Payne In My Head

Okay, so Max Payne may have deserved its score. Granted, it stayed fairly close to the game's plot, and the film has an interesting grungy atmosphere to it. However, the movie falters in its execution. For instance, I like the portrayal of the effects of Valkyr, the drug, as demons, though apparently many people didn't get that insinuation (one particular moviegoer asked me, when I mentioned that the movie was based off a game, if there were demons in the game).

Basically, the movie is slow-paced and doesn't cater to its audience. I guess I admire that it doesn't dumb itself down, but many of the audience was simply lost as to what was going on. It's only thanks to my experience with the game that I could follow, though I seriously considered walking out of the theater at one point, I was so dreadfully bored. That's rare.

So, well, it is rather bad, but not in the same way that most movies are. It's simply too vague and has some seriously bad editing. Overall, though, it's not horrible in the sense that most movies are (that is, poorly-written and stupid). If you like really intense, non-catering movies, give it a try.

Pad-bound

After approximately 18 hours of working on a Photoshop project that I'd really been excited about, I've run out of time and have had to go with a far inferior design, just to meet the time constraints (in other words, I started too late).

The project was to create a two-page highlight spread (as for a magazine) for an annual event. Less out of my interest in tabletop gaming than for a chance to try a design that had been nagging me for some time, I chose to create a design that would incorporate the four elements on the four sides/corners, the four para-elements inside the design, and a Law-Chaos/Good-Evil axis in the exact center. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to the Earth part, I'd run out of ideas for how to make it actually look good. Thus, the project will probably remain unfinished, at about a 1/3 completed point. I am pretty proud of some details I made, however. See below.



Speaking of launch pads, apparently the chief technology and environment correspondent for CNN is named "Miles O'Brien." That's just funny.

Ember and Payne

The general consensus is that City of Ember was a fairly poor film, scoring only 48% on Rotten Tomatoes. Of course, then again, Quarantine did far better, and, from what I hear, that's been rather overrated (according to The Spoony One's opinion, which I respect).



Personally, I thought that City of Ember was very good. The complaints are that it goes too slowly, there isn't enough action/adventure, etc., but it introduces the characters and opens the story in about the same way as the book, and, through it all, stays pretty close to the source material. If anything, it adds action/adventure that's not in the book to begin with. I'm a big fan of trying to keep movies as close to their sources as is possible, particularly avoiding reinterpretations of the source material. As someone said, "if you know you can't make it better, don't try."

On the other side of the coin, I'm planning to go see Max Payne tonight. It's been a long time since I played the game, but I recall very good things. The game was action-packed, had an interesting story, and did some fun and fascinating mindplay with psychological scenes like running down a hallway that stretches out longer and longer before you. From what I hear, the movie doesn't stick to the game at all, and that's an easy way to earn my criticism, but let's see how it actually turns out.

If you don't mind spoilers, go ahead and watch the game. It's pretty entertaining, and I love the comic book style of the cutscenes.

Lighten Up

I'm hoping that City of Ember doesn't suck. The book was pretty neat, and the trailer looks fairly sweet. We'll see.

48 Hours of Goblins

Thunt, creator of Goblins, is going to be doing a 48-hour art marathon. Below is an embedded video of his work, live, or you can watch it here. I highly recommend people supporting him with money and the like, as he's now taken on the yolk of drawing webcomics as a full-time job. Maybe he be successful.

The marathon will being the 26th, and Thunt will be breaking only to stretch his legs, eat, etc. There will be audio, so you can hear him chat with those in the chat room (see link) about this and that. Note: there will, of course, be spoilers to the comic as you will see him drawing. I should watch just to see a master artist in action. Maybe I can learn something.

Watch live video from Drawing Goblins on Justin.tv

The Past, and the Future

Updates will be coming fewer and further between as college starts up again for me, but I felt it necessary to offer an old project I completed last year for archival purposes. It is a flip-calendar depicting the travels of a girl through this somewhat surrealistic world. It's obviously not on par with the kind of detail I put into this blog's header, but that was before I started using the stylus, so I had to place every point in Illustrator by hand. I took a long time, but I'm still pleased with how it turned out. Again, thanks to Adam Phillips for his amazing work and the inspiration it gave me.

Download the Calendar's files (pdf format).

UPDATE: Ok, so my download keeps getting lost, so I'll just supply the files in png format, in proper order, below.

And, for reference, here is a large version of the current header (raw file from Illustrator, before modifying in Photoshop).

Brief Update

So I'm, like, totally going to build a brand new gaming computer that will put its foot in the balls of any game out there. Hopefully then, I'll have the power to record myself playing Mass Effect with FRAPS and write an excessively extensive cheese and whine article about it. In the meantime, I may go over Batman Returns, the Tim Burton movie that at least one friend swears is one of the best movies evah. I'll point out why it's a campy piece of trash.

Stay tuned!