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June 22, 2010

Mommy, Can I Be Daniel Larusso for Halloween?

Thoughts on Karate Kid

Recently I've been interested in remakes, so I was eager to see The Karate Kid, which revisits the now-classic 1984 film of the same name. The remake is one of the most faithful I can remember; in a time (in a world?) of updates and adaptations that wax nostalgic about ...

May 6, 2010

The Picnic Spoils the Rain

On "Heavy Rain" and interactive cinema. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra.

March 22, 2010

Being in the World Movie

Guys with Beards talk about Heidegger

Check out this awesomely insane forthcoming film by Tao Ruspoli, about philosophy and the reception of Heidegger. It's called Being in the World, and the filmmaker characterizes it as "an attempt to bring profound philisophical ideas to a non-academic audience." From the film blurb: Being in the World is a ...

February 21, 2010

Materialisms

The Stuff of Things is Many

The past few days have witnessed a flurry of comments on the use and misuse of "materialism" in philosophy, starting with Gratton and continuing with Harman (1, 2) and Bryant. Gratton hits the nail on the head when he asks, "What kind of material would we even be talking about?" ...

January 20, 2010

Year of the Woman

What the state of women in Hollywood's tells us about women in games

Today I listened to NPR On Point on the ride home. The topic was "A big year for Hollywood women?", with film critics Manohla Dargis and Nicole LaPorte discussing (and deflating) recent buzz about the "Year of the Woman" in movies. If you listen to the show online, you'll be ...

Atari Hacks, Remakes, and Demakes

Special Topics in Game Design and Analysis, Spring 2010

In this intensive seminar, we will explore every aspect of the Atari VCS (2600), the most important early home videogame console. Based on a critical-technical practice Nick Montfort and I call platform studies, we will investigate the way the Atari VCS influenced games and game design through a thorough analysis ...

October 25, 2009

Rise, Crossover

Learning from the jazz pop instrumental

I seem to wind up in the car for at least part of the early afternoon every Saturday. As a result, I've developed a habit of listening to the reruns of America's Top 40 with Casey Kasem that play on satellite radio channel 70s on 7. This week's chart was ...

August 18, 2009

Objects.... oooobbbjjjeeecccts...

Zombies and Ontology

Over at Un-canny Ontology, Nathan Gale writes a post that responds to and extends both mine on Harman's conception of cuteness and Bryant's on the unheimlich. The uncanny valley rears its head, a concept originally developed by Masahiro Mori about the moment when robots cease to seem realistic and begin ...

August 8, 2009

Meh and the Mundane Sublime

On Netflix, the Simpsons, and Jean-Luc Nancy

We just rejoined Netflix after several years away from it. While recreating preferences and ratings on a fresh account, we noticed something surprising: Netflix doesn't allow a user to judge things as "just ok." Take a look at the tool-tip explanations for their five-star ratings: Netflix's recommendation system is generally ...

June 2, 2009

Every Computer Animated Film Ever

A universal plot summary, summer 2009 edition

It's time to test my theory of computer animated film plots against the latest examples of that form, DreamWorks' Monsters vs. Aliens and Pixar's Up. In case you are too lazy to click through, here's the theory again in its entirety: After the worst of a long series of well-meaning ...

February 2, 2009

Hitchcock Barbie

"Do you happen to have a pair of birds that are... just friendly?"

There are lots of unusual plush toys and fancy resin dolls these days. Far more than there once were. First they were made for humor's sake -- the Albert Einstein and Shakespeare action figures. Then for education's sake -- the Presidents of the United States action figures. But now merchandising ...

June 27, 2008

Every Computer Animated Film Ever

A universal plot summary

After the worst of a long series of well-meaning but destructive deeds, an anthropomorphized creature protagonist is shunned by his community. He enters into a series of adventures in the pursuit of a seemingly impossible task to prove his worth. During this pursuit the protagonist meets a rival and, to ...

September 11, 2007

Operating Systems Prohibit Film Still Fair Use

Built-in DVD players forbid screen captures with software constraint

Recently, I had the need to capture a still from a DVD a Persuasive Games client had sent over as guidelines for some game assets. I didn't want to rip the whole DVD, so I went to use the built-in screen capture facility in Apple OS X: the old standby ...