Whenever the question of favourite actors working today comes around, I have stock answers which come straight out of my mouth. Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Tadanobu Asano are among the first names. The immediacy with which I produce these answers doesn’t make them any less true, quite the opposite. I believe it so much, … Continue reading
I’ve been sick the last few days so I haven’t blogged as much as I had planned. But, I’m on the mend — I can talk again! — and I figured it’s high time I make my presence known once again. I don’t want to sound like John Cusack (or, Nick Hornby rather) but a … Continue reading
A comparison of the 2008 shot-for-shot remake Funny Games to the 1998 original.
This is Conviction? Today’s Wall Street Journal features an op-ed by AEI resident scholar Michael Ledeen called Iran and the Problem of Evil. The op-ed contains one severe logical fallacy and one weird omission, each unfortunately representative of much of the current state of thought and argument on the right. First, the logical fallacy. Ledeen … Continue reading
I never really considered myself all that big a fan of multiplayer games. I played them sure, but I was very much more of a single player gamer. I preferred running my hero through the story and settings that the game designers had in mind. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy getting in some GoldenEye … Continue reading
Just a quick mention about the state of modern festivals. The internet is a powerful tool for communicating about films, but it’s a little unfocused. Without the internet, millions of people would never have heard of Miike, for example. But, on the other hand, would that be so bad? What has that mainstream appeal wrought … Continue reading
Mediocre Greatness Part I You can only lavish praise on something for so long until you begin to ask yourself, “Why aren’t the other guys using this as motivation to make a better product?” This is how I felt while playing through Bioshock and Grand Theft Auto IV, two of the only games this generation … Continue reading
It’s criminal that Hiroshi Inagaki is not better known in the West. He directed some of the best, and best known, Japanese films in the world and even won an Academy Award. He’s commanded samurai and ninja, shown fantasy and history. Yet he’s almost completely forgotten in conversation about great Japanese directors. Today I’d like … Continue reading
Why do gamers seem to be so afraid or immediately angry at the thought of innovation? Take for example the new Banjo/Kazooie game. On a recent EGM podcast, one of the staff seemed downright pissed off that it wasn’t a traditional platform game, he ranted and raved about the vehicle building portion of the game. … Continue reading
Cloverfield was an all out experiment for me, but not in the way most people think. The handheld camera element was decided early on as a marketing ploy and also a way to keep the budget really low. Obviously it made our camera expenses nonexistent, but it also gave me a built-in reason to hire … Continue reading