Category Archives: movies

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Hurray for game studio holiday breaks! Looking forward to spending the next week catching up on video games, starting a new restoration project, and uh, writing up design docs for work.

A Video Game Timeline (1967-Present)

Last month, Simon Parkin interviewed competitive Street Fighter legend Daigo Umehara. Go read it at Eurogamer.

Jeri Ellsworth is designing and building her own pinball machine. Here’s her progress so far: day 3, day 4, and plastic bending in a toaster oven.

Jason Scott is taking pre-orders for his text adventure documentary GET LAMP. 25% off until the end of December.

McBain

I was going to write a review of the 1991 James Glickenhaus (director of The Exterminator, The Protector, and a handful of other similar-league releases) anti-drug revenge movie McBain, but honestly, you’ll learn everything you need to know about McBain simply by watching this brief/horrible/awesome scene from the film:

As far as I can tell, it’s been out of print for years and never officially made it to DVD in the United States. I ended up purchasing a Hong Kong 4:3 release of nebulous legality, which honestly makes the whole McBain viewing experience that much more special.

McBain trivia! The movie’s release prevented the Simpsons writers from referring to their own character of the name same (star of a fictional McBain series of films), so they invented a real name for the character, Rainier Wolfcastle, to use instead.

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How is it only September and I’m already facing game overload? Thank God half the holiday releases were delayed.

Music of Command and Conquer

Composer Frank Klepacki has written a handful of Making Of articles for his Facebook page over the last month: Command & Conquer, C&C Tiberian Sun, and his solo albums Morphscape and Rocktronic.

A fan art tribute to the Sega Dreamcast. I want to host a Dreamcast anniversary party next weekend.

I don’t know if I feel this way because I’m been playing too much Batman, but surely, this is the makings of a Super Villain.

Lastly, check out these 1980s film poster paintings from Ghana. [via Boing Boing]

S. Darko review.

Say you’re in art school. There’s this guy and his friends, all untalented hacks, but they like to slap each other’s backs and exclaim how brilliant and creative they all are.

In general, quality abstract art takes a heck of a lot of ability to pull off well. A strong foundation in the basics, in lighting, perspective, color theory, anatomy — the better you know the rules, the more thoroughly (and skillfully) you can break them.

Now this guy, he doesn’t care about all that. He just knows that it looks a hell of a lot easier than realism. And besides, he might not be able to paint worth a damn, but he’s a brilliant creative guy, see, and abstract art would be just the way to show off his True Creative Burning Spirit without slogging through all the dirty work of actually learning how to handle a brush.

He sets out to build his masterpiece. He googles a bit, looks over a handful of Jackson Pollock pieces, eyeing the seemingly random cords and splatters of poured paint and color, the fame and notoriety of the artist, and says, I can do this.

And so he lays down his canvas, spread out across the floor, and begins. Instead of brushes and other tools, techniques for each that demand to be learned and mastered, he just flings colors wholesale from buckets, creating clashing and clumsy puddles that pool and seep into each other haphazardly.

And instead of paint, he uses shit.

That’s S. Darko.