In my last column, I discussed how cinema is essentially a medium that is built upon its own history, with countless directors using their own films as excuses to pay homage to those that inspired them. Whether it come in the form of lifting a particular bit of technical flair like a camera movement or editing choice, or the outright […]
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No matter what format, what system or what game you are developing for, there are certain things that can doom your game regardless of how good or bad it is from the start. While this article is written with a focus on XBLIG’s, much of these apply to any indie game developer looking to make a dollar off of their […]
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Finally you can toss a Frisbee and actually control it during flight! I remember all the years of looking like an idiot at the park as I toss a Frisbee to a friend, and then twisting and leaning my body in various directions as if somehow that would get the failing Frisbee to mimic my movements and go where I […]
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Film and television geeks like to watch copious amounts of either film or television. Their whole geek-cred starts there, and then it may extend into other pursuits, from attending film festivals to find fresh faces of hip directors, to attending pop culture conventions to get the autograph from the TV star of that series no one else has ever heard […]
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Poke.. poke…poke. Sounds simple enough right? Think again. There is a lot of water between the dark ocean floor and the crashing waves at the surface. Poke Fish, developed by Menki Mobile, is basically a digital paddle-ball game. Your goal is to help a little benthic anglerfish, named Mr. Justin Fish, find his way up from the depths of the […]
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We all have gaps in our cinematic knowledge, films which, if we confess our ignorance of, someone, somewhere will say, “How have you not seen that?!” Catching Up is about these films, and viewing them so long after seemingly everyone else has. Some of these entries may be shocking, some are embarrassing, but all of them are classics. The Film: Directed by […]
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Over the last decade and change, movie goers have been overwhelmed by a deluge of superhero movies. Most of them have been good to great, while others are best forgotten altogether. At any rate, it’s a good time to be a comic book fan who also happens to love movies. While Bryan Singer’s seminal X-Men flick is usually considered to […]
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It is a common practice for filmmakers to pay homage to the films and filmmakers that inspired them. From Star Wars to Boogie Nights, from Dressed to Kill to Sukiyaki Western Django, and from Night of the Living Dead to Pulp Fiction, cinema history can be read as a long list of directors who are showing respect to those who […]
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I want to set the record straight right off the bat: despite this film’s inclusion in this column, The Five Year Engagement isn’t “broken” in any significant way. It’s a very warm, sweet, and funny movie, full of good performances and with a lively, clever script. It didn’t light a fire under me like other Apatow productions, but it’s still […]
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These days, it seems like you can’t spit without hitting a found-footage horror film. The odds of hitting a good one (or even a truly great one) are much, MUCH slimmer, but because they are cheap to make and they usually rake in the dough, Hollywood (not to mention all those young up and coming horror directors out there who […]
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