The best thing about watching HBO’s version of Perry Mason is that it got me to try out the books and the series from the 50s/60s with Raymond Burr. From what I’ve read so far, the books are very engaging with Perry Mason being a classic 30s smart/tough hero and solid thriller writing. And while the earlier series falls into the formula of end of the show courtroom confessions, it’s still fun to watch these characters and the actors playing them.
The HBO version is a bad Perry Mason show. I mean that in the same way I would say Solo was a bad Star Wars movie. In both cases if you took away the names and trying to connect these characters to existing well-known previous stories, you have the potential for an enjoyable show. For Solo, if it was just a group of smugglers, no Han Solo, no Kessel Run, etc, more time could have been spent developing the story and characters rather than cramming the entire backstory of an existing character in one adventure. For Perry Mason there is the making of a decent noir, but the character’s core motivation/ beliefs/ integrity/ whatever are all missing. The most egregious bit is Perry Mason was always willing to bend the law a little bit to get at the truth, but never resort to breaking it to win. In this version he just gives up and pays off a juror (even though he doesn’t have to).
Another huge issue is that Erle Stanley Gardner was insistent that any portrayal of the character didn’t include his personal life. That always worked to the benefit of the character. It allowed him to appear larger than life even if he suffered the same daily problems as everyone else. When it comes to thrillers in general, delving into the character’s personal life usually just causes the story to drag and ends up feeling like filler. It also worked as a bonus when it came to the series from the 50s where a gay man is portraying the character and, if he wanted, he could think of the character as gay without any impact on the story or the viewer’s experience. In a way, the more a character’s life is defined, the less relatable that character becomes to a segment of the audience.
Minus the character names and extraneous story bits, the show itself is well crafted. The visuals: cinematography, directing, production design and the acting are all very well done and probably the thing that got me to watch the whole series.
About those updates…
Looks like it was over a couple years ago that I last updated the models I have on the Unity Asset store, so it was definitely time for a new update. Both Grimtoon Park and The Rat Critter have been updated to Unity version 2022. The Rat Critter update is pretty substantial in an under the hood kind of way. I had originally created the model and animation using Maya 2011, but since I have made the switch to Blender it became a problem to support/update the Maya source files. So I remastered and updated all the animation in Blender and those files are now included with the package. For the time being the original Maya version is still in the older packages which should still be available to download.
Updating the Park
Apparently I need to do some kind of regular version check of my Assets.
I thought for sure I had updated Grimtoon Park recently.
Especially since all the images needed to be updated late last year.
Turns out none of that happened.
Well now it has! Grimtoon Park has been updated to Unity version 2019.3.
And it really needed it.
None of the older version prefabs worked in 2019.3 for one reason or another.
Now it is back to the wonderful drag and drop ease of the olden days.
Spoilery Movie Thoughts: Unsane
When I first saw the commercials for Unsane my thoughts ranged from “That looks dumb” to “That looks bad”. Then I saw it was directed by Steven Soderbergh and realized there was probably more going on than the marketing was showing.
As the movie transitions to the hospital and the unusual events begin, the movie’s tagline of “Is she or isn’t she?” starts to hold some promise and potential for an interesting thriller. I was imagining Steven Soderbergh bringing to the psychological thriller a similar layered obfuscated story that he has done with caper films with the audience constantly wondering if the events are real or in her mind.
About halfway through the movie though it becomes very clear that is not the case. It is a very typical and extremely linear thriller that provides very few turns or surprises. There are certainly some social issues being explored in the story, but they deserve a more fleshed out story than what Unsane provides.
From a technical and visual point of view, the use of phone cameras probably did the most to create the feeling of being trapped and creating a general sense of unease about what was happening. Though that also helped contribute to my hope that the audience would have to question the reality of the movie world.
All that said, I really appreciate that Steven Soderbergh continues to experiment with these lower budget movies like he did with Bubble or The Girlfriend Experience.
Noun Song – JumpStart 2nd Grade
I finally got around to rebuilding this video. One of my favorite things I did at Knowledge Adventure.
An Old Boot
I suppose we’ll never know why I felt the need to draw an old boot.
General Mood
Where’s All The Art?
While in a brief meditative state between exercises, I was staring out the window at the dead tree in the backyard. I thought about how the multiple small trunks, starting in a cluster and then slowly separating upward, would have been a subject for a photo in my younger days. So many things feel like they would have been a subject for Art once upon a time.
The dead tree remains in the backyard even after I had cut back so much of the wildness and damaging things back there simply because it is a playground and a resting spot for the birds and woodland creatures that visit. Even dead it contributes something positive to its environment.
Chained Faerie
Another concept from an unmade game.
Grimtoon Spider
Finished the Spider model! Now available on the Models page.
