film and tv

The Public Mind

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Not long ago, the fans were screaming and retching over Nona‘s art. They demanded that Playmore use any more familiar and palatable else. Now SNK has hired Falcoon, the fan favorite. And now people are starting to murmur how “normal” Falcoon’s art looks in comparison, and how they prefer Nona even if his style is kind of weird.

Sheesh.

Mass opinion is an odd and fickle creature.

I think I’m beginning to appreciate silent film more than spoken. In a sense, it takes more skill to tell a compelling story with nothing but pictures. And in so doing, you’ve achieved pure cinema. Once dialogue comes into the picture, you begin to cross media with theater. Acting tends to become more staid. Visuals aren’t as important anymore. Everything starts to bland out a bit.

Perhaps the reason Hitchcock was so good with imagery in his later pictures is tied to his background in silent film. His early stuff, as a whole, isn’t great. Still, what you learn early on tends to stick with you and influence you for the rest of your life.

Here comes the sun

  • Reading time:5 mins read

Just to let you know: Henrik Galeen is the fellow who invented the whole sunlight + vampires = unhappy and/or dead vampires device. I thought it likely that Nosferatu was the origin of this cinematic convenience. The commentary track on the DVD has confirmed this for me.

While we’re on the subject…

Konami pretty much seems to have ignored [Sonia Belmont] based on the supposedly bad game she inhabited (good character design and scenario aside)…

Actually, Igarashi wrote her game out of the official canon because he thought it was too far-fetched for a woman to be an action hero during the period in which the game was set. There’s an interview on Gamers where you can find these statements.

Aside from the obvious logistical strangeness here (since when were the Belmonts your average peasants?), Igarashi seems to be overlooking an awful lot of potential for character and story depth.

A woman would have to be all the stronger — all the more of a hero — to hold up against the repressive society of the time, and all of the fear and persecution she’d probably face. The stronger she’d get, the more that people would fear and resent her.

Thus the Belmonts were chased out of Transylvania after Dark Night Prelude/Legends, and thus Trevor/Ralph had to be called back in Akumajou Denetsu/Dracula’s Curse.

At the outset of that game, Trevor is kneeling by a shrine, praying. He could be talking to his dead mother, asking for the strength to follow in her stead.

I suppose an action game doesn’t need to go that deep, however.

I also suppose it doesn’t help much that Igarashi is filtering all of this through his own Japanese mindset.

Note that, as far as I know, Sonia still exists as a character in the official timeline. If so, however, she’s been demoted to little more than Trevor/Ralph’s mother.

He seems to care a lot about the atmosphere and continuity of Castlevania and the few Castlevania games that have had historical errors have all been the ones that Igarashi hasn’t worked on, such as CV64 with its turn of the 20th century biker skeletons.

Now, I really like Igarashi and respect what he’s trying to do with the series. Again, though, this doesn’t seem a necessary change to me. If anything, the storyline seems stronger with her in than with her out. If nothing else, she opens up a lot of intriguing possibilities.

Igarashi makes the occasional vague reference to historical accuracy, but he’s hardly a stickler. Thus the wailing guitars in Symphony of the Night and the classical music in Lament of Innocence (each anachronistic by at least one hundred fifty years — and more like five or six hundred in the latter case). There are all kinds of weird details in Harmony of Dissonance, like phonographs and elevators. The list goes on.

And even within the game’s internal world, Igarashi is willing to break form if it suits him. The “Spell Fusion” system in Harmony of Dissonance serves as a sort of a placeholder in terms of gameplay systems. It helps to explain whence Richter’s and the later Belmonts’ Item Crash techniques originate, while it makes clear what happened to the Belnades bloodline once it merged with that of the Belmonts. (That is, it went dormant until Juste found it.)

So, given that Lament of Innocence takes place several hundred years before Sypha was ever born, why did Igarashi put a Spell Fusion system in the game? Because it makes the game more interesting.

To be sure, he originally wanted the game to be straight out whip-and-subweapons action. That would have made it more accurate. He said that was a little too dull, though. So, with a shrug, there goes continuity.

What I’m saying is that his explanation doesn’t really hold water at face value. It’s a fictional world; you can do whatever you like with it.

It’s a convenient sound bite, yes, and there may be some element of truth to it — but he’s got some other reason. If you go strictly by what he says, basically what it translates to is “I just don’t want a female lead in my series.”

So. Is he just a jerk? Does he have issues with women? Is he gay? (Hell, Soma Cruz might as well be a woman. Maybe that’s how he likes it.)

Perhaps it’s something more mundane — like politics. Notice that he doesn’t include in his official timeline any game produced by either the (now-defunct) Kobe or Nagoya studios. In the case of Kobe, this is understandable. They kind of screwed up whatever they touched, even in the case of the rather enjoyable Circle of the Moon. But Dark Night Prelude took special care to adhere to the continuity established up to that point. So that would seem a curious explanation.

Maybe it’s some other problem entirely. Maybe he just doesn’t like that plot thread. I don’t know. I suppose I can’t, unless he lets something slip.

I doubt he’s written the game off for any really powerful concerns about historical accuracy, though. Nor does the quality issue seem right to me, given what other games he does choose to include (like the two Dracula Denetsu games).

So, as before, that just leaves one to marvel at how strange his statement is.

In contrast with hedgehogs

  • Reading time:3 mins read

OH JESUS THE FARMHOUSE IS EXACTLY THE SAME!

The barn, same architecute. Same placement. Windmill, exactly the same. Farmhouse itself: run down in exactly the same way. For all I know, all they did was trace over one of the old illustrations.

…

How unexpected.

I mean. There’s faithful adaptation, and there’s… something more than that.

Basically the only real alterations so far, from Mirage volume 1, have been for the better — expansion of Shredder’s and Stockman’s roles; the addition of Hun; an extra half-season of character building before the first big showdown. All of the TCRI stuff saved for season 2 (after season 1 will have focused on the entire original Shredder storyline).

Looks like the Stockman stuff from volume 2 will be worked into the upcoming Return to New York plot. Fine enough. Not a bad place for it; just get rid of all of the key season 1 villains at the same time, so we can get some closure and move on to the next big plot without any regrets.

I imagine that there should be more than enough material with the Fugitoid (assuming he’s around) and Triceratons and the Utroms to fill up season 2 — especially given the way that the animation team’s been operating so far. They’ve proved that they can run with a concept and flesh it out better than Easman and Laird ever really did.

What’ll that leave us with, for season three (assuming it’s coming)? How about City at War? Seems perfect; a return to Earth, and the setting of the first season. The remaining Foot will have been in chaos while they’ve been gone (in this case, whatever corner of space the Triceratons are found — as opposed to Northampton, lounging around for several years).

It’s the next big plot arc in the official canon. The series will be closing on episode fifty by the beginning of season three. Issue #50 is where the C@W arc begins, in the comic (although there’s about thirty issues of one-off meandering by random authors, in place of the paced development of the TV series). Yes! This will be a good thing.

…

I need to calm down.

Ahem.

Now I’m going to watch North by Northwest. And then, maybe the semi-yet-not-really-restored version of Nosferatu (for the sake of contrast with the other version that I own).

And then — hell, maybe Secret Agent? I don’t know.

I’ll just play it by ear.

Death and Revision

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Out of curiosity, I rented (for free!) the theatrical release of Fellowship of the Ring. Of course, the disc was scratched all to hell — so I was only able to take in about the first twenty minutes before my DVD player began to freak out.

I think I might need to clean the thing, soon; even some discs which should be fine are giving it problems.

At any rate — aside from the vapid extras (which I’m afraid I couldn’t tolerate in their entirety), my main target was a comparison of the original cut of the film to the one with which I am more familiar.

Conclusion, from what I see, and the memories it’s causing to resurface:

hot damn, was this thing improved.

The whole beginning portion seems to be edited such as to construe Gandalf as the main character of the movie. His interactions with Frodo are abbreviated, sped up, and depersonalized. Near-all of Bilbo’s characterization has been omitted, dragging him down to the level of a disposable plot device with whom Gandalf briefly interacts on his personal mission to the shire. Frodo only becomes a factor once Gandalf has been established, and even then he’s not illustrated as much.

The editing is more abrupt and disorienting. It feels hurried. Not just in comparison; I remember feeling this way in the theater.

Basically: the warmth is removed, as are character relationships. The movie isn’t set up as well. It progresses too quickly.

And then there’s the whole visual aspect. The theatrical version just isn’t edited with the care of the extended cut. There are a number of “new” or alternate shots (from my perspective, going back) which don’t sit as well in the frame, or are of questionable value. You can tell that Jackson spent an extra year on the longer edit, smoothing things over; revising and selecting exactly what was needed to tell the story as well as possible. Heck, even the colours are richer.

The result is a far more well-made film, from just about any direction.

No pun intended.

As such: given how distinctively non-plussed I was with the theatrical cut of The Two Towers, I’m now even more curious about the extended version. It’s not just that material was added to FotR; the entire thing was carefully honed. Almost every edit, shot, and overdub was reconsidered. And the result was that the entire focus of the movie was shifted in the right direction — mostly from what amounts to a handful of rather subtle revisions; partially due to the necessary added material.

You could call the theatrical cut the sloppy first draft of the film, slapped in a can to placate the studio while Jackson continued his work.

So. On that note, I’d like a similar change of focus in the second film. I’d like the editing to give me less of a headache. I’d like to see a more deliberate movie, which lurks beneath the surface of the mess that we saw rushed to the screen.

I think it’s there.

We’ll see.

Movie Time

  • Reading time:1 mins read

A few more:

  • The Secret Lives of Dentists: Sure.
  • 28 Days Later…: I concur with Tim.
  • Respiro: … Um. I suppose?
  • Northfork: No. I wouldn’t say so.

Dentists reminds me of a French film. It’s too emotionally sophisticated to seem American. It’s not an amazing film; just a good one. It’s an adult one. It’s worth seeing, just to show that we can, hypothetically, grow up over here.

Here comes another pizza! Watch out, world!

Secret AmiYumi Man

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On Teen Titans: Just saw the premeire episode a second time. Still not entirely certain what to think, but I feel safe to say that I wasn’t just imagining the awkwardness last time. The script — far from the natural-sounding dialogue of JL — sounds like what you’d get from a mainstream anime translation. Partially as a result of this, partially due to the way the voices are directed, much of the humour falls a little flat. Combine this with a few other rough edges, and I just get the impression that someone’s trying a little too hard.

At the same time, the effort isn’t misdirected. Within a few episodes, I can see it finding a more natural focus. If that happens, we’ll have a pretty spiffy show.

Stylistically, this thing fits in somewhere in the vicinity of Jet Set Radio and Gorillaz. Not a bad thing.

And… it’s almost got it. The pieces are all there, and they’re in more or less the right alignment.

We’ll see.

By the way — I just remembered why I ignored SNK after about 1989, and until a few years ago.

Yes.

Gotta start somewhere. As they say.

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I just saw the season premiere of Justice League. Something that strikes me is that this series now seems to be geared for the secondary market. I mean. This (hour-long) episode was letterboxed. It had an obviously high budget. The music was notably well-orchestrated. It just has the sheen of a product made for the collector, rather than the normal TV audience.

I take it that the DVDs have been selling well.

This makes me wonder even more how the Teen Titans series will turn out. Further, it’s… making me think a little.

I’m not sure what it is, but I’ve got a kind of a positive feeling here. I think that the DVD format has had a pretty big impact on the whole manner in which passive entertainment media are produced. It’s like the film and TV industries are coming to /know/ that whatever they do, it’ll be for posterity. At least, the more observant are.

So rather than just pump out crud, expecting that it’ll disappear into a landfill somewhere, in a lot of cases we’re starting to see some attention to making a halfway-respectable object that people will want to hang onto. This isn’t necessarily the case with Hollywood, as especially over the last half-decade or so, that whole sector has just become a farce. But — well.

And it’s not only new material. All of this happens to coincide with the massive film restoration effort that’s only recently started to gain a bunch of attention and support — again, over the last half-decade or so. A bunch of older films, that had been mouldering for decades, are being fixed up, polished, documented, and given a respectful rerelease in order to fill the collectors’ demand.

History is being recompiled and recombined with the present, giving everyone the opportunity to see what in many cases simply hasn’t been widely available for a long while.

This also corresponds to the massive downturn in necessary production costs for filmmaking. With all of the digital technology and networking we’ve got now, the indie scene is stronger than it’s ever been. And that’s where all of the action is.

It feels kind of like we’re coming along to the verge of something. I’ll reserve hope that whatever it is, we’ll actually fall over. Money tends to be kind of stupid, that way. But hey, you never know.

Do they contract the hit with a GAT?

  • Reading time:3 mins read

I’m watching this Humphrey Bogart movie, The Enforcer. Bogart’s a detective on the police force, who’s trying to pin down a mob boss. His key witness, a certain Rico, has cleverly decided to leap off a building in order to save his life from the cops who were protecting him.

That’ll show ’em. There’s no protecting him anymore!

So, anyway: Bogart’s in a sticky flavour of a jam. If he doesn’t do something quickly, this crimelord fellow will get off free. As he’s moping about the predicament, Bogart recalls something hazy. He can’t quite finger it, but there’s some detail about the case that he feels lodged in his mind. Cue the first of several layers of flashback.

A guy wanders into a police station, mumbling about how he killed his girl. They forced him to. There was a contract out on her. He was supposed to do the hit. Who were they? They were his troupe.

The police were baffled. Contract? What kind of a contract? What’s a hit? What was this guy, a boy scout? What kind of a troupe did he mean? They couldn’t make earth from sky of it. Bogart got involved with the puzzle. Contract? Hit? What a mystery!

Over ten or fifteen minutes, Bogart followed a string of leads. After a little work, he pulled in another member of the “troupe”. The guy didn’t want to talk at first, but Bogart threatened to send his kid to a private school. So the cat spilled the beans.

Cue another layer of flashback. Through a mutual contact, this fellow fell in with a mean-looking bunch who met in the back room of a store. “It was just like the back of a store,” he observed.

“I’ll do whatever you say,” he chirped to a swarthy fellow — apparently the leader. “I’ll even murder if you like.”

The oily man slapped him. “Don’t ever say that! When you’re going to kill someone, you say you’ve got a contract out on him. The person you kill is a hit. That way even if the police hear you, they won’t know what you’re talking about. You got it?!”

Back in the shallower level of flashback, the police were astonished. A contract was a murder! A hit was the victim! Good gosh!

“Killing for profit,” Bogart scoffed. What was this world coming to?

They couldn’t learn anything else from the man, but at least they had a starting place. A contract was a murder. A hit was a victim.

It… goes on like this.

You can ring my Belmont.

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Anyone out there who still thinks The Matrix is deep or original in any legitimate respect — I’m talking about the whole franchise (as it’s come to be) — then watch Dark City. Please. If you’ve already seen it, then watch it again if you haven’t recently. You probably haven’t seen it since the second Matrix movie was released. Since no one seems to remember the film, I feel this is a pretty safe assumption.

Every single theme encapsulated within the first two movies is present in Dark City — only there’s even more. And it’s tied together more well. It’s more elegant. It’s more stylish. It’s more original. It’s made with more talent and more heart. It’s got a better sense of narrative. Not only that, but it understands what it’s talking about. It doesn’t just dump freshman-level philosophy directly out of a class discussion. It doesn’t get is special effects from TV commercials. Although they’re just as much tools of the narrative as in The Matrix, its characters have personality.

It doesn’t pretend to be hip, by borrowing its hips from all of the most obviously cool ziggurats of popular culture. And it doesn’t overstay its welcome. It is a self-contained short story, because that is the nature of its message. The Wachowski brothers, in contrast, don’t seem to understand the useful limits of their material. Kind of like George Lucas.

And — again — they don’t have anywhere nearly as much to say. Not that they understand what little they do have. Nor do they seem to understand that their words are not their own.

Let’s kill Timothy!

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Without Orson Welles, we would have no Touch of Evil. Without Touch of Evil, we would have no Peter Gunn. And, relatedly, no Blake Edwards, as he came to be. We wouldn’t exactly have Henry Mancini, in the form we know. Without them, we’d have no Cowboy Bebop.

Another big piece comes from Peter Max (and The Yellow Sumbarine).

Another big piece comes from Saul Bass.

So. Philip K. Dick and William Gibson took late ’70s/early ’80s punk culture and other then-current societal trends and newish technologies (such as Arpanet), projected them a few decades into the future, and came up with the Cyberpunk genre.

Shinichiro Watanabe took early ’60s post-beat jazz and mod culture, and detective and kung-fu films of the era, and projected them a few decades into the future to create The Work, Which Becomes a New Genre Itself.

So. We’ve done punk. We’ve done ’60s cool jazz/bebop/mod culture. Perhaps next we can project the mid-1800s romantic classical music scene a few decades into the future. That might have some possibilities.

No, hold on. The Victorian thing is starting to get overdone. How about the turn-of-the-century ragtime era? The clash between classical and blues; between performance and recording; between vaudeville and cinema.

What other archetypical, musically-related period cultures can we tap into? This is important. We’re creating a NEW CLASSIC here.

“Kauf, Kauf…” (or: Malkovich Gaiden)

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Mm. I’ve been kind of scared to watch Adaptation again. I’ve seen it two and a quarter times now — once in the theater, once at home, and the rest in French. The dub was strange.

The point is, I really liked it in the theater. It was one of the only movies that I’d seen which honestly impressed me on an intellectual level. I identified with it in a number of ways. I was, however, uncertain of how stable this might be.

It defeated me the first time. I enjoyed it the second time. Still, the movie isn’t exactly perfect. There are some qualities which are a little annoying — even though it accounts for them just fine. It wouldn’t be the same movie otherwise; it wouldn’t hold together in the same way.

I was afraid that my patience wouldn’t last through those bits and that the movie might start to fall apart, if I picked at it too much. I know that it doesn’t hold up for a lot of people — otherwise rather perceptive people — in a couple of specific places. Towards the end, especially.

Perhaps only in my vanity, I’d like to think that I more clearly understand what the movie is trying to do (and succeeding, as far as what it intends). Was I just tolerating those bits in favor of the larger structure? Did understanding them do me any real good? How about understanding that the movie sets itself up to allow me to watch it any old way that I like? To pick a level (if I wish) and stay with it? To ride it through to the end? Was I merely tricked into outsmarting myself?

The answer: I think, no. I’m watching it yet again. It’s paused right after the last “muffin” line. And… although this is early, it still works. I can project out from here. I think I’m appreciating it better each time. This film isn’t as fragile as I feared that it might be.

Further, it’s… oddly encouraging. Just as it’s depressing.

BONUS NOTE!

Try filtering The Matrix through Adaptation.

You can use the movie as a colander, you know. It’s fun!

Either Matrix will do. Your choice.

Note the bit about broken mirrors.

Choice is good.

The Wachowskis do indeed possess a certain flavour of genius.

I’m not sure if it’s a constructive kind, but it’s undeniably there.

And to think I just WALKED ON HIS FACE!

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Good lord! I just watched Sherlock Holmes battle the Nazis!

He was certainly spry for his age! He didn’t look much the worse for his fifty lost years or so. Nor, for that matter, did Watson or Inspector Lestrade. Moriarty, of course, was the one operating on the side of the Nazis. He also looked reasonably well, considering.

Gazdooks.

Odds Bodkins, even!

When did Holmes become an action-packed master of disguise, anyway?

I’m going to have to go back to sleep, now.

Did I mention (and I didn’t) that I finished up everything there was to do in the first, normal-mode quest in Aria of Sorrow? Every soul; every item (at least one copy). Am now starting hard mode, with all of the items and souls from last time around. It’s going… more quickly now. I fear that I might not make it to as high a level as last time (that being around 75, with all of the wandering and whathow). It seems that the clock is still going even through this second quest. It’s now at around 18:30, I believe.

… Sounds like a good time for a nap!

It’s almost like casual jeans day.

  • Reading time:7 mins read

Game:

A few days ago, having recently acquired my very own copy of Truxton I uncloaked my Genesis — for the playing thereof.

Truxton, I found to be almost identical to Fire Shark — only… not as much fun. I can’t get past the beginning of level two without some dumb ship popping out of nowhere and running into my back before I know what’s up.

Still. It’s there. And now so is my Genesis. Being it that I’m on this Castlevania kick — again — I pulled out my Majesco-republished (and thereby terribly-boxed) copy of Bloodlines. As not entirely bad as this game is, I’ve rarely bothered to play it past the second level or so. The game is difficult — but in a more floaty way than I expect from Castlevania. It lacks some charm. As applaudable as Michiru Yamane‘s music might be, her sound effects are entirely loathsome. All in all, the game is just kind of… well, again — it’s there.

On one default set of two continues, I managed to get to… what I think should be Dracula’s final form: a big, fake Mode-7 demon with a face in his crotch. I might even have beaten him; I had the pattern down and everything. He didn’t have much life left. And yet: I didn’t dodge when I should’ve.

Still. Bloodlines. Last form (?) of last boss. Not bad, I say. Dare I suppose, better than you.

If you’ve actually beaten the game, don’t tell me. Let me feel special for the moment.

Movie:

The Italian Job: Sure.

It’s got energy. It’s certainly nothing special in its own right; all I could think of, from the premise on out, were the observations of Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation. Still, it’s very well-made. It has a great sense of momentum. The plot doesn’t follow through on any of the stupid possibilities that it coudl have; it manages to dodge away — fairly — every time it approaches a potentially-unsatisfying easy answer. Not once did I feel insulted or cheated. I felt tense when I was supposed to feel tense. I cared when I was supposed to care.

I think the whole Napster bit could have been minimized. The movie also acted as a rather obvious commercial for those mini cars (which I don’t believe are real Minis, as such — not that I know anything of, or much care about, cars). Still, not enough to overly stretch my patience.

So. Yeah. For what it is, it’s certainly worthwhile. There’s not much to study, but it’s enjoyable just in the fact that it’s so unusually competent. It feels more European than American — which might explain the previous observation.

UPDATE:

According to Ebert: “This is just the movie for two hours of mindless escapism on a relatively skilled professional level.”

Didn’t I just say that?

Music (and… Game, again):

Harmony of Dissonance: seriously, this game has to possess the most powerful soundtrack in the whole series. Most Castlevanias have really impressive power-melodies. The NES trilogy: if Bach (not J.S.; perhaps a lesser Bach) were aware of 20th century music, this might be what he’d have come up with. Circle of the Moon has some of the most lush, layered, driving, just plain fun music in the series.

However: the HoD score is the only one to really make me feel anything in particular. The more closely I listen, the more impressed I become. This isn’t just videogame music. There’s something else going on here; a certain kind of genius, or at least wild inspiration. The contrasting melodies swirl into madness, creating a dark updraft for the player — instilling an unsettled momentum into his musculature.

The bass takes up the central melody role, holding the piece together while the lead stutters incoherently. The entire piece pulls in its legs, rotating more and more tightly, getting all the stronger — until it snaps; it lets go, carrying the player to sanity with one key breeze. There’s but one escape, and the music finds it — yet it doesn’t stop. It must keep going while the player remains dazed from the last bit of overstimulation. It has places to go. It can’t let the player loose to drift away. It can’t break the atmosphere.

All of the parts speak to each other. They’re not just there to fill out the orchestration, as in so many other soundtracks in this series. They argue. They trade off. They team up. They go in their own disparate directions, then crtash back together again. They listen. They respond.

This soundtrack knows what it’s doing. It has an intelligence to it. It has a personality unto itself. It would be worth talking to.

Again, I can’t say that about the Aria of Sorrow score. That music is just… nice. And appropriate. It’s… there. It has no personality of its own — and I imagine that’s probably the whole intent. People screamed so much about the HoD score that Igarashi must’ve told Yamane to give him something more typical this time around. It looks like it’s worked, given the popular reaction.

Sigh.

See, this is where informed feedback could do a developer well. I’ve slowly been poring my way through the free magazines that I got at E3 — and, man. I’ve yet to see one thoughtful critique. One interesting, well-considered argument. The obviously lousy games get bad scores. The high-profile games get good scores. The ones in between are gernally analyzed on the basis of a few random observations which might or might not have anything to do with the intent of the game in question. It’s hard to tell.

HoD gets a 9.5, because it must — although note is made of the terrible soundtrack. In this case, the reviewer doesn’t even bother to explain that it sounds like NES music (!). Then, neither does he vaguely brush off its composition, as in so many web reviews. Not enough space to explain. Must conserve words.

Metroid Fusion gets a 9.5. Why? Because it must. Show some respect for the Gameboy game of the year, people. Everyone knows that Metroid is flawless. Reword the press release, and perpetuate the consumer cycle. Even if it’s not perfect, so what. It’s one of the best games ever. Must show the proper respect. Mustn’t question the publishers (aside from Acclaim; they’re okay to bash at will), or they might complain. Can’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Since E3, I’ve come to the realization that the game industry — at least over here — seems to be made up of a million frat boys, all in it for the ride. And I’m not just talking about the “journalists”.

Let’s talk about the journalists, though. Brandon asks two or three well-informed questions. He listens to the responses, and asks follow-up questions. PR guy, astonished, comments that Brandon “should work for CNN”. So: how has everyone else been acting? Brandon was only being professional.

Then I remember the reviews I see on IGN and — particularly — Gamespot: the big sites. Then I remember the way news travels — rarely credited or researched with so much as a phone call. Then I overhear Tim’s experiences with a particular site to which he contributed for… about two or three weeks. Then I come home and I read the fucking press releases.Then I read the magazines.

…

I… was going to say more, but I’m beginning to tire — both of this subject, and in a more general sense. Maybe I’ll pick up this thread later.

For now: EGM continues to be not-all-that-bad.

Who?

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Through what means I cannot immediately recollect, I — this last day — became far too involved in poring over the ongoing restoration process that Doctor Who has been going through.

Mark Ayers is even involved. You know, the composer for the last several seasons of of the series. (You do, don’t you?)

This is exactly the kind of anal, painstaking process which lights my bulbs of brightness. The more I read, the more curious I become. I really should bother to eat, or just… do something other than stare at the screen. I’m beginning to feel a little strange. But it’s hard to pull myself away.

Now I want to run out and grab all of the available Doctor Who DVDs, to examine the restoration jobs these guys have performed. I am severely inclined to do so. But… no.