So, it’s August and both the screenwriters and the screen actors are still striking. The WGA is meeting about returning to the negotiating table this Friday, but that doesn’t mean their strike is ending and, at the time of me writing this, there’s no news on AMPTP talking with SAG-AFTRA (though per that article, they’d be happy to). I’ve gone back and tagged all my relevant posts about the strike(s) for ease of reference, but…
I’m going through my final round of Netflix DVDs and this weekend’s entry was the 2012 mini-series of Treasure Island with Eddie Izzard as Long John Silver. The short version? Izzard delivers a great Silver, but the mini-series takes some odd diversions from the source material that are far from satisfying. My wife actually suggested, knowing my penchant for ranking, that I rank all the different version of Treasure Island, which is very tempting –perhaps…
Having done villains last week, let’s take a look at heroes. Okay, James Bond is something of an anti-hero as established from the get-go in that “you’ve had your six” moment in Dr. No. But still, he is working for Queen and Country as well as saving the world (sometimes as a sad clown). This is a fun overview of how James Bond has changed with the times that Fandom released just before No Time…
A bit overdue for Father’s Day, but definitely thinking of my dad, for whom heraldry was a passion, here’s CGP Grey ranking all the state flags with the requisite amount of snark because so many of them are just so bad as flags. My dad also loved flags and would have approved of many of the guidelines Grey (and others) mention for good, clean, flag design. Not sure if he’d agree with all the rankings…
School’s out for so many people and summer road trips are going to be on many minds in the weeks ahead, so since while working on a post featuring a CGP Grey video next week, I thought I’d drop this here. As with many of his videos, I knew some of this information, but Grey gives you so much more detail, like the odd exceptions. It’s something to think about as you’re driving on the…
Okay, so we’ve had several sci-fi stories where the main character slips between timelines and times in their lives (looking epecially at you, Picard in “All Good Things…”), but they specifically mention Sheridan being “unstuck in time” which is absolutely a Slaughterhouse Five reference. Also, for folks who have checked out the Babylon 5 Viewing Guide, this is almost certainly a film to check out after checking out the series. If you don’t believe me,…
Come on, between a key demand of the Writer’s Strike being the regulation of AI in screenwriting and some of my other posts about AI this year, did you really think I wouldn’t share this half-hour comedy screed from Adam Conover? It may be foul-mouthed, but it is funny. However, if you’re looking for a TL;DR one might sum it up as such: And did I mention it’s foul-mouthed? Beware around kindern and co-workers who…
So the not-quite-a-week-old writers’ strike is still on my mind, in part because much of the online forums I visit are full of, well, writers. So here’s a few more resources that I feel give you a bit more context about what’s being demanded, how the studios usually respond and what is officially on the table. First up, an 8 1/2 minute video from Nerdist that sums up the strike: If you’ve been following other…
Some of you may recall an article I linked to back in February which documented how there’s now a business model, most evident in the technology sphere, that has been optimized without the customer in mind (well, assuming the customer doesn’t want a crap experience). Well, turns out the Cory Doctorow article is part of an overall book called Chokepoint Capitalism, and he talks about some of the findings in the book with fellow disenchanted…
As some readers know, despite focusing more on audio fiction these days, I still am keenly interested in how films are put together, especially when it comes to speculative fiction stories… as they almost always employ some tricks to show the fantastical with as much thrift as craft. Last year, I learned more about how the latest version of Dune departed from traditional blue and green screens. I’ve heard a lot about the “virtual sets”…