The darkest time of the year is upon us, at least in the northern hemisphere, and this usually means consuming a lot more art and entertainment, while cozying up at home or going to meet family. What are your strongest recently published recommendations when it comes to books, movies, games etc.?
I like to follow a thematic thread with books and movies. Here are a few recent ones that might interest the HN crowd:
* water issues/climate change in the Southwest:
- *Chinatown* (film)
- *The Water Knife* by Paolo Bacigalupi (sci-fi novel, described as "*Chinatown* meets *Mad Max*)
- *The Cadillac Desert* by Marc Reisser (nonfiction, part of a plot element in *The Water Knife*
- *Cadillac Desert* PBS documentary[1]
* Dark espionage thrillers:
- *The Night Manager* by John LeCarre (novel, honestly not one of his best)
- *The Night Manager* (TV miniseries--much better than the book!)
- *The Ghost Writer* by Robert Harris (novel)
- *The Ghost Writer* (movie)
- *An Officer and a Spy* by Robert Harris (excellent and extensively researched historical novel, based on the Dreyfus Affair in Paris circa 1900)
- *J'Accuse (An Officer and a Spy)* (movie)
Over 200 hours in and I still haven’t discovered everything. In my opinion, no game in recent memory has had such an amazing core gameplay loop where you can spend either 40 minutes or 17 hours on a run.
Almost every weekend over the past 5 winters, I would drive 4 hours from my big city home to spend two days sliding and crashing in snow down a mountain. It's amazingly fun. This year, I moved to the mountain.
Last year, I picked FFXIV back up again after a 6 year hiatus and I probably spend a good 2 to 3 hours each day. Even when I'm not playing, I may be spending time creating task list or looking for blogs. There's a lot of content to do in FFXIV, especially if you're just starting. It's a bit too addictive and I'm worried about it, good thing winter has come.
Agreed on Tales from the Loop. I don't think anyone I know has seen this, as it's not very flashy and it's relegated to Amazon Prime video. But I enjoyed it and encourage others who like the "Living with the technology genre"
Interestingly, Tales from the Loop first saw the light as this amazingly produced Tabletop Roleplaying Game. It was then picked up and turned into the show.
So if you like it, consider picking up the game and getting a few friends around the (virtual?) table to make your own Tales from the Loop.
Meta: kinda weird and funny that HN discussions on entertainment fall apart so quickly. It seems, though, that people are so excited by having a thread on it at all, that they brain-dump the first thing that comes to mind, even if it's from the past generation in terms of electronic media time.
My personal overwhelmingly favorite thing from these years is the album ‘Come and See’ by the band Mamaleek: https://mamaleek.bandcamp.com/album/come-and-see It's not a movie, of course, but I played it on repeat for about three days straight, then did the same with the rest of the band's discography. It's the first genuinely great-sounding thing that I encountered in over five years. However, one probably has to already like heavy music to appreciate it (though earlier ‘Out of Time’ and ‘Via Dolorosa’ sorta lean on lighter electronic side). Ah, and my favorite way to listen to the band is on long late-night walks through the city—same as with e.g. ‘Homotopy to Marie’.
I thought I was done with single-player games, and then a friend gave me Disco Elysium, an art project/interactive book/detective story/mortality reminder that introduced me to British Sea Power (music). I’m particularly impressed with the skill tree and the term “Inland Empire” for one of the detective’s inner voices, and that many failed actions can be retried after increasing the relevant skill.
For books, Finding the Mother Tree, by Suzanne Simard, for reinforcing how important soil-health is to the growth of trees. I wish more of the old trees and not just Douglas Fir had been left around here, since they help the next crop of trees come up healthier, due to the mycorrhizal fungus that links the roots (and benefits from the sugars in what seems to be a mutualism). After a clearcut, the parasitic fungi are more likely to take over as they digest the lopped trees, making it harder for new trees to establish. Thanks to this book, Anna Octavia Butler and Robin Wall Kimmerer, I practice taking a longer view.
I mean, there are some games from back in the day that are said to be pretty good, e.g. ‘Myst’ (still haven't gotten around to it).
Text adventures seem to attract authors with some ability: for example, ‘The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy’ and Adams' ‘Bureaucracy’. Plus more-modern games by e.g. Emily Short.
- Kingdom Reborns https://store.steampowered.com/app/1307890/Kingdoms_Reborn/
- Arcane League of Legends Netflix series (never played the game, loved the series)
Also, yes it's not made in the last three years, but a good old annual LOTR marathon is always planned at the end of the year for me.
Finally, still not made in the last three years, but chess. I want to get to 2000 ELO in bullet games, but I'm stagnating at around 1850 at the moment :/
It's closer to Banished than Cities Skylines, the multiplayer is fun, the map is huge and it works flawlessly on my potato computer. I've spent many hours on this game and enjoyed every second.
Get 5 comedians, give them silly tasks with a mock authoritarian 1-man judge and 10 episodes of competition: Taskmaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4YhsooE5xY (they've done 12 seasons, and there are versions from other nations, although as usual the US version stunk)
The Amazon series The Expanse.
Auto-complete just suggested the novel "A Gentleman in Moscow".
I haven't watched the US version but I am reminded of Stephen Fry's explanation of the differences between US and UK comedians[0]. Taskmaster needs contestants willing to embarrass themselves.
Came here to mention Taskmaster, thanks for doing it first. In my opinion, light entertainment does not get _any_ better than Taskmaster, it's perfect.
Just started The Expanse too. Too early to say much, but it seems cool as hell.
I personally like music videos. It's a celebration of the human spirit. A lot of music is the retelling of poetry, and videos add another angle to it, even if it's something goofy like Blink182's What's My Age Again.
Aristotle used to say that music and spectacle were a major part of drama, but music videos invert that and make the plot support the music.
Metallica really enjoy their storytelling, especially in live performances. You can tell they still haven't fully grasped Master of Puppets, so it's explored from different angles, from drug abuse to authoritarianism, from alternative metal to punk style rhythm. Metallica's One is more straightforward. There's a machine gun part that originally just emerged from the riff, but it's increasingly played up and synced with pyrotechnics.
Or if you don't want the showmanship, sometimes it's nice to just watch and listen to Avril or IU singing acoustic. Contrast the pop with their raw version. Take On Me is also a big inversion between their cheerful radio version to the sadder acoustic version.
On Hulu the tv shows “12 monkeys” and “Future Man” if you like time travel fantasies. Despite sharing a source with the movie 12 monkeys, the show has its own legs and is much more serious and enjoyable with a satisfying wrap up. Future Man is the exact opposite, a comedy from Seth Rogan. If you liked Pineapple Express you are likely going to love this, and if you didn’t you should skip it.
It's the end of the Ronaldo and Messi era, each league is won by a new team each year. Different strategies are rolled out against each other. It's a golden age for football.
Hmm I stopped watching football because it was only the rich teams winning everything. I'm not sure if it's great entertainment though. Watching 2 hours to see your team lose (or worse, get 0-0) is not a good feeling. I normally only watch the German national team because they win big and lose big.
My last gaming device was a Gameboy Advance, until I bought a Switch.
What convinced me to get it was a discussion in HN about Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I bought the Switch just to play that one game, and it was worth it.
I think for cost versus hours entertained, the Switch and its popular games are worth it. It also takes a lot longer to "run out" versus an 90-120 minute movie, or a book that might take your 4 or 5 hours to read. I probably put in maybe 60 to 80 hours (very rough estimate) into BOTW, and it cost something like $60. $1/hour of entertainment is very good.
I bought several games to try, but the only other game I've played so far was Everspace. I just recently finished it. It was decent for killing time, but not that rewarding, and very repetitive.
There will be a sequel to BOTW coming out next year which I'm looking forward to. There is a prequel called Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, but at first glance, it doesn't look like my cup of tea. I should probably look into it a little more though.
The books by Will Wight (Cradle series, and Elder Empire dual trilogy). I enjoyed his Traveller's Gate trilogy too, but not as much as the other two.
Expanse (the TV Show, books are on my to-do list).
Licanius Trilogy books are great too.
GRIS is a really beautiful story telling game about loss and grief. The story telling, art, and music are all beautiful. The gameplay is really fun too, even if it's not usually my kinda game.
> The books by Will Wight (Cradle series)
I've seen a lot of recent hype for this series. Is it any good? The YA tag is a red flag for me because I'm not really interested to read about children.
Probably the recordings were made more than 3 years ago, but I was laughing my ass off at episodes of the British show QI hosted by Stephen Fry. I saw it on BritBox but it's available from several sources.
There's also the podcast ‘No Such Thing as a Fish’, by four of the writers of QI. It's a mix of trivia and buffoonery—pretty much like the TV show, just with a more small-room feel.
Sandi Toksvig is an impressively good replacement as well, which for me is surprising because I'm a huge Stephen Fry fan and expected the show to go to hell without him.
Have you watched a season of "Alone", produced by the History Channel? They've done 8 seasons already. So many elements play a role in who wins a season. It's really interesting to see how contestants compete.
Critical Role - bunch of voice actor friends sit at the table and play DnD. Campaing 3 just started, Campaing 1&2 have 250+ episodes combined approx. 4h each. A lot of content but definitely worth it. Also, animated series based on the show comes up in Feb 2022.
Highly recommend if you looking for something to listen to
I listened to it about 3 mins in the past and that put me off listening to all D&D podcasts forever. Maybe I should give it another shot and listen for a full episode.
I don't know, it feels like the D&D movie (2000) where it's pandering to nerds. When I'd prefer something closer to Order of the Stick, in that it tells a great story first but still keeps the D&D humor.
It's a but over the top at times, but I enjoyed the drama of the interns joining the finance industry. Reminded me of what it's like to be in your twenties and not really know how life will turn out for you... Like Ted Lasso, it made me think of when I visited London for work.
I read the dune books years ago and didn't appreciate them. After watching the recent film it inspired me to re-read the books and I must say I'm having a far more enjoyable time, to the point I look forward to going to bed to read :)
Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky is definitely one of the best books of the decade, though I'm not sure I'd call it entertainment. Regardless, I'll enthusiastically second your recommendation of it.
I occasionally pop it up for 15 mins and see how many I can hit with the weapon of the week, but in a full game, it turns out reflexes are not the bottleneck. I've got under a hundred hours over 5 years or so. Can't imagine it being entertaining for 1000 hours a year.
* water issues/climate change in the Southwest:
* Dark espionage thrillers: [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkbebOhnCjA