Author: Chuck
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Espinazo
It’s an old cliche that Hollywood takes the hard work of creative people and squeezes all of the originality and innovation and intelligence out of it, to dumb it down for the mass market. I never really believed it, though: instead of this big, faceless, creativity-sucking entity, isn’t it easier just to assume that some…
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The revolution will be playable on your television
There’s something inherently sad and a little pathetic about being addicted to a videogame. Worse by several orders of magnitude — measured in units that I will from now on call dorkstroms — is being addicted to a videogame that’s not even out yet. The demo for Civilization Revolution came out last week, and I’ve…
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Who’s in control here?
That’s Alexander Haig. Look him up. Also: This post has spoilers for BioShock and Grand Theft Auto IV, in case you’re paranoid about that kind of thing. Previously on Spectre Collie, I made the claim that videogame developers can learn more from “non-interactive” media than just how to make more cinematic cut-scenes and more literary…
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My favorite place on (Google) Earth
Disney has added models and textures for Walt Disney World to Google Earth. While the blog entry describes it as “the second best thing to being there,” it’s a little slow and fuzzy, and it’s more like walking through a papercraft version of the parks and hotels than it is like exploring a new virtual…
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Sine intellectus non
Speaking of TV shows: did anybody else understand what the hell was going on with this week’s “Battlestar Galactica?” (Called “Sine Qua Non.”) It felt to me like what would happen if you took all the components of a BSG episode, fed them into a computer: Stand-off at gun-point Apollo makes speech about making tough…
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Tales of the Expected
Okay, the “Lost” people are totally making this stuff up as they go along. At least, I hope they are, because if the season finale of season 4 really is what they’ve had planned since the end of season 3, then they’ve been yanking our chains for a year. It’s not that it was bad;…
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I’ve come to kill your monstah!
Over three years ago, I wrote on here about a slick app for the Mac called Delicious Library. It’s a database for your books, movies, CDs, and videogames that presents everything by letting you scan through shelves of the covers. The first version got a ton of coverage on the internet, mostly because of its…
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Cine Puro
Memorial Day weekend seemed like as good a time as any to make some progress on the Netflix queue, in the form of a style-over-substance double feature. In one of the special features for The Orphanage, executive producer Guillermo del Toro describes a couple of scenes as “pure cinema.” He’s talking about the scenes without…
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The Calls Are Coming From Within the Ice Level!
Previously on Spectre Collie, I made the claim that storytelling in “passive” media like books and movies isn’t as passive as people like to think. A well-told story demands that the audience stay actively engaged in the telling, processing what’s come so far and anticipating what happens next. The interesting thing is: this is so…
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Indiana Jones and the Appendix of the Forbidden Links
My on-again, off-again mind-meld with Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com seems to be back on again, with her review of Indiana Jones 4. The part she describes best is the first scene where (possible spoiler?) Indy runs into Marion: When he sees her, his face shows what can only be described as pure delight, and it’s…
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Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jaded Eye
Watching the new Indiana Jones movie gave me severe diarrhea. Actually, the two events are most likely unrelated, but I wanted to take a cue from the pharmaceutical business and warn of any potential side effects: a small but not insignificant group of viewers reported spending the 15 hours following the movie being frequently and…
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LA Beckons
As much as I liked working for Disney, I definitely don’t miss having to go down to Los Angeles so often. Southern California and I just don’t get along, and the past few weeks have been filled with pleasant reminders of how estranged we’ve become. United and Hilton both sent me cards revoking my Premier…