Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened Review

 

 

This is a review of the PC game released in 2023, which is a remake of the original 2008 game.  We have not yet played the older version, so I won't be comparing them here.  Like most adventure games from the past 30 years, there is good and there is bad.  There is a sense of accomplishment and a sense of being sadistically used by the developers.  We'll begin by examining the eight chapters of the game.

 

Chapter One is supposed to be there to introduce players to the gameplay.  We needed plenty of help from a walkthru to get through it.  It begins at 221b Baker Street and explores some of the neighbourhood.  While Sherlock thinks a crime has been committed, it turns out that he was stretching his imagination too far.  Watson points this out to him at the end of the scene.  But players have learned some of the gameplay.  The street scenes are done well, but as the game is played in third person mode (sometimes as Holmes and sometimes as Watson), one or both men are always in the way of one's view.  Aside from the mouse, many keyboard commands are also used throughout the game, so it can be very confusing even long after the first chapter is done.  In other words, there is a long learning curve to this game.

 

Chapter Two is quite long, as Sherlock accepts a case from a man whose Maori servant has disappeared.  This is where using the game's resources gets complicated.  Again, a lot of help was required to finish the chapter.  Much of the action takes place in the docks of London, as Holmes investigates.  In lieu of a hint system, the developers use something called a Mind Palace.  Information is stored here and requires three different types of clues to be sorted and used to gain aid in finding the next step.  Once this system is mastered it is quite a good one, but it takes a long time to get the hang of it.  Even more complicated, though extremely useful, is using the Q key to get Sherlock to observe closely and analyze crime scenes.  After he has observed every aspect of a crime scene he can visualize different scenarios of what might have happened.  We see green ghostly figures in tableaux acting out various possibilities.  We must choose the correct action.  Sometimes there are multiple crime scenes in one area and we must piece together various actions.  Once this is done successfully, the entire crime is then visualized, and Sherlock relates what happens in the correct sequence.  This is pretty nifty and is quite useful.

 

Sherlock on the banks of the Thames, heading for the docks in Chapter Two.

Holmes and Watson visit a tavern in the docklands in their search for a missing servant. 

 

Chapter Three takes place in a private asylum in Switzerland.  The game grows darker with each chapter.  Here we can see influence from Black Mirror, especially with a doll that belongs to one of the patients.  Holmes has his second pyschotronic episode of the game, visiting a strange underworld where even more must be learned about how to use the keyboard and various techniques for advancing the game.  Like the asylum scenes in Black Mirror (and Syberia 3), things are pretty grim here.  Holmes is still on the original case, searching for the missing servant.  What he finds is a well organized crime syndicate that is kidnapping people and shipping them in crates to the asylum and then on to New Orleans.  We are soon traveling again.

 

Chapters Four and Five take place in New Orleans, with four being in the town itself and five in the mansion of one Mr. Arneson.  We make allies and enemies in Chapter Four, and investigate a multiple murder scene in Chapter Five.  Here are two images showing how the scenarios appear once the crime scenes have been investigated and interpreted correctly.

 

These two images show the correct interpretation of four of the crime scenes in the New Orleans mansion.  Holmes fills in the details for us, which are recorded within the game for reference.

 

Two views of New Orleans, which is actually a large town to explore in the game. 

 

A large mural in Arneson's upstairs study, which holds an important key to solving this part of the game.

 

Chapter Six is still within the area of New Orleans, but it is night now and Watson is rowing us through the bayou.  This was my favourite part of the game, and it is not only atmospheric but quite scary!  However, I have some advice for people who make Sherlock Holmes games, or write stories of Holmes.  Rule Number One:  He can't die.  No ifs about it.  Put him in danger, but you cannot kill him.  Otherwise....  Well, in this game Sherlock cannot only die, but he will die many times whilst the player frantically tries to find ways to prevent it.  After several deaths and help from a walkthru, death can be avoided.  But it's too late, isn't it?  I mean, he died already.  One positive side of Holmes dying in the bayou is that Steam gives out awards for completing certain tasks.  Yes, there is a reward for being eaten by gators, and we now own it.

 

Four scenes from the bayou chapter.  Each scene has been getting grimmer and grimmer, and bloodier and bloodier. 

 

Holmes has another trippy episode in a strange land, likely drug-induced.  He is slowly being driven crazy. 

 

Chapter Seven takes us back to Baker Street.  Homes has had another other-worldly experience and is now more than half crazy.  Watson returns to a book store location from Chapter One and has an old grimoire partially translated.  This will lead them to the location of the final chapter, a lonely lighthouse in Scotland.

 

Two views of 221b Baker St.

 

Chapter Eight takes place first outside of the lighthouse, then far beneath it, then, finally, within it and to the very top.  It is a dark and stormy night, and the bad guy is in the final stages of calling forth Cthulhu! A flock of kidnapped people, now zombies, are being sacrificed to the dark waters from the top of the lighthouse.  Holmes and Watson must get up there and stop him.  But first Sherlock must die a few more times (in the caves beneath), and then Watson gets his turn to die a few times, being thrown off the top of the lighthouse.  Realistic, no?

 

Beneath the lighthouse.  Sherlock gets lost in the cave and dies a few times.

 

Cave paintings as seen without Sherlock observing closely.

 

Cave paintings with Sherlock observing closely (Q key). 

 

This is an epic game produced by Ukrainian developers Frogware.  They worked on the game as their country was being invaded.  It is as complex as some advanced board games.  A second time through would be much smoother than the first, and it is likely worth replaying.  We will probably play the original version first, though.  Graphics are usually excellent and often dripping with atmosphere.  It took us 18.7 hours to get through it, some of it using a walkthru.  There is no way anyone could get through the game without aid, as some of the puzzles have no logical way of working through them without some kind of fore knowledge of what is required and how to achieve it.  The game has so many different environments that it seems much longer than it actually is.  I give the game an A- rating (82%).  I mostly enjoyed playing, but when the game wants to be frustrating, then watch out.  Recommended.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

Piano Pieces: 12 Weeks In

I actually find myself a bit ahead of the game after 12 weeks, so much so that I have taken today off from practicing.  It also happens to be income tax filing time for us, so the time will be used to prepare our taxes.   As to the pieces, I always mix previously learned material with new.  The opening piece is Bach 2-part Invention in D Major, one I had played many years ago.  It is one of 15, all of which I have learned and performed at some time.  It is now up and playable and I will begin to memorize it very soon.  It is followed by a new Prelude and Fugue by Bach, also in D Major and from Book I of The Well Tempered Clavier.  This marks my 13th selection from this two volume epic work, out of 48 that he wrote.  Bach takes one simple idea and writes a page of music using it.  Each hand is completely independent, though they do share the idea in ingenious ways.  It is a somewhat learned piece, though it has a few Wow moments for the close listener. 

 

 The Prelude is again a one-idea piece that repeats continuously, quickly and unrelentingly for two pages.  The idea itself (4 notes) is performed by the right hand while the left plucks along much like a double bass in jazz music would do.  The short piece ends in a virtuoso passage and leads to the Fugue.  The Prelude is coming along and should be playable in another month.  

 

The Fugue is an unusual one, said to mimic Couperin's style for writing a French Overture.  I  really enjoy working on this piece, which uses 32nd notes as its main idea.  I can play the piece at slow to moderate tempo; it only needs to move a little snappier now.  Again, it should take perhaps another month to be serviceable.

 

Next comes a new work for me, an early Haydn Sonata, also in D Major.  It is in 3 easy movements, and though I do not yet have it up to tempo, it is memorized and playable now!  The first is a clever theme and variations, the second a very short minuet, and the third a showy little fast movement in sonata form.  I like all three, but the last movement is the most fun to play.

 

Just before intermission will come a bagatelle by Beethoven, a work I have learned and performed many times before.  I have yet to begin work on it, but it won't take long to relearn. 

 

The second half opens with three works by Scriabin, preludes from Op 11.  I learned three for my last program and liked them so much that I decided to learn three more.  The first one is playable, the second one is almost there, and the third one is ready to be memorized.  After that comes a Chopin Nocturne, Op 27 #2.  I truly love the piece, but the first ten weeks was a real struggle.  I nearly abandoned the work several times.  After 12 weeks I am finally beginning to see some progress, but I am probably only half way there.  Three more months will (hopefully) see me able to play it.  If you listen to a recording of this incredible piece it doesn't sound particularly difficult.  It is, however.

 

Next comes another piece I am relearning called March Wind, by MacDowell.  It is a virtuoso work that will sound amazing on my newer piano.  Part of the fun of relearning pieces now is that I get to hear them on a totally different instrument.  I will finish up with two works by Philip Glass, both from the Amazon SF TV series called Tales From The Loop.  This is a completely amazing TV series based on a book of SF/fantasy artworks.  The series is greatly enhanced by Glass's music.

 

It was a busy week for us, with some driving involved.  I only had to fill the gas tank once in March, and we are trying to keep our journeys to a minimum.  Currently our gasoline prices are $1.86.9 per litre and should be hitting $2 very soon.  Diesel costs much more, heading towards $3.  On Monday our radon system was installed and seems to be doing the job.  It was a complicated affair because of the unusual foundation of our house, but it got done in about six hours.

 

On Tuesday we went and picked up our new orthotics.  Deb gets them every few years, but this was my first time.  Deb is walking and exercising again quite regularly.  While travel is hoped for, the way world events are shaping up we may be thwarted yet again.  We should know more by the end of April.  On Wednesday Deb saw her rheumatologist in Windsor.  Both of them were very happy with Deb's current state of being, thanks to her new medication.  See you again in three months.  Finally, on Thursday it was back to Windsor for Deb's regular dental check up and cleaning.  Through all that I still managed to put in a full practice on piano each day.

 

In film news there is one to report.  Foolish Heart is a 1998 Argentinian film directed by Hector Babenco.  The first two thirds of the film tell of a young Jewish teen who falls in love with Ana, a mentally troubled young woman who has already spent two years in an institution.  They hang out with a small group of people interested in psychic phenomena.  Juan and Ana hit it off well, but because of his youth and her fragile mental state things eventually go off track.  They run away together after he takes her from another institution.  Like a modern but unintentional Romeo and Juliette they eventually end up almost killing themselves with sleeping pills.  They are both hospitalized and never see one another again.  This main part of the film is quite good.  However, suddenly we are thrust into a different film.  Suddenly 20 years have passed.  Juan is now flying home from Los Angeles (he is a film director) to visit his dying father.  He revisits some old friends but Ana, whom he thought was dead, won't see him.  She is married and does not wish to reopen a relationship with Juan.  However, he meets a woman in a small chapel, follows her and they have sex in a stairway.  From here on the film gets weirder and weirder and seems to lose a sense of perspective.  Juan is married and has two children, but he appears to be nothing now but a sex-starved middle aged male.  The end of the film proves that he is even much worse than that.  While I recommend the first two thirds, the final segment is both disturbing and puzzling (and even bewildering).  Ana, as played by Maria Luisa Mendonca, is the main reason to see the film. Her vivid depiction of a woman going mad is a sight to behold.

 

Leaving Criterion April 30th. 

 

In PC gaming news we continue to make progress with Sherlock Holmes: The Awakening.  We are at the climax now in Chapter 8.  We are atop a lighthouse, where the light is attracting Cthulhu.  We must destroy it or else.  In some ways it is a ground-breaking game; in other ways it is really quite stupid (like so many adventures games we have played).  I will compose a full review soon.  We might even finish it tonight.  Here is a screen shot from the New Orleans part of the game:

 

Night time in the bayou, The Awakening. 

 

I also continue to drive trains.  Train Sim World (6) is one of the best things to happen to me in years.  Every day I am driving a different train in a different country, passenger and freight.  Today I'm on the Dresden to Leipzig line, hauling passengers hither and yon.  A few recent images from different routes....

 

TFL Overground service.

 

Along the Rhine. 

  

Los Angeles commuter train. 

 

That's all for now.  Be back soon.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March Books Read

In Scorpio Assassin (1992; #39 in the series)) Dray Prescott is still teamed up with a female, with both of them assigned by the Star Lords to a certain task.  Of course they are not told what that task is exactly, other than protecting someone.  After several of the people they were trying to protect are killed they are finally able to figure out who needs to be protected and why.  By the end of the 39th volume in this series the Star lords are angry with Dray for "failing" his mission, and they round him up for his punishment.  But he is so angry with them because of their lack of full disclosure that it is the Star Lords I pity, not Dray.  Another good entry in the series, which has rarely if ever been reduced to pot boiler status.  Each plot is carefully worked out, considerably different from previous books, and the list of characters and races is so vast that we seldom tire of a particular character.  The novel was first published in Germany, then finally came to the English speaking world in 1996.  It is 234 pages long.  I read the Kindle edition.   *** stars.

 

A World Aflame is number 13 in the Cap Kennedy series, Tubb's  SF version of Doc Savage and his earthbound exploits.  I am alternating two series by the author, this and the Earl Dumerest saga.  Cap has three assistants, each one a very special man.  Published in 1974, the novel is a brief 128 pages.  Tubb harkens back to a 1952 novel of his, Tide of Death, also known as World At Bay.  Essentially an atomic energy experiment goes wrong and begins eating up a planet, with its consumed soil creating a hole that grows exponentially hour by hour.  In this update, Cap must contend with a powerful woman in charge of her planet, who wants no interference from Earth agents.  She hopes her power experiment will keep her world independent, and the extra energy exported to make her planet rich. 

The experiment begins with a found object of the Zheltyana, an ancient and nearly forgotten race that once had ruled the galaxy.  Only traces of their great discoveries are occasionally found, and the object in question, the Xuyen Torus, was stolen from a museum that scientifically studies any found remnants of this civilization.  Of course in the right hands such knowledge might be useful if approached cautiously.  But working in a hurry causes the experiment to quickly get out of control.  Can Cap and his boys save the day yet again?  Read for yourself and find out.  A decent entry in the series.

*** stars

 

Turning now to the Delphi Classics on Kindle, I began with Richard Marsh's 1897 crime novel The Crime and the Criminal.  The novel is divided into four books.  Book 1 is told by Thomas Tennant, the almost innocent nincompoop who becomes embroiled in a young woman's murder.  Riding a train from Brighton to London, his ends up sharing a carriage with a woman known to him previously.  She attacks him, they struggle briefly, and she ends up falling out of the train.  The nincompoop does not press the emergency button, nor tell anyone about what happened.  He is cut from broken glass from the door banging open and shut, leaving a lot of blood behind.

Book Two is told by Reginald Townsend, a very handsome man and a scoundrel of the blackest sort.  He belongs to a secret Murder Club and has drawn short straw.  He must kill someone within the month, and does so.  He knows Thomas, knows that he is innocent, but says nothing.  Thomas is eventually caught, put on trial by a maddened English public who is horrified by his crime of murdering a young woman.

The third book is told by Mrs. Caruth, a widow who falls in love with Reginald, and has a soul as black as his.  She was the woman in the carriage with poor Thomas.  She knows of his innocence also, since the woman supposedly murdered is herself and quite alive, but she wishes to marry Reginald so keeps silent.  She knows that Reginald is the murderer, and plans to blackmail him into marrying her.  So who was murdered?  Another girl, murdered by Reginald, in the same location and at the same time that Mrs. Caruth falls out of the train.

The fourth and final book is told by the author, who has much to say about criminal trials of the time and "evidence" presented and witness statements.  There is only one decent character in the entire book, and that is the wife of the accused, Mrs. Tennant.  She is a brick.  The final book is well written and all the plots are tied together.  My main quibble with the book is the sheer volume of coincidences that occur in order to keep the story alive.  I like the idea of the four different perspectives, and rather than repeating what the previous person has reported, the author briefly reviews prior happenings and then moves the plot forward again.  By the time we get to the fourth book things are bubbling away nicely, and the author can tie up all of the characters and the plot very neatly.  Fun to read, though a bit hard to believe.

***1/2 stars.

 

From an early edition.  My Kindle version had two pictures. 

 

Next came another set of WW I stories from H.C. McNeil ("Sapper").  From 1915 there are 16 tales, most of them very brief.  Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R. E. tells the author, an officer and fellow engineer, a number of stories while in hospital recovering from a foot injury.  Many of the stories are light-hearted and humourous, no doubt for the benefit of  wounded soldiers recovering from war wounds and trauma, and for their nurses and doctors.  However, there are a few deadly serious ones, too.  "A Word To the Shirkers" hits upon the young men who did not volunteer to serve their country, and does not hold back.  "The Christmas Truce" is quiet and poignant, while "The Terrible Danger of Funk" warns of the dangers of complacency.  Like the previous volume (see January 2025 reading summary blog), this is a must read for those of us who want to remember what war really is.  Though the writing not always top quality, the stories are.  Highly recommended.

*** 1/2 stars.

 

Emilia In England (later changed to Sandra Belloni) is a novel from 1864 by George Meredith (republished with its new name in 1887) that follows the fortunes of a country family trying to align itself with famous and rich people.  The fortunes of three daughters, a son and their father are told in three volumes, with Emilia, a common girl with a very good singing voice, at the center of the plot to attract a higher class of people to the family to improve their fortunes.  Emila is the main attraction because of her singing voice.  She falls for Wilfrid, the brother, but he is pretty much a wishy washy cad.  His father wishes him to marry Lady Charlotte, and he agrees, though he loves Emilia.  She trusts him for a while, but eventually realizes that he is otherwise destined.  There are a lot of characters and there is a lot of tragedy.  However, Meredith is a sophisticated writer of literature and handles all with great dexterity and aplomb.  One of the most compelling parts of this very long novel is when Emilia is at her lowest point.  She wanders London for several days and nights, eventually becoming starved, filthy and ready to immerse herself in the oily black Thames River.  She is rescued by a close friend who had been searching for her everywhere.  However, his discovering her was not by chance, as she had left a trail of clues behind her among some street children she had befriended.  The ending is somewhat unexpected for its time.  Emilia and Wilfrid--well, never mind the spoiler.  It was a very good ending, as I had expected "the usual" happy ever after sort of thing.  Much better than most writers of his time, his work seems totally ignored among the cult of the Brontes, Jane Austen and their ilk.  Stories like this are ripe for a TV series.

 

Finally comes a great adventure story by A Merritt.  From 1931 it is called The Face In The Abyss.  It is a suitable title, and when you hear it think of Sauron.  This book, more than any other I have read, seems to have more of Tolkien in it.  There are no Hobbits, but there are orc-like creatures, an important fellowship, a Sauron versus Gandalf finale, and any number of other similarities.  The main character Graydon could easily stand in for Aragorn.  One improvement that Merritt made over Tolkien is that he resisted cliche animal characterizations.  Snakes and spiders are good, for example, though lizards not so much.  This is a long novel, a combination of two that were serialized much earlier in Argosy Magazine.  The second novel was called "The Snake Mother".  

An explorer wanders deep into the Andes in search of gold, stumbling upon an ancient race of white people.  There are Indians, too, but the whites have been there since before the mountains rose up.  While their science has made great advances, their morals haven't kept pace.   Sound familiar.  In this passage, the Snake Woman (a Gandalf-like character) talks to Graydon after he has described outside civilization to her.  "I am not so enamored with your civilization, as you describe it, to wish it extended here.  For one thing, I think you are building too rapidly outside yourselves, and too slowly inside."  And again later... "Some day you will find yourselves so far buried within your machines that you will not be able to find a way out--or discover yourself being carried helplessly away by them."  Wow!  Heavy stuff for 1931 fantasy writing!

The adventures themselves are truly epic and vast in scale.  The final battle rises to a fitting climax, with most tropes avoided.  It probably won't spoil your reading if I tell you that Sauron is defeated in the end, and the ancient ones are given a second chance.  So far this is the most enjoyable work by Merritt that I have read, and is recommended for fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. Rider Haggard, and Tolkien.

 

An early reprint; cover by Paul Stahr.  I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Note:  There will be no update for April books read next month.  However, I will combine the April/May summaries in my next update around June 1st.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Radon Be Gone Day

Once again we are getting major work done in the basement.  This is the third or fourth time.  This time it is to mitigate our radon problem.  Lots of drilling and banging is going on, and the basement will have a very different look when the work is completed later on today.  I needn't add that, like the previous projects which solved our dampness issue and then our asbestos issue, this one is also very expensive.  How expensive?  About the cost of a trip to Europe from Canada for two for ten days.  Not to worry, as we print our own currency (in the attic).

It appears that Spring has finally arrived, though due to a lot of cloudy days and nights my astronomy year has yet to begin.  I missed out completely on winter constellations this year.  Now that daylight savings time has arrived it means very late nights once I do get a clear night.  Spring is the time of year when Earth is turned away from the Milky Way, meaning that astronomers don't have to look past our own dust and heavy star fields to see into deeper space.  That means it is prime time to view other galaxies, and a 12" telescope will show a lot of them.  Until then I'll continue to stare at my sky maps and prep sheets.  Full moon is Wednesday, so by next Sunday I should be able to begin, clouds permitting.

 

In film news there are three to report.  We watched two more films by French director Jean Rollin. 

Lost In New York is from 1989 and was made for TV.  Two little girls, one about 4 and the other around 10, meet in a cemetery and become friends.  The young one possesses an African fetish figure, which she calls The Moon Goddess.  They look through illustrated books and adventure magazines and transport themselves to exotic locations.  As adults they arrive in New York, but in different locations and spend a lot of time searching for one another.   The highlight of the film is the location footage of the city from that era.  In old age the girls are once more separated, but manage to link up for one final adventure.  This is a film very different from earlier Rollin efforts, and its enigmatic story and deliberate pace make it quite enjoyable.  The bonds of friendship can run very deep, he seems to say, but are always in danger of being tampered with.  Recommended.

 

Two screenshots from Lost In New York. 

 

Jean Rollin's vampire films are, for the most part, watchable by fans of the genre.  However, he left vampires behind in his 1978 The Grapes of Death, turning his attention to zombies.  He should have stayed with vampires.  A young woman returning to her French village discovers a plague of murderous peasants with very bad skin problems.  She makes more bad decisions during this film than is statistical possible.  After 30 or so of these the film tends to lose its credibility quite rapidly.  Violence and gore and blood abound, as well as totally senseless killing.  The whole thing was brought about by a regional use of an experimental pesticide on the grapes, and at the local wine festival anyone who drank wine catches the disease, a bad one to be sure.  Only two beer drinkers remain unaffected, but, alas, they die, too.  A movie with no point to make, and only a very poor way of not making it.  Avoid.

 

Leaving Criterion soon, though not soon enough. 

 

Lastly comes one from our "Chilling Classics" DVD collection.  The Devil's Hand is from 1962 and is a b & w modern age zombie film of the Vudou kind.  I have always had a soft spot for voodoo movies, especially several great ones from the 1930s.  Starring Robert Alda and Commissioner Gordon (Neil Hamilton from the TV Batman series), this one is watchable but not one of the great films in this genre.  A doll maker is the head of a small religious cult who meet in the back of his shop.  Alda plays a man engaged to be married who is lured into the cult by a bewitching blonde witch, a stellar member of the cult.  When a pin is stuck into a doll of his fiancee, she is hospitalized with a heart problem.  The main problem with the film is casting wooden man Hamilton as the very uncharismatic leader of the cult.  He acts like he is in a Republic serial instead of a decently scripted film.  A highlight of the film is that the cult is multinational and multiracial.  There are some creepy scenes, but not enough.  Very little explaining is given as to how this power became acquired by the great man.  For instance, he can beat the stock market, though he still chooses to run a tiny doll store.  He simply can stick a pin into a doll and injure or kill that person.  How?  We will never know.

 

From our DVD collection. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

Jean Rollins' Topless Vampires

Before we get into all that vampire blood, we will take a moment to comment upon Deb's blood.  Her latest blood test shows continued improvement, and she seems to be feeling like her old self.  She has been exercising for over a week now, and we both hope to be walking outdoors again any day now, weather permitting.  We bought a new suitcase, and a new backpack for Deb.  So we are definitely thinking of traveling again.  However, airfares are not pretty.  We shall see.

 

In other news, Sudbury officially received about 40 cm of snow last week (16").  It was the heavy stuff, not the fluffy stuff, and some ice pellets and freezing rain landed on top of it, making plowing nearly impossible.  They are still digging out, and have had several more inches since then.  No spring flowers for Sudbury for a while.  The street where my family lives never did get plowed.  My brother and three other neighbours with snowblowers had to clear a single lane by themselves.  It hit on March Break for schools, but even so the school buses were cancelled in the city for two days this week.  It's seldom that a major snowstorm gets the better of Sudbury, but it happened this year!

 

Turning to cinema, I have always been a fan of classic Hammer horror films.  They influenced a generation of film makers, including Roger Corman.  And Jean Rollin, it would appear.  Criterion has six of the French director's horror films, all leaving this month.  We are trying to watch at least five of them.  So far, three have been viewed.

 

Requiem for a Vampire is the earliest, from 1972.  Hammer Films were winding down by that point, and then along came Rollin.  His films are pretty short and focus even more strongly on sex than Hammer ever did (different censorship rules in France compared to England).  They all contain some great atmosphere and photography and feature many naked young women with mostly natural, unenhanced bodies.  The films are are in colour, and there is often a lot of blood.  Requiem opens with a car chase, one of the more unique ways to open a vampire film.  The vehicles' passengers are shooting at one another, and the lead car has two females dressed in clown suits.  There is no explanation.  After one car crashes the two females head cross country on foot, soon arriving at a cemetery and an abandoned and ruined castle.  The fun soon begins.  Definitely worth catching for fans of earlier vampire films.

 

Leaving Criterion soon. 

 

In Lips of Blood from 1975 a young boy has a close encounter with a beautiful young girl in the ruins of an old chateau.  It is a brief affair, but it comes back to him in a flash 20 years later when he sees a poster showing the old chateau.  Determined to find the place again and perhaps the girl, who was kind to him, he begins asking questions and looking for help.  However, someone is out to stop him.  He sees fleeting images of the girl and she seems to be asking for his help.  Of course he finds her and discovers that she is a vampire, but this film goes into mostly unpredictable territory, and actually has a happy ending (for the vampire).  The young girl playing the entrapped vampire (Annie Belle) is quite beautiful, with a face that would lure any man on (not me!) to his doom.  Recommended.

 

Annie Belle has lips of blood. 

 

Leaving Criterion soon. 

 

The third film in our on-going Jean Rollin festival was Fascination from 1979.  A group of robbers get mixed up with two women in a beautiful not ruined chateau.  Too bad for them.  The women are part of a clique of gals that drink not only ox blood (good for anemia), but eventually develop a taste for human blood.  The two women from the beginning later become seven women, and the one poor male robber remaining doesn't have a chance.  Oddly fascinating, the film is quite violent in places, including one scene where two women face off on a drawbridge, one with Death's scythe and the other with a tiny dagger.  Guess who wins?  The opening scene in a butcher's abattoir is suitably revolting.  The time is the very early 1900s.  Worth catching for blood drinking fans.

 

Leaving Criterion March 31st. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

Spring

It has arrived.  It was a long awaited event (since last November).  This past week I have had to wear three different jackets to go outside.  My normal winter one, a light jacket but very warm; a spring/summer jacket; and my warmest winter jacket.  Our weather continues to be all over the map in the way of temperatures.  We were able to add another day to our sub-zero daily highs, making it 52 now.  Sudbury had a major snowstorm, along with a lot of the American Midwest, with nearly 20" of new snow.  That should keep them white until at least May.  We had a few flakes, but the cold really took a bite out of our spring bulbs.  Hopefully they will survive.  So far only snowdrops have bloomed.  We are considerably behind this year.

 

It's kind of funny/odd, but just as our thoughts are able to turn once again to travel a new war begins, driving up the price of jet fuel and making airfares even more pathetic.  Depending on Deb's next two blood work results, we had hoped to cross the Atlantic again.  It would be our first time since 2019.  Possible destinations include Iceland (a shorter jaunt), Vienna (a longer stay) and, of course, London.  But now who knows?  I had to fill up the gas tank on our vehicle yesterday, and it wasn't pretty.  At least there were no lineups at the pump.

 

We also have a very expensive house fix coming up March 30th, as we will get our radon problem mitigated.  Readings this winter went sky high, so it's time to fix it.  We (mostly Deb) have been doing a house clearing, something that happens every five years or so around here.  This time we are serious to get things down to a manageable level, making a possible move not only easier but more likely.  There are several large apartment blocks in Amherstburg with a river view, so we likely wouldn't go far.

 

In PC gaming news, my wishlist continues to shrink as Steam sales continue.  Great games can be had very cheaply if one awaits the frequent sales.  I recently collected six great older games, paying less than $35 Can.  I also added a few perks to my Train Sim World collection.  After completing Black Mirror, we have moved on to a newer Sherlock Holmes game called The Awakened.   It is an updated version of a 2008 game and is extremely complex and difficult to learn.  We nearly gave up on it a few times, but have used a walkthru to get through parts.  It uses about half the keyboard for commands and thus has a very long learning curve.  We are improving, and have played a few segments with no help.  Holmes and Watson are up against Cthulhu no less!

 

Screenshot of a young Holmes from The Awakened, a game for PC. 

 

In film news, Deb has completed her most recent one.  It took almost two months longer than expected due to her illness, but once she recovered things moved along well.  It is another great looking (and sounding) film, and will likely do well at festivals.  Watch for it on her website soon (her website link is in my upper left margin, top of this page).

 

In film watching news, we have completed all 30 episodes of Apple TV's Foundation.  The final episode was a trope-filled wonder, with extreme violence and sadism galore.  Of course another series is forthcoming, someday, which will cover all three books.  From what I have read about the series the further along it gets the less it has to do with Asimov's novels.  It is a great looking series, taking lessons from recent Star Trek series, and no doubt from Game of Thrones.  For my money there are too many characters, too many sub plots, too much violent conflict and too little science.  Asimov did not write a fantasy of the future; he wrote a science-based work of fiction.  But we all know that TV viewers are too dumb to care much about science.  Besides, it's more fun watching things blow up.  I will get around to the first Asimov book of the series in the very near future.

 

We also completed a multi-season travel series hosted by Eugene Levy.  Called The Reluctant Traveler the Canadian actor is supposedly brought out of his deep shell by the experiences he undergoes.  However, he travels in five star luxury, meets up with important locals who show him around, and gets to see things other travelers never would see.  For example, on his visit to London he spends 4/5ths of the time in Windsor in conversation with Prince William.  It's fascinating to see a future king being so candid with Eugene, but really, a travel show?  Hardly.  He gets a private tour of the palace and grounds, then goes into town and has a pint at the pub with William.  Ah yes, just like our visits to England.

 

And we have completed watching all 4 seasons of Monty Python's Flying Circus.  When it's good it's very good.  But when it's bad, it's very racist, sexist and hardly funny at all.  Still, every episode offers up something memorable and hilarious. We have now moved on now to another comedy classic series, Second City TV, with some of Canada's funniest comics (John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy and many others).  We also managed to get through all three seasons of the original Addams Family series.  This stuff is usually lunch time viewing, as we eat.

 

In film news there are two to report.  One of them should have been trashy and the other classy, but as things turned out, our expectations were incorrect.  Women of Devil's Island is from 1962, part of our "Drive In Classics" DVD library.  It sounds like an exploitation film, and there are certainly a lot of beautiful women in it.  However, it is a swashbuckler and a bit of fun viewing.  The women are prisoners of the revolution, sent there after their families were murdered or exiled.  They are badly misused by a cruel and sadistic warden.  A pirate ship comes by and attempts to steal the gold that the women work so hard to mine.  In the process they also attempt to rescue the women.  For the most part the women stick together and help defeat the prison guards.  Sisterhood has never looked so brave and noble.  Hurrah for the women of Devil's Island!  While there are a few heaving bosoms, it is mostly the fancy feminine hairstyles that viewers will be drawn to.

 

From our classic DVD collection. 

 

Lastly comes Lancelot du Lac, a Goddard film from 1974.  Possibly regarded as a good film, it isn't.  The actors say their lines like a class of high school kids who don't want to be in drama class.  The men wear armour all of the time, a ridiculous look and even more ridiculous sound.  Horses gallop, jousts and battles take place off screen, the two lovers don't seem much in love, and blood spurts from all directions at times.  The film is quite tedious.  Watch John Boorman's Excaliber instead.

 

Showing on Criterion. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

 

HIgh Winds

We were given fair warning, but the wind today was nearly off the scale for us.  Beginning around 7 am we were hit with a wind sheer.  Deb was up and saw the full garbage can rolling down the sidewalk.  It was garbage day and we had put it out last night.  We never saw it again.  We nearly never saw Deb again, either.  She went out alone to retrieve it, but it was already gone.  Then she had to fight her way back up the sidewalk against the wind, which was 60 to 70 mph.  It was also sleeting.  Of course I happily slept through it all, and might never have known what had happened to her had she blown away.  14 hours later and it is still howling away out there.  Both Ontario and Michigan have very large number of power outages, including much of Amherstburg.  So far our power hasn't even blinked.

 

In film news, Deb is awaiting the new music for her latest film.  She has a good composer in Mexico City, a student at the university there.  She has used him before and is hoping for another winning score.

UPDATE:  As I was typing our power went off very suddenly.  It was off for about 30 minutes.  So far so good, and we are back in business.  It is quite cold outside, so the house was getting chilly.  The furnace does not run without electricity.  But we have lots of wood stocked up and we were getting ready to light the fireplace.

 

In other film news, there are three that we have watched recently.  Jim Jarmusch's most recent film (2025) is called Father Mother Sister Brother.  It consists of three short films, all written and directed by Jarmusch.  All three films are family oriented and small in scale.  the first one stars Tom Waits as an old coot who lives alone and knows how to prey on his son's sympathy, wrangling lots of cash from him to keep up his secret high living life.  When his son and daughter visit him he puts on an act of a man with barely a nickel to his name.  The daughter is not fooled, however, and never gives him anything.  The second film stars Cate Blanchett and Charlotte Rampling.  Rampling is the mother, and her two daughters are coming for tea.  She lives in Dublin and is a writer.  The visit is awkward and as Deb says, a bit creepy.  Rampling hardly looks like she was a model mother.  Neither of the first two films impressed me very much.  However, the third one is a winner.  Fraternal twins get back together for their parents' funeral.  They obviously have a deep connection, and this comes across beautifully in the film.  This third one is well worth watching.

 

Now showing on Mubi. 

 

Tamal 2010: A Punk Cat In Space is from 2005, a Japanese anime flic that will have viewers saying "Huh?" for its 92 minutes running time.  Here is the Criterion blurb:

 

[The movie] is a futuristic fever dream that flows back and forth in time, following the adorable wide-eyed kitty Tamala on her home world of Meguro City, a BLADE RUNNER–esque metropolis controlled by the Catty & Co. corporation. Escaping into space, she’s waylaid by the God of Death and crash-lands near Hate City on the Planet Q, where she meets a new boyfriend, goes bowling and thrift shopping—and realizes she may be the latest reincarnation of an ancient Greek cat cult with ties to the omnipresent Catty & Co. 

 

If that description floats your boat, then I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.  Probably best seen under the influence of drugs of some kind or other, watching it straight was a weird enough experience.  If nothing else, it is certainly a memorable film.

 

Showing on Criterion. 

 

This evening we watched a Mervyn Leroy classic film from 1934 called Heat Lightning.  Two sisters run a desert gas bar, the older one being the mechanic and the younger one running the cafe.  Different customers stop by and pass on, but two criminals on the lam stay for a visit.  The mean one knew the older sister in a different life.  The younger sister is anxious to date boys.  They both end up hurt badly by events that transpire.  The film, a short one, begins as a comedy but soon becomes a tragedy.  However, life goes on.  A pretty neat film, and it would make a good double feature with the later and superior Petrified Forest.  Aline MacMahon is terrific as the older sister with a past that comes back to haunt her, while Ann Dvorak plays the innocent younger sister effectively.  Worth catching.

 

Leaving Criterion this month. 

 

In health news, Deb's latest blood work showed very good progress.  She is getting her energy back, and all seems well for now.  I had my foot checked again this week, and all seems well there, too.  Perhaps there will be some travel in our near future.

 

Mapman Mike