Blackmoor Vituperative

This is one of a few in-character World Of Warcraft blog posts I wrote in the early 2000s and posted to rp-haven.com. The author of this is Figli Brassboots, a gnomish warrior, like his father Fugli before him.

November 2, 2007, “Ze troll slaying begins”

To mein dearest sister Migli,

Ze adventuring is progressing well, und I am already meeting with ze brave warriors of ze Alliance. I have met with ze dwarf Lorith und ze good elf Arasminna, und I have been accepted into the warrior guild. I told them of papa und his legacy as a great troll slayer, und I think this was the deciding factor in my favor. They also complimented me on my new pink shirt, und then we fought a ghost which was missing his head. I would say that this was a very good meeting.

After I was accepted into the warrior guild, I was finally permitted to kill the trolls! Unfortunately, ze trolls are much taller and more difficult for ze chopping than I realized. I was forced to run away from them, many times, killing only a few of ze terrible monsters. Fortunately for me, I met another brave gnome warrior named Nosbren, und he and I made a most excellent team! We went into the den of ze trolls, und chopped so many of them up that my chopping arm was sore. Papa would be so proud!

Nosbren is being a bachelor, who is also from ze mountains, like us. I mentioned to him that I have a sister named Migli who is an excellent cook, und he asked to meet you! So I think perhaps you may be having a suitor very soon. I am planning to ask him to dinner with us, und I will let you know what day to be expecting us.

I am keeping my promise, and dressing warmly, and eating often, and drinking plenty of beer. So please do not worry.

Your faithful brother,
Figli

“Deep Blue Sea 3” is not a terrible movie, and it has some beautiful underwater photography in the first half-hour and during the closing credits.

I have been complaining about this for a while, but apparently, it’s not just me: “mumble dialogue” is the modern version of “drunken monkey cam” (which I think might, just might, be going out of style, finally). I find it infuriating. LIGHT THE SCENE. HOLD THE CAMERA STILL. MAKE THE AUDIO UNDERSTANDABLE. WHY IS THIS SO DAMNED HARD FOR MODERN FILM MAKERS TO GRASP??

“I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.”

Stendhal

If I had the time (and frankly, interest), I would start a YouTube channel called “18 minute movies”. I noticed many years ago, while letting Netflix play while I worked, that I was stopping really bad movies at about the same point each time: 18 minutes. It was uncanny.

“18 minute movies” would be me spending about a minute describing the first 18 minutes of some movie that I stopped watching at that point. For example:

“Guns Akimbo” (2019): Daniel Radcliffe portrays an internet troll. He runs afoul of an illegal Fight Club style mafia, who appear to all be extras from the movie “Hackers” (1995). They use common power tools and hardware store screws to attach guns to his hands, somehow without making him bleed to death or collapse in screaming agony. Meanwhile, an eyebrow-less Samara Weaving shoots a lot of people while the camera is flung around the room by chimpanzees.

By the way, I really like Samara Weaving. I wish she had been cast as Captain Marvel (I’m not saying she was even considered or had any interest in the part, just that I wish she had been cast). My point is, Samara Weaving was not reason enough for me to keep playing the movie.

Here’s another one.

“The Vast Of Night” (2020): Jake Horowitz portrays a guy who “works at a radio station”. He roams aimlessly around a high school, which appears to be getting ready for a game of some kind (probably basketball). He steals an instrument from a member of the band and insults a girl who asks him for help with her tape recorder, all while mumbling incoherently around a cigarette.

Today’s Saturday matinee is “Battletruck” (1982), also known as “Warlords Of The 21st Century”. This is not a great movie, but it is interesting for a number of reasons.

The late 1970s and early 1980s were the golden age of vehicle-based adventure movies. “Death Race 2000” (1975) was the vanguard of the genre, leading to “Blue Thunder” (1983), “Megaforce” (1982), “Deathsport” (1978), and so on.

The 1980s were also the golden age of post-apocalypse movies. “Mad Max” (1979) was the vanguard of the genre, leading to “Road Warrior” (1981), “Warrior And The Sorceress” (1984), “Cherry 2000” (1987), and so on.

“Battletruck” (1982) combines these elements. Unlike most films of both genres, it is not filmed in Argentina, nor does it feature David Carradine. It was filmed in New Zealand, and the cast includes Michael Beck (best known for “Warriors” (1979) and “Xanadu” (1980), and who also appeared in “Megaforce”), Annie McEnroe (who appeared in “Snowbeast” (1977), a weird intersection of the 1970s crazes for ski resort movies and Bigfoot movies), and James Wainwright (who has been in a number of fairly good films, but I know him as Dutch from 1974’s “Killdozer”). John Ratzenberger, who would make his appearance as Cliff Clavin on the show “Cheers” later the same year, has a small but memorable part as Rusty, the mechanic and weaponsmith. (Fun fact! Ratzenberger is one of the most successful actors of all time in terms of box-office receipts.)

As a vehicle-based post-apocalypse film, “Battletruck” doesn’t quite measure up to classics like “Damnation Alley” (1977), but it’s a sincere film with sympathetic characters, and it tells its story without the outlandish nonsense of “Warriors Of The Wasteland”, aka “New Barbarians” (1983) and without the sexual assaults of movies like “Road Warrior” (1981) and “Postman” (which came out in 1997, but which is very much a throwback to the post-apocalypse films of the 1980s).

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You’ll wake up tomorrow, you’ll be glad that I came
Because you’ll be singing one of the songs that I sang
So keep a happy outlook and be good to your friend
And maybe I’ll pass this way agaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain
Maybe!

Bye.

I am thinking about making a series of these.

Amazon may remove “The Dukes Of Hazzard” from its streaming service, due to the Confederate imagery on the roof of the “General Lee”, the Dukes’ gravity-defying orange Dodge Charger.

That makes me a little bit sad. They really were just good old boys, never meaning no harm. I don’t think they (or the people who designed the car) had any racist intent. I normally say “intent matters”. Because it normally does. But I am conflicted about this.

“The Dukes Of Hazzard” was my first exposure to decent people fighting against corrupt police. I was not aware of the history of bootleggers tricking out cars to outrace cops (which eventually led to NASCAR).

I have to think, that if the Dukes were ever told that the rebel flag was a symbol of racism and hatred, that they’d be horrified, and they’d waste no time in finding something better to paint on the roof of their car. Because they were decent, honorable fictional characters, and they would never cause pain to innocent people if they could help it.