Black Mirror (1) Review: Piano Repertoire 8 Week Update

 A lot happens between posts, most of which does not get reported.  We added one more cold day, bringing our season total to 51.  Hopefully that is all behind us now.  We had some snowdrops blooming on the 28th of February.  Their numbers are increasing daily.  Crocuses and daffs are also on the rise.  Astronomy season has begun once again, after a three month hiatus.  Rain and clouds are in the forecast.  Sigh.  Deb also had her second and final iron transfusion.  It seems to be working and she is hard at work on her most recent short film.

 

We finished watching season one of Mlle. Holmes, a French series in 6 parts.  Four of the programs weren't too bad.  The worst one was the finale, called (of course) The Final Problem.  It was almost unwatchable, as a woman who had competently solved crimes for five weeks suddenly falls apart completely when she realizes that Mlle. Moriarty is framing her for shooting her grandfather.  The frame up is so bad and amateurish that sixth graders I have known could have easily got out of being blamed.  Supposedly part of a crime fighting police team, she goes it all alone, as so many TV character tropes do.  She hides evidence, she loses her ability to think, and she acts completely selfishly.  Of course she has no Sherlock blood in her veins; only Moriarty's and her mother's, after they had a brief affair.  Or something.  Moriarty would be ashamed of her.  Anyway, it was a bad way to finish the season.  Not to mention that she commits murder at the end.  Grandpa wakes up at the conclusion, after being in a coma throughout the entire episode, unable to tell anyone who shot him.  No trope there.

 

In addition to being hard at work watching the final ten episodes of Foundation, we watched a new film by a favourite (up till now) director.  Dracula is a 2025 film by director Radu Jude, who turns his creative block towards AI, chatting with it about the Dracula myth and letting AI come up with its own version of it.  Thus it is a series of short films connected by the director's chats with AI, and loosely connected to the Dracula myth.  The main story that seems to run through this very long film (170 minutes) is quite good.  A sort of Dracula low budget stage event sees Dracula and the girl he seduces performing in front of a group of tourists in Romania.  At the end of the play the audience gets to chase them around the village with long wooden stakes, after giving the villains a one minute start.  Other shorter films are less and less successful, finally becoming too comically raunchy to even sit through unless the viewer has a bad fever and is mildly hallucinating.  Anyone who has used AI for creative purposes has a fair idea of how badly things can turn out.  While the film has some terrific scenes, it also has far too many which are beneath most intelligent people's dignity to view.  I can recommend the first half, though it contains an overlong love story that ends in a bizarre enough way.  Another later story concerns the first Dracula novel published in Romania.  The movie goes downhill the longer one watches.  See it at your own peril.

 

Radu Jude and AI take on the undying legend.  

Showing on Mubi. 

 

Moving on to PC gaming, we replayed Black Mirror, a horror adventure game published by The Adventure Company in October 2003.  I first played it in December of 2005, though it took me four months to get through it (25 hours of playtime).  I remembered almost nothing of the game, other than it rained a lot, so this was like playing it for the first time.  Deb and I played it together.  Even so, we needed to look up some things.  More on that later.

 

Overall Black Mirror remains a pretty decent game.  It spawned two sequels (both played) and a new and updated version of this first game, still awaiting me in my Steam library.  Samuel Gordon returns to his ancestral home (Black Mirror Castle) upon the suicide death of William Gordon, his grandfather.  He soon becomes embroiled in a family curse, and works to solve a great mystery surrounding William's death.  The story is okay, at least until it is revealed who the killer is.  That revelation defies all logic.

 

The game plays out in six chapters.  Locations are gradually added as the game progresses, but it begins inside the castle and on the grounds.  There are several people to speak with, and many rooms to explore.  The first two chapters include the nearby village and a church.  Chapter 3 takes players to another ancestral home in Wales.  This chapter is like a game unto itself.  Chapter 4 adds underground locations including beneath the church and Black Mirror Castle itself, as well as an old mine.  Next come many chilling visits to the morgue, an ancient stone ring and a lighthouse.  Many locations are seen in late autumn daylight and during night and dark thunderstorms. I was correct; it does rain a lot in this game.  And yet Samuel never wears a hat or carries an umbrella--perhaps he is crazy).  Presentation is via an enhanced slideshow format, where Samuel walks across the view.  Sometimes the on-screen scenario can be extended by walking further or to one side.  Let's look at some images now.

 

 

Black Mirror Castle. 

 

The main entrance hall within the castle. 

 

The castle greenhouse.

 

Churchyard cemetery.  There are several cemeteries in this game.

 

Entrance gate to the house in Wales. 

  

The local map showing all locations (except Wales).  Once acquired players can click on the map and transport there. 

 

The very creepy Morgue.

 

To escape from the old mine we must shoot and kill a wolf (boo, hiss) in a timed sequence set up to make players fail. 

 

My favourite screenshot, taken beneath the parish church. 

 

Same cemetery as above, at night.  There are at least four in the game.

 

The final problem, so to speak.  This is close to the end of the game, in Chapter Six. 

 

As the images hopefully demonstrate, I have no quibbles with the graphics.  Again played in 640 x 480, Steam has done a good job of keeping this old game looking good.  Not having to constantly switch CDs is a good thing, too.  Anyway, the body count continues to mount during the game.  In addition to William and the wolf, the castle gardener is murdered, a young boy (boo, hiss), Samuel's uncle and his cousin (?) James.  Besides a few too many murders, what else is there to dislike about the game?

 

Well, there are very few actual puzzles.  Assemble a torn photo, unscramble some riddles, solve a 4 x 4 sliding puzzle, figure out how to open a jewel box with a puzzle along with a few other examples, this game is mostly about pixel hunting.  Hot spots appear red when the cursor is placed on them.  Very often spots that have been checked 101 times and not shown up will turn red later, after a certain conversation or action has taken place.  Inventory can become crowded at times.  Worst of all, some hot spots must be left clicked and right clicked, or else.  Yes, players can "die" in this game.  After Samuel gets killed a few times by a wolf, and his head sliced off, it is a good thing to save often.  This brings me to my main complaint.  If you don't save often you get a much more immersive experience in the game.  But if you don't save often and you die (not if but when) then a lot of replaying must take place.  If you do save often, you totally lose the immersive experience of being in the game.  Developers never really get this.  It seems a necessity to kill the player many times, to prove how stupid players are and how clever the developers are.

 

Things I liked were the fact that Samuel would not leave a place if there was still more to do there.  That was very handy.  And many of the map locations could not be visited if they were no longer needed.  Very helpful.  Sadly, however, the game lacked flow.  As soon as one puzzle was solved, one thought that the way ahead would be clear for a time.  Usually another obstacle was encountered almost immediately.  And now we come to the game's conclusion.  Once we know who the killer is, we also realize that it would be virtually impossible for that person to have committed all the crimes.  For so many reasons (no blood anywhere on him, for one).  Perhaps this will be explained better in the second game, which I've also played but forgotten.

 

I can recommend the game, though it falls beneath most games where players cannot die.  Good graphics and highly atmospheric locations, a decent enough story (until the end).  But beware that right click option. We played for a total of 24 hours, taking solutions where needed and seemingly stuck.

 

In piano news, the first 8 weeks are usually crucial to further development.  Practice is very slow, as the pianist attempts to teach his body what to do when and where.  Being a naturally slow learner, 8 weeks usually doesn't get me very far.  However, I can now play the Invention in D by Bach, and the Haydn sonata (a small one, albeit) is coming along nicely.  I have even began to memorize it.  The Bach Prelude in D from Book 1 is still very slow going.  Though mostly a piece for right hand, it has more tricky places than a typical mine field.  The fugue, though, is progressing well.  It should be ready to play in another four weeks.  I have yet to begin the final piece on the first half, a short work by Beethoven.

 

The second half of the program is dominated by a very difficult Chopin Nocturne, Op. 27 #2.  I nearly gave up during week 5, and I might still pack it in.  Despite getting 40' a day to itself, it still sounds like I am sight reading it.  If after another four weeks it is still going nowhere, I will switch it off for a different piece.  The pieces by Scriabin range in difficulty from fairly easy to quite difficult, are developing as expected.  One of them is fully playable while the other two slowly improve each week.  Lastly comes a difficult piece that I learned several years ago, March Wind by MacDowell.  It is coming back to me quite fast and should be memorized and playable in four weeks time.  I will report again at that time.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

Piano Repertoire

 February is off to a brutally cold start, though we are still very limited in the amount of snow we have received this year.  I'm sure that will arrive later in the month.  Still, we are hopeful that things will begin to end by the middle of the month.  It went briefly above freezing yesterday, before crashing to today's brutal tempts.  46 days so far with no rise above freezing, and several more in a row coming up this weekend.  Even if we did have a lot of snow it would be too cold to snowshoe.

 

I have a new family doctor, since my doctor moved away.  He is very thorough.  He sent me for a heart stress test and it went well yesterday.  Everything seems to be working as it should.  Huzzah!  Deb is urgently awaiting an iron transfusion, one of two that she needs asap.  We are still waiting for an appointment, hopefully early in the coming week.  She is very tired and run down and her breathing worsens weekly.  She is able to work on her film, but far less intensely than before.  Fingers crossed.

 

In gaming news we are currently playing two games on PC.  TR-49 is a brand new game where the player has to get a very old computer working again.  It has jumbled a lot of books and information and we are supposed to unscramble things.  We have uncovered about a fifth of what we need to do.  It's quite interesting in some ways, and quite boring in others.  There is no travel--you sit in front of an old computer (the Bletchley one, lying forgotten and disused) and do research.  The other game is the original Black Mirror from 2003.  I played it many years ago and am replaying it now.  There are two sequels which are also quite good, and a remaster of the one I'm now playing which I also look forward to trying.  This is Deb's first time, though she undoubtedly helped me with some puzzles in my original playthrough.

 

This is how the screen looks in TR-49.  Our score is at the top right.  Notes are kept by the game automatically (below right).  We are down in a basement, possibly inside the machine.  A man is upstairs telling us to work fast and urgently.  It's mostly all a great mystery to the player so far.

 

A screenshot from Black Mirror showing the great manor house where much of the game is played. 

 

In movie news there are three to report.  One is a really terrible SF film from our DVD collection called The Creeping Terror from 1964.  It's a low budget brain killer.  Instead of trying to survive watching the film as delivered, we chose to watch it on MST-3K, with Mike and the bots joking as the film proceeds.  A spaceship crashes and an alien comes out and begins eating people.  The people never run away, and sometimes have to insert themselves into the creature.  It is too ridiculous.  However, the MST episode is very funny and makes even this film quite palatable.

 

From our DVD collection.  Do not watch the original version; instead, watch the MST-3K episode, from Season Six. 

 

Days of Being Wild is a 1990 film by Wong Kar-Wai.  A selfish and spoiled young man uses women until he tires of them and then moves on, often leaving them emotionally scarred.  Though far from being a great film, it does introduce a lot of the director's signature themes, which are developed more maturely in his later films.  The young man is searching for his birth mother (not too diligently) while living with the woman who adopted him.  A local policeman gives the viewer some hope that something decent may yet come from a relationship he had with one of the young man's cast away girlfriends, though the film ends before a true ending is revealed.  Odd and disjointed at times, and the young man is a true piece of turd, so the film isn't that pleasurable to watch.

 

Showing on Criterion. 

 

Misericordia, a French, Portuguese, Spanish film from 2024 is even less fun to watch.  A young man returns to the tiny French village where he grew up to attend the funeral of a man whom he once worked for in the village bakery.  His arrival sparks jealousy in the dead man's son, who wants him to leave right after the funeral.  For no apparent reason the young man stays on, and is then accused by the son of trying to bed his mother.  They have several fights, and in their final one in a remote part of the forest the young man who returned kills the son in a fit of rage.  He buries the body and his worries commence.  The film might have had some credibility without a murder.  But of course there is a murder.  Why?  Can no one make a film without a major crime in it anymore?  The police know he did it but can't prove it.  The local priest knows he did it and helps him cover up the crime, even moving the body from the forest to the church cemetery in the middle of the night.  How this film ever made it to Cannes and Tiff is beyond me.  It's a below average crime film with some not very impressive acting.  The scenery, however, is lush and gorgeous, mid-autumn in the mountains.  The wide screen aspect works well outdoors, but the many indoor shots look quite silly.  Not recommended.

 

Showing on Criterion.  Give it a miss. 

 

I have now put in four intense weeks of practice on the newest piano repertoire.  It sounds like I'm still at the sight reading level.  Progress is grim.  42 hours practice and not really much to show for it.  I can barely play any of the pieces.  It's always so disheartening at the beginning.  In four more weeks I hope to have made at least a dent in the pieces.  The first half features three works by my favourite composer, Bach.  Two Part Invention in D Major will open the program, a fairly dense and very contrapuntal piece, and not as easy as it looks.  That is followed by the Prelude and Fugue in D Major from Book 1 of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier.  The Prelude is a jaunty number that gives the right hand a decent workout, with both hands jumping in for the finale.  The Fugue is a little French Overture, one of the composer's least learned fugues.  It promises to be a fun piece, and shouldn't be too difficult to learn.  We'll see.  All of the Bach is now being played (slowly) hands together, after many hours of hands separate practice.

 

Next comes a sonata by another top favourite composer of mine, Haydn.  It is a miniature piece in three movements, with the first being a theme and variations.  There is nothing too difficult here, and I am hoping it will sound okay in four more weeks.  The second movement is a very short minuet (without trio!), and the third is a rousing finale, a crowd pleaser if there ever was one.  It is the most concentrated and brief version of sonata form I have ever encountered.  I will finish the half with a bagatelle by Beethoven, Op. 119 #1 in g minor.  This is a favourite of mine and I haven't played it in many years.  I have yet to begin this piece.

 

The second half opens with three (more) preludes from Op 11 by Scriabin, #s 4, 5 and 6.  I have yet to begin work on #6, the most difficult one. The first two are slow and the third is madcap fast, in octaves.  Next comes a Chopin nocturne, the most difficult piece on the program.  The Op 27 Nocturnes are among the finest things he ever wrote.  I played #1 years ago and thought I might learn it again, as it is my favourite Chopin piece.  But I decided to give #2 a try.  I can barely play the thing hands separately right now.  This one will require much more time per day than I have been giving it so far.  I likely made a mistake in choosing this one.  Time will tell.

 

I will finish the program with a rousing etude by MacDowell called March Wind.  It's a very effective showpiece, one I have played before.  But I am excited to play it on the grand now!  I'll report back in a month on my progress, if any. 

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 
 

2nd Recital

I had a 2nd opportunity to perform my latest recital pieces today.  Thank you to Randy, Kate, and Peter for coming by to hear what I've been up to since last July.  The chance to perform is always a welcome one, and twice in one week is even better.  When Paula and Jenn are back from their travels I will run through the pieces again.  All went pretty well, with occasional slips and lapses.  The first Bach piece went really well, and overall the Haydn was quite fresh and zippy.  The Chopin Prelude, on its own, is a powerful little piece.  The Gnossienne also went really well, as did the Debussy and Glass.  So not a lot to complain about, though I know it could have been even better.  Such is life, and such is live performance.  Here is the program:

 

Michael Ethier

Piano Recital April 2025

"Simple Ingredients"

2-part Invention #9 in f minor

3-part Invention #9 in f minor..........................................J S Bach

Sonata in C major (HOB. XVI/35; L.48)

Allegro con brio

Adagio

Finale: Allegro.........................................................F J Haydn

***********************************************

Prelude #20 in c minor.....................................................F Chopin

Third Gymnopedie

Third Gnossienne.............................................................E Satie

Prelude #6 Bk 1 (..Des pas sur la neige)........................C Debussy

Etude #20.........................................................................P Glass

Mysterious Barricades.....................................................F Couperin

 

The only piece here that I have ever performed before this month was the Couperin.  When I begin working on the new program, the first half will be all Couperin, and on the harpsichord.

 

Deb is still feeling poorly, and likely will be until the concluding half of her medical procedure is undertaken.  Next week the stent will be removed, and hopefully that will end months of pain and infections.  In the meantime, she just has to hang in there, and take a happy pill as needed.

 

As full moon approaches, we have a perfect night tonight, with clear, dry skies.  Useless, though, as far as observing with a telescope goes, thanks to the brightness of the moon.  It's been a bad year so far, with only two usable nights to date.  I have so much work I would love to accomplish before I'm too old to lift the telescope and set it up and take it down.

 

In movie news, there are two to report, as well as Season Two of Picard.  Try to imagine a scenario where Wesley Crusher, Q and the Borg come out looking okay.  All this and more, folks, believe it or not.  Crusher, Q, and the Borg provided some of the most tropy and unwanted moments in Next Generation, and the writers stretched themselves to the limit in Picard to make them come out looking pretty clean and decent.  Unfortunately, there was overuse in Season Two of Picard's childhood background, with his insane mother who ended up killing herself.  There are so many flashback scenes to his boyhood that they ended up dragging down the series.  We get to see Data's creator, and he is evil in Season Two.  I imagine he will return, but hopefully not.  One more season to go, though we will wait awhile before viewing it.  We are still also immersed in Dark Winds and Monsieur Spade.

 

L'Innocente is a costumer by Visconti from 1976.  The main reason to watch the film is to view the parade of women's dresses on display.  Most of the film's budget must have been spent on costumes.  Here is the blurb from MUBI:

In late-19th century Italy, Tullio, an insatiable aristocrat, grows bored with his wife Giuliana and neglects her for his more exciting mistress, the wealthy widow Countess Teresa Raffo. After learning that Giuliana is having an affair of her own, he becomes tormented and descends into madness. 

It's quite a long film, mostly watchable but not always.  High society shows itself, yet again, for what it really is; empty.  Tullio is a hideous character, another less than fine male role model to follow.  To make matters worse, Giannini wears one expression throughout the entire movie, his grim face.  The camera work is excellent, as are the sets, lighting, and mise-en-scene, also spot on.  Visconti is a master director, and all of his skills and artistry are on display in this extravagant film.  I won't say it's the most engaging film I've ever seen, but it's certainly one of the better looking films.  Recommended if you enjoy beautiful women in incredible clothing.

 

The film was showing on Mubi, but has now departed. 

 

The Love Witch, written, directed, and produced by Anna Biller, is a 2016 murder/horror film that tries to emulate films from the 1960s.  Drenched in rich colours, mostly reds, and filmed with humourous parodies of Hammer films and such, the movie is great fun to watch.  A beautiful female California witch uses magic potions and rituals to try to land a faithful and loving boyfriend/husband.  Her spells are successful, but she tends to overdo them, driving the male crazy after a time.  Once she realizes that he is not the guy for her after all, there is only one way to rid herself of them.  The film succeeds on many levels, and its 125 minutes running time passes quickly.  The visuals are stunning, and the lead actress is both beautiful and funny, even though she acts the sincere part, playing it pretty straight.  A must view for fans of early 60s colour horror films!  My only complaint is that she should have been a redhead.

 

Leaving Mubi in three days. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

Doings and Happenings

It's been mostly a bust for astronomy, despite several clear nights.  Wildfire smoke continues to turn our skies milky in the daytime, and less than black at night.  I have managed two outings, both hampered by the amount of particulates in the air.  That's two months running now for smoke in our skies.  After talking with my parents recently, it's worse in Sudbury.

I took a week off from strenuous piano practice, following my program on the 10th.  I also took a week off from blogging.  But this week it's back to a full time work schedule, with a few new pieces added to the heap.  For now I will try for 2 1/2 hours per day, with a day off in there somewhere each week.  The Beethoven Sonata (Op. 10 #3) takes up the bulk of my time, but the Bach Prelude and Fugue (Book 2, Eb+) and Chopin Nocturne take up an hour.  I am also working with Paula on an (easy) piano duet for our next group gathering.  As for the Beethoven, I am now attempting to memorize the first movement.

Sunday we resumed work on the yard, mostly strenuous clearing out of weeds, and overgrowth from ivy and shrubs.  Only three large bags went out to the curb this time, but it's a start.  There has been some rain, but not very much.  We are not (yet) in another drought situation, but it won't take long.  The smoky skies have been keeping down the temperatures to the low 80s so far.  I guess one good thing came out of the smoke filled skies.  Plus some very red sunsets.

And last night I returned to Iaido training!  I thought today I would be in much worse shape, but aside from some stiffness in the hips, I don't feel too bad.  Relearning the basic katas will take a few weeks.  I hope to continue training over the summer, counting it as my cross training fitness day.  Being fit for three years now is paying off in having more energy overall, and recovering more quickly from strenuous activity.  Iaido also helps me with concentration, something I badly need to play piano successfully.  I have not trained in at least five years.  But last night felt good.  It was time to return, at least for the summer.  I was only able to dress in the hakama with help from Deb and the internet.

In movies news, there is only one film to report that I mostly enjoyed.   The Misfits is from 1961, directed by John Huston, screenplay by Arthur Miller, and starring everyone.  The film appears to be about Marilyn Monroe herself, who soars to new heights in this movie.  She plays a woman who has just divorced, and who teams up with three very different men (played by Clark Gable, Eli Wallach, and Montgomery Clift).  Highly watchable, though the wild mustang scenes might be too much for some people.  But therein lies the catch:  while Marilyn cannot stand to think of the wild horses being captured (they are to be sold for dog food), she is more than willing to take the wildness from Gable's lifestyle (it was time, anyway) and tame him.  The movie does feature several scenes, some of them eye popping, demonstrating Marilyn's sexual attraction to men (the famous bar scene where she bats a ball on a small paddle board over and over, to name one).  But her acting easily transcends those moments.  At times in control, at times totally vulnerable, at times womanly, and at times like a young girl, she attains depths in this film that must have made other actresses add another reason to hate her.  A very unusual Hollywood film, and not to be missed.

Now showing on Criterion. 

Mapman Mike