Fear the Helpless Domesticated Animal

If you're going to commit murder, better make sure you're not seen by . . . The Cat! Oou, you say, The Cat? Like John Robie from To Catch a Thief? No. So Catwoman? No. Some other superhero, perhaps like The Shadow, lurking in the darkness to manipulate evil doers with supernatural hypnosis? Nope. I'm talking about the protagonist of 1961's Hammer horror film Shadow of the Cat who is . . . a cat! Just a cat. A house cat. Called Tabitha. Although it is unintentionally funny at times, this, incredibly enough, was meant to be a straightforward horror film.

Shadow of the Cat outlines its intentions by starting off with the murder victim reading aloud Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven". She's murdered by her brother Walter (Andre Morell) to ensure that her second will, which leaves all her money to him, is the one found and not her first, which leaves most of her estate to her niece.

For some reason, after Walter realises his sister's beloved cat had witnessed the murder, he becomes obsessed with hunting down the creature. Perhaps shots of Tabitha's face are meant to indicate a vengeful hatred for Walter and his conspirators.

Though I think those of us more familiar with cats pretty consistently recognise the "I generally don't give a fuck but I'll pay attention in case there's food" look.

The conspirators are killed off one by one. One by drowning under very specific circumstances where the cat is on a log in the swamp and the guy falls in. Another time the cat jumps on someone who gets knocked down the stairs. This is followed by a shot of the cat playing with yarn and the score gives us some triumphant melody.

The film is rather an enormous miscalculation. An attempt to create a real sense of menace results in a real sense of adorableness. But on the plus column it is pretty adorable.

Twitter Sonnet #602

Disconnected candied hands return late.
No punctual pelican lingers long.
A white cat shaves through the rattling grate.
Rubber jacks reflect a ball's normal song.
Cheese shaped like America has water.
Nomads blink mournfully at the glib phrase.
A balding priest repulsed Satan's daughter.
The mariachis ride abreast through haze.
Eisenhower's skull grins because it's deep.
Sense flees dominance for black sodium.
Thin webs of muscle curl flags on the keep.
Scotch tape suffocates pandemonium.
Bright silver plumbing exposed'll beam rust.
The carpet fibre peacock sleeps 'neath dust.

Between Grey and Black

The choice is between love and violence, between giving in and meaningless death. The primary conflict of 1958's Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół i diament) reminded me of the dwarf Alberich at the beginning of Das Rheingold who, continually rejected by the Rhein Maidens, forswears love in order to claim the Rheingold. Maciek, the protagonist of Ashes and Diamonds, isn't pursuing wealth though, as a guerrilla fighter against the Communist regime assuming control of Poland after World War II, one could say he's fighting against a system that theoretically devalues material wealth. But he falls for a barmaid. Nothing complicated, nothing romantic, just something small, simple, and human. He finds himself in a very noir-ish existential crisis in this beautifully shot film.

Zbigniew Cybulski's sensitive, naturalistic performance as Maciek reminded me of James Dean or Marlon Brando so I wasn't surprised to read later that both were influences on the makers of Ashes and Diamonds. But while Rebel Without a Cause and The Wild One were about youth chaffing under the artificial American 1950s nuclear family model, Ashes and Diamonds portrays a similar young man in the context of a real rebellion and a more visibly turbulent political and social atmosphere.

Waclaw Zastrzezynski plays Commissar Szczuka, a prominent figure in the incoming regime whom Maciek and his fellow Home Army soldiers fail to assassinate at the beginning of the film. Two workers are killed instead but somehow Szczuka senses the attack was meant for him.

Maciek and his comrades find themselves at the hotel where Szczuka is staying and Maciek manages to talk himself into getting a room close to Szczuka by commiserating with the desk clerk who, like Maciek, is from Warsaw.

The desk clerk, along with the rest of the hotel staff, seems to have no beef with the Communists. Several prominent members of the party are holding a banquet at the hotel and we see later the staff becoming enthusiastically involved in the celebration.

This is enough to cast some doubt on Maciek's mission. Szczuka himself is portrayed sympathetically--we watch as he fruitlessly attempts to locate a son from whom he was separated during the German occupation. We learn that, like Maciek, Szczuka's son had joined the Home Army.

And, as I mentioned, Maciek falls for the barmaid, Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska).

She doesn't seem interested at first, not visibly reacting to his broad flirtations at the bar. So he's surprised when she shows up at his invitation to his hotel room later.

It's not clear if Krystyna has political leanings one way or the other. She and Maciek have mostly superficial, daydream conversations, but one has the impression she senses Maciek is caught up in some kind of real serious trouble.

In addition to the performances, the film is served magnificently by its dark expressionist cinematography. There's a somewhat broad but very effective visual in a scene where Maciek waits beneath a staircase to assassinate Szczuka and the light through the stair paints several distorted spirals behind him.

Elder Frenzy

Well, I didn't make it to level 10. If I'd been a little more committed, maybe I could have. Maybe when I was younger. It's hard for even a game I like to hold my attention for more than a few hours nowadays. But this was the nicest MMORPG I ever played largely because it had a lot in common with Bethesda's single player RPGs.

This is my Nord character, Sichilde. I'd wanted to name her Kriemhild but the name was taken. Considering I only had her for one day I guess it doesn't really matter. But Sichilde was the name of an ancient Queen and I used it for a World of Warcraft character.

Even on a short term beta event where the objective ought to have been to see as many of the game's features as quickly as possible I was still compelled to explore and linger in areas. The hallmark of a Bethesda game is the great sandbox, landscapes that present endless variability with new caves, tombs, and forts to explore that aren't necessarily part of the main quest.

I got sidetracked by one cave where the ghost of a spy turned people into vases and candles and other objects. There was nothing in the game's writing that equalled The Secret World but this bit was kind of funny. Although there are side quests in The Secret World, though, there's nothing like the complex tangents a Bethesda game can lead you on. I played Morrowind for years and I bet there are still unique places in that game I haven't seen.

Speaking of Morrowind, the second starter area for the Ebonheart Pact faction takes place in Morrowind, the landscape looking like a more graphically advanced version of the landscape from the twelve year old game.

Snake.

I loved what looked like rice fields. I love how the Elder Scrolls games tend to have farms and farmers in them going about their business.

The elven architecture was pretty, looking vaguely Asian while also reminding me of Morrowind's expansion pack, Tribunal.

Before going to Morrowind, my character started in Skyrim which, in terms of graphics quality, looked about identical to the recent single player game of the same name.

So I'm actually tempted to buy this game. If only it weren't for the subscription fee.

Anyway, here are some photos of the seagulls and some of the things that washed up after the storm.

No Tomb for Me

Here's where the adventure in Tamriel ended for my Pijandura--dancing to some old man's flute next to a half naked woman in front of some tear in the fabric of reality by a tomb. You see, this is where a crucial quest broke at the end of the Daggerfall Covenant faction starter area. A certain monster who was meant to spawn simply will not. Players gradually, impotently accumulate and wait. And wait. Wait for the demon who will never come. So people get bored and start figuring out what emotes they can use.

It's frustrating because I really want to get to level ten before the beta's over so I can see the game's main content. I made a Nord called Sichilde but haven't had much time to play with her yet. There was a chess tournament to-day and after that I simply had to get out of the apartment--there's been a thunderstorm going on almost continuously since Friday morning. It seemed to have quieted down this afternoon so I took some stale bread to the seagulls--I took some pictures but I can't put any on my computer until the battery on the camera recharges. Unfortunately, the battery died before I saw the most interesting thing I saw to-day.

The storm had left the beach sand wet and flat, a lot easier to walk on with shoes. An extraordinary amount of seaweed and kelp and various human debris--a lighter, a Coke can, a bicycle--had washed ashore. Nearer the water was some lump of animal flesh, I have no idea what it was. My best guess was a big sea slug, about twice the size of my shoe and I wear a size 13. But I'm not sure what it was. Something white on the top almost looked like a human ear and a small, curled appendage had a carapace that resembled a pill bug. This was around an eighth the size of the main, bare, fleshy body, but who knows how much the thing was bloated and distorted. It had four stalks at the other end which is what made me think of a slug but they were hollowed like the arteries on a model of a heart. The seagulls didn't seem to want to go near it.

Twitter Sonnet #601

The eyes watch moon drawings burned at the edge.
Bathroom mirror spectacles crack the star.
Dewdrop alarms give way the hiding hedge.
Grass blades whistle for a string police car.
Yarn mistakes wander in the needle room.
Bloodless proletariat peaches ring.
Glass bonnet spaceships smell like plastic doom.
Meiosis decides if Dragons take wing.
Bottle nosed bats climb pallid liberty.
Organic trumpets grow in a mute field.
The squeaky chassis looks to John Fogerty.
Platinum banjos are what heroes wield.
A lump of questions sucked the camera light.
The sea and thunder made a shapeless wight.

Age Brings Out a Scroll's Flavour

After around twelve hours downloading and installing yesterday I've so far spent most of this morning playing in The Elder Scrolls Online beta. I have some complex feelings about it but, if I were asked to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down, so far I'd go with a thumbs up.

First of all, it has, hands down, the best character creation mode I've seen in an MMORPG. Guild Wars 2 made a great stride in allowing a selection of multiple prefab body types but Elder Scrolls Online goes a big step further by offering sliders first for the body type and then for individual body parts.

I gave my character just a little bit of a belly. Her name is Pijandura, which is the nickname of a character from the Serbian film Charleston for Ognjenka--Google translates the word as "drunkards" and I was glad to see later that the game has alcoholic beverages in its crafting system, with a "brewer" sub skill. I haven't really explored it, though.

You'll notice the character is in some very modern looking bra and panties. In the second Elder Scrolls game, Daggerfall, your character was naked when you took his or her clothes off. It's a shame the controversy this stirred has left Bethesda gun-shy on the point ever since, especially given the fact that Elder Scrolls Online will be subscription based when released. It was also disappointing to see "boob plate" chest armour for the women.

This has been something of a hot topic on several forums and opinion sites lately though it's something I've been aware of for many years--when I was drawing my mediaeval fantasy comic Venia's Travels I wanted the women wearing plate armour to be as credibly bad ass as possible and reading just a little bit about the reason plate armour was shaped the way it was quickly revealed the cavity at the centre of the "boob plate" creates a lethal liability. The chest plate was normally rounded or with a ridge down the centre to make it more likely for a blade strike to slide away.

But I play Guild Wars 2 where characters basically run around in lingerie--I understand fantasy means sometimes bending the rules of reality a bit for aesthetics. The reason it bothers me with the Elder Scrolls games is that their chief virtue is the solidity of the fantasy world. Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games have always conveyed the feeling of a world that's living on its own in ways no other game has. Elder Scrolls Online has some of the intricate detail in the environment I've loved in the previous games.

Though so far it's not possible to interact with random objects--apples, candles, spoons, etc--in a realistic way supported by a physics system but it's not hard to see why Bethesda would feel the need to compromise for an MMORPG. With such physics, just a few assholes would quickly make a mess with all the props, spoiling things for people who want to play the game in its normal state.

But back to character creation--the default faces look a hell of a lot better than any of the previous games, especially as regards the elves who no longer look universally like Lurch. But I made a human, a Breton.

The face has about the same degree of customisation as the face in Guild Wars 2--which is to say a lot. There are sliders for cheekbones and jaw and nose, though the Breton only had one default nose type as of the Beta. There are a lot more hair options, though some of them have the bad rubbery look familiar from Skyrim.

The starting area is a realm of Oblivion--the Elder Scrolls version of Hell--that honestly didn't look very interesting. It has a lot of dull, oversaturated colour lighting that brought back memories of Quake 2. You do get out eventually--there is a plot but it's not worth explaining. The story part has never been one of the Elder Scrolls strong suits though the detail in the lore is nice in terms of fleshing out the world. Sometimes the dialogue is interesting if there's a good voice actor and I did run into a madman voiced by John Cleese. The cast also includes, according to Wikipedia, Bill Nighy, Kate Beckinsale, Lynda Carter, Alfred Molina, Michael Gambon, Jennifer Hale, Malcolm McDowell, and Peter Stormare. So far I haven't run into one voice who's really transported the game the way Max von Sydow's did in Skyrim or Patrick Stewart's did in Oblivion.

I ran into a graphics problem in the starting area I maybe ought to report as part of my duty as beta tester--the first time I entered an area where other player characters were present my graphics started looking like this:

I managed to play basically blind for a while before, after a lot of trial and error, I discovered the visible world settled down when I turned off "Grass" in the settings. Which is too bad because I like grass.

I think where you end up after Oblivion is determined by other choices you make beforehand. I ended up on a Middle Eastern looking island in, I think, Hammerfell. The architecture is nice and there are a couple of fun pirate quests.

So far the thing I've liked best is the gameplay. I'm able to use my bow and arrow pretty much like I can in Oblivion and Skyrim, sneaking around and firing at my targets from a distance, dodging their projectiles. I felt more at home playing this than I have any MMORPG because it is a bit closer to a first person shooter. It's just the kind of player I am--I've never really connected with the normal strategy style gameplay descended from Warcraft and Diablo where pretty much everything is determined by stats. They're games of numbers versus numbers where the creativity comes in putting your character together before the battle through spending ability points earned through repeating certain tasks. There's some of that in the Elder Scrolls games too but there's also the element of the player's real life dexterity. It's a physical game you can play instead of a system you put together to pit against other systems.

Anyway, the beta lasts until Monday I think, I'm sure I'll have more to say to-morrow.

Adventures in Shirt Washing

Victorian French laundry is pretty exciting especially as a theatre for a sopping wet brawl between two beautiful young women. That's my favourite scene in 1956's Gervaise, an adaptation of Emile Zola's 1877 novel L'Assommoir, which I suspect is somewhat less melodramatic than this entertaining and interesting but ultimately lightweight film about a pretty and unlucky woman.

Maria Schell plays the guileless and pure hearted Gervaise who lives in a miserable, crumbling flat with her two kids while her boyfriend, Lantier (Armand Mestral), tends to spend most of his time in a brothel across the street.

It's in the laundry Gervaise learns Lantier has finally run off with another woman. The woman's sister, Virginie (Suzy Delair), is at the laundry and laughs cruelly at Gervaise. Gervaise tosses a bucket of water at Virginie in retaliation and the battle begins.

I was already enjoying the scene for its detailed recreation of a public nineteenth century French laundry room. The room filled with women scrubbing and the proprietors up on the catwalk, the occasional trips to the boiler in the middle of the room. Incidentally, according to Wikipedia, Gervaise is the most expensive non-English language film ever made--214 million in 2012 American dollars. I can't honestly tell where the money went just from watching it unless a lot of the places I took for locations were actually massive sets. Or maybe a lot of it went to Suzy Delair's salary as compensation for Maria Schell straddling her, lifting her skirt, tearing her knickers at the seat and paddling her bare bottom.

After this episode, Gervaise moves and marries a roofer named Coupeau (Francois Perier). She opens her own laundry and things seem to be going well until Coupeau injures himself falling off a roof and becomes an alcoholic in the aftermath.

In a melodramatic perfect storm of embarrassment, Gervaise throws herself a Name Day party, invites the whole neighbourhood, and Lantier shows up. Instead of beating Lantier as he promised, the already embarrassingly drunk Coupeau takes an immediate liking to Lantier and invites him to live with him and Gervaise.

I think they were united in moustachery. I looked at the two wondering what they reminded me of and finally I realised they seem like drunken, womanising French Super Mario Brothers.

Ultimately, the point of the film seems to be that we should feel really bad for the perfectly innocent and pretty Gervaise to whom all sorts of bad things keep happening. Despite this, the film is rather charming, mostly for the ragged assemblage of supporting characters. The gossipy neighbour women, the big busted woman who works at Gervaise's laundry whose chemise always seems to be falling off, the drunken old man who solemnly accepts the party invitation so there can be more than 13 people at the party, the people at the burlesque show Lantier takes Virginie too. It's all rambunctious, delightful, idealised old French city working class.