The Star Wars That I Used to Know

If you're familiar with the rather stunning Gotye 'Somebody That I Used To Know ' (featuring Kimbra) track and you're a Star Wars fan still smarting from the prequels, you might enjoy the below parody by teddiefilms

Videogame Trailers: TF2

TF2 (Team Fortress 2) is a great, free to play, multiplayer FPS (First Person Shooter) with a long history. My real interest in it is the art direction; which apart from a gorgeous, highly stylised design aesthetic carries over wonderfully into the various 'promo' videos which introduce each character. They are cartoonly violent, dark humoured and a stand out example of how to holistically create a video game universe and experience... and so enjoyable to watch.

The Pyro (above) has just been released but check out the other videos. Also, have a look at this interesting and powerful open source movie maker used by Valve to create these movies!

All Songs Considered: Ethics & Music

Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered.

"Recently Emily White, an intern at NPR All Songs Considered and GM of what appears to be her college radio station, wrote a post on the NPR blog in which she acknowledged that while she had 11,000 songs in her music library, she’s only paid for 15 CDs in her life. Our intention is not to embarrass or shame her. We believe young people like Emily White who are fully engaged in the music scene are the artist’s biggest allies. We also believe–for reasons we’ll get into–that she has been been badly misinformed by the Free Culture movement. We only ask the opportunity to present a countervailing viewpoint."

Full Article

2 Things That Were Great!

I just finished two things that have suffered a lot of media discontent recently, a video game called Mass Effect 3 and Alien Prequel Promethus. No reviews or advice follow...

The Mass Effect Series is just simply one of the best franchises in video gaming history (certainly for me) I loved all 3 episodes. There's been a lot of talk about how much of a crime the finale was and quite frankly I just don't get the hate... I'll have to double back over a lot of spoilerific reviews I avoided for the last 3 months. Play it, play them all, it's art, it's genius it transends video gaming. Femshep for the win!

As for Prometheus... I don't think I've seen a good review for this yet, but I thought it was great! It is not without a few issues and (mostly minor) plot holes  and I'm not sure how it fits into the series (Aliens is one of my all time favourite movies) but I enjoyed it a lot. It keeps a lot of the formula of the great Alien movies but it also does it's own thing and well worth a big screen experience.

One of the more minor 'holes' is nicely and amusingly summed up here in this 'spoiler' comic on Penny Arcade!

Decide for yourselves...

Game Trailers

Watch Dogs (currently talk of the interwebs...) 1313 (a new and surprisingly awesome new 'gritty' Star Wars story)

Video Game High School (VGHS) : Ep. 1

I'm a late comer to the stylings of Freddie W(ong), video game/pop culture Youtube filmmaker, but this is hot off his press; Epidode 1 of a new series called Video Game High School.

Art of The Instakill

For video gaming nerds only...

One Man Star Wars Cover

One man vocal cover of the Star Wars theme by Nick McKaig

History of Whistling by CDZA

As a habitual whistler myself, this is pretty infectious...

Minecraft Vs Coldplay: Fallen Kingdom

A Coldplay parody with a Minecraft video clip by Viva la Vida