2013 Written by Terence Winter
Based on the book by Jordan Belfort
Directed by Martin Scorsese
The rise and fall of a criminal gangster doomed by his own lifestyle is a tale that Americans have loved for decades. Enter The Wolf of Wall Street, the most recent epic. The criminals aren’t the mobsters so familiar with sweeping biopics, but the criminals of the modern era, banksters in business suits. Despite the fall of Belfort happening in the 90s, much of the arc fits will with the most recent financial collapse and the continual work of bankers and Wall Street money men who make millions of dollars by moving fake money around in financial markets.
I saw some people declare that Martin Scorsese was in rare form, or had returned. Like Scorsese is some guy who was being forced to make terrible movies or something. Trust me, Scorsese was making the films he wanted to make, they just weren’t the films some people wanted to watch. If every film was Goodfellas, what’s the point of having Goodfellas?
Jordan Belfort hits Wall Street and learns the ins and outs of success. Basically get on the phone and swear at rich people to buy stocks, earning money off commissions. Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) takes him under his wing with an amazing lunch on the first day that lays the whole corrupting world of money, excess, and power out before them. Hanna is downing alcohol at an alarming rate, and shows off his magic bullet – cocaine! At this point Belfort is a teetotaler during working hours, but as we saw during the opening, he’ll soon be downing more pharmaceuticals than are stocked at your local Walgreens!
K-Fried-C: Killer Joe’s Reflection of Human Interaction in the Age of Social Media
2011 Written by Tracy Letts
Directed by William Friedkin
Social media has literally changed the entire world. From creating uncountable communities great and small, to expanding our reach and allowing connections the world over, to creating billions of collars of customer data, social media is an ever-evolving juggernaut that reworks the fabric of society in a heartbeat.
As social media changes how we interact with each other online, the effects spread to our offline interactions. Character dynamics in stories reflect society, and as culture curves towards more online activity and more online influence, it is reflected in print and film. The expansion and fragmentation of social media is reflected in the Smith family in Killer Joe, as the genie is unleashed and cannot be contained, forever changing their lives in unexpected and tragic ways.
The Smith family relationships are already fractured as the film begins. Ansel is on his second wife, Sharla, and their favorite hobby is being disgusted at each other. Chris begins the film being thrown out of his mother’s place, having committed violence against his mother after she stole his drugs, causing him to owe far too much money to a local gangster. And Dottie is always in her own little world, rapidly switching from childlike innocence to implausible omnipresent knowledge at the drop of a hat.
Instead of “likes” and “retweets”, the Smith family deals in “anger” and “screaming” They are the living embodiment of getting into a political argument on Facebook, where suddenly your relatives that you’ve loved forever start spouting abhorrent viewpoints that make you question their humanity. The Smiths scream and some openly hate each other. Chris and Sharla do nothing but scream insults at one another, barely containing their contempt to just throttle the other. As internet discourse takes over, the veil that polite society limits such squabbles to sniping and occasional remarks is long abandoned. In order to get any point across, the easiest way is to yell and scream the loudest. As the family’s arguments increase in volume, the screaming gets louder and more violent. Like online, no one filters what they think, everyone just ramps things up.
Once again TarsTarkas.NET swims into the ocean of the internet and brings back a bounty of wonderful links, thanks to our illegal fishing methods that are banned by international treaties. So don’t tell anyone! Time to get this party started…
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: The Official Series Bible is a setting based on a (fictional) television series based on the original film. Players take the role of human, elf, and Martian toymakers, working together to bring peace and understanding while foiling the schemes of naughty people from both planets. It is system-independent, meaning you can use the roleplaying game mechanics of your choice to play it. It’s good for a silly one-shot or a short campaign.
The Official Series Bible™ is a format for roleplaying game campaigns. Each setting is called a Pilot, like the first episode of a television series, providing enough information to get started and offering hooks for future adventures, be leaving things open enough for gamemasters to take things in their own direction. All information is presented without rules system information, so you can adapt it to the system of your choice.
**This cool creature is Helicocystis moroccoensis, and it lived 520 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion, a time when all sorts of new types of life emerged. Helicocystis featured “characteristics that place it as the most primitive echinoderm that has fivefold symmetry”.
**The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the memoir by Jordan Belfort, and details his life of excess at a brokerage firm, including corruption, the mob, goldfish eating, dwarf tossing, partying down, and securities fraud. And it looks fan-freaking-tastic from the trailer!
That’s all for this round of lots of random crap. Tune in next time for 2 crap 2 random!
