series
Devs
Devs This was great. Created, written and directed by Alex Garland, so if you’re a fan of his previous work you’ll likely be into this too. It was thought-provoking, the soundtrack was fantastic, and the visuals were cool. Some sloppy performances didn’t hold it back.
Limmy’s Show I discovered this show after Limmy was a guest on Office Hours. I listen to most of Tim Heidecker’s comedy recommendations and this was definitely a winner – and it makes sense – it plays like a less crude, less nightmarish version of Tim & Eric, with more charming accents. It matched my sketch comedy tastes perfectly and I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of it until this year.
The Twilight Zone (2019) (Season 2) Thankfully, this improved on the first season, which mostly paid fan-service to the sixties series. This still meant that half of the episodes were built on a weak premise or poorly executed. But it was worth trudging through those for the other half.
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (Seasons 1-5) A show which has long alluded me – it’s never aired on any traditional channel, nor could it be found on any streaming platform to which I had access. I discovered it was available through my ISP here and it’s been part of my lunchtime workout routine since. “Who Pooped the Bed?” is a work of genius.
Solar Opposites Off-brand Rick & Morty. It’s entertaining enough. I binged the lot in a weekend, but did I need it? Nah.
Nathan For You I’ve seen most of this show a multiple times already, but not for a few years. Re-watching it only confirmed that it’s one of the most brilliant shows of the last ten years. If you haven’t seen it, you’re really missing out on some big laughs and clever ideas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmjHSNdHIv4
Docos
Love On The Spectrum This was really charming. It’s listed as “reality” but it plays more documentary-style and opened my eyes to a world I’m really unfamiliar with – yet found very relatable. I’ve had enough awkward dates of my own, without being able to cite autism as a reason.
I’ll Be Gone In The Dark An interesting spin on the classic true-crime doco where some of the light is shone back on the author herself. Michelle McNamara’s years of research led to an arrest following her death. Side note: I don’t know why but I can’t stand Patton Oswalt.
Movies
The Death of Dick Long This could have been better. Moments even felt like it wanted to be Fargo. It falls far short of that, but was still worth a look. It’s biggest problem is that it can’t decide whether to lean into the comedy or drama, and in turn waters down both.
The Florida Project I’m not sure I’d recommend this, but that’s not to say it lacked value. It captured the feel of the Orlando / Space Coast region of Florida with its bright colours, motels, and endless flat suburbia – some of which took me back to my own childhood of long hot summers riding my bike around the streets of western Sydney making up games to entertain ourselves. More importantly it captured a lot of the issues with America right now, contrasting Disneyland against the very real poverty of many, and the way many of these folks are dismissed and looked down upon rather than understood. Actually you know what, I would recommend this. Ignore my first sentence.
Ad Astra This looked awesome and tickled my sci-fi bones in a visual sense, but was otherwise forgettable.
The Fast and Furious series I’d managed to go this long without seeing a single movie from this franchise, so when they appeared on Netflix I decided I’d “educate” myself. The first three were a waste of time. Strangely they became more enjoyable as they leaned into the ridiculousness of the concept. Check-your-brain-at-the-door fun.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly God this was long, but I see why it’s a classic. The soundtrack is still the best thing about it. RIP Ennio.
Starship Troopers Re-watched this after having not seen it for maybe 20 years. It’s still brilliant, and some of the themes have only become sharper with age. VFX largely held up, and Denise Richards had the same effect on me as when I saw this at 14 years of age. Sigh. I have yet to see Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop (I was a bit too young on release), but knowing it’s held in a similar regard means it’s on the list.
Long days and dreaming nights Wide eyes take in all the sights A little wonder goes a long, long way Learning where to go and what to say
Isolation has been a good time for reflection – some valuable, some not so great. There’s far too much time to think and it’s challenging for everyone. Personally I’ve been frustrated with being trapped in Canada – effectively on my own now – missing and wanting to be with people back home. But I’ve been focused heavily on how fortunate I am to be able to continue working, earning money, in a safe and clean environment and in good health. Many have lost their entire world and the flow-on effects in the months and years to come will be enormous.
Most people facing hardship right now are in that situation through no fault of their own. I am fortunate mostly due to pure luck – I work in an industry willing and able to shift me home. And even the elements I might attribute somewhat to my personal wisdom or success (having skills to remain employable and savings to cover hard times, for example) have their roots in the luck of the past – where and when I was born, and the example set by my parents and their priorities.
My first win was being born in Australia. I grew up the third of four children to two working parents. I shared a bedroom with my two brothers in a fibro home in Guildford, New South Wales – Sydney suburbia. They were paying 18% interest rates on their mortgage of that home. Dad worked a lot, and I was 16 before I even realised mum was working two jobs. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I had an awareness of how challenging this would have been. We weren’t hard done-by by any stretch, but they certainly weren’t made of money, so a lot of the bells and whistles of travel and going out which I’m afforded these days weren’t available to them. But we were loved, so we always felt lucky. I had the best childhood. Santa still spoiled us at Christmas despite mum warning us at the start of every December he might not have much to give. My parents sent us to private school, not because they had money, but because education was their priority and they felt that particular school was the best choice.
1989 – six years of age, discovering the PC and computer games, which in turn led to an interest in visual effects
But it also meant I went to school with a lot of kids I couldn’t quite relate to, and some I found to be quite awful, so my later teenage years weren’t as much fun. I also developed a healthy distaste for religion. But in those years, I learnt how to entertain myself, inventing projects for myself.
And that time was where my career was born.
I was fortunate that dad worked at The University of Sydney, and that he brought his work home. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that I realised just how big an influence he had. He worked long hours on something he loved. He could have found money elsewhere but he loved teaching at University. He also kept a regular exercise routine in the 80s before it was cool. He has passionate opinions, and making someone laugh is always the noblest goal. I’d like to think I subconsciously picked up some of these things.
There is a high chance I would not be enjoying a career in visual effects had it not been for dad’s job. Two key pieces of technology sparked my interest –
a PC he brought home so he could work evenings and weekends; and
the internet, thanks to the fact that Universities got into that world earlier than most.
The PC in particular blew my mind. Thanks to dad bringing his work home, I was able to discover PC games before most of society even knew what they were. I loved Sierra adventure games. So much so that I had dreams of one day working there. Unfortunately the company fell apart by the time I was 15 so that dream evaporated with it. It’s quite fascinating that something I was so obsessed with (games) became mostly a bore to me beyond the age of about 17.
I still listen to this frequently
We got the internet around 1993, age 10. Shortly afterward, I was reaching out to find other fans across the world. I made a fan website to catalogue absolutely everything I loved about Space Quest – learning to code JavaScript and HTML by picking apart other websites and reverse engineering them. Then, when I wanted my website to look better than the rest of them, I learnt PhotoShop and Paint Shop Pro. And once I had catalogued everything there was to know about Space Quest, I set out to make my own content.
By the time I was seventeen most school days were spent looking forward to the end of the day so I could go home and work on and learn 3D – modeling, animation, lighting – the whole thing. That way I could set about remaking the old Space Quest games from the 80s with new 3D graphics. It kept my mind busy more than school. I did very well in school but always saw a lot of it as “a thing I had to do” much like brushing my teeth. Computer graphics, PhotoShop and website design and coding excited me.
I still can’t believe I get paid to do this, even at times when it’s not so glamourous. There are valid complaints to be made in some circumstances but I find that most in my field who complain just come across as precious and entitled – just like some of those kids I went to school with. I have no time for that. They don’t know how lucky they are. This is not a “real” job.
My first job was working at a pharmacy delivering medicine to little old ladies. Then I worked checkout at Coles for about 5 years while building my own website business. It wasn’t until I got my first VFX job at 23 while doing a post-grad animation course with other like-minded friends that I felt at home and those later teenage years found meaning.
A shitty situation one year can lead to incredible things down the road.
I trust that this pandemic solitary time will find meaning.
Well, we made it through the greyest, bleakest winter I’ve ever experienced (says more about the fortune of growing up in Australia than anything) – only to be faced with more confinement. On the same week that Spring reared it’s sunny face and washed away the grey, the slow moving tsunami named Coronavirus reached North America.
So we’ll be trapped inside for some time yet. I’ll be forced to continue reading, making digital art on my Surface, and annoying the neighbours with my Harmonica.
And, of course, staring at screens. Here’s some recent ones…
I wished this world was larger
Games
Whispers of a Machine My childhood was spent riding my bike and playing PC and Sega games, and 90% of that was either parser-based or point-and-click adventure games. So much so that I largely stopped playing games when they stopped making this genre at the end of the 90s. I recently discovered there’s been a resurgence and WoaM was the first I dived into – a “sci-fi Nordic Noir” murder mystery. The story was great, the future-retro artwork and world were fantastic, and as for gameplay the UI was a simple and easy to pick up (although having grown up on games where you spent months pixel-hunting, I thought it made the game too easy). The “enhancements” feature was tricky to understand at first but allowed for great replay-ability. I wanted more. It might be time to try making my own again…
Series
Better Call Saul Season 5 The season has four more episodes to come at the moment, but it’s easily the entertainment highlight of every week without competition. The writing is unmatched. The cast delivers in spades (Rhea Seehorn & Bob Odenkirk especially). I suspect I may end up ranking BCS higher than Breaking Bad when it’s over – if they stick the landing.
Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10 This was so much better than their last attempt when they all looked old and tired. Every moment of this season was packed with jokes and energy. And the concept of a spite store really spoke to me.
The Outsider I was lured in by “Stephen King” and “Ben Mendelsohn”. It delivered what I expected. It felt like a King show and Mendo was great. Some good creepy moments. The journey was worth it despite the lacklustre ending.
Picard As a big TNG nerd, I wanted to like this more, but it felt like a chore.
The Man In The High Castle A bit uneven across the seasons (first was slow, third was all over the place) but overall it hooked me right in and when the last episode ended, I wanted more.
The Boys I started watching this (reluctantly) off a recommendation. It sounded like yet another spin on the tired superhero genre. I was surprised to find it did have some fresh ideas. Unfortunately by the time I got to the end, the fresh ideas already seemed stale.
Docos
Tiger King What the hell did I just watch?
The Family Religion. This made me angry.
Movies
Doctor Sleep This was SO much better than it had any right to be. Following up The Shining – *ahem* – Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining – 40 years later should have been a recipe for disaster. But it really fit into the same world and had a decent story add to the original. The director Mike Flanagan does his best Kubrick impersonation.
The Invisible Man Decent thriller with some clever vfx work.
