With one week of delay under its belt, the video recounting the troublesome journey of the Starz adaptation of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" is finally here. The journey towards the creation of the video not unlike the one that the show itself took, with problems arising from every corner and some of them showing their ugly heads in the finished product. I put all of my strength into finishing and publishing the video for today, so it might not be the best work I've done in terms of editing and visuals, but I am happy to say that I think I managed to hit every point I wanted to hit about the show, the subject of adaptation and my own personal beliefs about the strengths and weaknesses of what Michael Green, Bryan Fuller, Jesse Alexander and Charles Eglee did with the property.
Sometimes it might be a good idea to go through and see what an older game has done. Some of my favorite games of all time are older games, and there are certainly a lot of hidden gems in there, but for each hidden gem there's a polished piece of trash as well; and sometimes your luck finds the trash instead of the gem. I think it's a novel exercise to look at some games not as just failed experiences, but as good lessons on some fundamentals of why they failed and what to do in order to not fail. This is what I set out to do, and I hope I was victorious in showing why this 2013 strategy simulation game from Haemimont Games did not manage to stand tall and show itself off in a good light.
It's time for the Halloween appropriate Horror content... in November. There are not many Musical fans or Horror fans may not have heard of the tale of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The Stephen Sondheim written Musical has been captivating audiences since 1979 with its mixture of horror and gore and humor. Until recently, this magical formula was unknown to me, and after seeing a certain 1981 recording of the American National Tour, I finally got why Sweeney Todd was such a huge deal. I finally manage to get the meaning of how Sweeney Todd treats the audience, and I got to analyzing it beat by beat.
After some delay, the Christmas episode is ready to be seen at the very end of February. With the release of the new David Lowery adaptation of the poem in 2021, maybe it would yield some good to go back and check on the poem itself and also see the journey it took on the silver and the small screen and trying to see what the poem was trying to say and what each adaptation did with what the poem had given them. So I went through each adaptation of the poem, starting with two Stephen Weeks movies; then continuing with a David Rudkin written TV-Movie, a Harrison Birtwistle composed Opera, and a Tim Fernee made animated short. In the middle I also checked out a documentary presented by Simon Armitage and I end up where I began with the 2021 David Lowery movie, "The Green Knight".
Happy Nowruz Everyone! The year 1401 (and the 15th century) is upon us and with the new century it makes sense to take a look at what has passed, through the eyes of a movie with a very peculiar happenstance: "Jafar Khan Az Farang Bargashte" (roughly translated to "Jafar Khan Has Returned From Abroad"). This particular movie, released in 1988, is a comedy from... well... nobody. It has no name for writer, director or producer on the poster or in the opening and closing credits. It's an abandoned movie, with a very interesting premise. So it might be a good idea to check out the movie's narrative, what it is alluding to in Iranian history and culture, and what happened behind the scenes to make it into what it is.
It's the one year anniversary of TGTBTI, and it's time for one behemoth of a video to celebrate it! It's a 30-day Challenge involving 30 movies, spread throughout a 30-day month, and chosen by looking at Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". It's long, maybe too long? The 30 movies range from great like "Sweet Smell of Success" and "The Godfather" to obscure like "Monpti" and Sidney Lumet's "Daniel" to rage-worthy like the conspiracy theory propaganda film "Vaxxed". It's a cornucopia of different genres and different styles, from all around the Cinema History. So, let's get started already!
Once again, Happy Nowruz Everyone! With the new Persian year we look at Iranian cinema once more to uncover gems or things-that-kind-of-look-like-gems-if-you-squint; and with the landscape of Iran and Middle East these days, there's no better candidate than "Az Faryad Ta Terror" (roughly translated to "From Screaming to Assassination") Made in 1979 and released in 1980, this movie is one of the first cinematic projects to get released after the Islamic Revolution; but nowadays it's mostly remembered not because of that or because of its story or cinematography, but because of a song that originated in it: "Yare Dabestani Man". The song has become kind of an anthem for any political movement in Iran since its conception, but it's important to realize and remember where it came from. That is the goal of this (supposedly short) video.
It's the two (three) year anniversary of TGTBTI! And it's the second part of the "We Didn't Start the Fire" saga. It's way too long as it is, let's just get to it.
It's time for THE Halloween Video. I've teased it for so long, and it has been foreshadowed time and time again, and finally, here it is... kind of. You'll see. I mean, you have to. It's such a short video too. Have you seen how long my videos are? 5 minutes is like 5 seconds when put to my video lengths!!
