THE HITCH-HIKER (Lupino, 1953)

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(Directed by Ida Lupino from a screenplay by Lupino and Collier Young; starring Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, and William Talman. Released 20 March 1953; watched 2023w07 via Criterion Channel)

As an avowed sucker for small casts and minimal locations, THE HITCH-HIKER is eveything I want in a noir: Lupino wastes no time, not a single frame –this thing MOVES. Career-best performances from O'Brien (need to rewatch DOA at some point), Lovejoy, and Talman – Talman especially: the "you can't tell when I'm sleeping" scene is one of the most unsettling in recent memory, noir or otherwise. While possessed of its fair share of shadow dark, it's THE HITCH-HIKER's use of the wide-open desert that makes it special: proof that it doesn't have to been dimly lit and shadowy to underscore the shadow of our souls; sometimes it's the inexhaustible light that casts the darkest pall.

“What’s next for HALO?”

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Excellent look at the tragi-comedy of errors that has been HALO: INFINITE and what the surge of layoffs at 343 spells for the franchise via Polygon:

"The truth is that, setting aside the striking iconography of Master Chief’s mirrored visor and the arcing ringworlds, Halo’s soul resided deep in Bungie’s code: the weight and recoil of the weapons, the whack of the melee, the floating jump, the elastic, looping combat encounters. Bungie took those secrets with it when it left. All those identifying marks can more readily be found in Destiny than in 343’s Halo games. Asking another team to re-create that magic is like tasking a developer outside of Nintendo HQ with making a Mario platformer — it’s never going to feel right. Forming a Bungie cover band was a thankless task, and the fault for Halo’s current parlous state lies more with Microsoft for this misconceived plan than with any of the individuals that have worked at 343."


To add my two cents: Microsoft and Bungie need to swallow their pride and work together again (not sure who needs to eat more crow, though my guess is that it starts with Micro and ends with soft). While 343 has done some great things - I love the single-player campaign of HALO: INFINITE - it’s more than clear that it’s time to move on.

HALO is now a 20-year-old convoluted continuity and mythology (the fault of both Bungie and 343): can’t think of a better time than now to go for a hard reset - the recent new HITMAN series is the first that springs to mind - that streamlines and brings out the best of all previous entries from both studios, makes the story less of an incomprehensible mess, and makes the series something special again. For my money, the only studio to return HALO to what made it the phenomenon that it was is Bungie.

Here endeth my two cents.