Verónica Review (Film, 2017)

Verónica Review (Film, 2017)

Robert J Gannon
Film, Reviews

Verónica is a psychological horror film from directors Carlos Algara and Alejandro Martinez-Beltran and screenwriters Carlos Algara and Tomas Nepomuceno. It is a familiar story told with beautiful style and precise editing. 

A psychologist takes on a new patient, the titular Verónica, who is referred to her by another doctor who cannot complete the treatment. The psychologist and her new patient work together in a remote home in the woods, sharing a living space between therapy sessions. Something is clearly wrong with Verónica, a young woman with horrific nightmares that lead her to sexual desire and longing when she wakes up. The problem is the psychologist cannot get her hands on Verónica's previous case files. She's starting from square one on a patient who clearly has a history of treatment, and that patient will use her knowledge to manipulate, confuse, and terrify the doctor as much as possible in our out of therapy sessions.

House Flipper Review (PC Game, 2018)

House Flipper Review (PC Game, 2018)

Robert J Gannon
Games, Reviews

I love a good relaxing simulation game. I'm always down to try out a new Sims title, or a theme park builder, or--the newest established style in the genre--a career simulator. There's a meditative quality to even the most stressful releases in this genre. You are fully in control of an immersive world where anything that goes wrong can be fixed instantly with a reset.

My favorite among these have sandbox modes, where time and money are of no value and you can build whatever you want. The artificial scarcity of earning money in the regular modes isn't even that inconvenient, as the developers tend to be quite generous with funds compared to how city building or repair work would go in the real world. Still, I prefer a simulation with no firm deadlines, just clear objectives and a lot of creative freedom. That's almost like a sandbox mode, just with a few more critical elements to deal with.

Beatriz at Dinner Review (Film, 2017)

Beatriz at Dinner Review (Film, 2017)

Robert J Gannon
Film, Reviews

Beatriz, an alternative therapist specializing in all kinds of healing, winds up spending the night at her client's mansion for a dinner party. She is a Mexican immigrant and environmentalist, surrounded for the night by a group of cutthroat white business people. The night is to celebrate a controversial business deal years in the making, but Beatriz will not go through the night silent. 

Beatriz at Dinner is a quiet film from director Miguel Arteta and screenwriter Mike White. I could imagine it working very well as a stageplay, which for me is a compliment. Film is a visual medium and it's rare to come across a screenplay with dialogue and narrative structure so sound it could be lifted and placed (with minor alterations to minimize set changes) right on a stage, where imagination has to fill in the gaps. The dialogue feels quite natural even when White is serving friction and Arteta is setting up Beatriz for a hard spike into the beliefs of the other dinner guests.

Dead by Daylight Mid-Season Patch 2.1.0 Updates

Dead by Daylight Mid-Season Patch 2.1.0 Updates

Robert J Gannon

I have a very specific pattern as a gamer. I always have a wide range of games ready and available to play at a given time. If I want to game on console, I catch up with titles I wanted to play all at once. On PC, it's the Steam sale and keeping track of interesting Kickstarters and livestreams. I do eventually get to all of the games, but there's usually one title I swing back to again and again as a fun break from all the new mechanics and stories to learn.

That game right now is Dead by Daylight, an asymmetrical 4v1 survival horror game. A team of four survivors try to power up five generators and escape a creepy map while being stalked, chased, and attacked by one killer. Survivors and killers alike have different perks that improve certain skills or add abilities, such as running faster, moving quieter, or being more efficient at game objectives. The win condition is making it out the doors as a survivor or killing the survivors as a killer.

Skins Review (Film, 2018)

Skins Review (Film, 2018)

Robert J Gannon
Film, Reviews

Content Warning: Skins is an anthology film where many stories intersect around sexual abuse.

Skins (Pieles) is the debut feature length film from writer/director Eduardo Casanova. He is an actor turned director who called on every resource he had--namely a phenomenal group of actors he had performed with before--to craft an ambitious film.

Skins is an anthology film about people with physical deformities trying to find respect in a world that casts them aside. It's also a film about people who fetishize physical deformities. These worlds intersect around a brothel specializing in any kind of person you want.

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