Managed to get through Chapter Ten of The Sword yesterday. That’s three chapters finished this week. Progress = solid.

Right now, cleaning up some things for the next issue of Unnamed Journal. Then, back to the grind.

In the meantime, here’s a review of Ready Player One that pretty well confirms my expectations.

The overwhelming majority of the film simply uses these pop culture references, characters, and factoids as touch points — Remember this? Cool! Let’s move on! — while offering no real weight or significance to that knowledge. Why are these decades the only ones in the Oasis? Because Halliday grew up with them, and everyone else is too lazy to think for themselves. Wade describes the Oasis as a world “limited only by your own imagination,” but it’s one where people take on avatars and costumes created by others and pay corporations to use their products. There’s zero imagination required, and unfortunately that holds true for far too much of the film. It arguably extends off the screen as well to Spielberg as director — as the creator of much of these decades’ most memorable pop culture moments he’s too obvious a choice to direct, especially as the film gives nods to some of his own films.

Spielberg crawling up his own career like a cinematic ourobouros – I suppose it was inevitable.