An Oral History of Tim Currys Escape to the One Place Uncorrupted by Capitalism »
A wonderful deep-dive into a tiny, tiny moment that had a lasting impact. I also love that as well as interviewing game developers and critics, they also spoke to people like Katie Mack and Yanis Varoufakis.
# Aug 19, 2022Everyone Everywhere Needs Waymond Wang (and Ke Huy Quan)
This is a wonderful essay about Everything Everywhere All At Once’s portrayal of masculinity. I hadn’t consciously picked up on Waymond’s lack of a character arc, but it makes so much sense.
Also EEAAO (as no-one is calling it) was unexpectedly one of the best films I’ve seen so far this year. If you’ve been putting off watching it, please do check it out.
Did People Used to Look Older?
I was watching Thief the other night and couldn’t get over how James Caan (RIP to a real one) was only 41 in that film but looked so much older. This is a great explanation of why that is.
The Inside Outtakes »
Bo Burnham has put up an hour-long video of the outtakes from Inside. But it’s more than just your usual outtakes – some of it is really cleverly done. Like showing all the takes of a song all at once, and turning off the unused takes as he messes up, so that at the end it’s like a Super Meatboy level replay and you’re just left with the take he used in the final film.
I wasn’t originally taken by Inside (although this might have been overly harsh because of, you know, everything) but I really appreciate the amount of work he put in.
# Jun 30, 2022The 22 Best Board Games - Polygon »
A solid list. If you’re just getting into board games, this is a great place to start.
# Jun 7, 2022Francis Ford Coppola on the Importance of Theme »
# May 29, 2022When you make a movie, always try to discover what the theme of the movie is in one or two words. Every time I made a film, I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In “The Godfather,” it was succession. In “The Conversation,” it was privacy. In “Apocalypse,” it was morality.The reason it’s important to have this is because most of the time what a director really does is make decisions. All day long: Do you want it to be long hair or short hair? Do you want a dress or pants? Do you want a beard or no beard? There are many times when you don’t know the answer. Knowing what the theme is always helps you.
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I remember in “The Conversation,” they brought all these coats to me, and they said: Do you want him to look like a detective, Humphrey Bogart? Do you want him to look like a blah blah blah. I didn’t know, and said the theme is ‘privacy’ and chose the plastic coat you could see through. So knowing the theme helps you make a decision when you’re not sure which way to go.
Meet Mavis: A Powerful, Patchable, Analog Synth | Moog »
Moog have launched a really cheap (well, for Moog), build-it-yourself, semi-modular analog synth and the reviews have been pretty great so far.
# May 15, 2022robinsloan > The lost thread »
# May 3, 2022Many people don’t want to [quit Twitter] because they worry: without my Twitter account, who will listen to me? In what way will I matter to the world beyond my apartment, my office, my family? I believe these hesitations reveal something totally unrelated to Twitter. I don’t have words for it, exactly, but if you find yourself fretting in this way, I will gently suggest that it’s worth questing a bit inside yourself to discover what you’re really worried about.
Pronounce GIF · The Correct Way, Without Question »
# Apr 12, 2022Simply stated, the proper pronunciation of the acronym GIF is with a ‘soft g’ sound. As in, ”it is a gigantic waste of your time to try and debate me on this, because I’ve worked out all the angles.”