Double Fine has finally revived one of Tim Schafer’s best-known and least-played adventure games from his days at LucasArts. Those of us who were too young or bound by the limits of our computers always heard of it: tales of the greatness, the splendor, the sheer Dia de los Muertos-esque grace, of “Grim Fandango.” And now it’s finally available...
If I had a time machine, I would go back in time and destroy the script for “Inception” — not because I dislike the film, as I think Christopher Nolan is one of the best directors of modern cinema, and “Inception” was great. However, the film started the terrible trend of filmmakers using the “bwah” sound effect in almost...
What seems to be a modern interpretation of mafia-crime movies, “A Most Violent Year” enters the scene away from its proposed goal of depicting the year 1981 as a crime-filled drama, but stumbles into an interesting take on what it means to achieve the typical American dream. Directed and written by J.C. Chandor, the movie opens to New York...
UCR’s music department will be putting on an orchestra concert this upcoming Saturday entitled “Heroes and Anti-Heroes.” Conducted by Ruth Charloff, the UCR orchestra will play a variety of different music that tells the stories of heroes and antiheroes with backgrounds ranging from films to operas. “I was thinking about various ways to make a program out of a...
Standing in a line that easily topped 50 people outside the Barn on Wednesday, I did a quick YouTube search of We Are Scientists on my phone. Though they had the alternative, post-punk sound that is endemic of most indie bands today, I liked what I heard. I recognized some of their songs from college radio, and I was...
There’s a constant rainfall over UC Riverside: “Riverside is boring.” “We don’t have anything important here.” “Everything ‘famous’ in our city is useless.”
The raindrops prick the skin of students like sewing needles, like words that actually can break your bones. Those raindrops are in fact words, and the imagery they invoke isn’t prettier than a sewage pile of trash,...
“Whodunit” films have a unique air about them. These types of films are both fun and challenging. They allow the audience to become a character within the story. Viewers participate as they try and solve the mystery for themselves. From the beginning of the movie until its end, the goal for the audience is to find the perpetrator. The...
Like predecessors “Community” and “Parks and Recreation,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” has a remarkable sense of continuity for a sitcom. While sitcoms often focus on plot and don’t mind if character details get shifted here and there, these shows buck that trend and put emphasis on character as well as plot, keeping up with the details and overall creating the feeling...
Remember when Johnny Depp used to be cool? I do, back in the magical time known as the late ‘90s that we all view with the rose-tinted lenses of nostalgia. I remember, living in my mom’s small apartment in downtown Portland, surreptitiously watching “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” on VHS and thinking, “man, this Depp guy is pretty...
It’s cliche by now that when listening to the Decemberists, you may need to keep a dictionary or reference book (or, you know, Google) by your side. The lexicon and historical and mythological knowledge of the band, and in particular lead singer and songwriter Colin Meloy has been well-tread. As is the case for their previous album, “The King...