Random Film of the Week(end): It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Posted on April 13, 2013 by geelw

Soon after hearing about Jonathan Winters’ death two days ago, I had the realization that we’re running out of truly great NATURAL comedians that made us laugh without resorting to juggling expletives or putting themselves in the public eye constantly in an ego-feeding frenzy. Granted, trying to get today’s short attention spanners out there to sit down and watch Winters’ best work is going to be a hard sell, but I think Stanley Kramer’s 1963 comedy classic kills a few birds with one stone.

Yes, the movie is too long by today’s standards (hell, it was too long for 1963 standards), but it’s packed to the gills with comedians and comediennes from a huge enough slice of history that you could see the careers of some beginning and ending with this one zany epic. The story of a bunch of wildly assorted strangers chasing down a dead robbery suspect’s stolen loot is still required viewing for anyone who considers him or herself a fan of comedy and the film works so well because no one gets away without taking a few lumps or a pratfall or three… Continue reading →

VGA 101: On Kenji Eno (2): Something Old Brings In Something New(-ish)…

Posted on March 14, 2013 by geelw

Lumines ES2 So, as I posted last week, I finally got around to sending back that formerly long-lost Kenji Eno autographed copy of D2 about a week or so ago and got this nice surprise as a return response. A copy of Lumines: Electric Symphony autographed by the game’s producer and one of Eno’s close friends. Nice. Amusingly enough, I hadn’t played this Vita game previously, so now I get to do so and having done something nice for someone in the process. Yeah, I’m a nice guy under all that cranky. MOST of the time. Not get the hell off my lawn, you kids. Scoot! I have some games to play and no time for you whippersnappers. Git!

VGA 101: On Kenji Eno: A Loss Isn’t A Complete Loss If Something Is Gained In the Process…

Posted on March 3, 2013 by geelw

One of my favorite game creators, Kenji Eno, passed away on February 20th and I’d planned to write up something memorial-esque last week, but couldn’t for a few reasons. The main one was it’s actually quite hard to write something brief about what playing through some of the games he and his studio WARP created during their brief run meant to me without actually going through the library here and taking time to do so. That’s going to get done in about a month or so, barring incident. The other was I wanted to read what some of his close friends wrote about him in order to get a better insight on the man and his work. There was also a little bit of unfinished business to take care of in getting a certain something back to a certain someone, so that had to come first… Continue reading →

Nintendo Power Shuts Down: The End of an Era, Despite Me Ignoring It (Mostly)…

Posted on August 22, 2012 by geelw

Amusingly enough, I didn’t much care for Nintendo Power back when it launched in 1988. I wasn’t a big NES fanboy and I knew the mag was a house organ designed to pretend anything Nintendo was the best thing since sliced bread. Being system agnostic, I’ve always disliked this sort of thing when it’s that biased against other platforms, so it was quite easy to stick to my guns. Sure, Nintendo was the company that pulled the game industry out from the grave back with the successful launch of the NES in 1985, then created the dedicated portable gaming market with the original Game Boy in 1989, but that didn’t mean they (or any other game company) could always ignore other platforms that had games of equal or better quality.

Despite Nintendo’s instant deity status among millions, initially, I wasn’t too impressed with the NES because I’d played Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Popeye, and a bunch of the other classic arcade ports to death (in actual arcades) and didn’t see the need to do so all over again, no matter how good the games were. Stubborn (and stupid), wasn’t I? OK, maybe I was a tiny bit biased as well, as I somehow had little to no trouble playing some Sega Master System and later, Sega Genesis arcade ports. Ah well, nobody’s perfect, right? I did come around to the joys of the NES and later, SNES once I got my paws on Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Wizardry, The Bard’s Tale and a bunch of other RPGs I wasn’t seeing on any Sega platform, but that took a few years longer than it should have…

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Random Film Of The Week: A Face In The Crowd

Posted on July 4, 2012 by geelw

While most Americans will be remembering the late, great Andy Griffith from his lengthy stints on two hugely popular CBS TV shows The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock, (both in perpetual reruns somewhere around the country) I’ll always be more fond of his much more compelling movie debut, A Face In The Crowd.

In this classic 1957 Elia Kazan film (which was Griffith’s big-screen debut), his character of Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes explodes onto the scene in a still amazing performance that makes the movie even more enthralling to watch today. What makes the film so important is how precisely it nails Rhodes’ rise from vagrant jailbird to media superstar with his own national TV show (with help from a small town news reporter played by the great Patricia Neal) and later, his fall from fame’s grace are so compelling that for me, nearly all of Griffith’s later TV work pales in comparison.

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A Few Words On Ray Bradbury (1920 – 2012)

Posted on June 10, 2012 by geelw

“In my later years I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.”

– Ray Bradbury

So, the great Ray Bradbury died last week and that’s another bit of my past gone away. And yours too, even if you’ve never read a word of his massive body of work. Along with plenty of classic science fiction, fantasy and many other stories that had a beautiful flow to them many have copied (or more accurately, tried to copy and failed miserably at doing so), he wrote one of the best editorials on censorship that I’ve ever read. I normally despise Sir Rupert Murdoch’s local opinions as fact-packed fish-wrapper, The New York Post, but they ran that column he wrote (mostly to justify their own “news” agenda) yesterday and I had to tip my hat their way for doing so… Continue reading →

TCM Remembers 2011: Fallen Stars Bring Back Wishes Of Film Dreams

Posted on December 31, 2011 by geelw

It’s pretty safe to say that if I wasn’t writing so much about video games, I’d probably be writing about film. These days, there are so many great cinema scribes out there that do that a lot better than I do in terms of covering the medium, so I reserve my talents to the interactive as I believe that a great game can have the same impact as a great film, book or other slice of entertainment that touches a few emotions. Growing up in front of the TV or at the movies for a good chunk of time exposed me to quite a lot of great actors, directors, writers and other talents in the film industry and as the years pass, some of these people fade away into history leaving only their work on screen as a legacy. Each year, Turner Classic Movies runs a nice tribute video on stars of stage and screen who have passed away and 2011 was pretty sad for film fans across the globe. I actually didn’t know some of these people had died, but I’m glad to have seen them at their best in some truly memorable films…

Bill Kunkel: 1959 – 2011

Posted on September 5, 2011 by geelw

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/v6MimGOhaKQ?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0

Wow – this ht me over the head a few minutes ago, so I'll need a bit of time to let it sink in. Back around 1992 or 1993 when he was writing for Electronic Gaming Monthly as The Game Doctor, I'd sent in a few questions about random game stuff I'd been thinking about and much to my surprise, Bill not only printed my letter, but sent a nice note not too long afterward answering my questions in greater detail. Shortly afterward, he ran a contest asking readers of his column to draw up a Game Doctor picture and send it in. The winner would get his or her work printed in the magazine along with a prize package of random goodies, which was a big thing back in the day. I recall JUST making the deadline with a nice watercolor pic of some futuristic-looking guy in a green “surgical” robe. I didn't win the contest, but Bill liked my piece so much he ran it anyway, which made me quite happy. What made me happier was getting a small box packed with random items and a signed note on Sega/Capcom stationery that I still have here filed away. If I can track it down, I'll post the note for historical purposes, as the image on the note has Mega Man and Sonic shaking hands (now THAT would have been a great game had it ever gotten made)…Read more »

Hudson Entertainment Shuts Down, Activision Slays Guitar Hero, True Crime

Posted on February 10, 2011 by geelw

In a double shot PLUS of depressing industry news, it looks as if the current recession plus gaming trends split down the middle toward bigger-budgeted or smaller indie “casual” games has taken down the US offices one a fan favorite middle range publisher and a couple of major franchises by a major publisher. Of course, the real story is how companies see games (and the creativity behind them) as commodities and simply chop product lines and jobs based on under-performance (among other things) rather than shift jobs around to other projects. Fan favorite Hudson Entertainment is shutting down its US offices by the end of this month, according to multiple reports including a blog post by Morgan Haro, Hudson's US Brand Manager.
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R.I.P.: Project Milo 2009-2010

Posted on September 23, 2010 by geelw

According to reports, Lionhead Studios 'Project Milo' for Microsoft's upcoming Kinect peripheral has been canceled and some 19 staff members have been laid off from the developer. The innovative game (or at least an impressive working tech demo) was first shown at E3 2009 where many were floored by the lifelike interaction between the titular character and a Lionhead staffer. While it's clear that development on the project had obviously gone on after that showing, what's unclear is why such a high profile potential killer app was killed off before updated information or perhaps some sort of commercial demo could have been released.

No official completion or release date were ever announced for the project. Nevertheless the game was supposed to be a key future title in Microsoft's growing Kinect lineup. In fact, after the 2009 E3 showing, it was easy to poke around a few too many message boards and find many gamers interested in Kinect precisely for Milo. News reports state that Lionhead may end up using elements of the project in its upcoming RPG sequel, Fable III, but we'll have to wait for updated info on this before speculating any further.