World’s Fair Co.:

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The always awesome Invisible Creature team killed it. You can purchase these posters through Level Press, here.

There’s something to be said about the proper hypnotic mix of score, setting and gameplay that completely transports you in a great video game.

Tunic — which PC, Mac and Xbox players have enjoyed since March of this year, and hit PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch yesterday — is one of those games.

A labor of love by indie game developer Andrew Shouldice, Tunic (formerly titled Secret Legend, is at its core an homage to the Legend of Zelda series, while also being punishingly difficult, a’la Dark Souls.

There are two twists to the game which are truly magnificent, however, and endeared me to the title immediately:

1. The mechanics of the game are explained by an in-game instruction manual, the pages of which you find throughout the isometric landscape of the game. It’s in an indecipherable language, as are most of in game dialogue, but both are revealed to you as you collect more pages. I was reminded of my days importing games for my PlayStation and Dreamcast, trying to make sense of the gorgeous heavy stock Japanese instruction manuals, filled with bright artwork, and using guides printed out from GameFAQs to make sense of it all. Suffice to say, my nostalgia itch was scratched.
2. The game, while very difficult, includes user toggles for your level of health (even allowing you to be invincible) and the clarity of puzzles in game. This means what can be a challenge for one gamer, can be an inviting and relaxing journey for another. Speaking as a nearly 38 year old man, I turn on my systems these days to be delighted, not to challenge myself, so this was a welcome addition.¹

Wrap the package up with some slight but expressive graphics and a very chill soundtrack (which I will be undoubtedly listening to on a loop on future work days), and you have a game which has already made my Best of the Year list.

Tunic is available now on PC, Mac, Xbox, PlayStation and Switch.

1. Yes, count me in as one of the many who would love the option in games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring to set the title to “Easy". I miss the era of the GameShark/Action Replay. (And miss me with the whole, “BUT IF YOU GRIND OUT THESE ITEMS THE GAME IS EASY" mess.) ↩

Connor Tumbleson:

On September 14, 2022 I got an email from someone that reeked eerily of a scam, but it turned out to be quite real.

Get ready to jump into one of the most wild posts I’ve ever read online, as a developer discovers a threaded conspiracy to not only apply to jobs as him, but even interview as him.

The Internet just got a little bit scarier today.

Note: This site is getting hammered, so here’s an Archive.

Bruce Campbell, Twitter:

While filming Congo, I sat on top of a Volcano talking to Tim Curry about that movie. He said one of the coolest things was that it saved a number of small indie theaters from going under, because they knew that two nights a week The Rocky Horror Picture Show was going to do big business.

Just a thought experiment here…

I read a lot of the Hollywood trades, since its usually a lot of the least click-bait-y movie content possible. Sites like Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, etc. and a key point has become very clear about the current state of movie going in America…

• Moviegoers will come out in droves if there’s a movie they want to see. See the release of Top Gun: Maverick this Summer.
• Moviegoers don’t have many movies to see right now. See the incredibly quiet period of theatrical releases since August 5th’s Bullet Train, which continues until….let me check the release calendar…October 14th’s Halloween Ends?¹
  

This, understandably, leaves the theaters themselves in some dire straits, which has tanked the stocks for AMC, and made Regal consider filing for bankruptcy.

But that quote from Bruce Campbell, along with — Holy Shit — the massive box office for last weekend’s re-release of Avatar made me wonder, is the future of making movie theaters “work" continuous screenings of beloved classics?

We’ve certainly seen some tests of this during the COVID era, along with the event screenings done by Fathom Events, and AMC also did some cheap screenings of Disney films to celebrate the corporate holiday “Disney+" day, but if there’s a model I can point to for the rest of the world, I’ve got two suggestions:

• The Charles, an awesome indie theater here in Baltimore, does a load of amazing one-night-only revivals
• The Alamo Drafthouse, shock of shocks, celebrates movies quite well with their Movie Parties
  

There’s no reason why this shouldn’t be the rule, instead of the exception. Let’s give people a reason to see beloved classics big and loud. And hey, maybe it’ll make a nice bit of change for the studios, too. Connect with tastemakers to do cool intros or Q&As, tack on making of footage, do sing-alongs for classic musicals…anything and everything to celebrate what people love about movies and make the theater experience an event….even if the movie isn’t an event itself.

1. Yes, I know, cool movies like Confess, Fletch, Barbarian, and The Woman King have hit theaters, along with the possible Oscar bait release on October 7th of Amsterdam. I’m speaking of the “big blockbuster" which draws in audiences. ↩

NASA:

After 10 months flying in space, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) — the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration — successfully impacted its asteroid target on Monday, the agency’s first attempt to move an asteroid in space.

Mission control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, announced the successful impact at 7:14 p.m. EDT.

As a part of NASA’s overall planetary defense strategy, DART’s impact with the asteroid Dimorphos demonstrates a viable mitigation technique for protecting the planet from an Earth-bound asteroid or comet, if one were discovered.

I love that this is a thing we do now, just fire ships at stuff in space. NASA rules.

MSCHF/Key4All.com:

We have rebuilt the entirety of ZipCar with a fleet of one single vehicle, but rather than a study in shared resource management, Key4All has been engineered to be Grand Theft Auto: Tragedy Of The Commons.

Key4All exists somewhere between the delight of communal ownership and the teeth-grinding capitalist competition of Hands on a Hard Body.

The car is transient and un-ownable, a journey and temporary blessing. It is a contest without the security of victory. If you find the car, it is yours. But if you want to enjoy the fruits of your victory and drive, then you must accept the risk of taking the car out in the world—that another driver-errant may snatch the vehicle out from under you.

Bless the ridiculous art-weirdos at MSCHF -- they who previously gave us such things as Lil Nas X's Satan Shoes, the AllTheStreams Illegal Streaming Service, and Dead Startup Toys, among other delights -- this might be one of their most clever works yet.

For those wanting an easy breakdown of how this works…

1. You go to Key4All.com, and spend $19 for a key fob.
2. That key fob, along with all the others sold at Key4All.com unlock the same single individual car.
3. If your key fob is near the car, it will glow green, and you can click the key fob to unlock and drive it.
4. There’s a hotline you can call to find out where the car may be.
5. Anyone else with the key fob can just unlock and use the car at any time — in turn, if you arrive somewhere in the car, you may not leave with it.
   

In short, as it says on the site: “Thousands of Keys — One Shared Car."

I love it.

David Fear for Rolling Stone:

Hahahaha, we’re totally kidding. Of course you have not heard there’s a new Fletch movie out. You have not been inundated with billboards, surrounded by full-page ads, beset by TV spots and trailers galore. You did not know that not only has this been out in theaters — possibly one or two near you! — since September 16th, but can also be rented digitally and/or online as well. Maybe you caught Jon Hamm doing his patented Jon Hamm thing on a late-night talk show, or more likely, saw clips on YouTube of Jon Hamm showing up on a late-night talk show, but weren’t exactly sure about the 411 of what he was promoting. What is this? When is it out? What’s he confessing to, or about? Is this a religious movie?

There is a poster, and a trailer, and the movie did get a Los Angeles premiere that allowed Hamm, director Greg Mottola and several other cast members to walk a red carpet — we know this only because we’ve seen photographic evidence, although we’re not quite convinced this isn’t a false-flag gala event. Some reviews trickled in; the majority of them were extremely positive. But in terms of an actually getting the word out that the movie exists in the first place? A movie like this should not automatically fall through the cracks. That said: how do you sell something like Confess, Fletch in the Year of Our Lord 2022, i.e. a comedy not featuring Will Ferrell or Ryan Reynolds, in which no Marvel heroes or Jedis or people named Harry Styles show up, and involving a film franchise that dropped its last entry prior to the first Iraq War?

A great piece which absolutely skewers how dire the state of moviemaking is when something as downright delightful as a new Fletch movie starring the absolutely goddamned star-worthy performance of Jon Hamm can’t even get a taste of oxygen.

I watched the movie over the weekend. You can too. It’s on VOD. And it’s a great laugh. But sadly, there just isn’t room for much more of these movies these days.

As Fear writes…

What is a tragedy is that a worthy movie like Confess, Fletch, which not only touches upon a gaggle of past genres (the ’80s raunch-com, the ’30s screwball, the murder-mystery farce, the launchpads for established marquee names to level up) but hits each mark so delightfully, no longer have a chance to find an audience at all, much less one that would respond to it. Frankly, it’s a minor miracle this exists at all. A complete willingness to creatively bring this market and get it in front of people dooms not only this movie but every one just like it. Unless you want nothing but franchises aimed at 11-year-olds, you’ll soon be out of luck. It’s. A. Huge. Fucking. Loss. And not just for those of those who live, breathe, eat, sleep and love movies.

Watch this damn movie. And tell your friends about it.

Watched on Sunday September 25, 2022.

Watched on Saturday September 24, 2022.

What a joy. More movies need to take advantage of how naturally funny Jon Hamm is.

I wish I would've liked this more. Luhrmann is incredible in what he creates, but this just felt like it was pushed one step too far.

Glad those who loved this loved it, but not for me.

Watched on Friday September 16, 2022.