Monthly Archives: January 2015
Amazon to Begin Making Films for Theatrical Release
Amazon Studios is expanding its business to the big screen.
The Hollywood Reporter reports that Amazon is set to begin producing and acquiring its own original films, putting them out for theatrical release followed by release on Amazon Prime four to six weeks later. Amazon is planning to put out about a dozen movies per year.
"We look forward to expanding our production efforts into feature films. Our goal is to create close to 12 movies a year, with production starting later this year," Amazon Studios vice president Roy Price said. "We hope this program will also benefit filmmakers, who too often struggle to mount fresh and daring stories that deserve an audience."
Elon Musk Reveals Plans for Ambitious Space Internet
Elon Musk, head of Tesla Motors and founder of SpaceX, has revealed another project he has in the works: a space Internet that connects everyone on Earth -- and eventually Mars -- to the World Wide Web.
Musk's plan involves launching a network of hundreds of communication satellites to orbit about 750 miles above Earth, as reported by Bloomberg. The network would speed up the Internet and deliver speedy, low-cost Web services to the billions with limited Internet access.
“Our focus is on creating a global communications system that would be larger than anything that has been talked about to date,” Musk told the site.
Supernatural Producer Talks Season 11 and the Mark of Cain
It's been a busy few months for Supernatural. The series recently celebrated its 200th episode and last week, it was renewed for Season 11. The road so far has brought us monsters, demons, angels, and fairy tales. Just this season we've seen Dean and Sam wrestle with Demon Dean and the Mark of Cain, watched Castiel reunite with his human vessel's daughter, and been surprised by the appearance of Crowley's mother. All of those events have had repercussions, particularly the Mark of Cain. The midseason finale of Supernatural brought the Mark into focus as it pushed Dean closer to becoming a monster like the ones the brothers have been fighting for years.
More Dragon Ball Xenoverse Characters Revealed
This month's issue of V Jump, a Japanese magazine about gaming and manga, reveals three new characters for the upcoming Dragon Ball Xenoverse.
In the line-up of newly announced characters are the Demon God Demigra, and Dragon Ball GT's Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta and Omega Shenron.
According to ShonenGamez, a purchase of January's V Jump issue comes with a redeemable code for an "original custom theme" of Dragon Ball Xenoverse.
Based on the fan translated scans from ShonenGamez, viewable below, this is most likely a PlayStation 3 theme.
Phoebe Tonkin on What’s to Come for The Originals
The Originals returns Monday night from its mid-season break for a run of new episodes. While filming a guest appearance on the set of CBS’s Stalker last month -- which comes from Vampire Diaries executive producer Kevin Williamson -- one of The Originals’ stars, Phoebe Tonkin, discussed the show’s current storylines and her vampire/werewolf hybrid character Hayley’s role in the escalating conflict against the witches. (We'll have more from Tonkin about her Stalker role before it airs).
Question: We left off on The Originals, as always, with a lot in motion. Anything you can say about when we pick up and where things go next?
Tonkin: Yes, it’s a really kind of volatile relationship between both Hayley and Elijah and Hayley and Klaus right now and as we saw in the last episode, Elijah and Hayley kind of made finally an advance towards each other which has been built up over the last however many episodes. But when we go back, I think now the priority is definitely to create some kind of safe home for Hope. I think Klaus and Hayley, their dream is just to live as normal of a life as possible but obviously that is not going to happen for a while and not without a lot of obstacles to get there. But yeah, it’s nice that they’re now kind of on each other’s side a little bit. Now that Hayley’s a hybrid as well, they’ve definitely gotten closer and bonded over that.
11 Things to Watch This Week
Rainn Wilson's new FOX series Backstrom premieres this week on Thursday, but other than that the next seven days are mostly filled with returning shows. The CW full Tuesday and Wednesday lineups are back (and will even air during the State of the Union address on Tuesday), while FX's Justified returns for its sixth and finale season.
Amazon Prime in January: Justified, Swingers, More
Plus, it's not a new full season but The Venture Bros. are back on Adult Swim with an hour-long special on Monday night. And while things look dire for NBC's Constantine renewal-wise, you can still cast DC villain Felix Faust on this Friday's episode, played by Mark Margolis.
IGN’s Top 10 Movies of All Time: Jared Petty
I adore movies. The best films offer me a change to devour a great story in exchange for a couple of hours of my time. The worst still grant me an excuse to devour yummy popcorn. These are the flicks that mean the most to me, ten movies that bring me joy, make me laugh, or draw tears from my eyes no matter how many times I see them.
“Out here, a man settles his own problems.”
The History of the World According to Assassin’s Creed
Since 2007, approximately 4,500 Assassin's Creed games have launched on console and mobile. One of the most intriguing recurrences is the alternate history that is introduced to players within most games. Using people who really lived throughout history, and staying accurate (mostly) to the actual date of death, we’ve been introduced to villain and hero alike, all having met a tragic demise at the end of a pointed blade, a drop of poison, or some sinister plot.
While our educators try to convince us of one truth, often that someone died of natural causes or some strange ailment, Ubisoft and Assassin’s Creed teaches us that history was more violent than we realize. History is written by the victors, as they say, but if Ezio, Altair, and others would be believed, history is truly written by Assassins.
Timothy Olyphant Talks the End of Justified
With Justified's final season premiere airing this week - on Tuesday, January 20th - star Timothy Olyphant, along with the cast and executive producer Graham Yost, spoke about how it felt to have the series come to a close after six seasons.
"I will say that it is nice knowing that the show will end and I have an opportunity to know the end is coming," Olyphant explained at the Television Critics Association press tour on Sunday. "Usually, when things end, I’m not the first person to find out. So that’s been lovely. And I think it’s been wonderful to just be able to see the finish line and enjoy it. Am I prepared for it? All I’m prepared for is that I’m unemployed in a few weeks, and I’m going to have to say yes to some s***ty ass, f***ing jobs. All the jobs I’ve said no to in the last five years, I’m going to say yes to them in about six weeks. F***."
Resident Evil HD Remastered Review
Nostalgia is a tricky emotion to navigate, given how it makes the things we loved so many years ago blossom into legends of the recent past. Or to put it another way: the masterpiece we remember might have been mediocre all along. Sometimes it's better to live in the bliss of our memories and avoid replaying that dusty classic, lest it dump a heavy load of reality on the lovefest.
The trick that a modern re-release must perform, then, is to be like the game we remember rather than the game that actually was, and Resident Evil HD does so admirably. The downside of a successful transition is that it's easy to say that this remake of a remake looks just like 2002's GameCube version. In reality, of course, the newer game benefits from new background textures and some attractive light bloom, not to mention its widescreen aspect ratio. That it looks like your memories of a 13-year-old reality, and not the reality itself, is a victory.
Your other memories of 2002's remake, however, should be far more reliable. Resident Evil HD reveals the same mystery, surrounds you with the same areas, and requires you to solve the same puzzles, a slight disappointment given how the remake recontextualized the story and expanded the gameplay. Yet if any lesson is to be gained from Resident Evil 6, it's that you needn't mess with a good thing, and Resident Evil, even purely within a modern context, is an engrossing adventure that benefits from tense exploration and clever environmental puzzles. Much has been made of the series' scares: that moment at which zombified dogs leap through the hallway windows and viciously attack you is one of video gaming's most iconic moments, after all. Yet Resident Evil's finest asset is how it invigorates exploration by making every room you unlock an enigma. Behind every door are glimpses at the mansion's history, hints of experiments gone wrong, and bizarre contraptions coated with an occult veneer. Solving a puzzle is to wipe away some of the fog that obscures your understanding.
Don't get me wrong: the frights remain, though I suspect that you won't leap out of your seats as often as you'd expect, whether or not you've played Resident Evil before. These kinds of horror-story jump scares are a matter of routine in modern games and cinema, though the game still makes the most of them. I yelped when those dogs crashed through the glass, even though I knew they were coming. The fear didn't come just from the loud shattering and throaty snarls, but from knowing that I was defenseless for several crucial seconds once a set of jaws sunk into my forearm. And while the dogs get all the attention, the sharks swimming around an aquatic arena are even more terrifying given their extreme mobility. You can feel the tension as you quickly wade through the water, hoping to avoid the creatures snapping at your heels.
Resident Evil, even purely within a modern context, is an engrossing adventure that benefits from tense exploration and clever environmental puzzles.
If you're a total newcomer to Resident Evil, some background is in order. You play as either Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield, members of a special ops force called S.T.A.R.S. (The acronym stands for Special Tactics And Rescue Service.) You spend most of the game exploring a mansion in which you've become trapped while investigating the disappearances of other S.T.A.R.S. members, though it is soon clear that the fate you should most worry about is your own. Escape is your primary goal, but doing so means collecting and inspecting jewels and other doodads, and then figuring out where to put or how to combine those doodads. There is also the matter of those undead freaks roaming about, some of which are apt to return, stronger than ever, if you aren't careful enough to torch their corpses or land a blood-spattering headshot.
You don't freely control the camera during your endeavors. Every viewing angle enhances the claustrophobia while allowing Capcom to carefully place props and lights for maximum effect. Some of the most dangerous places are also given the most limited screen space: you hear the growl of a living corpse behind you, but all you see is the dingy carpet, the peeling wallpaper, and the door that leads to safety. You could move further into the room, but that also means moving closer to the source of the growls--and it takes a moment to aim your weapon, be it the pistol you start with or the more powerful firearms you find later. That specific camera angle has just activated the most primal of choices: to fight or to flee.
Elsewhere, the camera simply enhances the atmosphere. A hallway shot emphasizes the lushness of the mansion's drapes with a nearby lamp, yet cracked plates still keep you unsettled. The beauty of a waterfall is undercut by the squawking crows that descend upon you in the same scene; it's the handsomeness and hostility of nature at once. Resident Evil was created with a clear eye for shot composition, so you would be justified in calling the game "cinematic." The fixed camera can be a source of frustration, however. You are fleeing an enemy and the angle changes, barring your view and requiring a quick control adjustment. You must hurry to solve a puzzle before the sliding walls crush you between them, but the quick camera moves create confusion. With great tension sometimes come mild aggravation, whether you opt for the original controls or the updated scheme, which aligns the game with its modern counterparts.
Of course, that's the Resident Evil conundrum: mechanics that keep you nervous and cautious can also lead to a sense of wasted time. There's that limited inventory, which has you juggling items from your stash to your inventory and vice versa, and trudging back to the closest safe room when you don't happen to have the item you need on hand, or don't have any room for that healing herb you just found and so desperately need. There are those room transitions that feature door-opening animations each time. (Walk for three seconds, wait for three-second door animation, walk for another three seconds, wait for another three-second animation: it's a jerky rhythm that stops being charming and becomes tedious over time.)
All the same, there's a beautiful simplicity to Resident Evil HD that serves as a reminder that the best mysteries don't need convoluted stories to be enthralling. Later Resident Evil games would add more viruses and unnecessary subplots, but the original allows that menacing mansion to do most of the talking. In this series, less is more. There is backstory to uncover, but the focus is on the here and now. Your motives are clear and your monstrous enemies are plain, and the scant cutscenes always serve a purpose. (The infrequency of cutscenes is just as well, given the high compression of those old audio files, not to mention the general awkwardness of the voice acting and dialogue.) It is you, the mansion, and your imagination. As it happens, that trio makes for a fine adventure, without the need for more monsters, more outbreaks, and more guns.