Rated PG Newsletter - Issue 04

This week’s issue of the Rated PG newsletter is a bit late because I got a little carried away working on reviews. I went into high gear for the New York Asian Film Festival this week, so I’ve been plugging away at setting up my interview with Angela Yuen and watching a different film each night. I only took time away from that to watch one other movie this week, which we’ll get to below. Likewise, I didn’t even play many video games.

I was wondering if I should even post an issue today, but I do want to talk about They Will Kill You. I haven’t seen much discussion surrounding it, which seems odd. Zazie Beetz kicking some ass in a horror movie sounds like the type of stuff people would go nuts for on social media, yet it seemingly came and went without much fuss. Ah, well.

Games This Week

With my spare time being occupied by general life, I didn’t find that much extra time for games this week. I finished Star Fox on Switch another few times, collecting all the medals across Normal and Expert difficulties before trying some of the multiplayer out. I’m not sure why Nintendo loves to do the bare minimum when it comes to competitive modes for its games, seemingly scratching its head about why people don’t stick with titles for more than a few weeks. At any rate, good remake, but I hope a proper sequel for the series is in the works.

The big thing was finally finishing Devil May Cry 3 this week. Poor Dante kept getting shuffled to the back of the list as review duties and other tasks cut in line. It’s been great revisiting the game after two decades, something I had been meaning to do earlier anyway. I do think those last few levels, minus the final boss fight with Vergil, are duds though. At least I still have the Vergil campaign to go through, which I completely forgot is a separate thing in the “Special Edition.”

Movies This Week

So, most of my time this week was spent watching and writing about films for NYAFF. I’ve had a good time overall, though a couple of films have been mixed bags. You can read a handful of the reviews on the website right now, including Colony, Magical Secret Tour, and Mr. Hero. For whatever reason, JournoPortfolio doesn’t let you schedule posts, meaning I need to manually set them live. That’s a little annoying, but I’m spacing out the reviews to not overwhelm anyone (mostly myself).

As for non-work-related watches, I finally checked out They Will Kill You. It hit theaters in late March and was something of a dud at the box office. I’m not here to say that’s a mistake, but I’m surprised I didn’t hear more people talking about this one. The current hot film is Obsession, which I’ve heard terribly mixed things about, but a film where Zazie Beetz kicks some ass in her underwear seems like it should have been a moderate hit.

In my short Letterboxd post, I called the movie, “The best film Quentin Tarantino never made.” A lot of the style seems directly inspired by Kill Bill, even if it swaps its protagonist searching for her child with a lost sister. Some of the opening dialogue plays out exactly like the confrontation The Bride and O-Ren Ishii have before the Crazy 88’s rush in. Beetz is really fantastic throughout, taking to action scenes with confidence and flair.

For me, the major failing of the film is that it spoils the gimmick way too early. They Will Kill You is thankfully not a long film, but I had no idea it was set inside a hotel where a group of wackos has made a pact with the devil that grants them immortality. I got a tremendous kick out of seeing Tom Felton get his head cut off (Fuck you, Draco Malfoy!), but not even five minutes after and everyone is back from the dead and chasing Zazie down. If that was hidden until the halfway point, I think the movie could have had both a shocking twist and some incredible third act tension.

Then again, there are some great moments which pay homage to Sam Raimi’s classic films throughout. Zazie blows Heather Graham’s head clean off with a point-black shotgun blast, and after reanimating a little, the eyeball starts following her around. I love the usage of practical effects for it, but it’s also just absurd to see this little eyeball gain sentience and roll around. Horror-comedies are hardly anything new, but the juxtaposition of those tones is used well here.

Upcoming Week

For this next week, I should wind up finishing the films I intend to review for NYAFF. I don’t think there are many left, though I am still waiting on a potential screener. Most of the rest of my writing will go live over the week, with only a few pieces set for the following week. My interview with Angela Yuen isn’t until the 21st, which gives me another week to prep. I haven’t checked out Hong Kong Google to see what interviews she has done in the past, though I intend to ask her more about Gamer Girls than anything.

Gaming wise, I’ll be putting the finishing touches on my Max Payne retrospective and then taking a long look at what I hope to achieve on YouTube. With the way the algorithm has been broken so many times over the years, I’m not sure if struggling against a self-imposed schedule for regular projects is really doing me any favors. My channel has been stagnating, and while I take everything very seriously, I can’t tie my self-worth to videos which underperform despite me putting in a lot of effort. I’ve already sworn off traditional game reviews, and with how games media is, maybe it’s time I finally stepped away from gaming coverage entirely.