There’s a lot of people I would choose to mute reskeets for (and people I would follow if that was an option) but brian is absolutely not one of them

Thank goodness that cinema didn’t normalize agonizingly slow, 20-minute tutorials on how to watch movies, with on-screen text explaining what a cut is for the millions of people who are perfectly familiar with the form just in case SOMEone in the audience gets confused.

I understand that GREAT CIRCLE does not remain forever an alternation between completely needless tutorial and only mildly emotionally engaging cutscenes, but first impressions count for a lot and I hate it when games feel like they exist in mortal fear of what players will think of them.

Played GUN.SMOKE followed by INDIANA JONES AND THE GREAT CIRCLE for about an hour each, and that was quite the whiplash between a game that right off wants you to feel things via how it’s played and one that wants to deliver the textureless synapse-firing of IP pastiche via 3D rendering and prompts.

Comments on public Facebook groups remain the greatest repositories of thought, in our generation or any other

Do you want more ECCE HOMOs? Because this is how you get more ECCE HOMOs

no matter what editorial tried to do over the years, we all know what Gerry was going for with the fourth panel there. Hubris to tragedy in a single sweep of the eyes across one image. Doesn't matter that it got undermined. It was a key moment in pop art that haunts anyone who sees it

Modern releases of TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME remove the first 15 seconds of audio and it is extremely frustrating, because that audio is tonally and musically important.

I'm finally getting fox ditto-pilled, this shit is so fun to watch.

I answered someone asking "Why does Criterion sometimes put out releases that totally change the colour appearance of movies?"

Wahoo, look what I made!

Just checked movie listings for this weekend and... sorry, WHO-chael?

Ended the hiatus on recording our podcast today and one of our server's regulars immediately got our asses lmao

Biopics actually aren't worse on average than any movie genre. They just seem to be because they're so often pushed as these prestige-y, life-affirming works of portraiture, and particularly as awards-bait, and public familiarity with the subjects further raises expectations.

This game seems incredible. Too much to say about everything the demo gets right. The aesthetics are spectacular, the mechanics are tense and focused and really clear, there's a high skill ceiling, the layouts are great. Try it; extremely worth your time. ctmatthews.itch.io/hyper-bun-bu...

Why would i even go see the new mummy when the damn title spoils who it is

Vancouver folks! I've been invited back to @viffest.bsky.social to talk about the history of lighting ideology for four weeks this May. Come say hi if you're in town, and help me demonstrate a century of lighting! viff.org/series/film-...

when you successfully perform an emergency appendectomy and save the life of a newborn baby with acute appendicitis but aren't able to save your run

Many sins committed by Hanna-Barbera, but I can't believed they got away with "Scooby dooby doo!" becoming an iconic, widely-recognized catchphrase just a few years after "Yabba dabba doo!" They're the same catchphrase! Then they introduced the character Yabba-Doo. Catphrase: "Yippity-Yabbity-Doo".

Absolutely tragic sudden-sun-in-the-eyes failure at the very end of an R-TYPE run I was recording today 😭 I really need to iron out my play conditions a bit better when I do these attempts.

If, when talking about movies, TV, video games, etc, you treat terms like "cinematic" or "production value" or "professional" as inherently desirable or meritorious there's a pretty good choice that we don't just have conflicting opinions, but actively warring philosophies on the value of art.

I think one of the most important video game experiences I ever had was playing XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN on high difficulty for the first playthrough, committing to never loading a save farther back than one mission, realizing midway through I was inescapably screwed, then starting over and trying again.

tbh to some partial extent this entire project of getting familiar with shmups exists because I think DODONPACHI DAIOUJOU looks sick as all hell but I know I need a solid grounding in the genre to appreciate it.

OK, barring someone making a REALLY strong case that something essential is underrepresented here, I think this is where the list of shmups I'd like to play will stand for the time being. Thanks to everyone who pitched in! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd come to feel that HALF-LIFE 2 is a bad game.

OK, first: had my first little proper play session on my DIY arcade stick and I already love this lmao. I think this really will be my go-to controller for most 2D action games. Second: I played a little bit of R-TYPE II and I might need to do this next instead of FLYING SHARK.

Made a lil spreadsheet with the shmups I'm interested in trying sometime. If you think there's a big essential really great shmup missing here, I'd be happy to hear about it!

Just saw that there's an active netplay community for GOLDENEYE 007, wondered what modern competitive play would look like, and peeked at a tournament's Grand Finals set it's absolutely goated lmao

good movie poster drop

I love it when the only significant typo in a long thread you made is in its last post and you spot it right away, so you can just delete and repost it with the fix on the spot 😎

Blader is touching on one of the most uncomfortable truths about advocating for more people to engage in thoughtful art engagement: Many people won't accept that their dismissals of entire thoughtfully-studied & loved art fields without any serious, prolonged engagement represents a character flaw.

I think for a lot of people, video essays are supposed to be very gently and clearly delivered in a highly aesthetically digestible way, and I don’t deny that has its uses, but that is not my ethos editing them and never will be. I learned how to edit these from Karen Schmeer and Chris Marker.

I think if I made videos critically discussing video games they would probably kind of rock.

Now that I've conquered it, R-TYPE stages (1st loop) ranked: 8. Stage 2. Haltingly paced & full of spongey enemies BEFORE you route it, then just a chore. For most of the boss you can safely do absolutely nothing when you learn where to fly, and you have to play it practically every run. Huge chore.

Just 1cc no-miss'd R-TYPE and... my recording setup broke midway through lmao. Will record a winning run another time!

Riker's about to get Barks/Rosa-pilled.

Youtube premiere of Devan's new video essay I collaborated on is premiering now! Come chat and watch www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nqa...

Mark yer calendars. Premiere at the link below at 10:00am PDT tomorrow:

It's kinda wild how the only lacklustre cue in any of the original Star Wars trilogy scores is the trash compactor. And it's only a little bad! I think if it wasn't for that cue I'd be totally ready to rank the trilogy's scores 2>1>3, but it's probably 2>3=1. All incredible scores, mind you.

Devan’s new vid essay soon! Co-directed & edited by me! Debunks virtually every video essay about the benefits of large formats from the past ~2 years! Even if you’re from the video game side of my followers, if you enjoy my approach to criticism and analysis I encourage you to give it a look.

In an airplane watching 2001 and I'm pretty sure this is a pre-DVD TV edit. It's 27 minutes shorter and more or less cuts the kinds of sequences you would expect (e.g. it cuts straight from the exchange where Floyd says "buried four million years ago" to the astronauts walking to the Monolith pit.)

People act like thinking "Checkpoints are bad" "Combos are bad" in 1-player action games are bad are indefensible, extremist positions — but then you actually ask those people to elaborate on their philosophies and they're often pretty robustly well-reasoned.

It’s very funny how THE LAST JEDI was 1. Very profitable 2. Highly critically acclaimed, but extremely unpleasant people convinced Disney to spend the last nine years own-goaling the franchise. If you get overwhelmingly positive reviews and quadruple your budget in gross. You’re probably doing ok.

The cinema crowd is craving for a technical reason to keep believing their medium is special and different from video (which it is but for cultural/ethical reasons that are no longer tied to the superiority of film). They fight the wrong battle out of panic

It's really frustrating that consumers correctly recognized that the TV industry trying to make 8K a huge selling point over the 4K standard was a gimmick way past the point of diminishing returns, but cinema-enthusiast culture eats up the "it's higher resolution!" large format marketing gimmickry.

New team photos just dropped (finally!!) with @dagscott.bsky.social

skeet hits all the bases

"He's the man! The man with the Midas touch..." Looking carefully at what I've written, then crossing out the last three words and adding "a spider's touch."