Created Survivals

This is meant to be a closed professional circuit due to eroding coastlines, and encroaching water on the track. Of course, unsanctioned drivers continue to race. RSC Link: https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/job/gtav/d9TzhAtKr0CSLTDIqgj4Jw

What I Watched This Week #88 (September 3 – 9) The Gleaners and I dir. Agnes Varda/2000/1h22m This documentary from Agnes Varda explores the world of gleaners, traditionally poor people in rural areas who head out in to the fields after the farmers have harvested their crops in order to scavenge for any leftovers. She shows us the historical context of this tradition through artwork from previous centuries, but also looks at how it has evolved over time to now include urban gleaners who scavenge market places like they were fields. This isn't just a result of poverty, we also meet people who glean because of the huge amount of food waste produced, including a Michelin star chef who uses food he finds in his restaurants. What is true here, as in all of her films, is that Varda loves people. You see this most clearly in her documentaries, which cover a diverse range of subjects in a wide range of countries, but her interest in talking to and, most importantly, listening to people is always there. What is also there is her playfulness with the very medium of film. This is her first film using a digital camera and she fully embraces the immediacy and intimacy of this new technology. There's a moment where she is in a field gleaning herself and, forgetting that it's on, just has the camera down at her side filming the earth and the lens cap dangling over it. The fact that this accidental little moment was included in the final film is why I love Agnes Varda. 9/10 Scarlet Street dir. Fritz Lang/1945/1h43m This film noir stars Edward G. Robinson as Chris Cross (yes, it is bought up how ridiculous that name is), a sad sack middle age loser in a loveless marriage who works a thankless job but loves to paint in his spare time. After coming to the aide of femme fatale Kitty March (Joan Bennett) she mistakes him for a rich painter and sets out to take him for everything he has. Upon discovering that he is just an amateur she and her boyfriend Johnny Prince (Dan Duryea) set up a scheme to pass the paintings off as hers, something Chris is happy to go along with as he is hopelessly in love. This is like watching a car crash in slow motion as this poor man walks to his own doom and there's nothing you can do about it. Robinson's performance is so sympathetic, you can see decades of disappointment in his every movement, that when he gets that spark in his eye because he thinks this beautiful young woman loves him it is heart breaking. Bennett is fantastic as the evil, manipulative woman. And the really tragic thing is that his paintings are really good. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Three David Lynch short films: Six Men Getting Sick dir. David Lynch/1967/4m The Adventures of Alan R. dir. David Lynch/2020/1m Coffee with Barbie dir. David Lynch/2011/4m Three very different shorts from David Lynch here, starting with his very first film, Six Men Getting Sick which is a looping animation of six men vomiting. Very abstract and grotesque, this was made to be projected on to sculptures up against a wall, so the full effect is lost here, but the imagery is still startling. From his first film to his latest, Alan R. is another animation, this one much simpler with only the mouth of a creepy looking head moving. This head, voiced by Lynch, insists to his mother that he doesn't want to go fishing. Coffee with Barbie is an advert for his own coffee brand where he has a very pleasant conversation with a Barbie head that he's cupping in his hand. Consisting of a single close up of the Barbie head this is simple but effective and perfectly conveys Lynch's brand of weirdness (Lynch has directed many advertisements including the bizarre The Third Place adverts for the PlayStation 2, if anyone remembers that). The more shorts from Lynch I watch the more I think I get them. These are his way of taking notes and exploring ideas without the need for narrative or even other people. These are fragments of his mind that he just needed to get out in some way, and this is the result. The second two particularly feel quite rushed, like he needed to get these things made quickly before that wisp of inspiration left him. This gives them an immediacy that would be lost with any amount of polish. Six Men Getting Sick 7/10 The Adventures of Alan R. 6/10 Coffee With Barbie 8/10 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny dir. James Mangold/2023/2h35m Harrison Ford dons the legendary fedora for the fifth and final time in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the first film in the series not directed by Steven Spielberg. James Mangold is the director now, having previously made some excellent films like Walk the Line, Logan and Ford v Ferrari. So this is better than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but still a long way from the glory days of the 80's. Ford seems more invested here, and I appreciate that they address his age and how out of place he feels in the modern world of 1969, which actually ties into the very entertaining final act. I also really liked Phoebe Waller-Bridge as his goddaughter Helena, a manipulative treasure hunter who's in it for the money. Mads Mikkelsen is wasted as the villain of the piece, much like he was in Doctor Strange, and Karen Allen and John Rhys-Davies return as Marion and Sallah, but they're more like nostalgia bait rather than essential to the story. The story is of an old man who feels like he has nothing left for him in the world looking for a place where he belongs, and, like a lot of his fans, he believes that that is in the past. That said, this is still a bloated film that lacks the magic of the original trilogy, but at least they killed off Shia LeBeouf off screen. 6.5/10 Carry On Girls dir. Gerald Thomas/1973/1h28m Carry On Girls is set in a seaside resort that wants to boost its tourist trade. To that end councillor Sidney Fiddler (Sid James) convinces Mayor Bumble (Kenneth Connor) to host a beauty pageant. The local women's liberation leader Augusta Prodworthy (June Whitfield) strongly opposes. This is nothing but a b*wdy cheap s*x comedy that doesn't even do that that well. There are some bright spots. Barbara Windsor is gorgeous and hilarious as contestant Hope Springs, and a few funny lines - “if you think nine inches is average you've been spoiled” - but this just feels like the filmmakers looking for an easy buck with some boobs and bums. Lacks any of the charm that carried some of the earlier films in the series. 4/10 Incredible But True dir. Quentin Dupieux/2022/1h14m From the creator of Flat Eric and director of films about a killer tyre (Rubber) and a possessed jacket (Deerskin) comes Incredible But True. Alain Chabat and Lea Drucker play Alain and Marie, a middle aged couple who have just moved in to their dream house. The main thing that sold them on the house was a strange hatch in the basement that defies all laws of space and time. This drives a wedge between the couple as Marie becomes obsessed with it while Alain couldn't really care less, even wanting to fill it in with cement. There is also a subplot about Alain's boss having his p*nis replaced with an electronic one you can control with an app. Like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny this film is about an unhealthy obsession with the past and the lengths you'll go to to recapture the feelings of your youth. Considering his previous work I was kind of expecting more from this. It feels restrained in some way, like there's some real weirdness ready to break out at any moment, but it never does, even when the electronic d*ck sets on fire. This is still a very enjoyable film however, with solid performances from the entire cast, with Benoit Magimel as Alain's boss Gerard stealing the show. 7.5/10

The Menu (2022) dir Mark Mylod This starts off in a similar manner to an Agatha Christie murder mystery. A young couple, Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), arrive at a jetty to take a boat to an island that is home to an exclusive restaurant where they have paid for a very expensive meal. Other diners arrive to make the same trip. There's hints of tensions to come. Margot seems to recognise an older man who tries not to look at her, there's film star (John Leguizamo) who seems very full of himself, a group of loud, obnoxious bankers celebrating a birthday, and a restaurant critic who is not shy of saying exactly what she thinks. But this is no murder mystery. There's going to be murders, you can tell that early on (and from the trailer), but there is no mystery. It's more of one of those subtle horrors without anything too graphic. The chef of the restaurant is played by Ralph Feinnes and he gives the stand out performance as quite a weird, troubled, control freak, treated like a god by his staff who all live on the island. The rest of the cast are good, but their roles don't require the same sort of performance. It's very stylishly made with some great sets. I won't say more about the plot because it is impossible to describe without spoilers. I did find some of the plot elements a little far fetched though. Obviously it's not meant to be real life, but some things I could not help thinking, even in this context were too implausible, so that loses it a point or too for me. 6 / 10

I am getting very frustrated with the creator. It lets me set the start and re-spawn points, then I add some props and it says the starts & respawns don't have enough space, but if I move any that are even slightly close to the props to somewhere well away, it makes no difference. It's like as soon as I add the props I want it breaks the whole thing. I've even tried with 2 player version to start with, to minimise the number of starts and respawns and have those no where near the props, and it does exactly the same thing. So I am going to make an almost prop free version, which won't look like I wanted to. But I'm not wasting anymore time on this. We'll see what that plays out like and I can try and update it afterwards. Also I don't see a way to set the precise time of day. It looks like that option is not there for a King of the Hill.