Ah, the perennial music nerd topic, Desert Island Discs. On the Beatles’ Help: “This album falls on the trailing edge of their original Beatlemania phase and the beginning of their brief folk-rock/art-pop phase (a phase I wish had lasted a little longer before they went pepperdelic).”
Over at Maisonneuve, Michel Basilières writes a heartfelt appreciation of the career of Fritz Leiber, a writer who “was equally at home with science fiction, modern or urban fantasy, horror stories and sword & sorcery—an expression he coined.”
Joystiq reports the clumsiest product displacement yet, where Electronic Arts removed a reference to Sega in House of Pain’s anthem “Jump Around” from NBA Street v3. The corporate revisionist megamix in yo face!
The Grumpy Gamer (Ron Gilbert, creator of some great old Lucasarts adventure games) goes off on cutscenes: “There is a very different visual and structural language needed to tell a story in an interactive and malleable environment. You can’t just lift that structure from a linear form like […]
Nick’s Flick Picks puts Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind at the top of the list for 2004: “Popcorn-munchers, digital video enthusiasts, bleeding-heart romantics, dyed-in-the-wool Eeyores, pot-heads, mad hatters, and the Friends of Alexander Pope finally have a movie they can enjoy together.”
There’s an interesting interview with an actress in ilovebees, a “search opera” run to promote Halo 2 that was more innovative than the shooter itself (probably in no small part due to novelist Sean Stewart‘s involvement).
The Cultural Gutter 