* Let’s get started with some Clive Barker beefcake, shall we?
(Via Dread Central.)
* And let’s follow it up with some Frank Quitely Batman and Robin, why don’t we?
(Via Newsarama.)
* Back to Barker for a second, you kind of had to see this coming when their screenplay got shelved in favor of one from the people who write the Saw sequels, but French director duo Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury are now officially no longer directing the Hellraiser remake. The Weinsteins’ horror-movie reign of terror continues. (It’s a good thing Jason Adams was taking the day off.)
* I have good news and bad news about the new, decade-in-the-making Portishead album. The bad news is that there are no beats, and that’s a huge letdown. But the good news is that band members Adrian Utley and Geoff Barrow are talking about director John Carpenter’s work as a film score composer.
* In recent months I’ve talked a bit about how the video game tropes we take for granted are actually incredibly bizarre and merit examination and exploration, perhaps even within the framework of narrative fiction a la Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim books. Because I don’t actually play video games and therefore don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, it never even occurred to me to think about this in terms of not just weird story/worldbuilding elements (a star makes you invincible, you fight turtles and mushrooms, etc.) but also in terms of the mechanics of gameplay itself. Why should you be able to climb walls and ceilings as easily as walking? Why, when you have a rocket launcher, can you not open certain doors without a particular key? Why does just touching certain objects instantly kill you? God bless the Internet, and reader kiss the next few hours goodbye, because the TV Tropes wiki has an absurdly comprehensive and well-written list of every video game trope you can think of. Besides being both funny and nostalgic, it’s actually quite eye-opening if you haven’t thought about this stuff in this way before. (I found this via Nate Patrin at Joystick Division, who lists some of his favorites.)
* Finally, I only have one word to say about this unique Lost recap (via Jim Treacher)…what?
Some of the videogame tropes remind me of Alan Moore’s great comment about other people perpetuating his bad mood about mid-1980s politics. “And it wasn’t even theirs to begin with!” That always made me chuckle. A lot of these reflect early resource limitations, and when asked, the designers will say, sometimes very vigorously, “Oh, we’d have loved to do X and Y, but we couldn’t make it work in the resources we had. But we wanted to!”
I really love the new Portishead album. Took a few listens to divorce the reality of the thing from my expectations, but it’s really coiled its way around my heart now.
Robin is such a twink.
Previously on Lost:
YEAH!
OKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!