Media Monday: Castle of Illusion

- Dig Hard - ★★★★☆
This is a great little game jam game co-created by a schoolmate of mine. Brief, but a lot of fun while it lasted. Also, the power went out in my building just as I won, which was a little unsettling.

- Make it Rain - ★☆☆☆☆
Maybe the worst of these incremental clicky games I've played. This one's for iPhone, and spits an awful lot of ads at the player. I did not collect all the things, but I did get to the 'YOU WIN' screen that forces you to stop playing.

- Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - ★★★★☆
Very nicely done short story. Explores the options and mechanics of controlling two characters at once in a lot of fun ways. Would have been fun in co-op, but I get how that sort of defeats the purpose. Pleasantly twisty narrative, lots of places to sit in-game, surprising finale.

- Pixeljunk Shooter - ★★★☆☆
Replay while watching some videos. Still mostly fun, still reminds me of Solar Jetman, but I think what I really wanted to (re)play was Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet.

- Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse - ★★★★★
An unexpected gem. I've been trying a bunch of offerings from PS+ and I didn't think I'd stick with what appears to be Mickey 64, but the level design is fantastic in this. In the early levels, I was impressed with how you always end up visiting and exploring the interesting scenery in the deep background. In the later levels, I was impressed by how time is truly of the essence. I ended up nearly 100 diamonds short and don't plan to go looking for them, but the way that the levels kind of reminded me of rides at Disneyland in terms of tone, or space economy, or delight, or something, was a real treat.

Movie Monday: Days of Future Past

The Hot Rock - ★★★★☆
Last time I said, "Now this was a great caper. In fact, it's a bunch of great capers, since if everything went right it wouldn't be much of a movie. The museum sequence is genuinely suspenseful and clever and terrific."

I mostly agree with me. The museum is still great, and the other sections have great bits, but maybe they're more surprise than suspense, since they didn't hit me as hard this time around.

Snowpiercer - ★★★½☆
It's one of my favorite things in a movie lately when I don't know what's going on, exactly. The plot is easy to describe, but the details and questions raised along the way make it interesting.

I worried this would stomp all over a train-related idea I started writing a while back, but then I found out this is based on a comic from 1982 and there are no new ideas. Finding out that comic book was French does make this Korean movie make a little more sense to me though.

Can't wait to see the American version where everyone lives!

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - ★½☆☆☆
This is the opposite of Captain America 2. I have nothing but complaints, with just a few saving graces barely sneaking in. If it were trimmed down to just the scenes with the Giamatti, it could have been a good animated short to include on the DVD of a better movie.

I would have never guessed there'd be a time when I was not excited about the prospect of a Spider-Man movie.

X-Men: Days of Future Past - ★★★★☆
I wasn't excited for this one; I don't like most of the X-Men movies, and the director of the old ones coming back seemed like a bad omen. But now, I'm pretty sure this one is my favorite of the bunch!

I think this movie's strength is the choice to not be penned in to exactly where the previous films left off. For like, a decade, I've told anyone who will listen how Spider-Man should be like the 007 franchise - change creative teams now and then, but just keep moving forward. Make references when appropriate or when feeling indulgent, but try to tell a new story each go 'round. You know, like a comic book?

I've read some absolutely idiotic articles this week by people who assume the X-Men have never had an adventure we didn't see on the screen, and they must be the reason why every time someone wants to tell us a new superhero story they feel obliged to serve up a new take on the origin first.

What this movie gets right is figuring that you either know who these characters are, or will be able to figure it out by watching the movie, and then telling a story about them. (What it gets wrong? Yet another comic book movie where we fly around in DNA in the intro. Yet another comic book movie with a plot point hinging on lost powers, even if it was a good take on it this time.)

Movie Making Monday: Meet the Apocalypse!

No reviews this week. I've been out in the world making things!

Freshly released to their Kickstarter backers, here's a video of everything we've shot so far for Diani and Devine Meet the Apocalypse. Sort of.

The movie stars Gabriel Diani and Etta Devine, but this video, which Gabe calls "what the movie would look like if we stopped the camera on 'Action,'" mainly stars editor / 2nd unit director / clapper Chad Meserve and PA Danni Steele.

Shot by Matthias Schubert, Austin Harris, and Gareth Taylor.
Edited by DDMTA assistant editor Rob Schultz.

www.DDMTA.com

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#2,048: Psychos

Presented today Memento-style, in the reverse of the order viewed.

The Mist (Black & White Director's Cut) - ★★★★☆
My first time seeing the B/W version. It's been a while since I've seen any version, and happily I'd forgotten a lot of the middle of the movie. Got to watch it this time through the lens of the lovecrafty stuff I've been reading / playing more of lately, which also made it fun.

Psycho II - ★★★☆☆
I wasn't sure what to make of this one. The premise is almost like a comedy, with so many knowing nods and nudges and things to set Norman off, but it comes together as a pretty solid 80s horror. It feels neat to see what's become of the house and the motel and everything, even though of course it's all freshly built to make a movie. I have a little trouble squaring the events of this movie as things that "really happened" in the world of the original.

Psycho - ★★★★☆
I like watching a well-known classic like this (or maybe The Godfather) by trying to see it the way an audience did before it became a pop culture touchstone. You hear about the shower, not the seemingly conventional but still intriguing plot with the money. To a first-time viewer, Norman is lying because he's covering for his terrifying mother, not to stay out of jail himself. Maybe you even feel for him.

Psychos - ★★★☆☆
Seemed to me like this was really speeding along faster than I remembered. I assumed it was because of the intercutting capturing my attention, but no, it's actually shorter. The Hitchcocks I've seen lately, a lot of them could stand to lose 15 minutes, but somehow I don't think I'd have quite the same audience if I did it.

Definitely makes me want to go watch the original again, not just for the fun of seeing how this cut works. Probably not as excited to give the remake another chance.