The third film in the BlindDead series features the return of the terrifying cheap skeleton hand prop. A couple of models are lost at sea and then a crew of unlikable characters set sail to find them. Turns out the models found a fog covered ghost ship that just happens to contain the mummified bodies of the satanic Templars from the first films. The direction and editing are just awful. They don’t know when to cut away from a boring scene or create suspense. The zombies are just out there in plain view from the get go. You might see a few cool looking stills here and there, but, for the most part, this is a dull exercise in amateur film making.
A small-time crook is accused of a crime he didn’t commit. He then spends the rest of the movie getting back at the men who done him wrong. No this isn’t quite a revenge film. It’s more like an long episode of Candid Camera in which Nick sets up elaborate pranks to thwart his enemies. The tone is appropriately lighthearted but it doesn’t quite play as a comedy and, despite a couple foot chases, doesn’t quite play as a crime thriller either.
This is yet another summation of Western philosophical thought. In this case it’s presented as a perpetual oscillation between the spiritual ideas of Plato and the rational ideas of Aristotle.
Black and white Gothic horror with Barbara Steele in a dual role as blonde lady and brunette lady. I didn’t mind most of the film, but the story is chock full of holes and forgotten plot points. Steele looks as anorexic as ever. The movie redeems itself in the last ten minutes with some good makeup effects. Apparently, The Misfits’ “Hybrid Moments” is based on this?
Yet another walking simulator, but this time it’s in space! So, technically it’s a floating simulator. The gimmick here is that you can watch past events happen via holographic recordings. You follow the various characters as they walk around talking, and then meet other characters in conversation. Then you rewind and watch the other characters from their angle. It actually is very interesting way of telling a story. It’s just not a game.
I think it’s time I finally accept the fact that I don’t really like Infinity Engine style games anymore. I really like the idea of them: controlling a party of adventurers, exploring richly detailed worlds, and freezable real-time strategy combat. But the last few I have played have been bogged down in convoluted fantasy storylines that never grab my attention. Pillars’ story isn’t that complicated, but it just lacks focus. I never cared why I was getting visions and the main villain is a dud. Because of Kickstarter funding, the world is riddled with insipid and unnecessary vignettes that were written by backers. I guess fantasy geeks like all the lore but it just makes my eyes glaze over. Take a gander at this bit of dialogue:
It’s just a litany of unpronounceable names and garbage. Now if you are the type of person who actually reads the tomes you find in RPGs you will love this but I was just longing for one normal sounding name.
I actually didn’t mind the first third of the game. But somewhere around then I realized that it’s not going to go anywhere interesting I began to lose interest. By the time I finished, I had just switched to easy mode so I could burn through it and get on with something I liked. Wasteland 3 take me away!
Mario Bava at his absolute worst. There is so much lost in translation and editing that this is barely a movie. Apparently there is an Italian version which is a bit more well put together but features more of the worst part of this version: the annoying Italian slapstick duo. The only saving grace are the few scenes where Vincent Price breaks the fourth wall. Otherwise a complete stinker.
Hexen was another mid-nineties FPS that, I swear, I played the demo of several times but never played the full game. I only seemed to remember that first level with its stained glass windows and melee combat. It takes quite some time before you get a ranged weapon and that’s probably why I never felt the incentive to continue much farther than the initial levels. You need to give this one some time before it starts to click.
The level design is pretty great. Each section of the game is organized around a hub world. You can then move between the various sub levels in search of keys, switches, etc. that open up other sections of the hub. In some cases this involves revisiting levels over and over. This can be a pain in the early stages of the game when I was expecting run-and-gun Doom-style gameplay. Eventually, I got in the groove (still needed a walkthrough here and there).
The major ding against the game is the lack of variety. You only have a total of four weapons and it seems like you are fighting the same monsters over and over. The monsters will respawn so there is no incentive to kill ’em all. If you can, run past and pull that switch! Overall, I liked it and it seemed to hold up rather well (using gzDoom to run the game).
This one started off as a painting I made at one of those “pour and paint” wine bars. I pretty quickly sloshed it together using grade-school quality acrylic paints. It wasn’t horrible but just felt sloppy to me. The painting languished on a shelf in my house for a couple of years until I was mildly inspired to try painting again after watching a cheesy how to oil paint fantasy art program.
Drinking & Painting
I borrowed a bunch of my wife’s acrylic paints and went over everything again, adding detail and color. I then added a bunch of varnish over the whole thing so it began to look almost like an oil painting (I really dislike painting in acrylics). Finally, I added the frame and, in the process, discovered our old miter box saw is no longer aligned to correctly cut 45° angles. Grrr. After a bunch of sanding and widdling I manged to get the painting to fit and I thin it turned out pretty nicely,
One of the best looking books on printmaking I’ve seen. Printed on a think matte stock, with over 100 catalog images and equally as many details and figures. The book opens with a few essays giving an overview of the process and a general history of the medium with its place in the Italian Renaissance. From then on it dives into the details of each print. For each example there’s a page or two which follows the formula: a paragraph describing the content, then comparisons between various states and editions of the print, and, finally, the majority is dates and attribution being nitpicked over. I’m glad I switched majors after one semester, because the nitty gritty of art history is capital-B Boring. But that’s neither here nor there. We’re here for the pictures! The last section of the book is perhaps the most informative. It is a mythbusters-style play-by-play of attempting to make chiaroscuro prints today using period-appropriate processes.
