God help me I’m head over heels in love with my wife

For the first time in a decade, I decided to run a year-end film poll. Among 23 voters, these were the complete results. Some really off-the-wall stuff here I think, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't. Very grateful to all the participants! letterboxd.com/willaharlowr...

he taught me to never give up. always be yourself. do unto others. i will never forgive him

why starship consoles explode

Often what they actually think is that the component pieces (visual art, music, script/story) are the "art", and the game is just the delivery mechanism. Therefore the game design should be as simplified and "accessible" as possible, because they think the value is elsewhere.

Ever since we banned holodecks we've encountered Old West and Roman themed Class M planets at a truly remarkable rate.

Having now watched 16 seasons and 7 movies of Star Trek it is clearer to me than ever that the Federation should ban the recreational use of holodecks and possibly all use.

If a game with action combat has skill points/a skill tree that is almost certainly a piece of very bad design

"Immersion" is broadly overvalued and underdefined in discussions of art.

I didn't fully buy into "Melee is dying" but now that I've seen Genesis's stream crash out right at the start of the final game of Pewfat's Doubles return and not come back in time to show it I'm not even sure this game exists anymore

Been a big one for the Ghost Babel fans.

This pops up every once in awhile and I always share it. Wu Tang goes in and out of popularity with the times, but there's no denying there was a Dream Team level of talent and brilliance on that roster. True artists.

and I think that that push for highlighting individual artistry ultimately is a legacy from successful Labor organizing in film, whereas, as you said, video games are an industry where to get your name on a game it was an easter egg (Atari) or a nickname (in Japan)

Part of the problem here, by the way, is that larger game publishers and studios have a history of de-emphasizing individuals’ artistry in favour of brand mythology, and gaming’s critical class has been all-too-eager to take the bait.

People talk about the way “Nintendo” or “Retro Studios” makes games like it’s equivalent to talking about the way Steven Spielberg makes movies. What they’re really doing is the equivalent of talking about how Warner Bros or Focus Features makes movies. Frankly, it’s very irritating to me.

Lotsa bad in the state modern film criticism, BUT there is a clear, substantial, well-connected, lasting core who prize unique expressions of artistry from individual voices. They boost the output of people over studio names or franchises. That practically doesn’t exist in video game criticism.

I put together a little “broadcast edition” for our viewing last night of STAR TREK VOYAGER that edited in actual commercials that aired for the show at the time, and it was 1. A fun bit of nostalgia of what viewing TV used to entail and 2. A reminder that commercials are an absolute hell on Earth.

The fact that METROID DREAD is seemingly outselling METROID PRIME 4: BEYOND, despite much lower development costs and public hype, is a very real glimmer of hope that people respond more to thoughtful systems and the artistic visions of individuals than mechanics slop.

dig dug fumbled a bad bitch

damn dig dug's ex wife is hot

being a harry potter fan in 2026 is fucking embarrassing, I'm not even sorry to say

You can put me in the camp of “SINNERS has a lot of terrific ideas visually but it struggles heavily with frequently underexposed subjects and the consequences of trying to correct for that in post, unbalanced or compositionally hollow 2.76:1 footage, and the physical limitations of IMAX footage.”

Don't let it slip away.

I'm increasingly convinced that filmmakers, including really great ones, have almost totally disengaged over the past 50 years from the idea that movie music can have an intricate, developing superstructure. Thus people like Jonny Greenwood, Ross&Reznor, Z****r vaunted as masters of film scoring.

My copy of @bcwallin.com's monograph - featuring an essay about Danny Boyle's use of digital formats by yours truly - arrived today. Very excited to see it released tomorrow.

Gosh I really did save my own life in a pretty courageous way, huh. That’s pretty great. I’m pretty great.

GET BACK might be the most aesthetically unbearable-to-look-at movie for me personally that I’ve ever laid eyes on. Whole range of factors both contextual and immediate. Been assured there’s oodles of historical fascination and great editing going on, but I still suspect I’ll never finish it.

It's very very important that every one of us goes on some talk shows

The most time-consuming part of my TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME edit combining it with THE MISSING PIECES is easily recolouring those deleted scenes to match FWWM. Despite being widely recognized as canonical and essential, THE MISSING PIECES was very obviously not given much of a colour grade.

When people like a work of art, they’re often not very good at engaging critically with the elements outside the absolute best 10-20%. Visual highlights, florid musical passages of score, elaborate set pieces get cited without regard to the majority of the total experience and structure.

Related to this: I think that, broadly speaking, people should be much MUCH less patient with games wasting their time. (I'm not sure how consensus broadly landed on "grinding is fine" [grinding here defined as "mandatory repetitive actions with little-to-no space for skill improvement"])

I agree, Lucy Liu.

It’s inconvenient but everyone should be comfortable having multiple messaging apps and knowing exactly what they’re all for. And right now one should be Signal.

Broadly, people who claim to be deeply invested in video games as an art form need to become much more amenable to undergoing styles of game design that are painful to get accustomed to (eg difficulty, slowness). It’s recognized a key trait of deep appreciation for pretty much all other art forms!

AVATAR 3 gives us the first unambiguous, in-universe assertion that yes, human beings find Na'vi hot

AVATAR FIRE AND ASH spoilers i guess It's very funny to me that James Cameron has found a way to make multi-billion-grossing blockbusters where you pump your fists as eldritch squid monsters scurry past the heroes on their way to consume screaming humans into their abyss of tentacles.

Just in awe that "This new Game Boy is made from attack drone metal" is a real sell being made with a real product and not as a provocative art piece They really just thought "this is rad"

It’s fucked that there are things that we’ll never know the answer for. “Oh well, guess we’ll never know.” What the hell?! But I want to!

dang my new face is way better than that old purple face

Critical aggregate sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have made people overconfident in estimating critical consensus for many reasons, but an important one is their non-measurement of contemporaneous vs evolving critical responses. (Also numbers are a VERY limited tool for this ofc.)

but the sequence of like. Monhun, Mario Kart, Shinobi, Ninja Gaiden 4 all unconsciously apologizing for the name of the game on the box by reverting towards some imagined mean (open world, metroidvania, suck-to-target, high storytelling focus, etc etc take your pick) just really was disheartening

this game sucks

I realized I haven't posted this since doing it back in August. My first 1CC, M.U.S.H.A hard mode on the Genesis (If you want to be a pedant and say this is a no-continues run, fine. Also I effed up and recorded at 30fps, but look at that sweet hand-cam action!) www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj2S...

I wrote about MINORITY REPORT for @letterboxd.social, diving into how Steven Spielberg's cyber-noir masterpiece exposes a world doomed by the hyperreal simulacra of screens and images: letterboxd.com/journal/mino...

Playing METROID PRIME 4: BEYOND and rn the single thing that just completely bewilders me about so many modern mainstream games and the way they're received is the preponderance of cutscenes. So damn many cutscenes ranging from 5 seconds to a minute or two, the vast majority completely unnecessary.

while social media narratives seem to be driven by top players and figureheads bemoaning the decline of majors, the reality for most is that local/weekly Melee has never been better

I really like when I've seen "ports" that are based on an entirely or at least mostly new code base for more limited tech as "demakes". The arcade and NES versions of GHOSTS N GOBLINS fundamentally AREN'T the same game, but the language of "port" has encouraged otherwise in public consciousness.

I've never been so excited. It's happening. #ReleaseTheOriginalTrilogy www.starwars.com/news/star-wa...

Jafar Panahi is the greatest filmmaker in the world.

My list of "What four movies would you see in IMAX for the first time if you could?" is so damn good, I'm so smart and cool, fuck