Clash Of The Titans (2010)

The 1980's original of Clash Of The Titans may not have been one of the strongest of Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion sword-and-sandal epics, but at least it had charm and excitement going for it.

And the definitive depiction of Medusa!

The 2010 remake is sadly lacking in all of those areas, with the reworked storyline transforming a classic hero's journey into a collection of random happenstance with no overriding logic.

Sticking to the same basic plot - Perseus has to kill the Medusa and use her head to petrify the unstoppable kraken before it eats the princess and trashes the city - this version manages to hit a few key beats (e.g. the Pegasus, the Stygian witches and Medusa), but then throws out so much from the original that worked well (Calibos, for instance, is reduced to just another monster to be slain).

Even ignoring the blatant jibe at the original - when Perseus is told to discard Bubo the clockwork owl - Clash Of The Titans tries too hard to "be different" and ends up being drab and unengaging.

As Perseus, Sam Worthington again demonstrates the total lack of charisma he showed in Avatar and while much of the CGI is quite impressive for its time, there seems little attempt at maintaining an Ancient Greek verisimilitude (who, for instance, were the strange rock creatures riding the giant scorpions and why did one join Perseus' group for no apparent reason?).

With the filmmakers almost total disregard - bordering on contempt - for the source material, it would have only taken a bit of a nudge further and this could easily have become just another Lord Of The Rings-aping fantasy film, devoid of any Ancient Grecian trappings.

Will 'Pensioners on Golf Carts' Be The Next Niche Genre?

In a seemingly perfect retirement community, a crew of unlikely heroes must stop an otherworldly threat from stealing the one thing they don’t have: time.

EPISODE FIVE: All Roads Lead To Doom

Atlantis

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: When we last saw our heroes their aircraft was just emerging from a supernatural storm and in front of them lay the lost island of Atlantis!

As Onyx (our currently NPC pilot) banked the seaplane towards the island, we heard, aft, a loud cracking sound in the air. Looking back we realised the zeppelin had been struck by lightning, but - even more terrifying - it was now in the grasp of indescribably large tentacles that had arisen from the water and were squeezing the life out of the German craft.

Piercing the 'energy shield' over the island, we inspected the ruined and abandoned Greco-Roman city as we came in to land in the calming sea on the far side of Atlantis, parking the plane up on the beach so we could go exploring.

Onyx stayed with the plane - just in case we needed to make a hasty exit.

It soon became clear that the city had been abandoned by its populace - suddenly - a long time ago. The houses were falling down, furniture turning to dust, nature slowly reclaiming it all with encroaching vines.

Freya (Clare's photojournalist) was absorbed by the archaeology, while Buck (my explorer) and Dick (Kevin's former G-man) listened out for German survivors and any remaining natives.

Eventually we made our way up a main thoroughfare to the giant bronze gate barring the sturdy entrance to the central temple.

The door of four faces

As we approached, a poem was seen, carved into a wall, which Freya was able to translate:

"To face the sea, you must
catch the rising wind
follow the lesser stars
fear the darkened depths"

This sparked much discussion as to its meaning. We suspected it was a series of clues to solving any challenges we would have to face, But even the first four words took us a while to get our heads round - until Dick suggested it was "face" as in "confront" rather than "look at".

"Catch the rising wind" was clearly connected to the brass door, which was cast with four identical faces, their lips pursed in a blowing fashion (see picture above).

Using my lighter I detected a breeze from the left mouth and the bottom one, then Dick accidentally set off a pit trap when he probed one of the orifices with a rolled-up leaf. Thankfully, the only thing bruised was his dignity. 

After a lot of mental gymnastics, together with our vast selection of skills and feats, we eventually cracked the code and Freya had to suffer the minor embarrassment of putting her lips to one of the mouths and inhaling until there was an audible click and the door dropped down into the ground.

Beyond the vast bronze door was a flight of stairs heading down under the temple. As it was the only way we could go, we descended.

We quickly realised that the wall-mounted crystals were emitting light, some even set in small brass cages that we could lift off the wall and use as torches.

The further we went, we noticed a panorama of bas-reliefs on one side were telling a story: a boy finds a trident in the sea that grants him magical powers; he attracts a following, but as he older he gets corrupted by the enormous power; his followers rebel against him; the rebels kill the prophet and take the glowing trident to the temple; unfortunately calamity strikes and the temple is attacked by giant tentacles.

If this was a true record of the fate of Atlantis, we were very impressed that someone was so dedicated to their work that they stayed on to record the destruction of the city in stone as it fell down around them!

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, so that we were now at sea level, we found ourselves in an enormous cavern, bisected by a bottomless chasm, and crossed by a single stone bridge - that was adorned by three pairs of armed mermen statues.

The pathway across bridge itself (pictured right) was decorated with a panoply of star-shaped crystals, small, medium and large.

Buck thought he'd understood the "follow the lesser stars" clue, but treading on one of the small stars just woke the nearest merman statue. It swivelled round on its plinth to face Buck and tried to jab him.

Eventually, after another lengthy discussion, Buck and Freya were able to figure out what the patterns were (again drawing on their particular fields of knowledge).

Buck was then tasked with guiding his two companions across the cunning trap.

This was very tense [a LOT of dice rolling for me, with my colleagues' lives in my hands], but eventually everyone made it across - although I did stumble at the last moment and had to be pulled to safety by Dick and Freya.

On the far side of the bridge we realised there were no more crystals, but as we continued down the slope it actually began to get lighter.

Soon we entered a partially-flooded amphitheatre. We were just admiring the clear sparkling water when a massive explosion filled the room with dust and debris.

Emerging from the haze came a unit of Nazi soldiers (about 10 at a quick estimate), just as an altar rose up in the middle of the flooded stage - bearing on it a strangely familiar trident.

However, things escalated rapidly, for behind the soldiers came our nemesis, Professor Kasper Wieloch, no longer dressed in his military uniform but wearing arcane robes instead. 

Framing our vision of this vile man, the horrific tentacles from earlier were flailing around... presumably under his control!!!

It's not looking good for our heroes!

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC*

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

*Unfortunately it appears that Mark will be unable to join us for the foreseeable future. We all wish him the best and look forward to his return to out table as soon as possible.

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

MOCKBUSTERS OF THE UNIVERSE!!!

A young man must use his untapped powers to fight back against an evil alien and their army, who will stop at nothing to take over Earth and then the universe.

The Asylum's Masters of The Universe mockbuster, Master of The Universe - starring Matthew Gademske, Morgan Flanagan and Jay Kramis, and directed by Marcel Walz - is released on Friday (May 22).

If nothing else, it certainly looks like they've upped their CGI game when it comes to spaceships and the like.

"Second To The Right, And Straight On Till Morning"

I have long dreamed of a fantastical, island-hopping roleplaying game "project", akin to the beloved Ray Harryhausen sword-and-sorcery movies of my youth filtered through something akin to old school Dungeons & Dragons.

The exact flavour remains undecided, but I already have a campaign format in mind.

I want to emulate the very first campaign that Gublin and I played back in the late '70s: a picaresque nautical yarn in the style of Sinbad The Sailor, The Odyssey, Jason & The Argonauts or even Clark Ashton Smith's The Voyage of King Euvoran, with the player-characters as the crew of an exploratory ship sailing from mysterious island to mysterious island.

I've long said my campaigning Holy Grail is to run an open-ended 'forever campaign' that captures the spirit of the first generation of roleplaying campaigns (e.g. Gary Gygax's Greyhawk, Dave Arneson's Blackmoor, and my personal favourite: Dave Hargrave's Arduin).

Maybe this is the adventure that will steer me in that direction.

What Will We Find In The Backrooms?

A strange doorway appears in the basement of a furniture showroom.

Backrooms – In Theaters May 29.

A film by Kane Parsons, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Lukita Maxwell.

Azumi 2 - Death Or Love (2005)

Picking up from where the original left off, Azumi 2: Death Or Love sees the cute, young assassin and her one surviving colleague, Nagara (Yuma Ishigaki), heading off to slay the final warlord, the last of the troublesome triumvirate, whose death they believe will bring peace to Japan.

Soon, Azumi (Aya Ueto) and Nagara fall in with a Robin Hood-style bandit, Ginkaku (Shun Oguri), who happens to be the spitting image of Nachi, the beloved friend that Azumi was ordered to kill as the final part of her training (this is because Nachi and Ginkaku are played by the same actor).

Also joining their little gang is a zealous neophyte ninja, Kozue, played by the instantly recognisable Chiaki Kuriyama (from the awesome double bill of Kill Bill Volume 1 and Battle Royale).

Azumi's final mission proves to be her toughest as the last warlord, Masayuki Sanada (Toshiya Nagasawa) has gotten into bed - literally - with the head of a ruthless, and warmongering, ninja clan, a superhumanly fast harridan called Kunyo (Reiko Takahashi).

On one level Azumi 2 is more of the same as Azumi, although the blood-letting is considerably more restrained in this second film, but it still delivers a smart plot looking at honour, friendship, blind obedience, betrayal and the lengths some people will go to to see their mission fulfilled.

As before there are numerous glorious set-pieces, beautifully choreographed and shot, with the "poison spider web" in the bamboo forest being the most inventive.

While Chiaki's performance is, as usual, both memorable and menacing, the film - as with the first one - belongs to Aya Ueto, whose Azumi is one tough cookie who could give Buffy a run for her money any day. 

However, the two volumes of Azumi films share certain characteristics with the structure of Quentin Tarantino's two Kill Bill films; both have their largest and most gruesome fights at the climax of the first volume and their heroines have to carve their way through a number of sub-bosses before facing off against the final Big Bad at the end of volume two.

This final confrontation stands out not so much for the actual conflict but for the position Azumi is put in by her own side, when Sanada suggests he would be willing to withdraw his troops from the impending war if Azumi is left to face him in single combat.

Azumi 2: Death Or Love doesn't quite touch the giddy heights of the first movie, but is still a more satisfying conclusion to the tale than Kill Bill Volume 2 was to Kill Bill Volume 1.

Never Lose Sight of Hope, Even In The Darkest of Times

In the remote South Korea village of Hope Harbor, police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung- min) and officer Sung-ae (Hoyeon) are called to find a mysterious creature that has wreaked havoc on the village.

In the nearby forest, a coterie of hunters, including Sung- ki (Zo In-Sung) set out to track the beast and find themselves hunted instead.

But all is not as it seems, and perceptions can be misleading. What begins as ignorance plants the seed of disaster, escalating through human conflict into a tragedy of cosmic proportions.

Character Posters For The Last Airbender's Second Season

MUSICAL MONDAY: Bangaranga (DARA)

Here it is: the winner of the weekend's 70th annual Eurovision Song Contest.

In the "home jury", both Rachel and I gave this one our top scores and so were delighted - and rather surprised - that the bouncy Bangaranga actually won the contest.

Our scoresheets for the evening - Rachel even made notes!

Sadly, the UK's Look Mum No Computer (which we'd voted into second place) ended up at the bottom of the 25 acts participating in the grand final, with just a single point.

In comparison, DARA scored 516 points - the biggest margin over second place in the history of Eurovision.

See below for the final tally, which includes both the international juries' and the public votes.

HEALTH UPDATE: If It's Not One Thing, It's Another

Image by Alfred Derks from Pixabay

The first - and best - thing that happened this week was rescheduling my steroid injections. This had been the primary motivator of my drastic diet changes and it paid off.

I rang the hospital, spoke to a lovely woman in the Pain Clinic, and told her my new blood sugar count.

She offered me the choice of going on a waiting list for the doctor I had seen previously or an early morning appointment at the start of next month with a different doctor.

What the phrase Pain Clinic always
conjures up in my twisted mind

I really wanted to stay with the doctor I knew (fear of change and all that), but I also wanted to get this matter resolved ASAP.

So, quite heroically I thought, I opted for the Pain Clinic appointment in June.

Hopefully, these shots into my lumbar facet joints will ease the extreme pain in my back so I can do more vigorous exercises to help keep the discomfort at bay for the long-term.

I should also point out that I made the call to the hospital using my mobile phone - like a real 21st Century person.

The night before I'd woken at about 3am in a panic about not having a landline for the foreseeable future and used my phone to log into my mobile account (which I'd never actually looked at before)... and found I had "free minutes" every month.

Yes, I knew about these mythical things, but always thought there was a catch. There isn't. A minute is a minute.

That's put me at ease about both my appointment at the hospital and using my phone in lieu of the landline.

However, that state of contentment didn't last too long as I was getting texts from the NHS eye clinic about my test the other week - but I couldn't open them, either directly on my phone or through the NHS app.

Then I got a severe-sounding message that said I needed to go for a new test at a different hospital... and I overreacted. To put it mildly.

Picture from Pixabay

Fearing the worst (i.e. I was going blind), I catastrophised straight from calm to Def Con Freak Out.

I called Rachel and she managed to talk me back down, then went off to get in touch with the hospital I was being directed to. 

[The extra embarrassing aspect of this was that I talking to Rachel via a video link and so her entire office could see - and hear - my rather lengthy emotional breakdown.]

It turns out the pictures of the interior of my eye that had been taken the other day weren't good enough and therefore I was being sent to a hospital unit with better equipment. 

Rachel was also told that the "portal" the eye service used to communicate with patients wasn't the same as the general NHS one that I was used to using, and could be a bit "temperamental".

As Rachel calmly explained all this to me, I could feel my mental dials turning down to a normal level again. 

I, honestly, don't know what I would do without my wonderful wife.

Annoyingly, my INR was up again (even higher than last week) which means the weekly check-ups will continue for a while.

And I'm concerned that, if it doesn't sink back down into my target range (through subtle changes in the amount of daily medication I take for it), that might also screw up my spinal injections!

I was specifically asked about INR when I rescheduled my jabs - and told I might need to be tested before the procedure could go ahead.

The fun never ends.

Superman's Found Family Face Ferocious Future

My Adventures with Superman Season Three premieres June 14 on HBO Max across Europe.

Clark, Lois, Jimmy, and Kara juggle life, romance, and visitors from the future.

This found family will have to confront powerful new enemies that challenge Superman, and test the bonds holding them together.

Can our heroes save their tomorrow before it destroys today?

"Half a Year, Half a Year, Half a Year Onward..."

Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash

Apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson for butchering his iconic opening to The Charge of The Light Brigade for the sake of a cheeky headline.

This blog has now been on "active duty" for six months now... and seems to be ticking over nicely.

To be honest, it actually feels much longer, like the gravitational pull of a black hole warping my perception of time. On one hand life is racing by at an accelerated rate, while on the other the blog wades slowly through treacle.

I realise this iteration of my blogging 'career' has grown out of the detritus and chaos left by my previous near twenty years of blogging, but I somehow fooled myself into thinking that that would make it easier to stay focussed on what I wanted this new edition to be.

This has not been the case.

Of course, I wish there was more tabletop roleplaying gaming material on it, as that was one of the main reasons for returning to the bloggosphere and it's always been where, I felt, I was the most creative.

Previous blogs have boasted gameable material, monsters, magic, and houserules as and when such tickled my fancy or I was suitably inspired. But so far - for the reasons I mentioned the other day - there's been bupkis.

I also wish my health - both physical and mental - was in a better place, but ultimately that's all down to me ensuring I pull my finger out and take positive steps to alleviate those issues.

The erratic heartbeat of the blog's views/hit count over six months

Behind-the-scenes, a conversation the other month with Tim Brannan (of The Other Side) finally managed to rid myself of my obsession with "hits" and where they were coming from.

Looking at the views individual posts are getting also paints a very different picture to the occasional tidal wave of bots scraping the blog as a whole for whatever it is they think they might find here.

Each article gets a pretty consistent amount of visitors that I'm very happy with. When you look at the blog's widgets charting "popular posts" for the week, the "scores" that separate each are usually only one or two hits apart.

These days I'm much more focussed on getting comments - either directly on the blog or on Facebook (where I promote all my posts). Comments, for me, are the lifeblood of blogging and the best, most genuine, reflection of a true connection with your readership.

Obviously, I'd prefer more people left messages on the actual blog, but Facebook has the bonus that readers can simply react to a post without the necessity of sharing their more detailed thoughts on my nonsense. 

Maybe, eventually, I'll write something revolutionary and suddenly my site will blow up with large-scale, genuine engagement, but in the real world I'm more than content to just keep posting my posts for my circle of friends and acquaintances. 

As this new blog continues to grow, I would like to develop that hardcore band of followers - my posse, if you will.

My goal is for "quality" over "quantity". As I've just said, I'm not striving for hits and clicks. Just a coterie of readers willing to interact with my babble, offer constructive criticism, and engage in conversations.

Look to the right and you will see in the side column (below the current 'featured article') a widget entitled Join The Posse. Under avatars for my current Followers is a button marked Follow.

Simply press that and - all being well - your avatar will join the ranks of this group of brave heroes.

I do think you'll need a Google account for this to work (Blogger, after all, is a Google thing).

Not only does this mean that my expertly crafted prose will appear in your Google "Reading List" but it demonstrates to me that you're interested in my waffle and support what I'm doing (without having to part with a single red cent, sign up to Patreon, or back my Kickstarter).

Since I last brought this subject up, I've had two new recruits join our happy little party: my best mate, Paul, and my old online pal Ivy aka The Happy Whisk.

Missed Out On Free Conan Comic Day? Fret Not...

Conan of Cimmeria believed that Thulsa Doom’s evil had been banished forever, but the Atlantean necromancer’s dark power stirs once more and, if it cannot be stopped, the dead shall overtake the living! The Tyrant-King of Atlantis returns and all shall suffer, unless Conan and his brave allies can turn back the tide!

Did you miss out on the Conan The Barbarian offering on May 2's Free Comic Book Day?

Don't worry - publishers Titan Comics has you covered. The 24-page book is now available as a free, downloadable PDF direct from them, here.

Written by legendary Conan scribe Jim Zub, with art by Jesus Merino, the comic is a prelude to the next big Howardverse comic book crossover event, Tides of the Tyrant King, starting in the Autumn.

This year's event ties into the classic 1929 Robert E Howard pulp story Skull-Face, his take on the Sax Rohmer's popular Fu Manchu adventures that began in 1912.

Tides of the Tyrant King also features, from the original Skull-Face yarn, Soldier Stephen Costigan, cousin of my favourite Howard creation Sailor Steve Costigan.

The Battle for Eternia: Have You Chosen A Side?

VERSUS