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grigori77 · 3 years

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Summer 2021′s Movies - My Top Ten Favourite Films (Part 2)

The Top Ten:

10. WEREWOLVES WITHIN – definitely one of the year’s biggest cinematic surprises so far, this darkly comic supernatural murder mystery from indie horror director Josh Ruben (Scare Me) is based on a video game, but you’d never know it – this bears so little resemblance to the original Ubisoft title that it’s a wonder anyone even bothered to make the connection, but even so, this is now notable for officially being the highest rated video game adaptation in Rotten Tomatoes history, with a Certified Fresh rating of 86%. Certainly it deserves that distinction, but there’s so much more to the film – this is an absolute blood-splattered joy, the title telling you everything you need to know about the story but belying the film’s pure, quirky genius. Veep’s Sam Richardson is forest ranger Finn Wheeler, a gentle and socially awkward soul who arrives at his new post in the remote small town of Beaverton to discover the few, uniformly weird residents are divided over the oil pipeline proposition of forceful and abrasive businessman Sam Parker (The Hunt’s Wayne Duvall). As he tries to fit in and find his feet, investigating the disappearance of a local dog while bonding with local mail carrier Cecily Moore (Other Space and This Is Us’ Milana Vayntrub), the discovery of a horribly mutilated human body leads to a standoff between the townsfolk and an enforced lockdown in the town’s ramshackle hotel as they try to work out who amongst them is the “werewolf” they suspect is responsible. This is frequently hilarious, the offbeat script from appropriately named Mishna Wolff (I’m Down) dropping some absolutely zingers and crafting some enjoyably weird encounters and unexpected twists, while the uniformly excellent cast do much of the heavy-lifting to bring their rich, thoroughly oddball characters to vivid life – Richardson is thoroughly cuddly throughout, while Duvall is pleasingly loathsome, Casual’s Michaela Watkins is pleasingly grating as Trisha, flaky housewife to unrepentant local horn-dog Pete Anderton (Orange is the New Black’s Michael Chernus), and Cheyenne Jackson (American Horror Story) and Harry Guillen (best known, OF COURSE, as Guillermo in the TV version of What We Do In the Shadows) make an enjoyably spiky double-act as liberal gay couple Devon and Joaquim Wolfson; in the end, though, the film is roundly stolen by Vayntrub, who invests Cecily with a bubbly sweetness and snarky sass that makes it absolutely impossible to not fall completely in love with her (gods know I did). This is a deeply funny film, packed with proper belly-laughs from start to finish, but like all the best horror comedies it takes its horror elements seriously, delivering some enjoyably effective scares and juicy gore, while the werewolf itself, when finally revealed, is realised through some top-notch prosthetics. Altogether this was a most welcome under-the-radar surprise for the summer, and SO MUCH MORE than just an unusually great video game adaptation …

9. THE TOMORROW WAR – although cinemas finally reopened in the UK in early summer, the bite of the COVID lockdown backlog was still very much in effect this blockbuster season, with several studios preferring to hedge their bets and wait for later release dates. Others turned to streaming services, including Paramount, who happily lined up a few heavyweight titles to open on major platforms in lieu of the big screen. One of the biggest was this intended sci-fi action horror tentpole, meant to give Chris Pratt another potential franchise on top of Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, which instead dropped in early July on Amazon Prime. So, was it worth staying in on a Saturday night instead of heading out for something on the BIG screen? Mostly yes, although it’s mainly a trashy, guilty pleasure big budget B-picture charm that makes this such a worthwhile experience – the film’s biggest influences are clearly Independence Day and Starship Troopers, two admirably clunky blockbusters that DEFINED prioritising big spectacle and overblown theatrics over intelligent writing and realistic storytelling. It doesn’t help that the premise is pure bunk – in 2022, a wormhole opens from thirty years in the future, and a plea for help is sent back with a bunch of very young future soldiers. Seems Earth will become overrun by an unstoppable swarm of nasty alien critters called Whitespikes in 25 years, and the desperate human counteroffensive have no choice but to bring soldiers from our present into the future to help them fight back and save the humanity from imminent extinction. Less than a year later, the world’s standing armies have been decimated and a worldwide draft has been implemented, with normal everyday adults being sent through for a seven day tour from which very few return. Pratt plays biology teacher and former Green Beret Dan Forrester, one of the latest batch of draftees to be sent into the future along with a selection of chefs, soccer moms and other average joes – his own training and experience serves him better than most when the shit hits the fan, but it soon becomes clear that he’s just as out of his depth as everyone else as the sheer enormity of the threat is revealed. But when he becomes entangled with a desperate research outfit led by Muri (Chuck’s Yvonne Strahovski) who seem to be on the verge of a potential world-changing scientific breakthrough, Dan realises there just might be a slender hope for humanity after all … this is every bit as over-the-top gung-ho bonkers as it sounds, and just as much fun. Director Chris McKay may still be pretty fresh (with only The Lego Batman Movie under his belt to date), but he shows a lot of talent and potential for big budget blockbuster filmmaking here, delivering with guts and bravado on some major action sequences (a fraught ticking-clock SAR operation through a war-torn Miami is the film’s undeniable highlight, but a desperate battle to escape a blazing oil rig also really impresses), as well as handling some impressively complex visual effects work and wrangling some quality performances from his cast (altogether it bodes well for his future, which includes Nightwing and Johnny Quest as future projects). Chris Pratt can do this kind of stuff in his sleep – Dan is his classic fallible and self-deprecating but ultimately solid and kind-hearted action hero fare, effortlessly likeable and easy to root for – and his supporting cast are equally solid, Strahovsky going toe-to-toe with him in the action sequences while also creating a rewardingly complex smart-woman/badass combo in Muri, while the other real standouts include Sam Richardson (Veep, Werewolves Within) and Edwin Hodge (The Purge movies) as fellow draftees Charlie and Dorian, the former a scared-out-of-his-mind tech geek while the latter is a seriously hardcore veteran serving his THIRD TOUR, and the ever brilliant J.K. Simmonds as Dan’s emotionally scarred estranged Vietnam-vet father, Jim. Sure, it’s derivative as hell and thoroughly predictable (with more than one big twist you can see coming a mile away), but the pace is brisk, the atmosphere pregnant with a palpable doomed urgency, and the creatures themselves are a genuinely convincing world-ending threat, the design team and visual effects wizards creating genuine nightmare fuel in the feral and unrelenting Whitespikes. Altogether this WAS an ideal way to spend a comfy Saturday night in, but I think it could have been JUST AS GOOD for a Saturday night OUT at the Pictures …

8. ARMY OF THE DEAD – another high profile release that went straight to streaming was this genuine monster hit for Netflix from one of this century’s undeniable heavyweight action cinema masters, the indomitable Zack Snyder, who kicked off his career with an audience-dividing (but, as far as I’m concerned, ultimately MASSIVELY successful) remake of George Romero’s immortal Dawn of the Dead, and has finally returned to zombie horror after close to two decades away. The end result is, undeniably, the biggest cinematic guilty pleasure of the entire summer, a bona fide outbreak horror EPIC in spite of its tightly focused story – Dave Bautista plays mercenary Scott Ward, leader a badass squad of soldiers of fortune who were among the few to escape a deadly outbreak of a zombie virus in the city of Las Vegas, enlisted to break into the vault of one of the Strip’s casinos by owner Bly Tanaka (a fantastically game turn from Hiroyuki Sanada) and rescue $200 million still locked away inside. So what’s the catch? Vegas remains ground zero for the outbreak, walled off from the outside world but still heavily infested within, and in less than three days the US military intends to sterilise the site with a tactical nuke. Simple premise, down and dirty, trashy flick, right? Wrong – Snyder has never believed in doing things small, having brought us unapologetically BIG cinema with the likes of 300, Watchmen, Man of Steel and, most notably, his version of Justice League, so this is another MASSIVE undertaking, every scene shot for maximum thrills or emotional impact, each set-piece executed with his characteristic militaristic precision and explosive predilection (a harrowing fight for survival against a freshly-awakened zombie horde in tightly packed casino corridors is the film’s undeniable highlight), and the gauzy, dreamlike cinematography gives even simple scenes an intriguing and evocative edge that really does make you feel like you’re watching something BIG. The characters all feel larger-than-life too – Bautista can seem somewhat cartoonish at times, and this role definitely plays that as a strength, making Scott a rock-hard alpha male in the classic Hollywood mould, but he’s such a great actor that of course he’s able to invest the character with real rewarding complexity beneath the surface; Ana de la Reguera (Eastbound & Down) and Nora Arnezeder (Zoo, Mozart in the Jungle), meanwhile, both bring a healthy dose of oestrogen-fuelled badassery to proceedings as, respectively, Scott’s regular second-in-command, Maria Cruz, and Lilly the Coyote, Power’s Omari Hardwick and Matthias Schweighofer (You Are Wanted) make for a fun odd-couple double act as circular-saw-wielding merc Vanderohe and Dieter, the nervous, nerdy German safecracker brought in to crack the vault, and Fear the Walking Dead’s Garrett Dillahunt channels spectacular scumbag energy as Tanaka’s sleazy former casino boss Martin, while latecomer Tig Notaro (Star Trek Discovery) effortlessly rises above her last-minute-casting controversy to deliver brilliantly as sassy and acerbic chopper pilot Peters. I think it goes without saying that Snyder can do this in his sleep, but he definitely wasn’t napping here – he pulled out all the stops on this one, delivering a thrilling, darkly comic and endearingly CRACKERS zombie flick that not only compares favourably to his own Dawn but is, undeniably, his best film for AGES. Netflix certainly seem to be pleased with the results – a spinoff prequel, Army of Thieves, starring Dieter in another heist thriller, is set to drop in October, with an animated series following in the Spring, and there’s already rumours of a sequel in development. I’m certainly up for more …

7. BLACK WIDOW – no major blockbuster property was hit harder by COVID than the MCU, which saw its ENTIRE SLATE for 2020 delayed for over a year in the face of Marvel Studios bowing to the inevitability of the Pandemic and unwilling to sacrifice those all-important box-office receipts by just sending their films straight to streaming. The most frustrating part for hardcore fans of the series was the delay of a standalone film that was already criminally overdue – the solo headlining vehicle of founding Avenger and bona fide female superhero ICON Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow. Equally frustratingly, then, this film seems set to be overshadowed by real life controversy as star and producer Scarlett Johansson goes head-to-head with Disney in civil court over their breach-of-contract after they hedged their bets by releasing the film simultaneously in cinemas and on their own streaming platform, which has led to poor box office as many of the film’s potential audience chose to watch it at home instead of risk movie theatres with the virus still very much remaining a threat (and Disney have clearly reacted AGAIN, now backtracking on their release policy by instigating a new 45-day cinematic exclusivity window on all their big releases for the immediate future). But what of the film itself? Well Black Widow is an interesting piece of work, director Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome) and screenwriter Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok) delivering a decidedly stripped-back, lean and intellectual beast that bears greater resemblance to the more cerebral work of the Russo Brothers on their Captain America films than the more classically bombastic likes of Iron Man, Thor or the Avengers flicks, concentrating on story and characters over action and spectacle as we wind back the clock to before the events of Infinity War and Endgame, when Romanoff was on the run after Civil War, hunted by the government-appointed forces of US Secretary of State “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) after violating the Sokovia Accords. Then a mysterious delivery throws her back into the fray as she finds herself targeted by a mysterious assassin, forcing her to team up with her estranged “sister” Yelena Belova (Midsommar’s Florence Pugh), another Black Widow who’s just gone rogue from the same Red Room Natasha escaped years ago, armed with a McGuffin capable of foiling a dastardly plot for world domination. The reluctant duo need help in this endeavour though, enlisting the aid of their former “parents”, veteran Widow and scientist Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) and Alexie Shostakov (Stranger Things’ David Harbour), aka the Red Guardian, a Russian super-soldier intended to be their counterpart to Captain America, who’s been languishing in a Siberian gulag for the last twenty years. After the Earth-shaking, universe-changing events of recent MCU events, this film certainly feels like a much more self-contained, modest affair, playing for much smaller stakes, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less worthy of our attention – this is as precision-crafted as anything we’ve seen from Marvel so far, but it also feels like a refreshing change of pace after all those enormous cosmic shenanigans, while the script is as tight as a drum, propelling a taut, suspense-filled thriller that certainly doesn’t scrimp on the action front. Sure, the set-pieces are very much in service of the story here, but they’re still the pre-requisite MCU rollercoaster rides, a selection of breathless chases and bone-crunching fights that really do play to the strengths of one of our favourite Avengers, but this is definitely one of those films where the real fireworks come when the film focuses on the characters – Johansson is so comfortable with her character she’s basically BECOME Natasha Romanoff, kickass and ruthless and complex and sassy and still just desperate for a family (though she hides it well throughout the film), while Weisz delivers one of her best performances in years as a peerless professional who keeps her emotions tightly reigned in but slowly comes to realise that she was never more happy than when she was pretending to be a simple mother, and Ray Winstone does a genuinely fantastic job of taking a character who could have been one of the MCU’s most disappointingly bland villains, General Dreykov, master of the Red Room, and investing him with enough oily charisma and intense presence to craft something truly memorable (frustratingly, the same cannot be said for the film’s supposed main physical threat, Taskmaster, who performs well in their frustratingly brief appearances but ultimately gets Darth Maul levels of short service). The true scene-stealers in the film, however, are Alexie and Yelena – Harbour’s clearly having the time of his life hamming it up as a self-important, puffed-up peacock of a superhero who never got his shot and is clearly (rightly) decidedly bitter about it, preferring to relive the life he SHOULD have had instead of remembering the good in the one he got; Pugh, meanwhile, is THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE MOVIE, easily matching Johanssen scene-for-scene in the action stakes but frequently out-performing her when it comes to acting, investing Yelena with a sweet naivety and innocence and a certain amount of quirky geekiness that makes for one of the year’s most endearing female protagonists (certainly one who, if the character goes the way I think she will, is thoroughly capable of carrying the torch for the foreseeable future). In the end this is definitely one of the LEAST typical, by-the-numbers MCU films to date, and by delivering something a little different I think they’ve given us just the kind of leftfield swerve the series needs right now. It’s certainly one of their most fascinating and rewarding films so far, and since it seems to be Johansson’s final tour of duty as the Black Widow, it’s also a most fitting farewell indeed.

6. WRATH OF MAN – Guy Ritchie’s latest (regarded by many as a triumphant return to form, which I consider unfair since I don’t think he ever went away, especially after 2020’s spectacular The Gentlemen) is BY FAR his darkest film – let’s get this clear from the start. Anyone who knows his work knows that Ritchie consistently maintains a near flawless balance and humour and seriousness in his films that gives them a welcome quirkiness that is one of his most distinctive trademarks, so for him to suddenly deliver a film which takes itself SO SERIOUSLY is one hell of a departure. This is a film which almost REVELS in its darkness – Ritchie’s always loved bathing in man’s baser instincts, but Wrath of Man almost makes a kind of twisted VIRTUE out of wallowing in the genuine evils that men are capable of inflicting on each other. The film certainly kicks off as it means to go on – In a tour-de-force single-shot opening, we watch a daring armoured car robbery on the streets of Los Angeles that goes horrifically wrong, an event which will have devastating consequences in the future. Five months later, Fortico Security hires taciturn Brit Patrick Hill (Jason Statham) to work as a guard in one of their trucks, and on his first run he single-handedly foils another attempted robbery with genuinely uncanny combat skills. The company is thrilled, amazed by the sheer ability of their new hire, but Hill’s new colleagues are more concerned, wondering exactly what they’ve let themselves in for. After a second foiled robbery, it becomes clear that Hill’s reputation has grown, but fellow guard Haiden (Holt McCallany), aka “Bullet”, begins to suspect there might be something darker going on … Ritchie is firing on all cylinders here, delivering a PERFECT slow-burn suspense thriller which plays its cards close to its chest and cranks up its piano wire tension with artful skill as it builds to a devastating, knuckle-whitening explosive heist that acts as a cathartic release for everything that’s built up over the past hour and a half. In typical Ritchie style the narrative is non-linear, the story unfolding in four distinct parts told from clearly differentiated points of view, allowing the clues to be revealed at a trickle that effortlessly draws the viewer in as they fall deeper down the rabbit hole, leading to a harrowing but strangely poignant denouement which is perfectly in tune with everything that’s come before. It’s an immense pleasure finally getting to see Statham working with Ritchie again, and I don’t think he’s ever been better than he is here – he's always been a brilliantly understated actor, but there’s SO MUCH going on under Hill’s supposedly impenetrable calm that every little peek beneath the armour is a REVELATION; McCallany, meanwhile, has landed his best role since his short but VERY sweet supporting turn in Fight Club, seemingly likeable and fallible as the kind of easy-going co-worker anyone in the service industry would be THRILLED to have, but giving Bullet far more going on under the surface, while there are uniformly excellent performances from a top-shelf ensemble supporting cast which includes Josh Hartnett, Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice, Sicario), Andy Garcia, Laz Alonso (The Boys), Eddie Marsan, Niamh Algar (Raised By Wolves) and Darrell D’Silva (Informer, Domina), and a particularly edgy and intense turn from Scott Eastwood. This is one of THE BEST thrillers of the year, by far, a masterpiece of mood, pace and plot that ensnares the viewer from its gripping opening and hooks them right up to the close, a triumph of the genre and EASILY Guy Ritchie’s best film since Snatch. Regardless of whether or not it’s a RETURN to form, we can only hope he continues to deliver fare THIS GOOD in the future …

5. FEAR STREET (PARTS 1-3) – Netflix have gotten increasingly ambitious with their original filmmaking over the years, and some of this years’ offerings have reached new heights of epic intention. Their most exciting release of the summer was this adaptation of popular children’s horror author R.L. Stine’s popular book series, a truly gargantuan undertaking as the filmmakers set out to create an entire TRILOGY of films which were then released over three consecutive weekends. Interestingly, these films are most definitely NOT for kids – this is proper, no-holds-barred supernatural slasher horror, delivering highly calibrated shocks and precision jump scares, a pervading atmosphere of insidious dread and a series of inventively gruesome kills. The story revolves around two neighbouring small towns which have had vastly different fortunes over more than three centuries of existence – while the residents of Sunnyvale are unusually successful, living idyllic lives in peace and prosperity, luck has always been against the people of Shadyside, who languish in impoverishment, crime and misfortune, while the town has become known as the Murder Capital of the USA due to frequent spree killings. Some attribute this to the supposed curse of a local urban legend, Sarah Fier, who became known as the Fier Witch after her execution for witchcraft in 1668, but others dismiss this as simple superstition. Part 1 is set in 1994, as the latest outbreak of serial mayhem begins in Shadyside, dragging a small group of local teens – Deena Johnson (She Never Died’s Kiana Madeira) and Samantha Fraser (Olivia Scott Welch), a young lesbian couple going through a difficult breakup, Deena’s little brother Josh (The Haunted Hathaways’ Benjamin Flores Jr.), a nerdy history geek who spends most of his time playing video games or frequenting violent crime-buff online chatrooms, and their delinquent friends Simon (Eight Grade’s Fred Hechinger) and Kate (Julia Rehwald) – into the age-old ghostly conspiracy as they find themselves besieged by indestructible undead serial killers from the town’s past, reasoning that the only way they can escape with their lives is to solve the mystery and bring the Fier Witch some much needed closure. Part 2, meanwhile, flashes back to a previous outbreak in 1977, in which local sisters Ziggy (Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink) and Cindy Berman (Emily Rudd), together with future Sunnyvale sheriff Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland) were among the kids hunted by said killers during a summer camp “colour war”. As for Part 3, that goes all the way back to 1668 to tell the story of what REALLY happened to Sarah Fier, before wrapping up events in 1994, culminating in a terrifying, adrenaline-fuelled showdown in the Shadyside Mall. Throughout, the youthful cast are EXCEPTIONAL, Madeira, Welch, Flores Jr., Sink and Rudd particularly impressing, while there are equally strong turns from Ashley Zuckerman (The Code, Designated Survivor) and Community’s Gillian Jacobs as the grown-up versions of two key ’77 kids, and a fun cameo from Maya Hawke in Part 1. This is most definitely retro horror in the Stranger Things mould, perfectly executed period detail bringing fun nostalgic flavour to all three of the timelines while the peerless direction from Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) and wire-tight, sharp-witted screenplays from Janiak, Kyle Killen (Lone Star, The Beaver), Phil Graziadel, Zak Olkewicz and Kate Trefry strike a perfect balance between knowing dark humour and knife-edged terror, as well as weaving an intriguingly complex narrative web that pulls the viewer in but never loses them to overcomplication. The design, meanwhile, is evocative, the cinematography (from Stanger Things’ Caleb Heymann) is daring and magnificently moody, and the killers and other supernatural elements of the film are handled with skill through largely physical effects. This is definitely not a standard, by-the-numbers slasher property, paying strong homage to the sub-genre’s rules but frequently subverting them with expert skill, and it’s as much fun as it is frightening. Give us some more like this please, Netflix!

4. THE SPARKS BROTHERS – those who’ve been following my reviews for a while will known that while I do sometimes shout about documentary films, they tend to show up in my runners-up lists – it’s a great rarity for one to land in one of my top tens. This lovingly crafted deep-dive homage to cult band Sparks, from self-confessed rabid fanboy Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim), is something VERY SPECIAL INDEED, then … there’s a vague possibility some of you may have heard the name before, and many of you will know at least one or two of their biggest hits without knowing it was them (their greatest hit of all time, This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us, immediately springs to mind), but unless you’re REALLY serious about music it’s quite likely you have no idea who they are, namely two brothers from California, Russell and Ronald Mael, who formed a very sophisticated pop-rock band in the late 60s and then never really went away, having moments of fame but mostly working away in the background and influencing some of the greatest bands and musical artists that followed them, even if many never even knew where that influence originally came from. Wright’s film is an engrossing joy from start to finish (despite clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes), following their eclectic career from obscure inception as Halfnelson, through their first real big break with third album Kimono My Place, subsequent success and then fall from popularity in the mid-70s, through several subsequent revitalisations, all the way up to the present day with their long-awaited cinematic breakthrough, revolutionary musical feature Annette – throughout Wright keeps the tone light and the pace breezy, allowing a strong and endearing sense of irreverence to rule the day as fans, friends and the brothers themselves offer up fun anecdotes and wax lyrical about what is frequently a larger-than-life tragicomic soap opera, utilising fun, crappy animation and idiosyncratic stock footage inserts alongside talking-head interviews that were made with a decidedly tongue-in-cheek style – Mike Myers good-naturedly rants about how we can see his “damned mole” while 80s New Romantic icons Nick Rhodes and John Taylor, while shot together, are each individually labelled as “Duran”. Ron and Russ themselves, meanwhile, are clearly having huge fun, gently ribbing each other and dropping some fun deadpan zingers throughout proceedings, easily playing to the band’s strong, idiosyncratic sense of hyper-intelligent humour, while the aforementioned celebrity talking-heads are just three amongst a whole wealth of famous faces that may surprise you – there’s even an appearance by Neil Gaiman, guys! Altogether this is 2+ hours of bright and breezy fun chock full of great music and fascinating information, and even hardcore Sparks fans are likely to learn more than a little over the course of the film, while for those who have never heard of Sparks before it’s a FANTASTIC introduction to one of the greatest ever bands that you’ve never heard of. With luck there might even be more than a few new fans before the year is out …

3. GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE – Netflix’ BEST offering of the summer was this surprise hit from Israeli writer-director Navot Papushado (Rabies, Big Bad Wolves), a heavily stylised black comedy action thriller that passes the Bechdel Test with FLYING COLOURS. Playing like a female-centric John Wick, it follows ice-cold, on-top-of-her-game assassin Sam (Karen Gillan) as her latest assignment has some unfortunate side effects, leading her to take on a reparation job to retrieve some missing cash for the local branch of the Irish Mob. The only catch is that a group of thugs have kidnapped the original thief’s little girl, 12 year-old Emily (My Spy’s Chloe Coleman), and Sam, in an uncharacteristic moment of sympathy, decides to intervene, only for the money to be accidentally destroyed in the process. Now she’s got the Mob and her own employers coming after her, and she not only has to save her own skin but also Emily’s, leading her to seek help from the one person she thought she might never see again – her mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), a master assassin in her own right who’s been hiding from the Mob herself for years. The plot may be simple but at times also a little over-the-top, but the film is never anything less than a pure, unadulterated pleasure, populated with fascinating, living and breathing characters of real complexity and nuance, while the script (co-written by relative newcomer Ehud Lavski) is tightly-reined and bursting with zingers. Most importantly, though, Papushado really delivers on the action front – these are some of the best set-pieces I’ve seen this year, Gillan, her co-stars and the various stunt-performers acquitting themselves admirably in a series of spectacular fights, gun battles and a particularly imaginative car chase that would be the envy of many larger, more expensive productions. Gillan and Coleman have a sweet, awkward chemistry, the MCU star particularly impressing in a subtly nuanced performance that also plays beautifully against Headey’s own tightly controlled turn, while there is awesome support from Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino as Sam’s adoptive aunts Anna May, Florence and Madeleine, a trio of “librarians” who run a fine side-line in illicit weaponry and are capable of unleashing some spectacular violence of their own; the film’s antagonists, on the other hand, are exclusively masculine – the mighty Ralph Inneson is quietly ruthless as Irish boss Jim McAlester, while The Terror’s Adam Nagaitis is considerably more mercurial as his mad dog nephew Virgil, and Paul Giamatti is the stately calm at the centre of the storm as Sam’s employer Nathan, the closest thing she has to a father. There’s so much to enjoy in this movie, not just the wonderful characters and amazing action but also the singularly engrossing and idiosyncratic style, deeply affecting themes of the bonds of found family and the healing power of forgiveness, and a rewarding through-line of strong women triumphing against the brutalities of toxic masculinity. I love this film, and I invite you to try it out, cuz I’m sure you will too.

2. THE SUICIDE SQUAD – the most fun I’ve had at the cinema so far this year is the long-awaited (thanks a bunch, COVID) redress of another frustrating imbalance from the decidedly hit and miss DCEU superhero franchise, in which Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director James Gunn has finally delivered a PROPER Suicide Squad movie after David Ayer’s painfully compromised first stab at the property back in 2016. That movie was enjoyable enough and had some great moments, but ultimately it was a clunky mess, and while some of the characters were done (quite) well, others were painfully botched, even ruined entirely. Thankfully Warner Bros. clearly learned their lesson, giving Gunn free reign to do whatever he wanted, and the end result is about as close to perfect as the DCEU has come to date. Once again the peerless Viola Davis plays US government official Amanda Waller, head of ARGUS and the undisputable most evil bitch in all the DC Universe, who presides over the metahuman prisoners of the notorious supermax Belle Reve Prison, cherry-picking inmates for her pet project Taskforce X, the titular Suicide Squad sent out to handle the kind of jobs nobody else wants, in exchange for years off their sentences but controlled by explosive implants injected into the base of their skulls. Their latest mission sees another motley crew of D-bags dispatched to the fictional South African island nation of Corto Maltese to infiltrate Jotunheim, a former Nazi facility in which a dangerous extra-terrestrial entity that’s being developed into a fearful bioweapon, with orders to destroy the project in order to keep it out of the hands of a hostile anti-American regime which has taken control of the island through a violent coup. Where the first Squad felt like a clumsily-arranged selection of stereotypes with a few genuinely promising characters unsuccessfully moulded into a decidedly forced found family, this new batch are convincingly organic – they may be dysfunctional and they’re all almost universally definitely BAD GUYS, but they WORK, the relationship dynamics that form between them feeling genuinely earned. Gunn has already proven himself a master of putting a bunch of A-holes together and forging them into band of “heroes”, and he’s certainly pulled the job off again here, dredging the bottom of the DC Rogues Gallery for its most ridiculous Z-listers and somehow managing to make them compelling. Sure, returning Squad-member Harley Quinn (the incomparable Margot Robbie, magnificent as ever) has already become a fully-realised character thanks to Birds of Prey, so there wasn’t much heavy-lifting to be done here, but Gunn genuinely seems to GET the character, so our favourite pixie-esque Agent of Chaos is an unbridled and thoroughly unpredictable joy here, while fellow veteran Colonel Rick Flagg (a particularly muscular and thoroughly game Joel Kinnaman) has this time received a much needed makeover, Gunn promoting him from being the first film’s sketchily-drawn “Captain Exposition” and turning him into a fully-ledged, well-thought-out human being with all the requisite baggage, including a newfound sense of humour; the newcomers, meanwhile, are a thoroughly fascinating bunch – reluctant “leader” Bloodsport/Robert DuBois (a typically robust and playful Idris Elba), unapologetic douchebag Peacemaker/Christopher Smith (probably the best performance I’ve EVER seen John Cena deliver), and socially awkward and seriously hard-done-by nerd (and by far the most idiotic DC villain of all time) the Polka-Dot Man/Abner Krill (a genuinely heart-breaking hangdog performance from Ant-Man’s David Dastmalchian); meanwhile there’s a fine trio of villainous turns from the film’s resident Big Bads, with Juan Diego Botta (Good Behaviour) and Joaquin Cosio (Quantum of Solace, Narcos: Mexico) making strong impressions as newly-installed dictator Silvio Luna and his corrupt right hand-man General Suarez, although both are EASILY eclipsed by the typically brilliant Peter Capaldi as louche and quietly deranged supervillain The Thinker/Gaius Greives (although the film’s ULTIMATE threat turns out to be something a whole lot bigger and more exotic). The film is ROUNDLY STOLEN, however, by a truly adorable double act (or TRIPLE act, if you want to get technical) – Daniella Melchior makes her breakthrough here in fine style as sweet, principled and kind-hearted narcoleptic second-generation supervillain Ratcatcher II/Cleo Cazo, who has the weird ability to control rats (and who has a pet rat named Sebastian who frequently steals scenes all on his own), while a particular fan-favourite B-lister makes his big screen debut here in the form of King Shark/Nanaue, a barely sentient anthropomorphic Great White “shark god” with an insatiable appetite for flesh and a naturally quizzical nature who was brilliantly mo-capped by Steve Agee (The Sarah Silverman Project, who also plays Waller’s hyperactive assistant John Economos) but then artfully completed with an ingenious vocal turn from Sylvester Stallone. James Gunn has crafted an absolute MASTERPIECE here, EASILY the best film he’s made to date, a riotous cavalcade of exquisitely observed and perfectly delivered dark humour and expertly wrangled narrative chaos that has great fun playing with the narrative flow, injects countless spot-on in-jokes and irreverent but utterly essential throwaway sight-gags, and totally endears us to this glorious gang of utter morons right from the start (in which Gunn delivers what has to be one of the most skilful deep-fakes in cinematic history). Sure, there’s also plenty of action, and it’s executed with the kind of consummate skill we’ve now come to expect from Gunn (the absolute highlight is a wonderfully bonkers sequence in which Harley expertly rescues herself from captivity), but like everything else it’s predominantly played for laughs, and there’s no getting away from the fact that this film is an absolute RIOT. By far the funniest thing I’ve seen so far this year, and if I’m honest this is the best of the DCEU offerings to date, too (for me, only the exceptional Birds of Prey can compare) – if Warner Bros. have any sense they’ll give Gunn more to do VERY SOON …

1. A QUIET PLACE, PART II – while UK cinemas finally reopened in early May, I was determined that my first trip back to the Big Screen for 2021 was gonna be something SPECIAL, and indeed I already knew what that was going to be. Thankfully I was not disappointed by my choice – 2018’s A Quiet Place was MY VERY FAVOURITE horror movie of the 2010s, an undeniable masterclass in suspense and sustained screen terror wrapped around a refreshingly original killer concept, and I was among the many fans hoping we’d see more in the future, especially after the film’s teasingly open ending. Against the odds (or perhaps not), writer-director/co-star John Krasinski has pulled off the seemingly impossible task of not only following up that high-wire act, but genuinely EQUALLING it in levels of quality – picking up RIGHT where the first film left off (at least after an AMAZING scene-setting opening in which we’re treated to the events of Day 1 of the downfall of humanity), rejoining the remnants of the Abbott family as they’re forced by circumstances to up-sticks from their idyllic farmhouse home and strike out into the outside world once more, painfully aware at all times that they must maintain perfect silence to avoid the ravenous attentions of the lethal blind alien beasties that now sit at the top of the food chain. Circumstances quickly become dire, however, and embattled mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is forced to ally herself with estranged family friend Emmett (Cillian Murphy), now a haunted, desperate vagrant eking out a perilous existence in an abandoned factory, in order to safeguard the future of her children Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and their newborn baby brother. Regan, however, discovers evidence of more survivors, and with her newfound weapon against the aliens she recklessly decides to set off on her own in the hopes of aiding them before it’s too late … it may only be his second major blockbuster as a director, but Krasinski has once again proven he’s a true heavyweight talent, effortlessly carving out fresh ground in this already magnificently well-realised dystopian universe while also playing magnificently to the established strengths of what came before, delivering another peerless thrill-ride of unbearable tension and knuckle-whitening terror. The central principle of utilising sound at a very strict premium is once again strictly adhered to here, available sources of dialogue once again exploited with consummate skill while sound design and score (another moody triumph from Marco Beltrami) again become THE MOST IMPORTANT aspects of the whole production. The ruined world is once again realised beautifully throughout, most notably in the nightmarish environment of a wrecked commuter train, and Krasinski cranks up the tension before unleashing it in merciless explosions in a selection of harrowing encounters which guaranteed to leave viewers in a puddle of sweat. The director mostly stays behind the camera this time round, but he does (obviously) put in an appearance in the opening flashback as the late Lee Abbott, making a potent impression which leaves a haunting absence that’s keenly felt throughout the remainder of the film, while Blunt continues to display mother lion ferocity as she fights to keep her children safe and Jupe plays crippling fear magnificently but is now starting to show a hidden spine of steel as Marcus finally starts to find his courage; the film once again belongs, however, to Simmonds, the young deaf actress once and for all proving she’s a genuine star in the making as she invests Regan with fierce wilfulness and stubborn determination that remains unshakeable even in the face of unspeakable horrors, and the relationship she develops with Emmett, reluctant as it may be, provides a strong new emotional focus for the story, Murphy bringing an attractive wounded humanity to his role as a man who’s lost anything and is being forced to learn to care for something again. This is another triumph of the genre AND the artform in general, a masterpiece of atmosphere, performance and storytelling which builds magnificently on the skilful foundations laid by the first film, as well as setting things up perfectly for a third instalment which is all but certain to follow. I definitely can’t wait.

#movies 2021 #werewolves within #werewolves within movie #the tomorrow war #army of the dead #Black Widow #black widow movie #black widow mcu #wrath of man #fear street #fear street trilogy #fear street movies #The Sparks Brothers #gunpowder milkshake #the suicide squad #a quiet place part ii #a quiet place part 2 #awesome sauce

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Director Mike Figgis Talks Trading Licks with Ronnie Wood

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Before becoming a filmmaker, Leaving Las Vegas director Mike Figgis was a musician and performer in the experimental group called The People Show. Before that, he played trumpet and guitar in the experimental jazz ensemble The People Band, whose first record was produced by Rolling Stone drummer Charlie Watts. He is also the founding patron of an online community of independent filmmakers called Shooting People. You can say Figgis is a People person, which makes him the perfect director to capture Ronnie Wood in the documentary Somebody Up There Likes Me.

One of rock and roll’s most iconic guitarists, Wood is good with people. He plays well with others. He is the Stone who’s never alone. Before he began weaving guitar licks with Keith Richards in the Rolling Stones, Wood helped shape the British rock sound in bands like The Birds and the Creation. He was the bass player to the guitar maestro in The Jeff Beck Group, which featured the distinctive voice of Rod Stewart at the front. They put out two albums, 1968’s Truth and 1969’s Beck-Ola, before splintering just as they were to appear at Woodstock. Wood and Stewart inherited the Small Faces from Steve Marriott and dropped the album First Step in 1970. They realized they were too tall for the diminutive moniker and renamed the band The Faces. They released the albums Long Player and A Nod Is as Good as a Wink…to a Blind Horse in 1971, and Ooh La La (1973), before splitting up in 1975.

Wood guested on albums by David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, the Band, Donovan, B.B. King, and on Stewart’s solo albums. He spent so much time flavoring other performers’ works, he didn’t put out a solo album of his own until 1974 which he aptly titled I’ve Got My Own Album to Do. Wood also went solo for 1981’s 1234 and collaborated with Bo Diddley on Live at the Ritz in 1988, Wood’s seventh solo album, I Feel Like Playing (2010), featured guest spots from ex-Faces bandmate Ian McLagan, as well as The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea, Guns N’ Roses’ Slash, Billy Gibbons, Bobby Womack, and Jim Keltner.

Somebody Up There Likes Me isn’t structured like most music documentaries. It is primarily a conversation, and it veers from much of Wood’s vast output. The hard-partying musician beat lung cancer and candidly blames his excessive indulgences. He saw bandmates, contemporaries and friends, like Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and John Bonham push past the lethal limits of chemical reactions. Wood himself remembers telling Keith Moon to take pills, not bottles of them. Richards remarks in the documentary how the two Rolling Stones guitarists share strong constitutions. Wood began recording with the Rolling Stones when they were halfway through their 1976 album, Black and Blue, and has been steady even up to their recent pandemic live stream.

The documentary also captures Wood’s visual artistry. He was an artist before he was a musician. His drawings were featured on BBC TV’s Sketch Club when he was a child, and he studied at the Ealing Art College. Wood did the cover artwork to Eric Clapton’s 1988 box set Crossroads. The two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee continues to capture visions like Mick Jagger’s dancing in a Picasso style, as well as the shots in Somebody Up There Likes Me of him capturing the grace of a ballerina on canvas.

Born in northern England, director Mike Figgis was raised on jazz and Jean-Luc Godard movies. The inventor of the “fig rig” knows when to experiment, such as he did in Timecode (2000) and Hotel (2001), how to get drama out of romance, as he did with One Night Stand, starring Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski, and The Loss of Sexual Innocence. He is adept at crime dramas, directing the “Cold Cuts” episode of The Sopranos in 2004 and Internal Affairs, which starred Richard Gere. He also mines deep emotional schisms in films like Mr. North and Leaving Las Vegas (1995) for which he was nominated for Best Directing and Best Screenplay Oscars. Figgis spoke with Den of Geek about cinematic jams and studio sessions with Ronnie Wood.

Den of Geek: Over the course of the film, you produced a song using nothing but your backings and an orchestra of Ronnie Woods. How was he to produce?

Mike Figgis: He was a delight, actually. We did most of the interviews and everything where he was painting, he was in his own space for that. Then the dialog, he’s very very witty and so on. But at the end of the day, the man’s a musician. Quite later on in the process I said, “Let’s go into a studio and do something.” I think the minute we got into a studio it was different. For both of us because I’m a musician too. It’s just a different kind of reality and the language becomes much simpler between musicians and understanding the equipment, the whole vibe.

Originally Mark Ronson was going to do a soundtrack for us which would have been fantastic and then he just got very, very busy because we got late. I presented him with a kind of template of how maybe could make a nice soundtrack, which is basically what we did anyway. So we did it without Mark and Ronnie was very comfortable with that.

He very much left it to me. He added a lot, obviously. He said, “I’d like to do this as well,” and so on. So, we had a pretty full couple of days in studio time. But he was great to produce.

There are a lot of musicians working on this besides you and Ronnie. Rosey Chan did the score for a painting scene.

Rosey’s my wife by the way. She’s a phenomenal concert pianist and composer and musician in her own right. She’s releasing an album now. She’s an amazing pianist, I just needed something to take us into a different zone, so I asked her to compose some piano pieces for that. Then I did some score myself. Just when he’s talking about drugs. I put a little bit of a weird score on that one.

So is this film more of a cinematic jam that you just edited in the mixing room?

Yeah, I think so. I think that’s a good way of putting it, actually.

Ronnie also worked with Bob Dylan, Prince, David Bowie, Aretha Franklin. Did you allow the interviews to determine what parts of his career you were going to include?

I actually wanted to avoid anybody else. I said, “Let’s just make it about him painting and us talking.” I wanted to make it as simple as possible. That didn’t happen because as soon as you sort of uncover one little stone, you kind of say “Oh, well obviously we should interview the Rolling Stones.” Then he started thinking, “Well, Rod’s around, we can use Rod.” When I discovered about Damien Hirst, “Actually that would be an interesting, unexpected one. That would be good, yeah.” So yeah.

It was kind of organic, really. It was all sort of scheduled based in a sense that, “When are you available?” And, “When am I available? When are these people available?” So, getting the Stones was actually the trickiest thing. You had to go to Berlin and get them between gigs when they were watching the World Cup. In between World Cups actually. Very specific.

I know you’re in the People Band which had an album produced by Charlie Watts. So, were you in the same periphery of the Stones as Ronnie Wood back then?

No, the connection with Charlie was very interesting because the People Band was a free music ensemble. I mean really experimental. Really way out. The drummer was this phenomenal percussionist, still is, called Terry Day. Terry Day went to art college with Charlie’s wife and he knew Charlie because they were both drummers, so they got on really, really well. Charlie Watts has always been a huge jazz fan. Through Terry, it was one of those moments where Charlie says, “You know, we can record you. We got a mobile studio. We can either send the mobile to you wherever you’re playing.” I’m talking about in those days, in ’68 or whenever it was, the idea of a mobile multi-track was pretty amazing. “Or you can come to Olympic Studios,” which was where they recorded Beggars Banquet and everything. It was an amazing studio. And, “We’ll just give you the studio and the engineer, and you guys do what you want.” That’s how that came about and it was really lovely.

Over the years, once in a while I would see Charlie and just catch up, talk about drumming, really. And jazz. So it was really nice interviewing for this one again.

When you were asking Rod Stewart about Peter Grant, he sort of cut back and he became the young man that was bullied.

He did, didn’t he? When he said, “I’m protecting my hands and my face.”

The gangster aspect of that mid ’60’s period, especially with Peter Grant, how did that affect the musicians and the working? Do you think it actually in some ways was good for it?

Well, you know that comes about from a very strange coincidence which was sort of touched on in the film. But, quite a few years back, Malcolm McLaren was wanting to produce a film. A feature film about Led Zeppelin and as a result of that, he and I went and interviewed Peter Grant which is where that footage comes from. I did a huge amount of research into Led Zeppelin and Peter Grant at the time, and spoke to and interviewed a lot of the people who were involved with their success. I didn’t interview Johnny Bindon, but he was a key figure. Johnny Bindon was a kind of very violent criminal. In London. Very good looking. He became an actor for a while. Had amazing sexual legends built around him involving royalty and all kinds of things, and was part of a kind of fashionable gangster scene. The craze and all the rest of it. The London gangster scene.

Sort of became fashionable because people went to all their clubs, and hung out with them, and David Bailey photographed them and all that. So there was a kind of a zeitgeist about gangsterism. There’s an incredibly good book written about it called Jumping Jack Flash which came out two years ago. Bindon became one of the agents for Led Zeppelin and famously beat up somebody so badly on one of their tours that was hospitalized. He was a very mean individual.

The whole association with Led Zeppelin was very much gangsterish because of Peter Grant and his associates who had those stories and so on. So that was a kind of one aspect, and also a lot of the management were fairly crooked in London at that time. There’s a bit of a gay mafia and all the rest of it, so part of the folklore of that period of British rock and roll is very gangsterish, and very much part of the story.

Whenever I think about gangsters and British rock I think of the movie Performance. When you’re filming conversations in the moment, are you saying in your head “this is filmic?”

Not consciously, no. I accept it as being part of the fabric, actually. I try to make everything filmic anyway, so I’m always trying to get as far away from any kind of documentary feel. I like things to have a live element to it.

I loved Peter Grant’s Gene Vincent story. In the Beatles Anthology, George Harrison tells a similar one. What did Gene Vincent mean to young British rock and roller’s that everyone’s got a story about them?

Oh, because he was there, he was around. A little bit like the stories about everyone remembers Big Bill Broonzy and everyone remembers Sister Rosetta Thorpe. Main reason for that is they were a part of a very small group of musicians who were allowed to visit the UK during the Musician’s Union ban on touring. We were basically deprived of a lot of American musicians after the war, and the only reason Broonzy got in and Sister Rosetta Thorpe, was folk musicians were allowed in as opposed to, say, Louis Armstrong.

They all came in as folk singers even though they weren’t. I mean Broonzy was a fully-fledged Chicago blues musician and so was Sister Rosetta Thorpe. But everybody knows that. Anybody that was anybody around at that time would know those names. And Gene Vincent has become a kind of UK legend.

Do you see Ronnie as a very varied painter?

I wanted to capture a certain aspect of his art which was the line drawing. When we first started talking, I looked at all his art books. He does huge canvases with a lot of color, featuring the Rolling Stones, et cetera, et cetera. I was less interested in those. Those sell for a lot of money apparently and people really like them.

But when I saw his line drawing, his very quick drawings. Line drawing is very, very important. Sketching is very important in the same way that when you hear a very basic demo from a musician, there’s a certain truth about that. Then you can produce it and over produce it, and you can make it super sophisticated. I was interested in the bit that leads up to the way that he started producing. I wanted to set up situations where I would just see his line drawing. His ability to control lines, that was amazing.

Then physically watching him do that is fascinating. I love filming people playing their musical instruments. There’s a certain truth about that, they get into their thing. And watching him draw I thought was fascinating. His concentration, absolute. Even in the interview with Damian Hirst. He’s so focused on what he’s doing that he doesn’t really pay much attention to Damian Hirst. Sort of answers the question. He doesn’t pick up on any of the jokes. Because he’s really focused on what he’s doing.

Watching his live stuff, Wood is a different person. While he’s playing guitar, you see him and Keith joking around.

I think that has something to do with the eye. Because I think it’s about blues guitar. You can see the finger memory is really, really strong so I mean in that early footage he’s smoking at the same time, right? He’s smoking, joking around, getting to the microphone, late usually, for the backup vocals. And moving around and having a great time. He doesn’t have to look at the guitar to do that. However, if you are drawing something, either you make that contact with your eye, so creating the triangle between the subject, the canvas, and your eye. And you’re quite right. Radically different body language, and that’s interesting. There are two physical sides of him demonstrated on film, which you don’t really have to explain. There it is.

Is Somebody Up There Like Me a flip side to Leaving Las Vegas?

Maybe. You know, people have had a life, have had experience and come through darkness and coming to light and so on. For me, it just becomes 10 times more interesting than people who’ve just had a nice life and behaved well. Look a little puzzled that they’re not sort of 70 or something because it’s all been quite peaceful, you know? So there’s a kind of turbulence there which I think he says quite well when he says, “I see a fork in a road I take it.”

Like he says, “I would do it with my eyes more open now if I did it again.” I kind of admired that. It’s not like me. I’m much more protective. But I also loved the way he talked about the drugs. He talked about, “I would never get to the point of losing control because I always knew.” Because he’s very ambitious. “I always knew where I had to be next and I never wanted to be at the place where I couldn’t control where I wanted to be.” I’m sure there were a few exceptions to that, but in general, that was quite truthful.

You’re known as a very experimental filmmaker and I was wondering how you keep coming up with different ways to look through the camera?

I got sort of bored with 35mm and started going back to 16mm and then when video got more interesting, looking at video. Then as video got smaller and XLR happened, that radically changed the possibilities. Then as the world changes, like with at the beginning of this conversation we talked about the coronavirus effect. And how the Timecode principle, how that then ties in with what is possible in terms of filmmaking, really.

When you were making Timecode, did you know that you were predicting pandemic filmmaking?

No, although looking back I can think where it’d be really useful now.

The Rolling Stones streamed their performance early in the pandemic, is this the future of entertainment and is it an imposition?

I think in a way it is. Obviously at some point we will get coronavirus under some kind of control. But there are dire predictions about what’s coming next in terms of the unleashing of the demons that come through global warming, et cetera, et cetera.

On the one hand, maybe these variations of these conditions will continue well into the future. But I think even if it was just coronavirus, I’m talking about making films with various people right now, it’s almost like unless you actually acknowledge the world as it is today and has been for the last six months, any film that you make is going to have an air of unreality about it because this is quite definitely a global reality now. The way we’re communicating now and so forth.

I’m doing a masterclass in London at the film school next week and I’m going to be talking just about that to young filmmakers. The best ways to go about making films now.

As a jazz musician, what did you make of Jagger’s classification of jazz from back then?

It was pretty accurate, actually. I’d done the blues documentary with Martin Scorsese, the history of the British Blues, Red, White, and Blues. So, I covered that period and I was fascinated by that unique British period anyway, which is why in a way Marty and I got on so well too was because unlike America, the post war British music scene was heavily into traditional jazz and then bebop. Then folk music, and skiffle, and all those things. They all combined. If you talk to anybody, Eric Clapton, anybody, they’ll all make the same references. Big Bill Broonzy and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and then Woody Guthrie, and so kind of everybody was listening to all those influences and people were coming out of traditional jazz and then making quite dynamic decisions about this, that, and the other.

But the Trad boom was, the commercial aspect of the British jazz movement was very commercial, and immediately commercialized. There are some great musicians, but not the hippest genre in the world, so Jagger’s commented quite rightly if you want to be a young, sexy, happening musician, you’re not going to base your style on your grandfather’s taste and the rest of it. It was a kind of nice point of view. I loved it when he said, “I like the MJQ because of the way they looked and the way they played. I’m not sure I was crazy about the music or something like that.”

And I loved that he said, “We can be like that or we can be something different.” I love that moment in the film where you actually suddenly see the Stones kind of go, “Yep.” That’s pretty different from those two choices. That was, you’re creating a new genre there. And I have to say, my respect for the Rolling Stones went very, very high in making this documentary. I always like the Stones. I preferred more basically a blues band and I was listening to a lot more complicated pop musicians and jazz musicians.

I read that you’re doing a K-drama about the #MeToo movement. Would that be in the K-pop industry?

Yeah, I became interested in Korean film of course like most filmmakers. And then on an impulse, two and a half years ago, I bought a ticket to Seoul and I went and stayed there for three or four weeks, and just went around meeting people and just trying to get a handle on their film scene, initially. Then, I kind of got hooked on K-dramas as well and started to meet the actors. That’s turned into a project that’s been in development for about a year now. It’s going really, really well, but coming up with this series of scenarios. Sort of loosely around the #MeToo movement, really but just to do with the Korean social pop entertainment scene. And that’s what that was there.

I didn’t know that the Stones had originally thought about asking Ron Wood to replace Brian Jones. As a musician, you said they stuck to their guns. Do you think that would have been more true had they skipped over Mick Taylor and gone straight to Ronnie Wood?

It was interesting because that period, because obviously Jagger comes from a very much blues background. But by that time he was a megastar and the Stones were very much “Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones.” He was making movies, he was hanging out at the clubs, he was the hip guy. So obviously his horizons were expanding and he said that having Mick Taylor in the band really expanded his horizons as a songwriter because the voicings that Mick Taylor used. Mick did incredibly lyrical runs as the guitarist. Not a straight down the line blues player by any stretch of the imagination. A great blues player, but that’s not all he did.

So, I can imagine at that period, it would have been totally understandable if they’d continued to go in a different direction. I think what happened when Mick Taylor walked out, there was a kind of obvious cause of action to go to Ronnie. That probably then put Keith in a more comfortable zone in terms of the two-guitar thing because I would imagine that with Mick Taylor in the band, Keith’s role must have been definitely not so much the two-guitar thing because they are functioning at different levels. Probably in a way, back to a kind of grassroots level by bringing Ronnie back in.

Also, he looks like them. They were like brothers at that point. There’s a kind of a, suddenly a cohesiveness to the band as a band in a different way. Mick had a wider range in terms of songwriting and performance. A different way to go, but I think he was more than happy to go back into the kind of grassroots journey that they’d been on.

It’s very interesting how one musician can radically alter the destiny of the band, the longest lasting band in rock and roll history basically now.

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Ronnie Wood: Somebody Up There Likes Me will be available as a Virtual Cinema release at www.ronniewoodmovie.com starting Sept. 18 running through October. It will be released on DVD, Blu-ray and deluxe hardback book release on October 9.

The post Director Mike Figgis Talks Trading Licks with Ronnie Wood appeared first on Den of Geek.

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assless-chapstick · 5 years

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Adult Entertainment au Rambling

Dutch actually started Dutch's Boys as a tax loophole for a different, failing business venture... but then he had to start making actual porn to keep up the facade and realized like .... hey I'm actually making more money from my dumb porn than I am from my other business

and that's why their brand is like "weird chaotic vibes" because the first film they did was just something Dutch banged out at 3am, fucked up on Adderall and vodka, and they just.... rolled with it

The business got a lot more legitimate after Hosea, a retired actor, joins up...

Arthur'd been scouted at a gay club he tended bar at and it was just like, a cold hire. He'd figured why not, a couple hours for a few hundred bucks, just something to do on a Tuesday night. Three years later he's won 3 GayVN awards and been in over 75 films. DBs runs an online poll every year before FuckMania and Arthur always comes out in the top 3. For him it's mostly just a job; he likes it fine, but doesn't love it like John does. It pays well and he's good at it and the hours are flexible which affords him a lot of time to work on his art - he does freelance botanical illustration, mostly. He has a cat named Meatball and his only regret is that being in porn makes dating really hard.

Dutch had picked John up at that same gay club where John had been working as stripper, gogo dancer, and occasional male escort; he'd jumped at the chance to leave that behind and become a Real Actual Porn Star. He started out under the pseudonym Jim Milton but later decided to just go by his legal name - he likes the fame, and lives for those rare moments when he's ordering a iced coffee at Starbucks and they ask his name and he says Johnny Marston and they blush. He's the top-earning twink at Dutch's Boys and really leans into the whole "bratty bottom" thing. He identifies his sexuality as hedonist and while he can get bored with work sometimes, he loves getting fucked. He's starting to do some writing and directing of his own, and his favorite scenes to shoot are facials cuz he loves the camera attention ...

Charles'd signed up on a whim to make some extra cash to put himself through dentistry school... he's kinky to begin with and there's a lot of autonomy in DBs (being an indie studio has its advantages) so he does a lot of the more hardcore fetishy scenes ... his favourite scenes to do are bondage, and he actually does a lot of the ropework and rigging... he (along with Hosea) is the one that makes sure everyone stays hydrated.... he's started seeing a girl casually, but she doesn't know about what he does and he's not sure how to bring it up ...

Javier's actually been in the industry for a couple years.... he did mainstream porn before he transitioned but quit once being on T started to affect the jobs he was getting. He did a bit of cam work before joining up with DBs. He finds the indie porn atmosphere to be more open minded and wholesome and he really likes working with Dutch and the gang. Part of his storyline is that he's Dutch's long-lost son from an alternate dimension and secretly, Javier loves doing scenes with Dutch because he has a big ol' Daddy kink. In his spare time, Javier streams Overwatch on Twitch and is working on a spanish-language indie-folk acoustic album

Bill Williamson (not his real name) also comes from mainstream porn and while he's on the Dutch's Boys roster, you'll still see him doing mainstream porn titles. He claims he's strictly Gay for Pay, and his specialties are eating ass and giving facials... he... he has a lot of cum to spare... his premiere title was Dutch's Boys Present Bill Williamson in That's Why His Balls Are So Big; They're Full of Secrets (and Cum) a porn homage to Mean Girls. He's the only one who can consistenly out-cum John's remarkable ability to swallow...

Mary Beth got hired on as a secretary/HR manager/assistant to the director/screen writer after her attempt to turn her erotic fanfiction into a book series fell through. Originally she was just hired on as an assistant to help with scheduling and bookings and shit, but Dutch found our about her fanfiction and started letting her write. Now she's written some of their best-selling scenes and titles because of the intimacy and genuine tenderness she instills in her writing. Her favourites to work with are Arthur and Charles, even though she loves all the boys, because they take direction best. The boys love her cuz she's thoughtful and kind and is always making sure they take breaks and keeps the staff fridge stocked with Gatorade and that weird kombucha drink Arthur likes. she lives with her mum, who's sick, and she's usually able to be home during the day with her thanks to the flexible hours.

#adult entertainment industry au

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tearasshouse · 3 years

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Mostly vidya ramblings pt 3C

Previous post here.

Right, software time. A cursory glance at my PSN Profile will show that I’ve met my personal quota of getting the platinum in at least 10 PlayStation titles over the year, with a few PC titles sprinkled in for good measure since hey, I have access to a Windows machine again (though it’s not exactly a games machine, unless your definition of a “gaming rig” is something with a 15W Core i3 and modest laptop Radeon graphics). While I didn’t start out meaning to rank these games, I find I have a tendency to do so anyway and while I’m certainly not saying these games are outright bad, they were absolutely lower on the rung, so I’ve dubbed this part “C” (again, no disrespect to the devs or any who rate these games higher than I do; these are just my personal assessments). These are OK games.

The Darkness 2 (Steam)

Enjoyable, somewhat! I put this down like, ages ago when I picked it up for a song on PC, feeling it was too basic and uh “console shootery” at the time. Often times, having restrictions placed upon something can net great results, and hamstrung as I am by my less-capable hardware, I’ve only been picking up Steam games that could run on lower end hardware, or anything released prior to say, 2015. Surprisingly this runs at something stupid like 200 FPS on my machine with V-Sync off and all settings on High at 1080p, so go figure. Anyway, it’s a short and enjoyable shooter. I don’t know anything about the comics upon which the game(s) are based, but Jackie is a likeable character, the Darkness powers are fun enough, the locations are varied, the supporting cast surprisingly interesting and the plot was actually pretty cool too, with a major sequel hook that we’ll probably never get.

Ori & The Blind Forest (Steam)

It sorta hovers a bit below 60fps while running at 1080p, but it’s all just a bit reductive when one spends more time looking at the framerate counter than playing a game, no? The blessing and curse of PC gaming I suppose. Anyway, as a Metroidvania the game is a bit annoying. As a piece of interactive fiction, it’s too saccharine and feels like a B-tier Dreamworks production for children which, I suppose shouldn’t be a knock against the game but I have to say -- wasn’t my cup of tea. Reminds me a bit of Child of Light by Ubisoft -- gorgeous to look at, benign if not frustrating to play (those escape sequences can piss off), and young gamers would probably find more to like in the...emotional tidbits than most adults.

Crysis 2 (Steam)

So apparently this got delisted off Steam but now it’s back up or something with EA deciding to put their back catalog on the platform or something? Anyway, like this list implies, Crysis 2 is an okay game, nothing more and nothing less. The nanosuit energy depletes a bit too quick for my liking, and you’re really made to feel like a badass only some of the times, in quick and short bursts, not unlike BJ in the new Wolfenstein games by MachineGames (any more prolonged exposure to hitscan weapons and other bullshit will quickly send you to the loading screen). Thing is, I don’t want to feel like a badass only some of the time? I mean, you put a ripped supersoldier type doing the Badass Looking Back At the Viewer Pose on the cover and I expect to be able to do certain things without stopping for a breather every 20 seconds, ya know? If you’re going to give me the power fantasy, commit to it. Or, find ways to keep the flow up and reward mastery to make players earn said fantasy (something the new DOOMs have done and why those have been so successful). I certainly don’t envy game devs for having to balance this shit, but id Software showed you one way of how you might do that while the Crysis games and those of their ilk just feel slow and unrewarding.

Quantum Break (Steam)

Really surprised I was able to get this running on my PC but hey, it runs on the Xbox One so how hard could it be? I dearly love Remedy’s games, even if they’re a bit straightforward at times and you get the feeling they’d rather be in the business of non-interactive fiction than games making at times. Well here is a TV show hybrid! Made exclusively in partnership with Microsoft as part of their TV & STREAMING, TV & STREAMING, SPORTS & STREAMING strategy of the 2010s. I didn’t care for the plot, nor the endless email / audiobook / loredumps scattered around, nor the characters, any of it. I will say the final stage with the super high tech offices was a delight (boy wouldn’t I love to live the corpo life in such beautiful, clean office environs). Lance Reddick was a treat as always. Peter “Littlefinger” Baelish shows up to do a thing. Yeah, it’s a Remedy joint through and through. 2019′s Control was such a highlight for me that I’ll take any kind of prototype-y take on it (and QB certainly feels like a rougher, worse version of Control, at least mechanically).

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs / Dear Esther: Landmark Edition (Steam)

These titles were certainly...things that I installed onto my PC and sat through... Yes. Look, I’m not one to dog on walking simulators, and I know the devs have faced tough times recently but I still feel these are acquired tastes and could be appreciably improved in too many ways to name. Of the two, Dear Esther is the one I’d rec because at least that one was quite pleasant to meander around in while Amnesia left me disappointed that I’d wasted my time, physically sick with its subpar performance and muddy graphics, flaccid with its stodgy plot and left absolutely disappointed that I’d wasted my time on such a bizarre and confusing payoff towards the end. Chinese Room, I mean this in the most constructive way possible: maybe try a different type of game next time.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (GOG)

I remember putting in some decent time into the DEMO version of RtCW’s MP mode, being amazed at the time by the particle effects, with child-me just running around the D-Day map with the flamethrower out. Anyway, years later and I finally played the SP campaign. It’s maybe better than Allied Assault’s? It feels more consistently entertaining anyway. Hell I think I like these boomer shooters better than MachineGames’ recent efforts (which isn’t saying a whole lot because I find those games just merely okay). I promise you I’m not just being a crotchety old fart.

Ys: Memories of Celceta (PS Vita)

I’d been playing through this over the spring on my Vita TV, before it bit the dust eventually and I’ve been meaning to go back and wrap up the cheevos. I was a bit lukewarm with Oath in Felghana (my first Ys), but could definitely see the appeal in the series, as boss rush games aren’t really my cup of tea (ie. it’s the journey and not the destination of say, a Souls game that is the meat for me). Definitely a game that would benefit from a 60fps refresh and cleaner graphics than what the Vita can provide. I’ve already got a copy of Ys 8 in shrink wrap and have my eyes set on emulating Ys Seven or grabbing the GOG version. A game where action is king and story or character development is secondary; I would prefer more of the latter to make this more of a JRPG and less of a “predominantly Japanese action game with superficial RPG elements”.

Catherine: Full Body (PS4)

I paid $70 for this on day one and I’ve gotta say... should’ve waited for the price drop. I’m a somewhat lapsed Atlus mark, and I still hold the original Persona 5 as my no. 1 in the PS4′s lineup (with Dragon Quest XI possibly being a tie), yet I bought this knowing it wouldn’t really be for me. Why? High difficulty in a genre I don’t play, like at all, a relatively short clear time (in itself not an issue and frankly welcome these days HOWEVER...), and a somewhat unsatisfying payoff despite being a supernatural romance thriller. I bought this as seed money for Atlus’s P.Studio/Studio Zero, in the hopes that Project Re: Fantasy will knock my socks off just like the latter day Persona games have. Because in spite of the contents not really appealing to me, it’s still supremely well made, and it’s not everyday that games like these get made, so there you go. Look, if I could go back in time and put this money towards 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, I probably would, but then the Catherine steelbook is ever so pretty...

Tearaway Unfolded (PS4)

The OG game is one of the most charming little 3D platformer/collect-a-thons out there, and as far as children’s games (or er, “games that also appeal to children”) go, more of these and less of those please (your Child of Lights and Oris). I’d go as far as to say the OG version is better than the PS4 version, though the PS4 version is also quite good. Really, if I wasn’t going for that stupid Misplaced Gopher trophy, this would probably be an easy shoe-in for the B-tier list, but I place this demotion firmly at Media.Molecule’s feet. That cheevo is cursed.

The Missing: JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories (PS4)

I’d almost forgotten about this! If that doesn’t qualify for making the C-tier list then I don’t know what else does. I only know of Swery65′s qualities through osmosis, having watched the 2BF’s legendary LP of Deadly Premonition and the gone-too-soon D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die. He’s an interesting person with interesting ideas but crucially, as a game dev, his output is just... kinda mediocre? If not outright bad? Case in point with this game. It looks and runs like garbo; it plays like garbo; the character designs are cute; the dialogue is pretty good; there is a wonderful and gradual “twist” to the main character that was super spoiled for me when people were discussing and promoting it (like, that is my bad, but also internet discourse on any kind of entertainment media is just *fucked*); there’s a lot of semi-colons in this sentence so I’ll stop here.

And the balls to charge like, what, $40+ for the game on PSN?? I’d gotten it for way less on a sale but in a day and age when $1 could buy you 3 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and MS might also throw in a curio like this in there just to fill in the gaps, it makes you wonder if these kinds of games can ever turn a profit, especially when the end product is this jank. And these are commercial goods, make no mistake, any aspirations to being an art piece or social critique notwithstanding, so that also brings to the fore the whole aspect of pricing games, relative value, production and marketing costs, blah blah.

IF you like something different, can appreciate games made on a shoestring budget with arguably bad gameplay and technical deficiencies, but has...heart? Then look no further to the output of this man. The most C-worthy of all the titles listed here.

#vidya #gaming #tech #tl;dr #long post #games #videogames #2020 in review

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turkiyeecom · 5 years

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E3 2019 in photos: Gooigi, crazy arcade machines, and a DOOM museum

"Great work!" — Plus, the National Videogame Museum returns with some of its craziest rarities yet. Sam Machkovech and Kyle Orland - Jun 16, 2019 1:00 pm UTC LOS ANGELES—If you couldn't or didn't make it to E3 2019, you're not the only one. Anecdotal evidence suggests this was the most poorly attended E3 in some time (though its organizers at the ESA insist that this E3 had only 3,000 fewer attendees than 2018's jam-packed affair), owing perhaps to Sony's no-show or the abundance of live-streamed options for enjoying the event at your own home. Luigi and Gooigi attracted hordes of attendees excited to pose for photos. Sam Machkovech Inside the Luigi's Mansion 3 booth, fans could pose with a guy in a Luigi costume. Nintendo went all-out building a haunted house for these kiosks, but my photos of it turned out terribly. It was easier to get photos of the toy dioramas built around the Link's Awakening gameplay kiosks. Nintendo built four of them in all. A closer zoom on the plastic minis Nintendo built just for this occasion. Link delves into a dungeon. "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" "Wrong series, dude." I'll admit, I kinda lost my mind seeing this adorable Link and Marin meet-cute diorama. Marin in Smash Bros. Ultimate? A guy can dream, right? The EA Play event at the Hollywood Palladium included this impressive cast of paid Apex Legends cosplayers. Yes, the person cosplaying as Octane is a bilateral amputee. You couldn't buy these impressive 10" Apex Legends statues at EA Play. But you could buy a ton of shirts and hoodies. As an Apex Legends fan, Ars's Sam Machkovech nearly bought the "bamboozled" one. For some reason, EA Play hosted an Anthem gameplay session... and for some reason, attendees actually waited for it. FIFA '20 hosted an arena-soccer match. The McLaren Senna features in the new LEGO Speed expansion pack for Forza Horizon 4, so naturally, Microsoft had someone make a life-sized McLaren Serra model out of LEGO bricks. They went to pretty insane trouble to include significant elements from the real deal. Real wheels, real LEGO blocks. This refreshed version of the Xbox Elite Controller (dubbed "version 2") will launch in November for $180 and features such perks as a rechargeable battery, a controller-charging case, increased hair-trigger responsiveness, and more. We couldn't test the new XEC with any games, but its newly texturized grip and significant heft felt good to hold on its own. C'mon, Xbox, you think we're gonna steal this thing? How dare you. Say hello to one of Gears 5's newest, most disgusting monsters. It's not a Gears of War character if it doesn't have chest-high cover nearby. The best thing about Gears 5's new "Escape" mode is that it supports three-player split-screen co-op. More of this kinda thing, please, Xbox Game Studios. The newest LEGO Star Wars release this coming holiday season revolves around the "Skywalker Saga," so naturally, it's time to trot out the old LEGO Han in LEGO carbonite statue again. Coach's Pac-Man line of bags and accessories. For the discerning, fancypants gamer. More Pac-Man and classic-Namco swag. Pretty solid 10" Tekken statues. The entire Bandai Namco fancy-collectible wall was pretty great, honestly. I couldn't take photos of the Final Fantasy VII Remake gameplay kiosks, but I could take photos of the series' Shinra Corporation stuff all around it. For example, this recreation of an iconic FFVII backdrop. Square Enix put up a few Shinra advertisements around the kiosks. See? They have Midgar's best interests at heart! I really hope there's a full cartoon series hidden inside of FFVII Remake starring this cartoon dog. Someone please translate this for us. A small detail of the amazing theater room for Psychonauts 2. TEETH! Arcade1UP had a significant E3 presence with its home-friendly versions of classic arcade machines. The manufacturer used E3 to reveal its newest product: a Star Wars Atari arcade trilogy collection, coming "late 2019." Another look at its handsome side cabinet art. I had to stand on a stool to get a better look at the screen and controller. Because this cabinet was set up on a precarious platform, it was not playable at E3. An Arcade1UP representative said it collaborated with Disney and Lucasfilm in the making of this cabinet, then studied original classic arcade hardware to recreate the controller. Rather than answer my technical questions about how the controller was constructed in this modern version, the Arcade1UP rep insisted that it sought input from arcade cabinet collectors to confirm that its version nailed the original cabinets' feel and mechanical action. Another new Arcade1UP cabinet: the TMNT collection, which includes both of Konami's four-player brawlers in one cabinet. (Most of their cabs include at least two games, if not a few more.) It seems to comfortably support four players, but I liked this group's tweak: letting the middle player simultaneously control two turtles. Then there was this absolutely ridiculous thing that Arcade1UP built for the heckuvit. That's intrepid Ars Technica editor Sam Machkovech up there pretending to play the game. I hope the hand on the joystick makes clear how stupidly massive this whole rig was. But it worked... and Sam won his match. Really, Sam? Be professional. Sega's booth had its own oversized-controller gimmick to celebrate the impending launch of the Sega Genesis Mini this September. It's not really E3 until Ubisoft has a stage full of professional dancers and average fans getting down to Just Dance as one awkward collective. A peek at the poster-covered walls inside of Cyberpunk 2077's behind-closed-doors booth. Capcom had a relatively meager showing at E3, with this new Monster Hunter World expansion taking up most of the company's booth. But, hey, at least they had some nice 10" dragons under glass. Hold me closer, tiny draaaagonnnnns. Sorry, Street Fighter fans. Capcom didn't come to E3 2019 with any news about either SFV or any new fighting games. Just 10" figurines. Chun-Li and Cammy, kicking ass beneath glass. Larger than life. Just like Borderlands should be. Kyle Orland This was by far the best part of the Destroy All Humans revival attempt. Kyle Orland Pixl Cube was one of the more inventive games at the Indiecade booth, a tilt-sensitive box with LED dots that moved through a maze as if pulled by gravity. Kyle Orland In the entryway for Youtube Gaming's creator space, blocks from the show floor, a Google Stadia controller sits behind glass with a mock-up of a retro game store. Kyle Orland The YouTube Gaming space also featured some streamers on old-school CRT TVs, which was a weird look. Kyle Orland Cute. Kyle Orland The YouTube Gaming logo sits on a fake cartridge alongside... Hyper Chroma Ultra? Kyle Orland Nothing says "E3" like a guy in a Yoshi/Mario costume livestreaming himself as he balks loudly at the show floor's $6 pretzels. Kyle Orland New Wave Toys is expanding its Replicade line of authentic miniature cabinets with the likes of these two Capcom classics. Kyle Orland MyArcade is expanding from miniature cabinets to massive portable systems capable of playing actual NES and SNES cartridges. Kyle Orland MyArcade's upcoming Contra cabinet even includes link cable support for two player action. Don't you DARE touch this actual Contra cabinet in the MyArcade booth, though. Kyle Orland That being said, we attended, and Ars Technica came back from Los Angeles with plenty to show for it. In addition to a few more hands-on previews coming (which will build upon the best-of E3 2019 list we already filed), we took our cameras out at both the official E3 halls and nearby events (Xbox Fan Fest, EA Play). I gotta say, in this modern political climate, I have been calling every year "the year of doom." A very nice pencil sketch taken from the original PC game's box art. I'd never seen these minis before, but now I want to play DOOM-opoly. A better zoom on these metal beasts. Collect me plenty. Now for some impressive 3D molds of famed DOOM demons. See? It's like a museum. Funnily enough, this is my "I don't know what to do with my hands" pose when I stand for photos. The secret for awkward photo poses: turn your arms into massive rocket launchers. Way less awkward! As one of DOOM 64's longtime fans, I stood at this specific panel for a while. This might be the least-blurry these N64 sprites have ever looked. (The N64 famously smothered its sprites in a disgusting, smeary blur.) More figurines on display. More figurines on display. More swag on display. More swag on display. The result is a whopping three image galleries here. The first is a catch-all for most of the basic, expected fare, while the second and third focus on retro elements: a DOOM-specific mini-museum, and a curated collection of very rare gaming hardware and collectibles courtesy of the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, Tex. (If you've never been to that physical location before, we strongly encourage you to book a trip.) You know the retro portion of E3 is serious when they put this thing behind a rope. Truly one of a kind. Click the image to get a better look at the information placard. Yep, those are traditional Saturn controller ports. We'd never seen these Vectrex prototypes and variants before. The innards of a prototype color Vectrex system that never saw production. Kyle Orland Anybody think they can repair this thing? Yes, the only scoring cart that remains from this Super Nintendo championship event. Also, a killer Vectrex jacket. How the heck does the NVM keep finding and showing off such incredible game-history rarities? Some cool mementos from the original Mortal Kombat. The placard explains how rare this system is... ... based on this specific message signed by none other than Bill Gates. I don't care how puffy this jacket is. I'd wear it. Every year, the National Video Game Museum trots out at least one previously confidential binder taken from a major gaming company. This year's was Nintendo. I'm always fascinated by internal '80s and '90s documentation about piracy and cartridge backup systems. This section went on for a few more pages and even included grainy photos of various cartridge-copying devices. Video games: the board game! Video games: the, uh, VHS game! Well before the Game Boy revolutionized portable gaming, kids of the '70s and '80s were stuck with these clunkers. One wall was dedicated to particularly rare game consoles that launched solely in Japan. Eat your heart out, Donkey Konga. This is one of Gunpei Yokoi's classic electronic games that he designed for Nintendo in the '70s. This makes me wish Ulala was in an actual '80s cartoon. Kyle Orland In addition to popular and common fare in the coin-op section, the NVM trotted out a few machines we rarely see at classic gaming expos, like this fetching Jungle King cab. True story: we asked Double Fine studio founder and creative director Tim Schafer if he could step back for a second so we could take a photo of this handsome Omega Race cabinet. "I used to play this game all the time as a kid," he remarked before stepping away slowly. (If you're wondering, he signs his name "TIM" in high-score tables.) And we couldn't leave E3 without a walk through the almost carnival-like selection of vendors and inventions in the expo's very back hall. Look below at the show's weird "et cetera" section. Here's a gallery of E3 2019's oddest booths and products. "Wow, how nice and COOL!" we're sure you are saying to yourself. Kyle Orland Thermoreal uses superconductors (?!) to simulate a cold or hot feeling in metal. The company integrated this tech into VR-compatible gloves and a VR headset. As the VR environment changes, so does the sensation of real-life temperature. Trippy! Kyle Orland This 1,000 MaH battery pack for the Switch was heavy, but the harness made it pretty easy to slide on and off to use only when it's needed. Kyle Orland Some extremely generic-looking custom chip boards for use in mini-arcade devices and portable emulation devices. If anybody reading this has the rights to the Atari Jaguar Mini, look them up. Kyle Orland Why stream games to a smartphone with Google Stadia when the Smach Z packs an entire 1080p gaming PC with a 6" screen into a rather bulky portable package? Doom (2016) ran with noticeable judders, and the unit got noticeably hot in our test. But the fact that it works at all was impressive. Kyle Orland The Tactsuit haptic system jolts your body when playing compatible VR games and software. Kyle Orland The Vuvana system has something to do with using a new blockchain cryptocurrency to buy and "own" items in virtual reality, which you can view on a cell phone with this included viewer, apparently. Kyle Orland Oversized controllers were all the rage at E3 2019, but this one went to the trouble of building in a monitor for its game, Street Fighter 2. Kyle Orland Remember the iCade Mini? Someone sure does... Kyle Orland GameBoks is just like it sounds—a wooden box that houses a monitor, power supply, and a space to hold and connect your game console. Between this and the new Atari VCS, wood paneling is apparently the hot new retro-hardware trend. Kyle Orland Proximat is being sold as a "mousepad for your virtual reality feet." It gives VR players a physical indication of their play space's center point, complete with high-grade gel for foot comfort. Kyle Orland If this is a thing you're looking for (for some reason), E3 has you covered. Kyle Orland Amazingly, a product with "360 ONE X" in its name has nothing to do with Xbox (it's a 360 degree camera designed for VR) Kyle Orland Neither vinyl nor fidget spinners are dead at E3 2019. Kyle Orland I need some quick energy after seeing all of these amazing products. It's my lucky day! Kyle Orland How do you make money selling $100 worth of stuff for $40? It's an economic miracle! Kyle Orland This balance board is mainly meant for some easy exercise while at a standing desk, but its producers were marketing it to gamers with a Mortal Kombat 11 display. Kyle Orland And the award for "most dystopian sounding slogan at E3" goes to... Kyle Orland "In the 1989 Future" is a legitimately great tagline, we have to admit. Kyle Orland Listing image by Sam Machkovech Read More Read the full article

#breakingnews #Gooigi #news #photos

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technicalillustrator · 5 years

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Annual Report 2018

For me 2018 felt like a year of ups and downs, personally and professionally. It’s been about a year since my Ten Year Review, so I thought I’d share and reflect on my experiences.

The Numbers

Last year I completed 81 projects with 28 clients, including some big names like Google, Microsoft, Air Canada, and BF Goodrich. 90% of my work was with American clients, 9% with Canadians and 1% with British. About 70% of my work was technical illustration, and 30% was editorial illustration under my alias Textbook Example.

Total sales were down slightly from 2017, but I took more personal time off and I was happy with my work/life balance.

The Hits

2018 started out slow for new projects. I used the downtime to organize my studio, redesign Textbook Example, and learn more about 3D rigging and animation in Cinema 4D. I think this was time well spent.

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A post shared by James Provost (@jamesprovost) on Jan 12, 2018 at 7:27am PST

Work eventually picked up, and I collaborated with some big names, and produced work that I’m very proud of. Unfortunately, I’m not able to share some of it due to NDAs.

Last year, I declined more projects that I wasn’t a good fit for or didn’t have time to take on, and referred them on to fellow illustrators that were more suitable or available. These colleagues also did the same for me.

In the fall, my wife and I took three weeks off to visit China and Hong Kong for our first time. It was a great experience and we met some amazing people. Highlights for me were a tour of Shanghai by sidecar, a hike of an unrestored section of the Great Wall, and cycling around the hills of Yangshuo.

I also made pasta from scratch (linguine), built new office desks (wood and black steel pipe), and bought a new motorcycle (Ducati Scrambler)!

The Misses

Many of the projects I worked on in 2018 are under non-disclosure agreements, meaning I can’t use them for self-promotion. NDAs are a fact of life in technical illustration because it often deals with confidential information, but it makes for a quiet social media stream and a stagnant portfolio.

As a result, I didn’t share my work or engage with the illustration community as much as I wanted to. I was pretty quiet on Instagram, Dribbble, Technical Illustrators.org, and this blog.

Last year one of my goals was recognition, in the form of an illustration award, but I didn’t end up entering my work into a single competition.

I was thinking of attending the ICON illustration conference in Detroit, but I sat on it and missed out. #fomo.

The Apps

Notes (iOS/Mac) was a big breakthrough for me in 2018. In January I started a list on my phone and throughout the year whenever I accomplished something, big or small, I simply made note of it.

My list started with easy wins (framed some art, organized my books & magazines, mounted a TV), but these snowballed into bigger victories (having an awesome home-studio that I love spending time in). It also got me to reframe some setbacks that I suffered into challenges that I overcame.

I think it’s natural (even beneficial) to reflect on your shortcomings or failures – you can learn a lot from them – but it can bog you down. Having a list of my growth and progress over time was a great way to reset and get motivated for the next victory.

Downcast (iOS/Mac) is my new podcast player of choice. I listen to a lot of podcasts while I work, from news to education to comedy. Downcast does it way better than iTunes. Last year I listened to about 372 episodes about economics! (shoutout to Planet Money, The Indicator, and Freakonomics)

Cineware (Mac/PC) is a plugin that allows you to place Cinema 4D scene files and work with them right inside Illustrator. You can rotate and position 3D objects, lights, and cameras, and create, edit and apply materials. I used it extensively on one project to create reference views of a Jeep.

The Year Ahead

Smarter Goals The goals in my Ten Year report weren’t SMART, so I didn’t make much progress on them. My goal for 2019 is to create better goals!

Metrics Using Google Forms, I’m going to create a daily survey to better track my hours, energy level, mood, and more. This might provide some insights into my productivity, or at least make for a more interesting “Numbers” section in next year’s annual report.

Community In 2019, to better engage with the community, I will write a post at least monthly here and on Technical Illustrators.org. I’ll also post to Instagram and Dribbble at least weekly.

New Workstation I’m still happy with my 2009 Mac Pro tower, but I’m eager to see what Apple has come up with for its new generation of modular Mac Pros.

I’d like to say a big thank you to all of my clients for your business and your trust. Also to my colleagues and friends for your support and camaraderie. And of course, to you for reading!

Original Post

#annual report #illustration #technical illustration

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cryptoquicknews-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published here https://is.gd/rY7d77

Controversial Content Creators Shift to Crypto After Censorship

This post was originally published here

A number of online crowdfunding sites and wallet providers have been embroiled in controversy after a series of high-profile account cancellations associated with alt- and far-right views. Although the move to “deplatform” those seen to be allegedly promoting hate speech has received popular support, several high-profile political commentators and libertarian media personalities consider this to constitute and unacceptable assault on free speech.

As a result, some of the online crowdfunding platform Patreon’s top content creators decided to leave the platform in favor of Bitcoin funding, each taking with them tens of thousands of dollars in monthly revenue. As the furore surrounding payment platforms and their decision to cancel controversial accounts continues, Cointelegraph takes a closer look at what role crypto plays in what is being portrayed as the latest battleground for the freedom of speech.

Rubin deletes Patreon

On Jan. 16, American political commentator Dave Rubin became the latest high-profile public figure to delete his account with the online crowdfunding platform Patreon. Rubin appeared in a live video on his YouTube channel in which he reiterated his prior support for controversial online polemicist Carl Benjamin, also known as Sargon of Akkad, stating that his account cancelation was one of the most important factors in his decision to move from Patreon to Bitcoin funding:

“The fact that this has even been going down on Patreon related to freedom of speech, it was because of them kicking off Carl Benjamin, Sargon of Akkad, who has been in this very studio. It seems so fitting that we’re going to finally do this.

“When I started talking about it everyone said you’ve got to talk to Carl Benjamin, you’ve got to talk to Sargon of Akkad. It seems sort of fitting that the first guy I talked to online about this is the one who got booted, who’s now caused me to leave this. And we’re taking control of our destiny and all that good stuff.”

Although Rubin initially found fame as a stand up comedian, he has become more widely known as an advocate for libertarian values such as freedom of speech. In spite of his claims to earn “between 60-70 percent” of his income through Patreon, Rubin said that his decision to switch to Bitcoin constituted “a stand against the ever-moving encroachment on free speech, on free expression” that he perceives to be taking place across mainstream funding platforms.

“I don’t think a normal businessman would say can I just get rid of 70 percent of my company’s revenue and we’ll see what happens. I just feel like it [Benjamin’s banning] was just enough.”

Rubin further commented on what he considers to be an orchestrated affront on liberty and a campaign of enforced censorship being carried out by tech companies:

“This seems like the next obvious step in everything that’s been going on here. I just think that at some point, us, the people, have to push back against these tech companies. You can’t keep on infringing on the freedom of expression. Yes, they can do whatever they want at private companies and there’s some issue as to whether these platforms are becoming the true public space of the future and what’s the relationship between that entity and a platform that we can all communicate on and the government.”

Rubin’s video also contained the announcement that he plans to launch his own funding platform with fellow online commentator and clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson:

“Also, the key to this whole thing is that Jordan and I are also working on a new platform. There’s a limit to the amount that I can tell you, for legal reasons. I can’t give away all the secrets and the keys to the kingdom just yet. We’re working on another platform. There are huge, huge questions in relation to how we want this platform to function. Should it be monetized through crypto, should we be doing torrent video streaming, how can it be fully protected so that we don’t have to worry about payment processors, so we don’t have to worry about tech companies taking us down? As crazy as that is, all I’m doing here is exercising free speech. I like interviewing people, I enjoy having good conversation and all these things. Jordan and I are working on that, there’s a company formed. We’re working on that. Today is step one. Step one for me is get off Patreon and let’s move everybody.”

Peterson was also among the group of content creators that vowed to leave Patreon on the grounds of free speech. In spite of reportedly earning $80,000 per month through the platform, Peterson also recently deleted his Patreon account.

Rubin first announced his intention to switch to Bitcoin in early January. Members of the crypto community responded enthusiastically to Rubin’s announcement and were quick to respond with practical advice for the transition. At time of publication, Rubin’s Bitcoin wallet has received a total of 0.8119261 BTC.

No more gifts for Gab

The controversial social media platform Gab is one of the most prominent sites to be shut down in the name of monitoring hate speech. In January, the company’s official Twitter account reported that its corporate account with the United States crypto exchange and wallet service provider Coinbase had been terminated. In early January, the merchant and personal accounts of Gab co-founder Andrew Torba were also shut down.

As predicted: the on ramps and off ramps (exchanges) are going to start censoring not only companies, but also individuals. @coinbase has now banned both Gab’s merchant account and Andrew Torba’s personal account.

Decentralized exchanges are the future. pic.twitter.com/LXkjblrdgu

— Gab.com (@getongab) January 4, 2019

Gab describes itself on its website as a “social network that champions free speech, individual liberty and the free flow of information online. All are welcome.” However, the social network quickly earned itself a more sinister reputation as an echo chamber for alt- and far-right views. Gab faced intense public scrutiny after it was revealed that Robert Gregory Bowers, the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, had reportedly laid bare his intentions to harm people via posts on the social media network prior to the crime.

Following this, mainstream funding platforms such as PayPal and Stripe terminated their relationship with the company. Bitpay, a payment processor that uses cryptocurrency, also decided that hosting the organization presented a high level of risk and would consequently no longer be able to provide their services.

The company’s latest attempt to find a platform through which to receive funding also ended in failure. On Jan. 6, Gab’s official Twitter handle tweeted that their account with Square’s Cash App had been blocked, along with the personal account of Andrew Torba. After a delay of about 20 minutes, the company published another tweet.

Yes, we know who owns Square. We realize our accounts have been blocked for unknown reasons.

Cash App is still the easiest and fastest way to buy bitcoin on a mobile device. That’s still a net positive for bitcoin and freedom in our book. They can’t ban everyone.

— Gab.com (@getongab) January 8, 2019

Media sources emphasized the role of Gab’s reputation in its lack of success in establishing a long-term relationship with a payments processor.

Throughout January, the company has taken to Twitter in a bid to assure viewers that its core values were in line with their own, presenting Bitcoin as a way of bringing about “freedom from central banks, financial censorship, and a rigged financial system.”

In recent weeks, the organization has repeatedly said that support for Bitcoin is one of the company’s three pillars — “maximalism” concerning free speech, Bitcoin and freedom, again hammering home a new style of self-promotion in an effort to distance itself from the proliferation of hate speech that brought it to the limelight:

“Unapologetic free speech maximalist. Unapologetic bitcoin maximalist. Unapologetic freedom maximalist. But I repeat myself.”

The company’s search for a funding platform continues and stated on its website that it is “the most censored, smeared, and no-platformed startup in history.”

As mainstream platforms close their doors, crypto alternatives fill the gaps in the market

Companies and individuals alike have been quick to distance themselves from the controversial social media site. However, on Jan. 5, the Bisq network appeared to promote its services in the wake of the account terminations:

“If Bitcoin allows you to “be your own bank,” Bisq allows you to “be your own exchange.” YOU run Bisq on YOUR own machine and trade Bitcoin P2P. Censorship-resistance by design, not policy. Gatekeepers have no business being in bitcoin. Let’s shun them!”

Steve Jain, a contributor to the Bisq project who focuses on communications, spoke to Cointelegraph about Gab’s banning and the move to crypto funding:

“I don’t follow Gab too closely, and I don’t use their service, but they’re very good at marketing so I usually end up seeing their headlines or tweets anyway. And I recall seeing headlines throughout the past several months about them being banned from the most major payment processors. So I don’t think they were left with a choice — Bitcoin cannot ban you. It’s a natural move for them.”

Jain also mentioned that the concern about payment platform censorship is not contained to those associated with the far-right alone, explaining that crypto is principally democratic in its design:

“Significant damage is already done. Many people (especially those who tend to stray away from mainstream politics) have known for a while that something strange was happening on the major platforms, but most such accounts were anecdotal. These recent developments are concrete realizations of many people’s suspicions that the big companies don’t necessarily operate with consistent principles. It’s not that Bitcoin won’t ban you because it’s so nice and principled — it can’t. This immutable finality is part of what Bitcoin brings to the table that no other human-managed service can ever possibly bring.”

When asked whether Bisq is looking to capitalize on disgruntled Patreon users by retweeting Gab’s account termination notice, Jain was quick to emphasize that Bisq is “more of a platform for people to exchange Bitcoin for national currencies, so there isn’t much of a way for it to directly provide help to disgruntled Patreon users.” However, Jain did not rule out the possibility of ex-Patreon service users including Bisq in their future plans to build a more democratic payment platform:

“I have, however, heard of some people looking to start Patreon alternatives powered by Bisq, where (I guess) Bisq would act as a tool to exchange dollars for Bitcoin that cannot be censored. Recently we’ve made some great progress on the Bisq API, and I (for one) would love to see Bisq power such services.”

In spite of the circumstances in which websites like Gab and individuals such as Sargon of Akkad are turning to cryptocurrency funding because they have no choice, Jain maintains that this does not compromise the core principles of cryptocurrencies themselves:

“Peer-to-peer trading is merely the digital equivalent of you and I trading Bitcoin for USD in person. You bring the Bitcoin, and I bring the USD. We trade. Face-to-face, peer-to-peer. It doesn’t matter who you are, and it doesn’t matter who I am. All that matters is that we each hold up our ends of the deal. No BS. If that’s not ethical, I don’t know what is!

“I would argue it’s the introduction of third parties that adds all kinds of complications and stipulations and liabilities and ethical considerations.”

U.K. far-right feels the squeeze as prominent figures are stripped of funding

The United Kingdom has also witnessed a number of account terminations connected to the far-right, with banned individuals turning to crypto as a last resort. On Jan. 17, YouTube demonetized the account of U.K.-based far-right extremist Tommy Robinson after alleged breaches of the site’s advertising guidelines. The YouTube clampdown on the founder of the English Defence League, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is the latest in a series of bans for the activist, brought about by pressure put on crowdfunding companies by members of the public.

Robinson has also faced bans on a number of other platforms, including both Twitter and PayPal. The far-right activist’s PayPal account was terminated in November after the company stated that they “do not allow PayPal services to be used to promote hate, violence, or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.” Robinson’s ban was preceded by an online petition to remove him from the platform that gathered thousands of signatures, drawing attention to his past actions of “stirring up racist violence with online content.” As Robinson’s options for fundraising via traditional platforms are being removed one by one, the activist has turned to crypto in a last-ditch attempt to secure funding for his controversial activities.

Around the time of his arrest and imprisonment for contempt of court in 2018, Robinson received around 20,000 British pounds (roughly $25,777) in Bitcoin, including a donation of 5,500 pounds (~$7,088) on the day of his detention. The success of Robinson’s online fundraising has sparked a series of copycat activists, all of whom proclaim to be defenders of the freedom of speech and encourage supporters to donate to their cause.

U.K.-based commentator on far-right politics Mike Stuchbery spoke to Cointelegraph about the tendency for far-right groups to shift to crypto after mainstream funding platforms terminate their accounts:

“Far Right groups are slowly having their sources of income taken from them as activists target payment processors such as PayPal and Stripe, rather than calling for the banning of groups in their totality. Far Right groups are also finding themselves ‘deplatformed’ from mainstream social media and video platforms. They are, therefore, either creating their own alternatives to these platforms – Gab, Minds, Bitchute – or are looking at other, decentralized alternatives to disseminating their ideas.”

Stuchbery commented that while the arrest and jailing of Tommy Robinson acted as a catalyst for the shift to Bitcoin, the circumstances created a reputational crisis for crypto funding in general:

“The jailing of ‘Tommy Robinson’ saw cryptocurrencies being considered a viable alternative to normal banking for the first time. Over the space of a few days, mainstream media reported ‘Tommy’ receiving thousands of pounds worth of Bitcoin to his official wallet, and more sent to others collecting in his name.The tone of the reporting did seem to be negative in approach – somehow implying the criminality of cryptocurrency transactions, a stigma that still exists.”

In contrast to the Libertarian free-speech rhetoric of individuals such as Dave Rubin and Dr. Jordan Peterson, Stuchbery believes that companies can and should exercise the ability to ban accounts for the promotion of hate speech:

“Platforms can exercise free speech without legitimizing hate speech by being clear and transparent in explaining why they chose to remove somebody from a service, clearing linking it to a violation of the Terms of Service. They can also regularly survey or gather users together to discuss their Terms of Service and answer questions from the community relating to their policies.

“I’m reluctant to call for the blanket banning of those who engage in hate speech on social media – not only does it set a problematic precedent, but as we have seen, the Far Right is able to skillfully turn such calls into a Free Speech debate.

“That said, ‘deplatforming’ does work – look at what’s happened to Richard Spencer and Alex Jones. Their reach has been totally curtailed by their removal from social media platforms and has resulted in the tempering of their rhetoric as they seek a return.”

Wikileaks’ financial bottleneck

Far-right and libertarian organizations are not the only groups on the political spectrum that found themselves out in the cold after losing favor with Coinbase. On April 20, the merchandising branch of anonymous international publishing nonprofit Wikileaks, Wikileaks Shop, reported via Twitter that their Coinbase account had been blocked.

The tweet portrays an alleged email screen grab from the U.S wallet provider stating that the organization was in contradiction to their Terms of Service.

Following the cancellation, Wikileaks called for a “global blockade of Coinbase,” stating that it is an unfit member of the crypto community and encouraged supporters to donate via Bitcoin. The organization also hinted at its belief that the action was officially sanctioned by an unnamed authority.

In spite of Wikileaks Shop’s struggle with Coinbase, Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange, publicly thanked the U.S. government for forcing the organization into using Bitcoin as its primary source of income, resulting in a 50,000 percent return. As a result, the organization is now openly bullish on cryptocurrencies, accepting Litecoin, Monero and ZCash alongside Bitcoin for donations.

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superfamigos · 7 years

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Sam’s GDC Recap: Day 2

All right, here we are to review Day 2 of GDC, Tuesday February 28. Today was another day chock full of talks. I was on a Summits, Tutorials, and Bootcamps pass, which primarily take place Monday-Tuesday, so I was trying to make the most of the talks I could get to. I still did have a little discretionary time, and met a few nice people. Let’s get into it.

(And check it out! It me! Photo courtesy of Tim Rogers’ Twitter.)

Failure Workshop

Speakers: Michael Molinari, Adriaan de Jongh, Tim Rogers

Overview:

Michael Molinari talked about his interactive Twitch game CityStream

A city building game that combines elements of idle games, Twitch Plays, and realtime DMing

Reasons the game didn't do well included:

Paid content was permanent, so no reason to keep buying

Had to work double shifts to run the game live (more on this in Details)

Got too confusing as more and more things were added

Adriaan de Jongh talked about closing down his game studio Game Oven

Discussed background of the studio and costs of keeping it open

Various struggles for the team:

They had different deep motivations (for the kinds of games they wanted to make, and how to run the studio)

Media articles often gave credit solely to Adriaan, not the rest of the team

Their roles were undefined, which caused tension

Tim Rogers talked about the failure of his digital sporting good VIDEOBALL

In some sense, Videoball was not a failure, because Tim designed his own favorite game

Videoball was already super hype in 2013

Took too long to get the game out, and had a weak message (I thought the trailers were awesome though - Ed.)

Various problems that contributed to the game's failure:

Inherited the burden of a publisher's expectations (to make the game bigger and better)

Divided their work into "have-to's" and "want-to's" (which led to moving the “want-to’s” into overtime work)

Original publisher went out of business during production

The first-time game experience for new players was too difficult, and often in the wrong environment (they intentionally prioritized a player's 1000th experience over the 1st, which led to the game's appeal not being apparent at first, especially in 1v1 like many streamers and Let's Players did)

Too much stuff in the game (online play split matchmaking into ranked and unranked 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3, plus arcade mode etc.)

The menus were not perfect (e.g. confusing at some parts)

Spent much less than $1 mil promoting the game

Lessons learned from the game:

The game was great: we can make great games

Game conventions are loud and stupid: we should have shown at universities, etc.

You can't make eSports, it just happens (shouldn't have diluted matchmaking with so many modes and just had ranked 2v2, which is what the game was designed around)

We could have made a dumber game (with more identifiable characters, etc)

Gave ideas on how we can save Videoball (essentially a stripped down, ad-supported free version)

Interesting details:

CityStream was only playable in one place: the CityStream Twitch channel. Now that the game has ended, there's no way for anyone to play it.

CityStream's character BEEP, a robot who narrated the action, was actually played in real-time by the team. They watched the game every day with the players and wrote live responses, because they weren't able to come up with a good automated solution. This led to double shifts where the team worked on the game during the day, and then played the game on stream at night.

CityStream ended with a really cute event where players flew to the moon while riding atop the city they built

The business model of Game Oven was to run a company on the "long tail" of sales from many games.

It cost approximately 6500 euros per month to run Game Oven, which went to 3-4 full-time employees, contractors, and other costs.

In the end, long tail sales wasn't enough to run the company, but other sources helped them make it. In other words, Game Oven wasn't closed because they ran out of money.

Communicating your vision and your frustrations is hard, but important

Despite all the problems, Adriaan is still friends with Bojan, and he's proud of what the team accomplished together

"Videoball launched, and my life has been a garage sale ever since." - Tim Rogers

With VIDEOBALL, Tim wanted to create the Burberry scarf of video games (iconic, high-quality, premium)

When working 16-hour days at some point during development, Tim worked out that they were probably making 4.60 per hour

People have said VIDEOBALL's design style is "preschool industrial," and called the game itself "Pong for millenials" and "2D Rocket League"

Tim showed an awesome illustration by Dan Dussault of what VIDEOBALL could look like if the look was un-abstracted into armored future soldier sports

Thoughts:

Failure Workshop sounds like a pretty depressing talk, but it actually wasn't too much of a downer. I mean, I don't want to downplay it: it's hard to see the struggles people went through, and you wish they could have succeeded. And it's also scary to realize that your chances for failure as an indie dev are also very high.

Fortunately though, the speakers generally had a positive outlook. It was good to see that they could pull lessons out of their experience, and they were still at it, trying to make games. CityStream and a lot of the games from Game Oven were very unique and creative, so it was cool to see a lot of new ideas, even if all of them didn't work out. And Tim Rogers' talk in particular was one of the funniest I went to at GDC. Definitely some of the best crowd response I saw.

Links:

Failure Workshop (Video) on GDC Vault: The full talk is available for free on the GDC Vault!

Failure Workshop (Michael Molinari Slides) on GDC Vault

Failure Workshop (Adriaan de Jongh Slides) on GDC Vault

Tech Toolbox

Speakers: Michael Cook, Holden Link, Brian Williams, Cukia "Sugar" Kimani, Chris Martens, Innes McKendrick

Summary:

Michael Cook of Falmouth University showed a procedural assistance tool called Danesh

A tool designed to help you tune your procedural generation

Allows you to not only adjust parameters and see examples, but also calculate metrics

Autotuning lets you set desired output metrics rather than mess with inputs to try to get those outputs

Danesh can search your code for other potential parameters to include

Available at danesh.procjam.com

Holden Link of Turbo Button showed off Tbutt, a wrapper for VR SDKs in Unity

Makes it really easy to compile builds for different VR platforms

Helpful for testing a project for a specific platform on whatever VR rig you have handy

For example, rather than compiling a build to load onto mobile for Google Daydream or Cardboard, the Turbo Button team can just flip a switch to test what they're working on with the Vive on their desk

Available at github.com/turbobutton/tbutt-vr-framework

Brian Williams of Spry Fox demoed Dark Config, a tool that allows real-time changes while the game is running by hotloading config files

You can define level attributes in config files and change those files on the fly, and the game will update instantly while running

This allows much faster iteration and proofing out new ideas using new combinations of existing assets

Uses YAML for the config files

Works with Unity or any other C# project

Available at github.com/spryfox/DarkConfig

Cukia "Sugar" Kimani talked about using Bezier curves to animate rectangles

From Johannesburg, South Africa, working in a studio called Nyamakop on Semblance

Talked about animating the main character, a little blobby dude, by deforming a rectangle using Bezier curves

(Wasn't able to get down many details, but it looked pretty neat)

Is winning the email game with an address that starts with "holla@yourboy" haha

Chris Martens showed Ceptre, or TinkerTool for rulesets

It's a small prototyping language for rulesets and logic stuff in board and video games

Could be helpful for testing resource economies (like Minecraft crafting), procedural generation (like Spelunky) or interactive fiction

Available at github.com/chrisamaphone/interactive-lp

Innes McKendrick from Hello Games talked about the texture generation in No Man's Sky

Their goals were to create variety, allow for runtime generation, and amplify the work of a small art team

They mix and match different layers and elements (base color, stripes/spots, hair, etc.) of individual textures created by an artist

Wrote a photoshop script to export color maps and metadata

For better color control, don't work in RGB (they use HSV)

The game loads in artist data, then combines and recolors in the shader, and finally generates a mipmap

They also wrote tools that let artists see lots of examples generated from their work, so they can make tweaks

Thoughts:

There were some very interesting tools in here. I was particularly into TButt, as it seems like it would be very useful for friends of mine that work on VR games in Unity. Danesh and Dark Config also seemed very useful, and using Bezier curves as an animation tool was interesting too.

Links:

Tech Toolbox (Video) on GDC Vault: Available for free!

Tech Toolbox (DarkConfig Slides) on GDC Vault

Tech Toolbox (Rectangles Slides) on GDC Vault

(The links to each tool are included in the summary notes, if provided.)

Lunch break!

After the Tech Toolbox talk, I got to talking with the guy next to me, Austin. He's a really friendly grad student from University of Michigan who co-teaches the only game development-related class at the school. He invited me to grab lunch with him and some friends, which included his game dev co-teacher Kurt, some grad students from Carnegie Mellon, and Rodrigo, an audio engineer and developer from WayForward. We went to Mel's Diner for lunch (where I got a old-school syrupy strawberry lemonade and a few very juicy, red-to-the-point-of-being-disconcerting sliders), and had a pretty fun time talking about Undertale, Splatoon, the Switch, etc. While Rodrigo and I were talking, I was excited to be able to tell him about Thumper, which he hadn’t heard of yet. If you're out there Rodrigo, hope you checked it out! Let me know what you think!

Unfortunately, lunch went a bit longer than I expected and I missed a talk by Matt Thorson (creator of Towerfall) about the level design for Celeste. Instead, I wandered around a bit in Moscone West until the next talks started, and ended up talking to Josh and Marcos, two Aggies who are currently working as generalists in the games industry (at Flying Car Games, I think?).

Finding ‘Duskers’: Innovation through Better Design Pillars

Speaker: Tim Keenan

Main points:

Rather than designing Duskers up front, the design of the game emerged during the course of development as Tim tried to listen to what the game needed

He gradually discovered several design pillars that guided development, but these pillars were less like mechanics or principles and more like emotions or feelings he wanted to evoke

These pillars included: realism, isolation, and careful planning

Tim felt that staying true to these pillars in all of his decision-making is what led to the effective communication of these feelings in the final game

Interesting details:

Duskers was very much inspired by Capsule, a similar terminal-based game set in space. (In fact, I was a bit confused when I first heard about Duskers, because I had heard of Capsule and wasn't sure if it was the same game.)

He was tempted to flesh out the look of the game world by showing a view of the area around the player's computer terminal before the game began. In the end, he decided to only show the on-screen display, in support of the realism pillar. The idea is that the player isn't controlling a drone operator character, they are the drone operator. This 1:1 simulation of the terminal helped players to feel like they were really there when they turned out all the lights and played.

Similarly, he tested two ways of showing what each drone "sees": a CCTV-like camera feed, and a less-readable view based on edge detection, which is closer to methods used in real computer vision for robots. Players liked the CCTV version more, but he chose the edge detection view, again to support the pillar of realism.

He also cut music entirely from the game to make it feel more real, which was a particularly scary decision.

Tim encouraged anthropomorphizing of the drones, which he hoped would make players feel like a lonely, slightly crazy freighter pilot. He gave each drone a name, and opted to let the drones obey orders blindly, rather than give them some level of AI autonomy. This made the drones feel more like pets or children than peers. He hoped that players would grieve the death of a drone, then realize how crazy they were being for attaching feelings to unfeeling robots, just as a drone operator in the game's world would.

He also increased the feeling of isolation by using logs to flesh out the game's world instead of direct dialogue with other characters.

Thoughts:

As someone who's really interested in imbuing games with emotion and feelings, Tim's success in achieving this with Duskers was really encouraging, and he had some good ideas on how others could do the same. The talk itself was engaging too. I recommend checking it out, especially if you're a fan of the game.

Links:

Finding ‘Duskers’ (Video) on GDC Vault

RUN and RUN / lyrical school 【MV for Smartphone】 on Vimeo: Speaking of 1:1 interface simulations, I was reminded of this great music video, which is designed to be watched on your smartphone (ideally an iPhone). If you’re on your desktop, go ahead and open it up on your phone. I’ll wait ;)

Fantastic Arcade 2016: Misfits Attic’s Sci-Fi Drone Sim DUSKERS - YouTube : Tim’s talk at Fantastic Arcade, which looks to cover some of the same content, and more!

How the dev behind Duskers let his game be what it wanted to be on Gamasutra : a Gamasutra Twitch interview with Tim that also looks like it touches on the same themes of the talk.

Shaders 201: Creating Art with Math

Speaker: Ben Cloward

Main Points:

Demoed methods for creating several shader effects, including:

A simple cloth shader

Animated rain ripples

A volumetric effect for something like ice with dirt and imperfections inside

Thoughts:

I thought this talk was fairly good, but it covered ground that I was already somewhat familiar with. The methods he described were fairly simple, and I’ve learned similar things about shaders in school already. The descriptions are a bit technical though, and I don’t remember most of it, so I won’t spend a ton of time on this talk. However, I will share some of the resources he mentioned in the links below.

Links:

Unfortunately this talk is members only on the Vault.

Uncharted 2: Character Lighting and Shading (Slides) : Ben cited this SIGGRAPH 2010 talk as the basis for the cloth shader he demoed.

Water drop 1 – Observe rainy world | Sébastien Lagarde : A series of blog posts that was the basis for the animated rain ripple shader demo.

Efficient Shader Tricks (Slides) : This GDC 2006 talk was the reference for the volumetric shader.

Another break

After this, I nearly went to the talk “Bringing Fantasy to Life in ‘Final Fantasy XV’”. Actually, to tell the truth, I actually got in the room for the talk, heard the speaker say that there would be spoilers, and then left (after a discrete pause so people wouldn’t think I was leaving for spoilers :P haha). In other circumstances I might have just stayed, but I’ve actually bought Final Fantasy XV and plan to play it soon, so I decided to abstain.

Instead, I went by the Shut Up and Sit Down board game lounge. I saw a few interesting games there, like the beautiful-looking Mouse Guard RPG. I think the comic series is really neat, and I’ve been seeing great reviews of the RPG as well. I was also intrigued by Beyond Baker Street, which was described as a Sherlock Holmes-themed Hanabi where you play a group of inept detectives trying to beat Mr. Holmes to the punch. I do love me some Sherlock.

While there, I ran into my friend Jon, co-designer of the board game Skulldug! and host of the podcast Pretentious Game Ideas. We both worked at Microsoft Studios a few years back, but both moved on to different things. It was nice to catch up. He also told me about Bargain Quest, a game he had been watching a playthrough of. Apparently you play as competing shopowners in a fantasy adventuring town, which sounded pretty neat.

After that, I headed downstairs and chilled with my travel buddy Brian until the last talk of the day, the Indie Soapbox.

Indie Soapbox

Speakers: Brandon Sheffield, Tanya X Short, Jarryd Huntley, Sadia Bashir, Marben Exposito, Gemma Thomson, Jerry Belich, Brie Code, Colm Larkin, Jane Ng

Brandon Sheffield: Taste in Games

Brandon encouraged the crowd to make more games that are different by showing their tastes and passions

Doing this can be risky, but can yield greater artist rewards

Cultivate your taste by:

Thinking about your favorite things

Asking others about their favorite things, and why

Going out in the world and doing something new

Going to the thrift store and finding 3 interesting things

Unleash your taste by making something that means something to you, not something bland and flavorless

(Kudos for the Guy Fieri cameo)

Tanya X. Short: How to Self-Care AND Meet Hard Deadlines

Your goals are:

Don’t burn out (making a great game is NOT your #1 priority)

Keep making games better each time (so you have to survive!)

Make a great game

It’s hard to take care of yourself, but believe you can do it

Moon Hunters, Mini Metro, Canabalt, Don’t Starve and more were made without burnout

Stop working all the time (and set specific work hours, it will actually increase productivity)

Prioritize and reprioritize, try to cut out the stuff that’s urgent but not important

Estimate how long it will take you to do tasks, then evaluate the actual time after

Cut the scope of your game before you bleed out

3 weeks of 60+ hours is proven to be less productive than 3 weeks of 40 hours

You’re not an exception

In a study of people who think they need less than 7 hours of sleep, only 5 out of 100 were correct

Don’t give up, forgive yourself for mistakes in self-care and move on

Lack of exercise should be one of the biggest worries, put your health first

Protect your love and joy and energy and don’t use it up by trying to feel more productive

Jarryd Huntley: Indie Rock - The Indie Cousins You Didn’t Know You Had

There are things indie game devs can learn from the indie rock scene

Like rock musicians, you don’t get started until you actually pick up the instrument. Just do it.

Try to take inspiration from wide life experience, not just “game X + game Y”

Work together and hire indie musicians for your game

Try making a local art manifesto with other independent artists in your area, maybe go on tour with a band

Try to learn from other fields that have similarities to indie game development, and support those people too

Sadia Bashir: 3 Things That Can Save Indies from a Pitfall

We think that our great idea is what makes our game successful, but what is really tied to success?

Conceptualize and plan at an early stage

Freeze requirements and scope throughout to avoid feature creep

Quality of a product is related to quality of development process

A hybrid process might be more successful than Agile

Marben Exposito: Subverting Expectations in Shower with Your Dad Simulator 2015

Develops a lot of short, silly games based on dumb Twitter suggestions

Finds it effective to mix the weird and mundane

Also effective was to subvert expectations

Added surprise secret game section, which people really liked

Gemma Thomson: Owning Your Place

The public perception of indies can be harmful

Often we see it as white men crunching on games in a bedroom

Sometimes we end up glamorizing bad working conditions

But life isn’t really Indie Game: The Movie, not everyone can afford to work like this

In our public and private conversation, we should a promote more realistic idea of game development

Jerry Belich: Venn Harder

Currently, the overlap between academia and industry is not too large

Contribute your passion to students

Help students learn more about design than just learning the tools

Opportunities include adjunct teaching positions, short-term teaching residencies, or collaborating with faculty

Brie Code: Public Speaking

Brie shared some tips for preparing to speak publicly

Remember “Why do I care?” and who the audience is

Create an outline (why I care, what I’m saying, why I’m saying it)

Use tips from “Can Charisma Be Taught?” study

Only one idea per slide

Pictures, not text

Practice a lot (and remember to breathe)

Realize you might always be anxious because it’s normal, redirect energy into the talk

Colm Larkin: Share Your Games

Colm developed in the open from day 1 on TIGSource, sharing early progress

Got good feedback, helped him get confident

A few related tips:

Your idea is not that special: execution is more important than the idea

No one is going to steal your idea (and if you do, you’ve been sharing the whole time)

Share work embarrassingly early, before you’re ready

It’s hard, but it helps

Get feedback before you get too far in

Get feedback on foundational stuff, not just polish stuff

Jane Ng: “Product” and Why That Shouldn’t Be a Dirty Word

Jar-Jar tongue candy: a terrible product

Often we don’t like talking about our art as a product, but it’s important to success

We don’t usually give feedback on “would you pay money for this?”

Consider experience not just for the player, but for the potential player

See making a good product as a design problem

Think about what makes a great entertainment product

Make sure the whole package is attractive to a potential player

And make sure your game isn’t a Jar-Jar Binks candy tongue

Thoughts:

I had a great time at this talk. Really rapid fire talks, and everyone had an interesting point to make. A few good laughs too. I highly recommend checking this one out on the Vault.

Links:

Indie Soapbox (Video) on GDC Vault: Available for free!

Talks I missed

Building Game Mechanics to Elevate Narrative in Oxenfree - Would like to check this one out after I play Oxenfree. Check it out on the free Vault!

Friendship, Curiosity & Challenge: Focusing Your Career as an Indie Dev - Also seems interesting, and also free to all.

Board Game Design Day: The State & Future of Board Game Design - I don’t follow the board game industry as closely as the video game industry, though I like playing board games. I’m interested to hear what was said here.

Board Game Design Day: The Making of 'Pandemic Legacy' - Also very interested in this, since Pandemic Legacy has been getting tons of praise. I’m scared of spoilers until I have a chance to play though.

Post-con activity

After the Indie Soapbox, Brian, his teammate Colton, and I went out to eat at Tropisueno, a fairly decent Mexican place very close to the Moscone Center. I got to hear a bit from Colton about his background and how his studio, The Stork Burnt Down, got founded, which was interesting.

After dinner, Brian and Colton went to the Oculus party across the street, which was invite-only. I had been considering going to a chiptune show at the DNA Lounge, but was again feeling pretty exhausted. So I headed back to the room to chill and play some Ace Attorney 5. A very full day.

#gdc 2017 #gamedev #gdc17 #video game writing #videoball #citystream #Game Oven #Duskers #Shut Up and SIt Down #gdc recap

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