"The classic series of text adventures including Zork, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Planetfall, which dates all the way back to the Apple II in 1980, is now public-domain material, which has resulted in people inflicting all manner of strange indignities on it. Strangest of all, though, is this series of Game Boy ports. Text input is achieved by the astoundingly laborious construction of words and phrases letter-by-letter using the D-pad (leading to some quite stratospheric displays of "parser rage" when the game insists on you typing out an entire sentence like "UNLOCK THE DOOR WITH THE SQUARE KEY AND OPEN IT AND GO NORTH"), and while the Game Boy at least remembers previously-typed instructions so you can scroll back through the list every time you want to repeat something you've already done, you still have to wonder in awe and fear at the obvious gibbering insanity that drove some wild-eyed nutter to convert an entire series of text adventures to a hand-held games console."I was just wondering the other day why text adventures haven't made a comeback on mobile phones. Now I can see why. Article also features Manic Miner for the N64.
Games An old article from Edge about games appearing in places you would never expect. My favourite are the old Infocom text adventures, converted for the Gameboy:
Lost and Found Shopping
Film Over the years I seem to have lost a lot of writing. There are certain pieces which I've been quite proud of, which have disappeared, either through hard disk failures, clearouts or disks left in computers in libraries. The following review is one of those pieces. I found it under a completely odd unrelated file name as I was going an old folder on this cavernous hard drive of mine. In fact I thought I'd lost this review of Late Night Shopping so much I wrote a different review, which is posted here.
==> I’ve always had an embryonic idea for a festival of films set during twilight in that almost negative zone between dusk and dawn, where town and cities somehow become unreal places. Anyone whose walked through their city centre at four in the morning will know what I mean. In that street light, buildings and structures, closed shops and offices, feel like you would assume a film set must be like at the end of the day, skeletal and ghostly waiting for those precious few hours until they can fulfill their presence once again. Invading these once natural places feels wrong, as though you’re intruding on the city’s own slumber. There have been few films which capture this feeling.
Blade Runner, of course, with its perpetual night. And Strange Days. Dark City. Equinox. Go. Some sections of Heat. But these are all very arch films. There have been very few funny and sweet films so frankly the festival would have been a long dark teatime of the soul. I suppose Before Sunrise and Linklater’s lesser known Suburbia could be in there, but they don’t quite live up to the brief of engendering the feeling. And now, finally, without much fanfare we have Late Night Shopping finally a British film which isn’t Human Traffic set at that time of night. And for once it's actually quite good. Spectacularly good.
I should let you know the circumstances I saw this film under. I’ve just started new full time job which requires me to take a two hour round trip each day to work. Currently that means up at six in the morning home by half six, somewhat limiting film watching flexibility. Saw Shrek under these conditions and I’ve a feeling that’s why I’m not sure whether that’s a great film. So having eaten one of the worst burger meals I’d ever visited upon for tea, and walked around the city for an hour waiting for the film to start, you’d think that I was in the worst state I could be to sit down for a film, despite the plushness of the cinema. On reflection I was probably in the best condition, as tired as the characters on the screen with that same slightly jaded view of the world.
The first fictional work of Saul Metzstein (the documentary filmmaker behind the seminal This is Dogma 95) should not work. Four very different people meet every night in a café, their commonality being the a break in the tedium of the night shift. We have some fairly standard characters: Vinnie (James Lance) the wide boy seemingly taking a sabbatical from a Guy Richie movie to stack shelves; Lenny (Enzo Cilenti), the slightly timid nervous one who works for directory enquiries; Sean (Luke De Woolfson) the everyman presumed observer of the action (hospital porter) and Jody (Kate Ashfield), the opinionated tom-boy (As If’s Sooz, all grown up). The makings of a Big Brother spin-off certainly, but not necessarily a film you’d pay to see. So why does it work so well?
Even though, initially the characters do grate, and there is a feeling that you might as well be at home watching Friends for all the freshness on offer. But as the dialogue unfolds, there is something new here. These characters should not be talking to one another. They don’t fit. Other than their situations they have nothing in common. But it becomes clear that this is exactly why they are together. Their interactions are the brightest part of the night, the time the spend together their chance to experience world outside their own personal sphere of existence. When Vinnie and Sean talk about his compunction for checking the soap in his bathroom to see if his girlfriend has used it and so she must still be living with him, its because he’s never had a steady relationship. He doesn’t know what its like.
The look of the film is also extraordinary. The empty twilight is sharply focused, the camera moving into every nook and cranny of the city. Whilst ‘interesting’ camera angles always suggest a lower budget, here they serve to accentuate this place’s otherness. Equally strong is the soundtrack, its eclecticism a mine of your past. You know you’re a child of the eighties you if you find yourself singing along. Which is not to say this isn’t a very contemporary film.
So what of the players? Enzo Cilenti’s Lenny is very much a variation of his persona in Virtual Sexuality and jars somewhat at first because they are so similar, which isn’t to say he doesn’t do nervy well, but perhaps his is the least believable character. Lance has an obvious versatility, and its difficult to think of another actor being able to full of his epiphany. De Woolfson (more usually seen in the adverts before the picture (wasn’t he the monk in the Virgin commercials?)) carries his roles well, a study of the nadir which all of us eventually reach at some point in our lives. That moment when the shitty status quo becomes a comfortable norm.
The revelation is Kate Ashfield. A few words here about plotting. In terms of the main plot she is very much a hanger on, her own story feeling like an afterthought, a punch line to end the film on. Realising this the scriptwriter has given her some of the best lines and she has the role of moving the main plot to its conclusion. So even though we have less glimpses into her personal life, she has the greatest impact and is perhaps in some of the more memorable scene (and there are some doozy’s towards the end). Give this girl more work immediately. Also watch out for an extended cameo by the luminous star of a Sunday night BBC period drama. I’ll say no more.
As with all these things there is something indefinably great about this film. Its difficult to describe exactly why it work. But I’m currently thinking about going again, despite the late night that will entail, which must be some kind of praise. <==
Regular readers can see when that review was written. I really didn't stay in Manchester that often to see films, but this seemed worth it. I was right.
==> I’ve always had an embryonic idea for a festival of films set during twilight in that almost negative zone between dusk and dawn, where town and cities somehow become unreal places. Anyone whose walked through their city centre at four in the morning will know what I mean. In that street light, buildings and structures, closed shops and offices, feel like you would assume a film set must be like at the end of the day, skeletal and ghostly waiting for those precious few hours until they can fulfill their presence once again. Invading these once natural places feels wrong, as though you’re intruding on the city’s own slumber. There have been few films which capture this feeling.
Blade Runner, of course, with its perpetual night. And Strange Days. Dark City. Equinox. Go. Some sections of Heat. But these are all very arch films. There have been very few funny and sweet films so frankly the festival would have been a long dark teatime of the soul. I suppose Before Sunrise and Linklater’s lesser known Suburbia could be in there, but they don’t quite live up to the brief of engendering the feeling. And now, finally, without much fanfare we have Late Night Shopping finally a British film which isn’t Human Traffic set at that time of night. And for once it's actually quite good. Spectacularly good.
I should let you know the circumstances I saw this film under. I’ve just started new full time job which requires me to take a two hour round trip each day to work. Currently that means up at six in the morning home by half six, somewhat limiting film watching flexibility. Saw Shrek under these conditions and I’ve a feeling that’s why I’m not sure whether that’s a great film. So having eaten one of the worst burger meals I’d ever visited upon for tea, and walked around the city for an hour waiting for the film to start, you’d think that I was in the worst state I could be to sit down for a film, despite the plushness of the cinema. On reflection I was probably in the best condition, as tired as the characters on the screen with that same slightly jaded view of the world.
The first fictional work of Saul Metzstein (the documentary filmmaker behind the seminal This is Dogma 95) should not work. Four very different people meet every night in a café, their commonality being the a break in the tedium of the night shift. We have some fairly standard characters: Vinnie (James Lance) the wide boy seemingly taking a sabbatical from a Guy Richie movie to stack shelves; Lenny (Enzo Cilenti), the slightly timid nervous one who works for directory enquiries; Sean (Luke De Woolfson) the everyman presumed observer of the action (hospital porter) and Jody (Kate Ashfield), the opinionated tom-boy (As If’s Sooz, all grown up). The makings of a Big Brother spin-off certainly, but not necessarily a film you’d pay to see. So why does it work so well?
Even though, initially the characters do grate, and there is a feeling that you might as well be at home watching Friends for all the freshness on offer. But as the dialogue unfolds, there is something new here. These characters should not be talking to one another. They don’t fit. Other than their situations they have nothing in common. But it becomes clear that this is exactly why they are together. Their interactions are the brightest part of the night, the time the spend together their chance to experience world outside their own personal sphere of existence. When Vinnie and Sean talk about his compunction for checking the soap in his bathroom to see if his girlfriend has used it and so she must still be living with him, its because he’s never had a steady relationship. He doesn’t know what its like.
The look of the film is also extraordinary. The empty twilight is sharply focused, the camera moving into every nook and cranny of the city. Whilst ‘interesting’ camera angles always suggest a lower budget, here they serve to accentuate this place’s otherness. Equally strong is the soundtrack, its eclecticism a mine of your past. You know you’re a child of the eighties you if you find yourself singing along. Which is not to say this isn’t a very contemporary film.
So what of the players? Enzo Cilenti’s Lenny is very much a variation of his persona in Virtual Sexuality and jars somewhat at first because they are so similar, which isn’t to say he doesn’t do nervy well, but perhaps his is the least believable character. Lance has an obvious versatility, and its difficult to think of another actor being able to full of his epiphany. De Woolfson (more usually seen in the adverts before the picture (wasn’t he the monk in the Virgin commercials?)) carries his roles well, a study of the nadir which all of us eventually reach at some point in our lives. That moment when the shitty status quo becomes a comfortable norm.
The revelation is Kate Ashfield. A few words here about plotting. In terms of the main plot she is very much a hanger on, her own story feeling like an afterthought, a punch line to end the film on. Realising this the scriptwriter has given her some of the best lines and she has the role of moving the main plot to its conclusion. So even though we have less glimpses into her personal life, she has the greatest impact and is perhaps in some of the more memorable scene (and there are some doozy’s towards the end). Give this girl more work immediately. Also watch out for an extended cameo by the luminous star of a Sunday night BBC period drama. I’ll say no more.
As with all these things there is something indefinably great about this film. Its difficult to describe exactly why it work. But I’m currently thinking about going again, despite the late night that will entail, which must be some kind of praise. <==
Regular readers can see when that review was written. I really didn't stay in Manchester that often to see films, but this seemed worth it. I was right.
Games If you're in an intelligent mood, you could do worse than try rather intellectual version of Hangman. Well interlectual in as much as the first word was 'propensity' -- which is a bit different to the last time I played Hangman and the longest word was 'useless'.
Film The Gigli Experiment or Can Some Schmuck with a Crappy Web Page Gross More Money Than the Movie Gigli, Starring Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck? Currently Gigli: $6,068,735. Him: $91.34. He may have some way to go ... [via wrzl]
Life Sometimes you can spend the day in front of the computer screen working and you can really feel like you've achieved something. I'm in the first stages of a project for the website over Christmas (if you're a regular reader and we haven't met, please email) and as I've been carrying out the research, some of the excitement that's been missing for me about using the web has returned. I'd been thinking about writing about how boring the web had become, when in fact all that had happened was that I'd stopped exploring, clutching onto the few sites I visit every day like a land-lover not wanting to take to the sea. Today, I've been all around the world and been reminded why I give BT my £10 a month ...
Site News
"Don't panic."
"Who said anything about panicking? This is just culture shock..."
-- Ford to Arthur in The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy
"Don't panic."
"Who said anything about panicking? This is just culture shock..."
-- Ford to Arthur in The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Quote! "But we can't escape into the future like we can escape into the past. So those of us who are not certain of things, and there are an awful lot of us, often rush back to the past. And each one has a particular past he prefers to the present. Sometimes I feel that any past is preferable to the present." Tom Baker speaks. [via LMG]
Life Our usual taxi company (so usual they're actually on our BT friends and family) are throwing out the traditional method of shouting destinations through a radio for the cabbie to choose from, in favour of a Knight Rider Kitt style computer read out which targets the drivers closest to a proposed fair and sending them there. The idea being that the customer will get a taxi faster and the driver won't miss out on a fair which is in his area.
As a closet luddite, to me this seems like yet another example of humanity being removed in favour of a technology for only a token improvement in efficiency. On the cold mornings when the cabbie is in no mood for chit chat, that radio is the only breath of the outside world existing in that box on wheels. The one sided banter of the caller punctuated with niceties and arguments the perfect soundtrack as the not-so-scenary drifts by. With the new readout that will be gone, in favour of the humming of the engine, or else the seeping tedium of Local Radio with its 'pop music' and 'competitions'. As will the scene I once wrote for a script I was working on, in which the radio started talking to the passenger about where his life was going ...
As a closet luddite, to me this seems like yet another example of humanity being removed in favour of a technology for only a token improvement in efficiency. On the cold mornings when the cabbie is in no mood for chit chat, that radio is the only breath of the outside world existing in that box on wheels. The one sided banter of the caller punctuated with niceties and arguments the perfect soundtrack as the not-so-scenary drifts by. With the new readout that will be gone, in favour of the humming of the engine, or else the seeping tedium of Local Radio with its 'pop music' and 'competitions'. As will the scene I once wrote for a script I was working on, in which the radio started talking to the passenger about where his life was going ...
TV No more Pure 24. The BBC have lost the rights to show 24, which is a big disappointment of course, especially considering how much work they did in promoting the series in this country. So Tamsin Sylvester will no doubt have to find something else to do every sunday for half of the year ... [visit The 24 Weblog for lots more coverage and that Tamsin joke again, written in a funnier manner]
Site News Just noticed that my blogrolling links aren't working so I'm looking at following some other blogs of having an off site links page, which would also house those review links which are resulting in the massively long time it takes for the weblog to appear. There isn't much you can do with the format of a weblog, but I'm going to try two columns for a while and see how that works out. All change by Monday (hopefully!) then...
Architecture The Avalon Hotel, Beverley Hills, because some hotels are just like the movies. Right down to the names of the waiting on staff...
"The Avalon was a welcome sight, as were its valets. Ivory greeted me: he with pleasantries and I with a warning that I was a nut with 95 lb worth of luggage ... After checking in, Ivory and I chatted briefly about New Zealand: it turned out he had basketball-playing friends there. The genuine conversation is standard, as I continued to find with other very cosmopolitan members of the Avalon’s staff. So much for the American who thinks the world is divided into four time zones.Yes, Ivory. Other staff members include Korzen and Wearstler. Just one inuendo away from a James Bond film.
Music The death of the album? The thrust of this piece is that the power of the album as an entity has been erroded through digital music because people have stopped listening to the thing as an experience spread over a hour or so and instead as single track entities. This process actually more than likely started with the skip button on a CD player -- if you don't like a track, unlike a LP or cassette where some messing about had to occur, you could just shift onto the next one instantly, to some extent loosening the cohesion of the experience. Some musicians agonise about the piece flows and probably think about pacing as much as film makers.
I'm as guilty of this as anyone else -- although Real One, my MP3 player of choice doesn't have a random facility as such, it's easy enough to put the tracks into alphabetical order then pick an inpoint at random. To be honest although I understand the argument put forward, what some artists are probably more worried about is the fact the slightly weaker tracks on the album which could be largely masked to some extent by the music around them, are left dangling, their flaws there for all to see. This is particularly true of pop -- the first Liberty X album has some very good strong tracks, the singles mostly, and a lot of filler. Now we can filter out the filler -- but really we shouldn't have to -- everything should stand up to scrutiny.
I'm as guilty of this as anyone else -- although Real One, my MP3 player of choice doesn't have a random facility as such, it's easy enough to put the tracks into alphabetical order then pick an inpoint at random. To be honest although I understand the argument put forward, what some artists are probably more worried about is the fact the slightly weaker tracks on the album which could be largely masked to some extent by the music around them, are left dangling, their flaws there for all to see. This is particularly true of pop -- the first Liberty X album has some very good strong tracks, the singles mostly, and a lot of filler. Now we can filter out the filler -- but really we shouldn't have to -- everything should stand up to scrutiny.
TV The new issue of Off The Telly is online with a couple of fascinating interviews with programme makers. Tom Ware is the series editor for the always too good to miss Time Shift documentaries on BBC4; David Bodycombe is behind such greats as Treasure Hunt and The Crystal Maze.
Philosophy Can Ego inhibit creativity? Probably, it would appear:
"We have powerful tendencies to set up judgments about ourselves and others that limit creative expression. As actress Madlyn Rhue noted, 'The mistake we all make is in thinking that certain standards exist and that we must meet these standards in order to establish our place in the universal hierarchy. But hierarchies in artistic expression are not valid nor universal; they're personal.'"Watching the Golum documentary in the extras for LotR: The Two Towers it becomes apparent that even though Andy Serkis was essentially creating a character, to some extent he had to fight to validate himself as part of the cast and not just as a stand in for a character who'll be added in later. He knew the job he was doing and the important part he was playing, while Elijah Wood and Sean Austin seemed to look upon him as a space filler until they noticed he was really giving a performance. They had their standards, but Serkis was fulfilling his own all along.
Life I've officially been working in my current job for a year this week. Unusually for me, I'm not actually thinking about leaving - the work is simple but interesting, pays well and I don't feel like I'm waisting my time while at the same time not giving too much of myself away.
Will I be there forever? Probably not, but then I'm part of the generation which never keeps a job for life. When I was sixteen I decided I wanted to be the kind of person who can look back at a later age and see all of the amazing things they've done. I'm 29 and already my head is spinning. I haven't jumped out of a plane or diffused a bomb yet though, so perhaps I'm easily pleased.
Will I be there forever? Probably not, but then I'm part of the generation which never keeps a job for life. When I was sixteen I decided I wanted to be the kind of person who can look back at a later age and see all of the amazing things they've done. I'm 29 and already my head is spinning. I haven't jumped out of a plane or diffused a bomb yet though, so perhaps I'm easily pleased.
Film I finally got the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers DVD and ploughing through the extras (six hours again) so with one thing or another, I'll be neglecting my duties for a few days. For some reason, after reading this, I feel the need to tell you that's were I am ...
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