Welcome back to the We Have Always Lived in the Kraken, a pop culture blog transmitted directly to you from the belly of the beast. Here in the Notes we’ll show you this week’s posting schedule, but first, a little Seafood for Thought.
As we head towards the end of the year, things are starting to pile up. Last week I spoke of how we are in prestige movie season, but movies aren’t the only medium ready to unleash a deluge of quality products, as the video game industry is about to get serious as well. Last week saw the release of the latest Tales game, Tales of Zestria. This week will see the release of Halo 5: Guardians, while a couple of weeks after that, Fallout 4 is coming to us all. Not to mention that November will also see the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Star Wars Battlefront, just to name a few. Then there’s the game I am most anticipating, Xenoblade Chronicles X. What does all of this mean? Well, the video game industry hates us. Unlike movies, video games require a much more extensive time commitment, so it becomes impossible to give the proper amount of time to any game when another good one is released so soon after it. Now it’s impossible for games to be released in perfect sync so that every game has adequate time to shine, but it has felt like in 2015 that a lot of games have been backloaded to the end of the year (or worse, shunted to 2016, which is going to be a blood bath of gaming releases). That is a shame, as a lot of games are constantly getting lost in the shuffle. I guess on the plus side, at least this means there are a lot of good video games to play, which is far better than the alternative.
David Robertson
We are still going strong here at the Kraken, and have a lot of fun stuff to show off this week.
Monday:
- Killtoberfest 3 continues as Kyu brings us his latest review, early found footage film The Last Broadcast.
Tuesday:
- All good things must come to an end, and so in the last of the TV Roulette Catch-Ups I take a look at the CSI Finale Movie. Did the show that helped shape much of CBS’s programming decision for over a decade go out with a bang?
Wednesday:
- The final days of Killtoberfest 3 are upon us, so why not take a look back at the archive and see how far Kyu has come? Also, check out the first review in his next sounder, the 1922 silent classic from F.W. Murnau, Nosferatu.
Thursday:
- The Anticipated returns with the latest attempt at 1980s nostalgia-bait Jem and the Holograms. I am not even going to pretend that this could have been a good movie, because it really wasn’t, but that is just the beginning. Tune in to see me discuss the anatomy of a bad movie.
Friday:
- This is getting freaky now. In the final TV Roulette of October, I take a look at all the vampire mayhem in The CW’s The Originals.
Saturday:
- It’s Halloween, so in a special two-fer we offer another take on Crimson Peak. Amy Atomika returns to offer her view on Guillermo Del Toro’s latest film. I was pretty positive about the movie, but will Amy agree with me? Spoiler alert: she definitely doesn’t, and it is glorious. It’s Atomika Vs. Crimson Peak, so let the fight begin.
- Baturdays continue with Detective Comics #29. This one’s about some kind of “bat” man, apparently? Sounds kooky!
- Tonight’s Killtoberfest 3 marathon entries, a double header. First Werner Herzog’s florid Nosferatu remake, Nosferatu the Vampyre; then an alt-history horror movie about the making of Nosferatu, Shadow of the Vampire.
Meanwhile, Killtoberfest 3 heads for the final stretch. Kyu’s mad quest to watch and review one horror film a day is proving difficult, but he’s still trying. Check out the list of upcoming reviews here.
Spotlight on Blogs Past:
Good news! Killtoberfest 2 is now in our archives. Just like last week, we especially want to draw your attention to Kyu’s climactic Killtoberfest 2 essay, an in-depth look at Let the Right One In‘s use of visual techniques and motifs to tell a darkly romantic story. So enjoy the vampire awesomeness along with the now complete archive of all of Killtoberfest, past and present.
Catch of the Week:
Each and every week the residents here in the Kraken will offer one recommendation for the week that we think you all would enjoy. It might be a movie. It might be a book. Who knows? This is your… Catch of the Week.
Keskel: Kingdom Death: a Kickstarter boardgame/miniatures art project. It’s a co-operative Dark Souls meets Civlization game where 4 players control members of a human colony (survivors), who begin the game naked and afraid, and kill monsters for their flesh and bone to make tools for their primitive society. It’s dark, complex and intricate–a boardgame as an auteur project.
David: Back in the beginning of 2014, we were in a dark anime season. Pretty much everything on the air was garbage or mediocre at best. There was one exception: Noragami. Following the adventures of a obscure and forgotten god lucking to reclaim his place in the world, Noragami was just the right blend of humor, comedy, and heart to make it one of the few bright spots of that anime season. This anime season it has returned, and so far it continues to be quite good. So give it a shot, and have fun with Yato, Hayori, and Yukine.
Kyu: For my last Catch in October, I’d like to recommend the best collaborative fiction website around, The SCP Foundation. Imagine if instead of watching Mulder and Scully try to solve mysteries, you could actually read those files known as “X”. That’s what the Foundation offers: literally thousands of creepy, funny, and fascinating explorations of supernatural items, beings, places, and events, all written in the restrictive but rewarding format of a bureaucratic overview. The community is just fantastic, and there are multiple entries here that rank with some of the best horror I’ve ever read. I literally couldn’t begin to recommend you the best ones to read; just dive in and enjoy.
That’s it for this week. We hope you continue to find the Kraken to your liking so far. The monster is in a bit of a rebellious stage right now, so don’t mind the tantrums. You get used to them. Just make sure to have something to grab onto when everything begins to shake.