#2,060: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Sorcerer - ★★★☆☆
For me, this was the good kind of puzzling at the outset. Like The Exorcist, the bits you've heard about don't start falling into place for about an hour. I liked the abruptness, the way the film gets out on the out line of a scene and not a moment later. Scenes that didn't have a line to end on though, I think a few of them could have stood to be trimmed down a bit. Fun to watch with a crowd of folks being made to worry.

Runaway Train - ★½☆☆☆
Wow. Multiple Oscar nods? Wow. I would have labeled Eric Roberts' character as either a disaster on the page or a disaster in the edit. Maybe both. It's like a poor man's Emperor of the North.

Under the Skin - ★★☆☆☆
This is a video that my friend Russell would like.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - ★★★★☆
With a constant tension that 24 can only dream about, this didn't feel much like a summer movie to me at all. Pros: Good score, has subtext in the vein of classic sci-fi, some amazing/horrifying imagery, and lots of apes. Cons: No one actually named Dawn.

Media Monday: Project Giant Robot, Picross, and EVOLand

Let's talk video games this week:

- The Unfinished Swan - ★★☆☆☆
A neat concept that I generally found to be kind of a chore to work through. Gilliam's cameo was a nice touch.

- Project: Guard, Project: Giant Robot, & Splattoon Demos - ★★★★☆
These were all demos I played during downtime (re: hour-long gameplay segments of Smash Bros) while working in the Nintendo booth at E3. Guard was pretty fun, and involved a crowd shouting out when they saw robots sneaking up on me. In Giant Robot, I was knocked down once or twice by the evil robots, but I always took 'em down with me. In Splattoon, my army of squidgirls (Orange) triumphed over the other, lesser team (Purple). The motion controls were tricky, but I was determined to play it as intended. (One little extra thing about these that must have been reported on somewhere by now: Mr. Miyamoto was revealed to be working on a new Star Fox game at E3 this year. Also, the two 'Project' games are Miyamoto creations. There are Star Fox-related logos visible in the Project: Guard scenery...)

- EVOLand - ★★★☆☆
I've had my eye on it for a while, and bit during the Steam summer event. Generally pretty fun, but by the second half the gimmicks have mostly faded away into actually being the kind of game they're joking about. My time was split almost evenly between getting up to the last boss, and then running around collecting everything before taking him out. Finished with 100% completion.

- Picross e4 - ★★★☆☆
This is, I think, the third picross game I've played on a DS. Back to 2D this time. I liked that you get bonus puzzles for being a loyal franchise buyer. Blasted through this one really quick though, in about a month.

- Picross e3 - ★★★☆☆
And having finished that one, I then went and wrapped up the last few puzzles from last year's installment. None of these are as much fun and addictive as Picross DS was though. Maybe because then it was a novelty. It also had the fun Nintendo themed level, which never re-appeared.

- AC-130 Air Gunship - ★★☆☆☆
It's like that level in that AAA shooting game, except a lot less fun! …I still played all 15 levels…

Underground Comedy is Go!

For years, I've been tangentially involved in a documentary about the improv comedy scene in Los Angeles. In January we made a trailer for it, and now we're about to make the whole darn thing. We've got hundreds of hours of footage, and we want to bring you an interesting 90 minute feature film about what goes on in the black box theaters that are forging (a) tomorrow's big name comics and (b) tomorrow's accountants and waiters who did a fun thing in their 20s. Most people don't know about it, most people will never know about it, and even the folks that do might never get to see it because improv evaporates as soon as it's done, never to be seen again. Unless of course, someone is standing around with a camera crew documenting the whole thing.

Check out the trailer for Underground Comedy here and if you want to get a DVD in a couple years after we're done producing the movie and walking it around to festivals, or maybe a nice co-producer credit for your IMDB page, go have a look at the film's Kickstarter*, which is running for a mere 3 more weeks.

* Once upon a time, folks in film production probably compared notes on how they don't actually work so much with film anymore these days and isn't it a shame, why, I only ever worked on two projects in my life that shot on honest-to-goodness celluloid. Well that conversation is done, and everything's digital from here on out. The craft services table chit chat of the future is reminiscing about the days when films had investors. This is maybe my 5th crowdfunded movie.

The Curse of Oedipus!

This week I'm back on set with Diani and Devine Meet the Apocalypse, which means lots of media production, and not much media consumption. Instead, check out this promo I edited for the Antaeus Theater Company for their upcoming production of The Curse of Oedipus.

The theater company shares a ton of great actors with the movie, and the promo was written & directed by Diani & Devine! All I did was edit, color, mix, and make some fun graphics for the totally real previous versions of the show, like the Klingon version in the thumbnail, starring noted Klingon actor Michael Dorn.