LIMINAL: Ben & Arthur

Double Down (2005) —  Child-like politics, unreliable narrator, naïve optimism, respect for the self-insert savior, Uwe Boll, Daddy Derek, Deuandra T. Brown, earnestness, magical thinking, communal experiences

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026) — The female orgasm, complex relationships to problematic media, permission, a defense of junk food, bimbofication, submission, reverse perspective, over-tuning, old v new horror

Run Lola Run (1998) —  Sonder, chaos theory, fate without god, be luck a lady?, the keepers of fortune, Caesar’s Spoke, maxed-out willpower, the romantic desire to be laid bare, stochastic optimism, the illusion of non-stop pacing

Ben & Arthur (2002) Queer history, bumpy escalation, the eclipse of niche filmmaking by YouTube and social media

Cutting room floor segments from our episode on Hard to Be a God (2013). This is a sample of the extras we upload regularly for those who patronize us on Ko-fi.com/emissariesfromthevoid — includes comparisons to other films and video games and an extended cut of Ari’s leftist rant.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989) —  Consumption, appreciation, waste, taste, charlatans, toxic generosity, Albert as God, God as manager, Albert as State, Georgina as Sophia, healthy masculinity, assigning blame for original sin, denied resurrection CW: Sexual assault, disgusting imagery, pervasive cruelty

Hard to Be a God (2013) —  The gray to black pipeline, pain worship, paper isn't power, Arkanar as mask-off Western civilization, anarchist philosophy, The Enlightenment didn't fix our core problems, what would you have God do?, supremacist thinking, wasted efforts, desolate beauty.   CW: Blood, implied sexual abuse, and pervasive cruelty.

Why a purple skunk? Proto inceldom, amateur art, art in the face of the Internet, monsterfucker furry venn diagram, outsider art, trying to save what we watch.

Vide Noir  The dark side of romanticism, the virtue of letting go, escapism, art drug, indulging the void, intrusive thought worms, accountability, misery multiplication, Finding Alaska Syndrome, toxic yearning. Outro Music is Arcadia by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio