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  • Selma Review

    SELMAIt’s common knowledge in the entertainment industry that the studios, both major and independent, release all of their most likely “award” movies towards the end of the year. This has more to do with marketing and campaigning than anything; nobody trusts academy voters to remember more than a few months back, and this way they can spam the trades with “For Your Consideration” ads to remind people of their great new movie.

    This means that you typically see two types of films release at the end of the year. The first is the kind of film that a studio or distributor found to be utterly compelling and unique, and figured might stand a chance as an award contender. This year, Birdman is a good example: something off-beat but interesting that they could push during award-season. On the other hand, you have the “important” film, the kind that doesn’t necessarily have to be good because its subject matter alone places it on a pedestal. These are often the tragic-then-inspiring biopics, or the topical message movies, or the historical event pieces.

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  • Destiny: Skinner Box Gaming and the Myth and Truth of the 30 Seconds of Fun

    loot-cave“In Halo 1, there was maybe 30 seconds of fun that happened over and over and over and over again. And so, if you can get 30 seconds of fun, you can pretty much stretch that out to be an entire game.”

    The above is a relatively famous quote in the gaming scene, from Bungie game designer Jaime Griesemer. While Griesemer meant to convey that his team thought of the various set-pieces in the game as 30 second loops of varied and fun gameplay, each unique in their own right, this is not the message that most developers and gamers took from the quote. Instead, it seemed to speak of core gameplay mechanics, and the fact that as long as there are “30 seconds of fun” in the basic mechanics, then you’ve got a great game regardless of other factors.

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  • Noah Review

    NOAHIt seems that there are two types of biblical films. The first is the type that we’ve seen a glut of over the past year: Heaven is for Real, God’s Not Dead, Left Behind, Saving Christmas, etc. These movies pander hard to their respective (usually Christian) audiences, telling them how right they are and propping up straw man figures for them to tear down together. On the other hand, you have the type of movie that tries to tell compelling stories for a wider, sometimes-secular audience. Here, you’ve got your Ten Commandments, your Last Temptation of Christ. Every once in a while a film becomes a crossover success (you could argue this happened with The Passion of the Christ), but Christian and biblical films generally must decide which audience they wish to please.

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  • Death and American Horror Story

    american-horror-story2The below article will openly discuss spoilers from all four seasons of American Horror Story.

    When the first season of American Horror Story was airing, there was quite a bit of confusion over the series. First of all, the show introduced a shocking amount of ideas right from the start: ghosts, stitched-together Frankenstein babies, ghostly red-headed twins, a prophetic girl with down syndrome, a maid whose appearance shifts depending on who’s looking at her, a marriage-in-crisis, a school shooter, and a gimp-suited rapist entity, all in the very first episode. Even stranger, the show did not seem to have any qualms with making rather permanent narrative decisions. Major secrets (like the identity of the gimp suit entity) were revealed midway through the season, and several main characters died, or were revealed to have been ghosts the whole time. It was certainly fun to watch on a weekly basis, but it was hard to fathom how the writers would be able to sustain it as a series past the first season.

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  • Shadow of Mordor: All About the Execution

    Shadow-of-Mordor-Logo-600x324When choosing a property to adapt for a video game, it’s a good idea to select something with a large, well-realized universe in which to pull content. Given this, it’s somewhat surprising that we don’t see more Lord of the Rings themed games. The Lord of the Rings MMO is still going strong (apparently; I’ve never known anybody who actually plays it), the Lego Lord of the Rings game was plenty of fun, and there were some respectable hack and slash games that came out around the time of the LOTR movie trilogy, but most games that have come from the property have been shoddy-at-best. So it was something of a surprise this year when Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor released, and was one of the best games of the year. With solid and easy-to-pick-up combat and stealth mechanics, Shadow of Mordor is a game that should be enjoyable regardless of one’s familiarity with Tolkien.

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