Tag: film

The Video Game Singularity

I feel we are rapidly approaching what I’ve chosen to dub “the Video Game Singularity”. It’s the point at which the lines between developers and players of video games blurs to the degree that the storytelling experience these games convey is one truly shared between both camps. We’re on our way with RPGs with user… Continue reading The Video Game Singularity

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Alien

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/alien.mp3] Our fear of the dark is something primal, something elemental. It hearkens back to the days when we were scraping out our existences in caves and under large trees hoping bigger predators covered in fur and claws weren’t about to leap out of the underbrush and use our intestines as a meaty spaghetti dinner.… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Alien

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Akira

{no audio this week – sorry for the inconvenience!} Many authors have speculated that we as a species are walking a knife’s edge between transcending our previous limitations in terms of body, mind, and spirit, and falling into an inevitable downward spiral of self-destruction we’re simply too lazy to avert. It’s a resonant message and… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Akira

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Antichrist

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/antichrist.mp3] We as a culture tend to abuse certain turns of phrase. For example, too many people interpret negative opinions as “hate” when “hate” is a visceral and descriptive word for the way a lot of middle American teenagers raised by conservative parents look at their gay classmates. “Awesome” is used to describe gaming and… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Antichrist

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Ghost Rider

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/ghost_rider.mp3] There was a time when superheroes subscribed to a certain template. If the handsome face of the hero’s alter-ego didn’t emerge from the phone booth in brightly-colored tights and a complimentary cape, he simply wouldn’t be welcome at the Superfriends clubhouse. As time went on, it was realized that this sort of pigeon-holing was… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Ghost Rider

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! History of the World, Pt 1

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/history_of_the_world.mp3] Satirists are more important to civilization than you might think. While critics may highlight, underscore or outright assault a work in a mostly straightforward manner, a satirist does so through humor or hyperbole. It’s no wonder that satirists tend to be more popular, even if some periods of history were less tolerant of them… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! History of the World, Pt 1

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Wolfman

{No audio this week on account of my own lycanthropic rampage.} There was a time when movie studios didn’t mind being associated with the unusual and the macabre. For years, Universal Studios seemed rather proud of its men becoming monsters. Bela Legosi inhabited the castle and cloak of Count Dracula, Boris Karloff took a couple… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Wolfman

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Bunraku

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/bunraku.mp3] Bunraku is a preposterous title for a film, and also slightly pretentious. It refers not to a character or a location, but rather a type of Japanese shadow play, a theatrical production using puppets that tells broad stories based on archetype and fable. It’d be like naming Flash Gordon “Raygun Gothic Adventure with Queen.”… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Bunraku

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Dirty Harry

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/dirty_harry.mp3] In an ideal world, police officers are sworn to serve the public trust, protect the innocent and uphold the law. Even in our fiction, even when they’re no longer fully human, we’d like to think that there’s some sort of compassionate protection between those of us abiding by the law and those driven to… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Dirty Harry