MIDI Week Singles: "????" - ???? (??)

"Manifest Destiny" from the film Ravenous (1999)

Composed by Damon Albarn

Ravenous Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Production Studio: Heyday Films

Distributed by: 20th Century Fox

Get it?  Because it's April Fools Day!  Although rather than do something completely different or dickish by saying that we will no longer be writing MIDI Week Singles or that Dr. Potts and I have decided to close down our site altogether, I thought that doing a MWS-type post with film music instead of video game music would be acceptingly appropriate.

So I chose "Manifest Destiny" from the 1999 film Ravenous.  This song did not feature too prominently in the film, playing in the background while Lieutenant Boyd decides that he would eat to live rather than live to eat.  Apparently the looping that Albarn does in this song is very characteristic of his style, but, even 16 years after buying the soundtrack, I still haven't looked up to see what else he has done.

This really is one of my, not only favorite songs from the soundtrack, but I would put it up there as one of my all time favorite orchestral songs; right up there with "Mvt. II: Allegretto" from Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92.  It's a "simple" song in that nearly everything is looped.  The intro guitar/sitar/demon-possessed banjo plays the exact same thing from the beginning to end with other instruments layering on top of it until the end of the song when nothing else except that one instrument is still playing the same thing, in the same tempo at the end.  I find it brilliant and frustrating at the same time.

If I had a greater musical vocabulary and education, I could write a dissertation on just this one piece and it would be glorious and hailed around the world as a masterpiece in its own right.  It's still April 1st.

Anyway, check out the rest of the soundtrack for Ravenous if "Manifest Destiny" interested you at all.  Michael Nyman composed the other half of the soundtrack that Albarn didn't do (obviously) and the two compliment each other very well.  Your best bet would be to find a new copy (not available through Amazon) or just listen to the album via youtube (cursory search turned up only a handful of songs and not the entire soundtrack); or try to locate it at your local used CD/record store.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Where I Question What I'm Seeing Here Is Real

P.S. Apologies to those who visited and "tried" to listen to the song before 1pm PDT.  I did not realize that the whole song was not included in the video that I uploaded until listening through after posting.  The song is now up in its entirety.

The Alamo Drafthouse!!!

Alright, down to brass tacks.  tax?  Anyway.  Time to tell you about one of the best things in Austin.  Something that sets a precedent for all.  I'm talking about the Alamo Drafthouse.

What is the Alamo Drafthouse?  Well, put simply, it's a movie theater where you can order beer and food.  Yep, the legends are true!  And they are alive in Austin.  As a matter of fact, I just watched Serenity last week at the Alamo drafthouse -whaaaat?!  You read me right.  They also play retro and cult classics.  I'm hoping to catch a showing of Ridley Scott's Alien, for Sci Fi/Horror October!

My first experience at the Alamo Drafthouse was in, maybe 2005, when I visited Austin for the first time.  A friend and I watched Black Snake Moan, a forgettable movie starring Sam Jackson and Christina Ricci and Justin Timberlake.  It was about a girl who had a compulsive sex addiction, and a reclusive former blues musician who helps her break it by putting a big chain around her waist.  And also her sort of unstable fiancee home from the war.  I'll let you guess who played what roles. It was okay, I guess.  But what made the biggest impression on me was what they showed leading up to the movie.

We were seated your standard 15 minutes early; as soon as they let us in.  And as we waited for the movie to start, they played different old clips of blues musicians performing.  Some in color others in black and white.  I distinctly remember John Lee Hooker, who had passed away a few years earlier and was a favorite of my Dads.  So cool!  No shit-tastic movie-tunes that rule the horrible candy-box theaters of today, but a customized set of clips designed to set the stage for the movie.

Similarly, when I saw Serenity last week, there were clips from sci fi movies and from westerns.  Also occasional Joss Whedon clips.  There was Brisco County Jr.  There was Star Trek, there was Barbarella, Dr. Horrible (freeze ray),  and this hilarious clip of Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris in a doctor's office.  And then there was an actual preview, but it was for the Sci Fi retro-specials that month at the draft house.  

Another custom feature of the Alamo Drafthouse is to include is Public Service Announcements to keep your phones silent and not to talk in the movie.  They have all sorts of great PSAs to warn you.  One from Michael Madsen.  One form Homestarr Runner.  Joss Whedon, etc, etc, etc.  I'm telling you, this is quality stuff.  They have a one-warning system.  You get your warning and if you keep jabbering, you get thrown out.  Ruthless.  Perfect.  

I have always hated that about movies, people talking.  My most distinct memory of this frustration is when Jaconian and I went to see the Blair Witch Project.  Now, granted, that movie has become a bit of a joke now, but at the time, we were both really excited.  It was a new and creative horror movie!  Kind of out of nowhere, and I think we were the right people to appreciate what they had to offer.  Unfortunately, I will never know if that movie is any good, because these fucking people, RIGHT BEHIND US, talked through the whole. damn. thing.  This completely ruined the immersion and any sense of suspense, which I felt was a necessary part of the film.  I tried to watch and enjoy it anyway, and or the record: I still liked it.  But I just know that this movie could have been so much more in silence.  ugh.  Well.  The good news is:  that will never happen at the Drafthouse. 

Oh --- one more thing - if you actually *like* talking in movies, they've also got the opposite:  Quote-along movies! Usually comedies, they'll show Monty Python, or Mel Brooks or some Will Ferrel movie, and the idea is to quote all the time.  It's sort of a Rocky Horror style production, with noises and all that sort of bullshit.   I haven't been to one, but I think it sounds almost as awesome as their normal programming.  

Wow, I haven't even talked about the food yet.  Because, really, it's not that big a deal.  But they have a good system.  In front of every row of chairs is a bar, maybe a foot wide, with a lip.  You write down your order, clip it to the front, and a wait staff will come by intermittently and snatch it up, then bring you your food back.  The first Drafthouse I went to had perfected this system.  They used stadium seating, so the wait staff was a full food and a half to two feet lower than the viewer.  I usually didn't notice them.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for every Drafthouse.  The place I saw Serenity, I was in the front row, and it was not stadium seating.  The wait staff had to hunch and run by quickly.  It's unfortunate, and I hope they try to avoid this whenever possible.  Oh well.  It is nice to drink a beer at a movie, I'll tell you that much.

In conclusion, if you love movies: so do the people at the Alamo Drafthouse.  If you really love movies, then I think it is worth making Austin a destination in your travels.

-D


P.S.  I almost forgot:  I'm going to make an appeal to the friends of the State Theater to use an Alamo Drafthouse style business model.  It's worth a shot!  They just need a way to get the college kids out there.

Monthly Update for October

Lately I've been watching sci fi and horror.  Playing lots of games.  And installing all of those steam games I hadn't gotten round too.  I bought a new laptop on ebay.  A Sony Vaio.  It is working pretty well so far.  Only game that won't play is worms: armaggeddon.  poo.

So, since I'm going to Austin, Tx for a month, I figured I should listen to the Rooster Teeth podcast.  Unfortunately, I found it kind of hard to get into.  It was just so chaotic and random.  It seemed like nice background noise, but not something to pay attention to.  Granted, Gus wasn't on the episode I listened to, and that guy's awesome.  Oh, crap, it looks like Geoff probably wasn't there either.

I've been watching random sci fi and horror movies lately.  I watched Troll, because I had to clarify some memories of it.  It was not as scary as I remember.  And the overall quality is... well, lacking.  However, it was strange; there is a very gruesome scene at the beginning involving someone violently turning into a plant-food-pod-thing.  But the rest of the movie was easily a PG rated kids movie.  More trivia about this movie:  There are characters named Harry Potter Jr. and Sr.  Julia Louis Dreyfus is in it.  And the little guy who played the lead troll also plays a human character, and he is treated well by the script and acts very well.

Just watched 'Night of the Creeps' last night.  Another 80s horror.  Pretty great.  I guess a recent movie:  Slither was based on it . I haven't seen that one, but it has Nathan Fillion in it and comes recommended.  But I'm going to talk about Night of the Creeps, 'cause that's the one I watched.

I tell you, I'm experiencing an 80s renaissance.  Clearly, they're not all good movies, as demonstrated by Troll.  But there are some great things.  The pacing in 80s movies is always slower.  And it seems like there's less shock value items.  Not that there isn't shock moments, there's just a lot of time between them.  Generally the characters seem to be strong in 80s movies.  While the main character in Night of the Creeps is really wimpy, his counterpart is really sassy and a lot of fun.  The detective is way over the top, and fun.  In general, it's a fun horror movie.

I'm tempted to check out others I haven't seen, like Hellraiser II, Candyman, the Phantasm and many many others.  But my sister in Austin really isn't into horror movies, so it will likely not be a horror movie October.  Unless I watch them in my room after hours with headphones, which I still may do.  I'm also thinking I may play:  Deadspace, Silent Hill and Slender.  Maybe finish that last episode of the Chzo mythos.  We'll see, I don't know what it will be like in Austin, but I will be taking this little laptop with me.

End random update.

-D

Well, that was one hell of a month

Hello friends and family, anonymous readers and adver-bots.  How are you?  Welcome to August.  

I haven't done much in the video game world lately.  After reading this article, on designing difficult games, I played a few stages of Adventures of Lolo.  I also booted up VVVVVV just for shits and giggles.  That game is still fantastic.   Today a game called Papo y Yo went on super sale, so I'll have to buy it.  And a good friend - who will remain nameless, hint, hint - went and generously bought me a copy of Worms Armageddon, which I have yet to open.  I'll be getting to this stuff soon though, with all the free time I have now that I'm unemployed.

Yes, I lost my job on Thursday.  Don't worry, I wasn't alone.  Maybe 75 other people lost their jobs.  The month of July was spent wondering when this was going to happen, as the month of June was spent watching my workplace crumble while we ran around, working our asses off, but were helpless to do anything to prevent it.  It was not fun by any stretch of the imagination. 

So yeah, no job, which means no money, which means Papo y Yo will be the last game I buy for a while.  But it also means a lot more time, which, as they say is money so-- that's exciting.  I will have more time to play games and more time to write, and I plan on doing both of them, so expect to hear a lot more of me in the weeks to come.

Of course, this will only be for a little while.  I've pledged to give myself at least one week of unemployment ecstasy before I start earnestly looking for a new job.  But I may stretch it for a little longer, depending on how I feel.  I am still in the planning stages.  I hope to do some soul searching in the time between, and I really hope to not be on unemployment when my meager savings runs out.  

I did manage to catch World War Z, and it suuuuuuucked.  It was just terrible.  Pointless.  Bad dialogue, bad action, bad plot.  I really need to read the book now, because, the good news is- it's completely different! I suppose the one decent thing about the movie was that it was kind of fun to watch fast moving zombies pile up on one another.  There was a sort of concept that the zombies were just one big disease, like influenza or HIV something, and it was just these mad gobbling bacteria, moving like a single large creature.  That idea is cool, and if there had been more exposition and less wasting my time I might have enjoyed the movie.  Why are so many movies roller coaster rides now?  I do not recommend.  I do, however, recommend this fun little rewrite of the movie. 

I also saw another movie, a kid's movie from the 80s.  It was called "Cloak and Dagger" - and this one I recommend.  For one thing, there was more exposition in the first fifteen - twenty minutes than the entire World War Z movie.  Another is that Dabney Coleman is in it.  And a third thing is that the little kid actors aren't bad.  Also, it was fun, and interesting.  I really liked this movie, I recommend it.

One last bit:  I just read Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake."  I also recommend this book.  I was hooked within a couple pages.  Without giving too much away, it's a post-apocolyptic novel.  However, it also does the flashback thing.  When the flashbacks started, I was annoyed because I wanted more of the present.  Then I ended up really liking the flashback portions, and then I just wanted to do nothing else, but read this book. I would think about it while I was at work, or riding the train.   I love it when a book or game is so good that I find myself daydreaming about when I get to read it again.  Oryx and Crake - I highly recommend it.  

-D


***next day update:
I watched the movie Prometheus last night.  I'm going to spoil a little bit of it by describing the plot flow.  But that's all I'll spoil.  Anyhow, at the beginning, the movie takes its time, and I really appreciate it.  The scenery is beautiful, and the character introduced is likeable and interesting.  The movie progresses slowly until about halfway through, when the action picks up.  At this point things seem to change so fast, and characters start throwing out conclusions, and performing actions that don't seem to have justifications.  It's very strange that a movie that showed so much patience would ultimately show too little.  Anyhow, I recommend the first 30 minutes or so, but I can't really recommend the rest.  

Monthly Update: August 2013

Happy August everyone!

I'm playing a couple of games right  now (story of my life), some that I could (and should) be writing about and others that I haven't spent enough time to warrant a sit down and interview.  I have a First Impressions in the work for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind that I haven't actually played in a month or two due to a possible glitch that keeps crashing the game; I've also put some hours into Ace Combat Assault Horizon: Enhanced Edition, Torchlight, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D and Scribblenauts Unlimited.  

Then there's the Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter that started off strong and in the last couple of days seems to be slowing down.  It really saddens me that this game might not get made (again).  After seven days the Kickstarter is at 25%, which is still on track, but their gain went up so much in the first couple of days that they've now reached the point where they're going backwards against the daily average needed to reach their goal by Friday August 23rd.  (It started out that they would need $25,000/day and now they have to average $26,700/day).  I guess I'm just ever the pessimist, but I would love, LOVE to see this game made.

This last weekend ( by weekend I mean the last two days I had off, which were Tuesday & Wednesday) Conklederp and I saw Pacific Rim, which initially didn't interest me when I first saw the poster a couple of months back.  Then I saw it was directed by Guillermo del Toro and that Ron Perlman was in the film as well.  That sold me.  Then, I was listening to the Nerdist Podcast #273 and director Guillermo del Toro stated (old news) that he had contacted Valve to see if he could use the voice of GlaDOS in the movie.  Then a former KDVS Metal DJ posted a link to the soundtrack (composed by Game of Thrones fame Ramin Djawadi)  and I knew it had to be seen.  Now, I've never been into Mechs of any kind, so the fact that Pacific Rim was as entertaining as it was says something about it.  Conklederp even liked it and she's not one for loud action movies.  We also saw The Conjuring the week before, which was a solid ghost-ish type movie that takes place in 1971 with excellent kid actors (which is important when there are five of them).

I also haven't forgotten about "Demo Time" either.  Sometimes it can be hard to find time to sit down and play a game I know that is a demo that may take anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes when I have a game right over here (Half-Life, Infinite Space, BIT.TRIP.RUNNER, Torchlight, DKCR 3D) that keeps reminding me to play them.  First World Problems, I know.

And finally, it the time that I have been typing this out, the Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter has gained an additional $976, so there's still hope.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

Marketing These Days. Oi, Gevald!

I wonder what this means:

Why is Amazon letting me know that I can pre-order a movie that was released less than a week ago?  I would, upon first thought, believe that Oblivion is getting really bad reviews and that Universal is trying to make any money back that they can.  I haven't looked at any reviews on either IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes, not that I really ever go to Rotten Tomatoes as I feel a lot of their reviews are pretentious and full of a variety of crap.

And today, I received another email from Amazon letting me know that I can pre-order Iron Man 3, the day  the film comes out in theatres, being today, May 3rd, 2013.  I guess I could go out and see a matinée in a couple of hours and during the movie, decide that I absolutely love it, visit Amazon.com on a smart phone and pre-order before the movie is even over.  Technology, geez.  Kids these days have it so easy.  Elderly curmudgeon sounds: "When I was a kid, we had to wait a good six months to see a movie after it was in the thee-ay-tuh.  And then, another couple of months after it was released just to the video stores before the VHS was released. . . What's that? VHS? They were what we watched movies on before we all had implants, ya damn honyockers!  Now git offah ma'lawn!"  Something like that.

Movie tie-ins with food can be interesting too.  Let's stick with Iron Man 3 and throw in some Subway.

Now, unless Tony Stark has a massive BBQ during the movie . . . or, maybe because ***SPOILER*** the Stark's house is on fire and smoking:

You know what I mean.

Although the color scheme of the sandwich does soft of resemble the Iron Man suit.  There's the golden sheen of the meat and the bright shimmering red tomato and the 6 grams of body fat from Tony himself.

Maybe I'm out of touch with marketing of current video games, but I haven't seen commercials or ads for either a video game translation of either Iron Man 3 or Oblivion, not that Oblivion, but the one without Sir Patrick Stewart's glorious voice.  I'm sure they've got to be out there. Or you know, maybe they're not?  

Are video games based on movies not a thing these days?  Well, ones that aren't made out of Legos?  

Do I even own a movie tie-in video game?  Yes, a couple actually.  

There's:

• Willow (NES)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (NES)
• Jurassic Park  (SNES)
• Goldeneye 007 (N64)
• Star Wars
• Shadows of the Empire (N64)
• Rogue Squadron (N64)
• Rogue Leader  - Rogue Squadron II (GC)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (GC)
• Goldeneye 007 (DS) 
• [I do plan on doing my own full review of the DS release as there's very little about it out there]

So it turns out I do own a few, but nothing based off a movie that was released in the last 11 years.  I'm sure that probably says something about me as opposed to the quality of movies and video games that have been released.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

No Good Can Come Of This