Digital Polyphony

Premieres, birthdays, dinners and parties have cut into my writing time, not to mention my deadline for completing a screenplay on spec. I'll be taking a break from reviewing for a week or so, but look for a new Rules of Hollywood Article and maybe the occasional blog this week. After doing a movie a day this past month, some of which I had to rewatch (or see for the first time, such as Zombieland and Trick R. Treat) I'm honestly burned out on it. I have quite a few in the pipe though I've been meaning to get to.

The newest, and long-time-coming article is now up. This installment of Liquid Nostalgia focuses on Batman. Not just any Batman, however, but the classic 1989 Tim Burton film. Also included are the top 10 "I'm Batman" moments where I find that trying to get precise clips in a movie is easier said than done.

Lots of updates today. The reviews are still going forward daily for your Halloween viewing pleasure and there's a new Trailing Trailers up in the blog section.

That's not what this update is for, because it is for Rules of Hollywood #2: So You Want to Be a Screenwriter. This is part one of two that will focus on you screenwriters out there with hopes and aspirations and maybe a better understanding of what to do and not do (and maybe a better understanding that, perhaps, writing a script just isn't your thing).

I'm not really a "video guy" but I was playing around with windows movie maker (I enjoy the simpleness more, although Sony Vegas has more bells and whistles) when putting together clips from Batman and felt...why not?

A new list under the Top 25 Banner - Top 25 Games that Deserved Sequels. There are a lot of great games that have come and go and some seemed like a new series or trilogy in the making, they were just solid titles, then stuff happens and that just never occurred.

A new series is up and running. Having lived in Los Angeles and worked in Hollywood for a few years now, I feel sharing thoughts, advice and stories is a nice change of pace from the rather clinical articles I normally do. Rules of Hollywood will have its own section and sort of be randomly updated, perhaps one a week or two a month, depends on what I can express satisfactory to me.

Also, the horror movie reviews have already started with The Thing and Dracula in the Quick Reviews section. So far so good on the idea of doing one a day.

The second and final part of the Coen Brothers retrospective is up with reviews covering the modern masterpiece Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou?, The Man Who Wasn't There, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers and Burn After Reading. You can read them in the Quick Reviews section.

Also a new blog is up. I don't post updates of those often with the sidebar noting them, but it's one that videogame fans might enjoy taking a look at.

The first look back at our next major filmmaker(s) - Joel and Ethan Coen. You can check out Part One, covering Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink and The Hudsucker Proxy in the reviews section.

I'll run through the rest come Monday. I'm still compiling all the stuff for October, this is going to be fun.

A couple of quick announcements:

October is that wonderful time when magic happens. Candy, costumes, fake blood (you hope) and ghosts, monsters and demons that will devour your soul. It's the time when everyone loves to be scared. Movies, of course, are the common outlet of being frightened, and horror movies are probably my favorite genre. It seems that, no matter how bad a horror movie may be, a lot of times its still at least entertaining. So for the entire months of October, I will only be reviewing horror movies. 

"Horror" is a bit of a catch-all term for me, so it's not just Frankenstein and Zombies. It will include great suspense and thrillers from the likes of Hitchcock or the classic giallos from Argento. I'd love to presume I could do one a day, but that is pretty daunting. But do expect a good amount on a regular basis like now.

Also next month I'm starting a new series. I have been living and working in Los Angeles for years now, slowly making my way up the ladder of the lofty business they call the "movie industry." To those that live here, it's just every day occurrances and stories to be shred. For others, perhaps those looking to start a career in the film and television industry, there are some pretty important lessons to be learned and things you should know first. So  expect the series "Rules of Hollywood" to begin. I haven't decided if this should be a regular article or a blog series, but I'll cross that when we get there. The first installment "Rules of Hollywood #1: It's Not as Glamorous as you Think"  and followed by others like  "Steps and Warnings for Screenwriters,"  "How to Get Your Foot in the Door Without it Getting Crushed," "Buy a Car" and "Never Assume You Know More than the Other Guy (Because the Other Guy Doesn't Care)." It's not an overly serious series but meant to look at the oddities of Hollywood life,  believe me I have stories to tell, and to teach those wanting to come out here a thing or two.

A brand new addition, finally, to our look back and classic and retro games, movies and the like. Liquid Nostalgia #11: The Back to the Future Trilogy.

I have to say, out of all the entries in the series, this one was an utter joy. I actually had too much stuff I wanted to include, sadly omitting some things. Maybe I'll do a follow up blog as I did with the Indiana Jones entry.

Two pretty good size updates today:

First, you can check out the final part, Part 2, of 50 Games You Must Play Before You Die. Some you'll see coming, but some might surprise you. You can read it here.

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Speaking of final parts, Part 2 of the Anime Review Special can be found in Quick Reviews. This second part covers the films Ghost in the Shell, Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade and Grave of the Fireflies. I'll do other anime (and animated film) specials down the road, so don't worry if your favorite didn't get covered. There's a lot out there (and many involving tentacles, for some reason.

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Look to the next article in the Liquid Nostalgia series later this week and an important blog coming up that videogamers should perhaps take in.

Until then, enjoy.

A new review special has begun, a two-parter of one genre not represented in my review section: Japanese Animation (or Anime, for those in the new). Part One covers Akira, Spirited Away and Ninja Scroll. Part Two will be up this weekend.

Also look for the second half of Top 50: Games You Must Play Before You Die this weekend as well. Updates have been slower than usual due to Film Festivals and so forth, but I'll have new articles and blogs next week including my Top 50 Personal Favorite Movies, Top 25 Games that Deserve Sequels in a couple of weeks, a Coen Brothers Review Special and a look back at Back to the Future.

"I'll make him an offer he can't refuse."

Well now that doesn't sound like a good offer at all.

"Leave the gun, take the cannoli." 

Thanks, I was hungry.

"Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer."

Wise words, but my enemies have guns and I no longer do. I do have a very tasty cannoli, however.

The Godather trilogy is now up in the quick reviews section, if you couldn't quite figure out what I was getting at here. These are legendary pictures, well two at least, and surely deserve their own little special reviews.

Of course, there's a comment box for any you feel aren't worthy, or those you feel are but I've left off. Keep in mind it is Part One, so save the latter after Part

Well, the summer is pretty much over, football has begun and the rather good few months of film is completed which ran the gamut of incredibly good (The Hurt Locker) to utterly horrible (Transformers 2). The summer has also been labeled "The Summer of Death" to the a rather large number of famous people passing away. So...let's look at three films about death in Umberto D., Ikiru, and the Seventh Seal. Yes, all are foreign and absolute classics, gotta class this place up somehow.

Morbid? Perhaps...but I didn't realize what I was reviewing until half-way through the third one.

The oh-so rare series of Digital Polyphony, ironic consider it's the site name, as been added. After a few alterations to the article in terms of putting it online, you can read what, as an old film professor of mine once said, a piece of work that few students succeed at getting done. As a result, he used the  essay in other classes he taught. Whether or not that is still occurring is doubtful. You can read The Sound of Silence here.

 I was asked to give some suggestions for a video and here are some results on what will likely be an ongoing series. Eric Power is a young animator with a solid video series covering movies and videogames as well as music videos (Ranger 3 - Sense of Direction is highly recommended). You can check out his site at www.ericpowerup.com.

Despite me not going over the Back to the Future Trilogy yet (scheduled for next week), I'm a little ahead of schedule with the review specials. I've decided to go ahead and put up the review special for the trilogy which was actually written a while ago. 

A new installment of Liquid Nostalgia is up, the tenth I might add. This time we're looking back to the amazing pop-culture phenomenon that was, is, and will always be the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I've also gone through many older articles and updated some problems that, somehow, emerged (such as vidoes not playing). If you come across this, let me know, only takes a few minute to fix.

My most recent Top 25 was featured on the weekly podcast of the large community site That Guy With the Glasses. The Podcast is called "Channel Awesome" and cover the various things from the community there (of which I write blogs for) and all things from games, movies, comics and music. This is the second or third time I've been featured on the cast (and "Best of" about five or six times) and have to give thanks to them for the shout out and support.

A table of contents, of sorts, is finally completed for the Quick Reviews section. Now you have a full list of films near the top and clicking their titles will take you straight to the paragraph about them. Hopefully this will make navigating easier. I've also added a new IGN feed on the sidebar if anything to add a little bit of relevance and daily content links.

A rather brief, but always fun, review special looking back at the films of Quentin Tarantino, a popular, but occasionally polarizing filmmaker who's genius sometimes gets ahead of him. Nonetheless, enjoy in Quick Reviews.

I noticed that the review section is getting pretty large, meaning I need to revamp it. I'll probably do that sometime this week to make it easier to navigate. I don't know how many reviews I've done, but it's getting pretty extensive and needs to be upgraded.

A brand new article has arrived for your reading pleasure. Top 25: Crazy and Insane Movie Characters. Also take a look at the nominations at the bottom of the article for quite a group in and of itself that didn't quite make it or leave a comment for a character that might have gone overlooked.

I also reviewed three serial killer movies yesterday and those can be found in Quick Reviews section. I was originally going to just review Horsemen, staring Dennis Quaid and released earlier this year. But the film was so awful and pungent, I had to throw in two good films to get over its rotting stench. Horsemen is, so far, my candidate for worst film this year. I know its posh to say Transformers 2, but I refuse to see that one so Horsemen will have to do.

This weekend's review special: The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Note, I reviewed the extended editions of the films as most tend to agree those are the definitive versions. Find them in Quick Reviews.

A new top 25 later this week.

The latest entry in the Liquid Nostalgia series is now up for your to recall your childhood memories and weep that you'll never regain them again. Liquid Nostalgia #9: The Goonies, it doesn't get more nostalgic than that.

Finally, we bring it all home, in similar fashion to Martin Scorsese bringing it all home with his long-overdue Oscar win for The Departed. Our third and final look back at his filmography can be found in Quick Reviews and covers Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, Casino, Kundun, Brining Out the Dead, Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed.

So what will I be covering next? Guess we'll wait and see next weekend. In the meantime, enjoy the upcoming single movie reviews starting tomorrow. 

The second part of our look back at the films of Marty Scorsese is now up in Quick Reviews. This Part covers The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Color of Money, The (often misunderstood) Last Temptation of Christ and ending it all with the masterpiece of crime known as Goodfellas. 

There are no "big articles" planned this week but we'll get back into them next week with a look back at The Goonies. The rest of this Scorsese retrospective will be up this weekend where I run rough-shot through the rest of his library.

The first installment of the Scorsese Review series/retrospective is up in the Quick Reviews section. Part one covers the films Who's That Knocking At My Door (no question mark at the end that title, by the way), Mean Streets, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Two of those films are considered to be a couple of the greatest films ever made, and for good reason. Influential, visionary...Scorsese is one of the greats.

Look for Part 2 sometime next week covering the next five.

A new Top 25 article is now up for your viewing pleasure. This installment covers the Top 25 Movie Montages, so do enjoy; this was easily the most difficult one to research and compile while still trying to write witty and snarky remarks.

The first installment of the Scorsese Review Special will be up  on Sunday, other movie reviews will be posted until then.

The third article for Digital Polyphony is up and concludes the Squaresoft-Super Nintendo Trilogy of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI and Secret of Mana that the series has covered thus far. Now it's off to bigger and better things including the oft-delayed retrospective and analysis of Fight Club and an older article about 2001: A Space Odyssey that, for a while, was used by my film professor as a teaching tool. Ah, those were the days.

Updates for this week:

Some interesting things happening this week. First, a third Digital Polyphony article will be up, but not the one I was intending. Instead we're going to take a look back at Secret of Mana, a classic videogame, and bring the SNES trilogy of greatness to a close. An article on the film and book Fight Club is still in rough draft form, but maybe next month.

This week will also have a new Top 25, easily the most popular series I do, and cover the great and wonderful lost art of the Movie Montage (no surprise, most are from the 1980s). 

Also, a link to my own personal DVD collection (minus about 10 movies not listed) can be found Here and under links.

The final piece of Spielberg retrospective is done. Well, the review series of his films, at least, but I hope you learned something while reading them (as brief as they are). You can find the Spielberg Special Part 4 in the Quick Reviews section. A.I., Minority Report, Catch Me if You Can, The Terminal, War of the Worlds and the underrated Munich.

No new specials planned until next month, I'll keep putting up single reviews every day or other day, though, but I say we do...(excuse me while I shake my magic 8 ball)

...comedy. So I'll review some classic comedies. Haven't reviewed too many of those. Then it's off to another auteur...a Mr. Scorsese. 

As you might have noticed, or not...I don't know, there are some server issues. Not sure why but it has been going through some hiccups as of late. I'll see if it clears up, but I think it has to do with maintenance on my grid. This is the second or third time and my patience is wearing a little thin.

A new trip down memory lane is up in Liquid Nostalgia #8: The Super Nintendo. As with all, I do a quick top 10 of something (in this case games) and I have to say, it was tough limiting it to only 10. 

This might be the last game console I cover. Unless request is big to continue into the next generation of gaming. The Playstation, Saturn and N64 are borderline on my nostalgic tendencies, but you never know...

The third installment of our Spielberg retrospective is now up in Quick Reviews, this installment covering Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, The Lost World, Amistad and Saving Private Ryan. Few directors can say they made three of the finest films of all time much less three in from the 1990s. Spielberg was on a roll.

Part 4 will be up mid week as we bring it all to a close.

The second review special covering the films of Steven Spielberg is now up and can be found in Quick Reviews. This installment covers the films ET, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Always and Hook.

The 1980s were a little hit and miss for the "boy wonder" but also a time of maturing. Check in on the weekend for the third installment and the time when Spielberg seemed to do no wrong.

A new Top 25 is posted. Top 25 Strange, Trippiest and Weird Movies. You can thank me catching Brazil on Showtime the other night for inspiring me. Some movies and filmmakers just enjoy altering your perception of reality and those are 25 that surely do just that.

Well, not sure what happened to all the updates before the 11th, but as you can see they are gone. Ah well, they were old anyways, although I did like putting up those little B&W images for the specials. All I can tell you is to click on the various links above to go to the different sections to see all the past updates for the various articles, reviews and features. I know my account resets its bandwidth on the 12th, so I wonder if that had something to do with it. Everything else appears fine, though.

The first installment of the Steven Spielberg review special. Part 1 covers Duel, The Sugarland Express, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1941. Expect Part 2 sometime in the middle of the week.