Frezno's Criterion Challenge: April 2023 Trip Report

Welcome back, my friends, to the cinema which never ends! It's the Criterion Challenge and it is April, which means it's time to start another month of cinematic adventure. Last time was a bit of an eclectic selection, so let's see what April can have in store for us. We left off on the quite moving and depressing Mishima, a film which I could have said more about if I hadn't been miserable with a cold at the time. Well, no more cold, so now I can afford to be a little more detailed as we dive into our next film... and let's.

From The Secret Vaults: Frezno Ranks The Mainline Metroid Games

Hiya. So, I have a lot of stuff that I need to be writing about. Unfortunately, I spent almost a week on vacation in the city and managed to come back with a cold that kicked my ass for the better part of a week, so progress has been slow on that. The post on Twin Peaks: The Return is coming, but there's a lot to talk about and I need to be at full strength to talk about it. Another funny thing happened on my vacation. A secret members-only forum, which had existed for 19 years and I'd been a part of for 15 of them, unexpectedly shut down. It's real end of an era stuff, and a little part of my internal landscape that I mourn, but so it goes. Then, just this morning, I remembered a thing I did on that forum. In late September 2021, just before the release of Metroid Dread, I made a thread and ranked every mainline Metroid game. I always meant to archive and repost that ranking here sometime, but the timing never worked out. Well, now that the forum is about to erode to dust, I suppose it's now or never. The style of writing is a little different than usual. Not only are we looking at words from my past self of late 2021, but it's being written on a completely different forum. The way I carry myself in writing may feel a little different, and there's some justifying for myself in a way that I probably wouldn't do if I just wrote this on the blog originally. Metroid Dread was also brand new when I wrote what I wrote about it, after all the other entries on the list, and I'd only beaten it one time. I also spoil the shit out of it, so if you've not gotten to it in that year and a half, be wary. I've still only beaten it one time, so keep all that in mind. Alright. Take it away, past me.

Frezno's Criterion Challenge: March 2023 Trip Report

Sorry this was late, I was out of town when the month ended. I also have a cold, so before I flop back onto the couch as a sniffling mess... Welcome back to the third iteration of this thing, in which I watch a bunch of movies for the Criterion Challenge. Last time was... Well, it really ended on a dour and depressing note. Not that I don't mind getting real sometimes, but it has to be said that last film was a real downer. We might hit more of those in March, but the beauty of picking from 40-odd movies is that you can set the tone as you please. So, to kick off another month of the Criterion Challenge, it's a palate cleanser as we begin with...