MarkDoesMedia

     I have a strange relationship with Disney's animated output; on one hand, I adore well-made CG animation and Disney is obviously the best at that. On the other, when a film of theirs doesn't work for me it irks me to the point of intense dislike. So there is this large disparity between films of theirs that I just hate and ones I absolutely love. Here, I will attempt to break down each film and what works or does not work, sorted by order of release.   Tangled     I went into this movie wanting to hate it. Everything about it screamed generic Disney princess movie, which I am not a big fan of usually. However, the charming cast of characters and the visuals really won me over to the point of actually caring about what happened towards the end and this is easily among the best Disney movies for me. One of the most gorgeous sequences I've seen in an animated film is the lantern scene from this very film, pictured above.       I r...

         I saw the new Uncharted  film trailer today and, quite frankly, I am unsettled. Not because Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg do not fit their characters whatsoever or because it looks like a terrible movie all around. In fact, I never much cared for the original games to begin with. I am unsettled because of this strange, symbiotic relationship between two mediums that is now apparent to me.      Uncharted  was created to riff on the Indiana Jones  film franchise and really popularized heavy film elements in video games. Prolonged cutscenes, a real care for the cinematography, and top-notch performances to name a few. They also have very "movie-like" writing with quippy characters, fun action set-pieces, and countless tropes. Naughty Dog essentially set the stage for modern-day "cinematic" games and owe a lot to preexisting films and media that gave them the inspiration to meld those various elements with standard gameplay. Th...

         Train-of-thought. That's what I would say if I were tasked with assigning Satoshi Kon's work a genre. He was a Japanese animation director who unfortunately passed away in 2010 and with only four feature films and a television series under his belt. However, each one of his works presents a vision so singular, so distinct that I would easily put him up there as one of the great directors of our time.      His films do not navigate narrative in any sort of traditional way. What Kon was clearly focusing on is delivering stories through intuition and feeling as opposed to having a concrete narrative, arcs, or even clearly defined characters. His films are more akin to a free-flowing drawing; each scene bleeds into the next without much rhyme or reason strictly logically speaking, but emotionally the ebb and flow just make sense. A narrative does come through, but not through any sort of mechanical storytelling but instead through the feeling...

           Game of Thrones  is a very special series to me, I've been watching it every year since season four came out. I can't even describe how devastated I was over the last two seasons and how bad they were, it felt like a waste of many years of investment and, for a while, I cast that dislike over the entire show and thought I wasn't into any of it because the last two seasons left such a bad taste in my mouth.      Now, after a long time of reflection and a rewatch of the earlier seasons, I realize that I still very much love Game of Thrones . The production design, visual effects, casting, story, pacing, everything is done so exceptionally well that it puts most Hollywood movies to shame. It essentially ruined any other kind of medieval-themed show for me since they all look cheap and fake in comparison. I still love most of the characters and plotlines and the show is structured in such a brilliant way where it doesn't spen...

     Denis Villeneuve is one of the best directors working today and the fact that he is given massive budgets to work with is as amazing as it is worrying. What makes his films so special is his absolute mastery of storytelling, tone, and atmosphere but, unfortunately, many of these qualities do not directly translate into mainstream appeal. His films tend to be very methodically slow-paced and constructed, with well-thought-out plots and fascinating characters and they also tend to be very moody and dark.      Blade Runner 2049  is a fascinating film to look at from a blockbuster angle; it is a nearly $200 million dollar, almost 3-hour long, R-rated art film. It is not at all interested in exciting action set-pieces or making the audience feel good. It is a dark, brooding meditation of humanity and the world we live in with an incredibly thick atmosphere and a believable science fiction world. Roger Deakins' cinematography is as beautiful as it is sl...

     Indie gaming is always an interesting space to watch as it is often where the real innovation lies. Since indie games are not as restricted by guidelines and profit margins as their bigger industry leaders, indie games are often allowed to push the medium further in risky and interesting ways. Here are some of my favourite indie games, many of which feature gameplay or experiences you would never see in the triple-A space.  Bugsnax        Bugsnax is, unironically, my favourite PS5 game so far. It came out right when the console launched and I had such a fantastic time with it; the characters are all fantastic, they're flawed, distinct, likable, and despite them looking like sock puppets they all deal with real, compelling issues. I did not expect to get as invested in the story of Bugsnax  as I did, but it is one of the better-written games out there and no this isn't some elaborate joke.       The gameplay isn't exce...