Week of « Prev | Next »
16 articles
Is Game & Wario Worth Your $40?
6 hours ago
The reviews for the newest Nintendo Wii U game, Game & Wario, have been all over the place. However, games are not simply a question of enjoyment but a question of cost. There are great games out there like Mortal Kombat, Portal, and Dead Rising that are all really fun – just maybe not $60 worth of fun, especially in a market where price drops and sales are frequent. Game & Wario did not release for $60, however; only $40. While it is, in my opinion, a fun game, the question remains. Is it $40 worth of fun?
Game & Wario is a mini-game collection that boasts sixteen different playable games, all of which make some use of Nintendo’s unique gamepad controller. This number is misleading. Yes, there are sixteen main mini-games. However, not all of them are open to single-player. There are four games exclusive to multiplayer mode. There are also, in addition, many smaller games »
- Colin McMahon
5 Reasons Kick-Ass Should Be a Videogame
6 hours ago
Kick-Ass, based on Mark Millar’s hilarious-but-brutal comic book, turns the superhero genre on its head. Nobody in Kick-Ass is technically a ‘super’ hero because it’s set in our world. Therefore the ‘super’ heroes are nothing more than costumed vigilantes who withstand a bullet as well as a bowl of fruit. It’s great to see an ordinary kid aspire to be more than a witness to crime though, and it’s even greater to see a hero take some damage, especially in a genre where money can buy you immortality (looking at you, Ironman!)
Here are 5 reasons why Kick-Ass: The Videogame should be a real thing*.
The Character Arc
At its heart, Kick-Ass is about someone who witnesses crime but ignores it growing into someone who wants to do something about it. How many of us would break up a fight between two meatheads or chase a mugger down the street? »
- Lee Chesnalavage
Dexter ep 8.01 ‘A Beautiful Day’ a complex and confident, if light, season opener
6 hours ago
Dexter, Season 8, Episode 1, ‘A Beautiful Day’
Written By Scott Buck
Directed By Keith Gordon
Airs Sundays, 8pm on Showtime
For a long term fan, nearing the end of Dexter Morgan’s journey is an experience that holds a tangible fear and pang of panic in one’s stomach. Not because of the fact that it will soon all be over, one of TV’s most immorally ambitious tales ever reaching its final chapter. The trouble has come with the undeniable rut that has set in the minutes following the harrowing ending to Season Four, when a writing team who had canvassed together a quadrilogy of emotive, compelling and unforgettable continuing stories stepped out the back door. By September 22nd, this will mean that a full half of the show’s run has been beset by a gang of scribes who too often have revealed themselves as producing well financed fan fiction. »
- Scott Patterson
Watch a Trailer for Brian De Palma’s ‘Passion’
7 hours ago
Brian De Palma’s latest film Passion is finally getting a release, and a new trailer has dropped online. The film stars Rachel McAdams (Midnight In Paris, Sherlock Holmes, Mean Girls) and Noomi Rapace (Prometheus, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) as two rising female executives in a multinational corporation whose fierce competition to rise up the ranks is about to turn literally cut-throat. Passion has been kicking around the festival circuit for a while but will finally have a release in August. Watch the trailer below, and read our review from Tiff here.
****
The post Watch a Trailer for Brian De Palma’s ‘Passion’ appeared first on Sound On Sight.
»
- Kyle Reese
Fantasia 2013: Additional First Wave highlights
7 hours ago
We recently posted three big announcements from the Fantasia Film Festival which included Edgar Wright’s The Worlds End (closing the fest), a special Live theatre event for Clive Barker’s A History of the Devil, and a lifetime achievement award for Andrzej Żuławski. Additional first wave highlights have also been announced, and so far the line-up is shaping up to be better than last year’s batch. Hit the jump to view the current roster.
****
Across The River
Italy Dir: Lorenzo Bianchini
A brilliant opposition of new and old narratives, this chilling discovery from Italy is the most downright efficient atmospheric horror film you’ll see anywhere this year, haunting with a slow-building, intense crescendo approach to its atmosphere of disorientation and dread. From the director of Custodes Bestiae.
World Premiere.
Israel Dirs: Aharon Keshales & Navot Papushado
Described in its official marketing as “a brutal comedy »
- Kyle Reese
Watch a New Clever and Creepy Trailer for ‘The Conjuring’
8 hours ago
Despite a few flops, director James Wan can easily be labeled a master of the horror genre, directing such hits as Saw and Insidious. His latest pic, The Conjuring, has been garnering some very positively buzz, and promises to be his best film yet. A new trailer has been released that cleverly interweaves interview snippets with the real-life Perron family, whose story of being haunted in their Rhode Island farmhouse in the 1970s is the basis for the film. Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston play the Perrons, and Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson play a husband and wife team of psychic investigators. Hit the jump to watch the trailer. The Conjuring opens on July 19th.
****
The post Watch a New Clever and Creepy Trailer for ‘The Conjuring’ appeared first on Sound On Sight.
»
- Kyle Reese
Watch A New Trailer For The Coen Brothers‘ latest, ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’
8 hours ago
CBS Films has released a new trailer for The Coen Brothers‘ latest, Inside Llewyn Davis. The film follows a week in the life of a young folk singer struggling to make it as a musician, as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961. Inside Llewyn Davis stars Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, Garrett Hedlund, and John Goodman, and opens December 6th.Hit the jump to watch the trailer. Enjoy!
***
The post Watch A New Trailer For The Coen Brothers‘ latest, ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ appeared first on Sound On Sight.
»
- Kyle Reese
It’s Not TV: HBO, The Company That Changed Television. Baby Steps
9 hours ago
“We…repeatedly enlarge our instrumentalities without
improving our purpose.”
Will Durant
There’s no telling how much earlier commercial television would’ve been on the air if the early developmental days of the medium hadn’t had to suffer through two of the century’s more cataclysmic events, the first being The Great Depression.
TV technology development was the preserve of large corporations with large bank accounts. By this time, all the new gizmos required to make TV work simply cost too much for people like Philo Farnsworth to do the work in their backyard workshops. But, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 dried up enough of those corporate assets to slow the development of television (and nearly everything else in the world) considerably.
Slowed, but not stilled. Experimental stations still sprung up here and there, and broadcast technology inched its way along the road to improvement. Despite The Depression, »
- Ricky
Greatest TV Pilots: Cheers ‘Give Me A Ring Sometime’ – the definitive sitcom pilot
9 hours ago
Cheers Season 1, Episode 1 ‘Give Me A Ring Sometime’
Written by Glen Charles & Les Charles
Directed by James Burrows
Aired 9/30/1982 on NBC
Every time I watch the Cheers pilot, I’m always amazed at just how low-key it is. ‘Give Me a Ring Sometime’ doesn’t try to get anybody’s attention with flashy characters or some convoluted premise: as the cold open suggests, this is just another day at a bar in Boston, where an ex-baseball player serves his friends and lends his ear to the working man. It’s suck a quiet, unassuming scene, it’s no surprise that it didn’t draw in a huge audience for the second episode (or the entire first season, really). As Sam prepares the bar for work, a clearly underage kid comes in and tries to order a beer with a military ID. Sam can see the it coming a mile away, »
- Randy
Foolish People – the Strange Factories Project
9 hours ago
As the intersections between cinema, live performance and social media grow increasingly blurred Sound On Sight catches up with John Harrigan of the innovative Foolish People collective to discuss their new interactive media project Strange Factories;
http://www.strangefactories.com/
Well, I guess the first question is why ‘Foolish People’?
When I first started producing my own work in 1989, I wanted to create a name for my work and those I collaborated with, which would signify the intent and focus of the art. FoolishPeople takes its name from the Fool major arcana of the tarot.
The Fool is the spirit in search of experience. He represents the mystical cleverness bereft of reason within us, the childlike ability to tune into the inner workings of the world. The sun shining behind. The Fool is both the beginning and the end, neither and otherwise, betwixt and between, liminal.
Interactive Events such as »
- John
Status at the Half: Best Movies of 2013 So Far
11 hours ago
We are now officially half way through the year and so I’ve asked our staff to vote for their favourite films released thus far. Hollywood blockbusters may have disappointed us, but thankfully we can always rely on independent filmmakers to create some truly inspiring films. Rounding out the special mentions is Terrence Malick’s To The Wonder, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, and Cate Shortland’s Lore – all missing the cut by a couple of points.
****
#15: Iron Man 3 (24 points)
Directed by Shane Black
Written by Drew Pearce & Shane Black
USA, 2013
Fun has become a slightly forgotten commodity in the summer blockbuster, with many studios and filmmakers now inspired by the efforts of directors like Christopher Nolan to be as grim as possible. The modern superhero often has to be angst-ridden or otherwise mentally scarred to make an impact on audiences, so it’s a pleasant surprise »
- Ricky
‘Side Effects’ is another great thriller from Soderbergh,
13 hours ago
Directed By Steven Soderbergh
Written by Scott Z. Burns
USA, 2013
It is with a significant pang of regret in 2013 that we bid a fond adieu to director Steven Soderbergh, but at lerast we have the smnall placebo of two remaining films from the incredibly profligate director, beginning with his penultimate film Side Effects. If you’ll excuse the pun I don’t wish to get too ‘side’tracked but I think there are a few crucial items to consider before we delve into the movie itself, a concluding episode to his career which is as expected a superb contemporary drama which springboards into other areas with the dexterous ease of a state drilled East German Olympic gymnast, namely what on earth could drive such a prolific and endlessly inventive cinematic soul into potential big-screen retirement? Soderbergh has professed an interest in shifting his muse to painting or perhaps »
- John
Status at the Half, Part 1: Top 10 TV Series of 2013 (So Far)
22 hours ago
2013 is only halfway done, but there’s a fair chance that, in a television context, it might well be looked back upon as the year any and all accepted rules of “quality television” became utterly meaningless and the promise of great things arrived in all shapes and sizes, from all directions. Consider Netflix’s House of Cards and the resurrected Arrested Development: existing properties, incredible casts, and a novel delivery method to boot. Consider HBO’s increasingly epic and brutal Game of Thrones and the way it’s managed to capture the zeitgeist despite firmly belonging to a long-derided genre. Consider the continued reign of FX’s animated spy comedy Archer, complete with the best rapid-fire humor on TV. Consider Mad Men, still relevant as it heads into its final season. Consider the wildly popular The Walking Dead and the long-form horror that is sure to follow in its wake. »
- Simon Howell
‘The Hunt’ and ‘Lore’ – Sound On Sight Podcast #361
30 June 2013 7:45 PM, PDT
The Great Sos Catch-Up of 2013 continues with a look at two international dramas that tackle taboo subject matter. First up is Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, which tackles the stigma that comes with an allegation of child abuse, and netted its star Mads Mikkelsen (currently earning raves as the latest iteration of Hannibal Lecter) a Best Actor award at least year’s Cannes. Next is Cate Shortland’s lore, a post-wwii coming-of-age film that examines the tenacity of Nazism as embodied in its young, titular protagonist (played by newcomer Saskia Rosendal). Former co-host Justine Smith steps into Josh Spiegel’s spot, which always makes for an interesting ‘cast.
Playlist
John Cale – “The Hunt”
Guided by Voices – “Learning To Hunt”
Please give us a rating on Itunes. It would be very much appreciated!
Listen on iTunes
Like us on Facebook
Follow Ricky on Twitter
Follow Josh on Twitter
Follow Simon on »
- Sound On Sight Podcast
Greatest TV Pilots: Mad Men’s “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” a smooth, deceptively dark blend of style and substance
30 June 2013 7:30 PM, PDT
Mad Men, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”
Directed by Alan Taylor
Written by Matthew Weiner
Original Air Date: July 19th, 2007
Definition displayed before the episode:
“Mad Men. A term coined in the late 1950’s to describe the advertising executives of Madison Avenue. They coined it.”
With a stunning title sequence that features a man’s silhouette plummeting past skyscrapers adorned with advertisements, the pilot episode of Mad Men opens with an exacting acknowledgement of the commercialized happiness that America bought into after World War II. Creator Matthew Weiner delivers a spellbindingly stylish microcosm inhabited by driven people who are unwittingly entrenched in layers of systematic oppression. Putting all of its aesthetic charms aside, Mad Men breaks ground by examining how we resist or embrace change through uncertain and often ugly choices.
Appraising an America on the precipice of social revolution, the series premiere swirls around the seemingly enviable life of »
- Lane Scarberry
Greatest TV Pilots: Friday Night Lights’ pilot spotlights middle America with specificity and grace
30 June 2013 7:25 PM, PDT
Friday Night Lights, “Pilot”
Written and Directed by Peter Berg
Aired October 3rd, 2006 on NBC
The opening images in a pilot are usually incredibly specific ones. They’ve been chosen as the very first thing viewers will see, what will introduce them to this series and help them decide whether to tune in or flip to something else. In Alias, it’s Sydney Bristow’s face, her head held under water. In Battlestar Galactica, it’s a ticking clock. In Justified it’s a man in a cowboy hat and boots, heading to a duel at high noon. In Friday Night Lights, it’s Texas. This is a series that, more than any one character, is about a community. It’s about the people who fill that community, from all walks of life, and what ties them together or tears them apart. Friday Night Lights and Dillon, Texas are at once diffuse and distinct, »
- Kate Kulzick
16 articles
company.