One of my favorite episodes of the original Star Trek and, I would argue, one of their best overall episodes, was the action-packed season two entry, “The Doomsday Machine.” A significant factor on why I believe it should be ranked so highly is because of the episode-specific music composed by Sol Kaplan. Viewers may recall the original series re-used a lot of music cues as a cost-cutting technique. The fact that they don’t do so…
I posted yesterday about Marvel movie music, which I found interesting since –while I’ve collected movie soundtracks since I’ve been little, I haven’t gotten around to getting any of the Marvel soundtracks. (Though I do remember the Avengers “fanfare.”) One recent soundtrack that I have gotten, however, is Game of Thrones, composed by Ramin Djawadi. Spencer Kornhaber writes about Djawadi, his composing, and his fame, in a recent article for The Atlantic.
So, I talked about comics and Captain Marvel specifically so far this week… and that got me thinking more about the Marvel Cinematic Universe and then I thought of “Every Frame a Painting’s” critique of Marvel’s movie music. You may recall me raving about the YouTube series on the occasion of its end, but in any case, this approximately 14-minute video gives you a bit to ponder.
So, I was pontificating about the future of the comics industry yesterday, but I realize many of you are more concerned about a more pressing issue: What’s with all these Captains Marvel, anyway? Perpetual pop culture historian and comics writer Mark Evanier gives an illuminating and succinct account.
One trend I continue to follow is the decline of “mid-tier” creative works, whether they be “mid-budget” movies or “middle tier” novels. I touched on this just over two years ago when I was looking at the film Warcraft in particular and film budgets in general. At the time, I also noted how the erosion of the mid-budget movie and how a similar trend seemed to occur with “mid-list” authors. Now, superhero movies in general…
Unless you’ve been living under a tauntaun, you know that Disney is adding Star Wars sections to its theme parks. And since it’s Disney, they are going all out. The sci fi news site, io9, was part of a group of journalists that got the tour the attractions, still feverishly being prepared for later this year (summer for Disneyland (California) and Fall for Disney World (Florida). If you’re the slightest bit a Star Wars fan,…
Coming off my post on Monday about having hobbies as hobbies and nothing more, I stumbled across an article by Derek Thompson in The Atlantic about the reverence that work and “busyness” has in modern American culture. America has long had a paradoxical status as a Calvinistic Babylon, to reference historian Michael Kammen. To follow along that allegorical thought, if all hobbies ought to be hustles, leisure time itself is suspect. Being unproductive is almost…
I had the opportunity over Presidents’ Day weekend (aka Washington’s Birthday weekend for OPM sticklers) to do something I can’t remember doing in a long time, if ever: painting miniatures. Many of my gamer friends have various Warhammer and related armies and I know my efforts are not remotely in their league. They paint minis regularly. In fact, for several, it’s a bona fide hobby. One preditor friend (that’s producer-editor for the uninitiated) has taken…
While this is really more of a Team Jabberwocky thing, specifically Jabberwocky Audio Theater, it’s time to put on my marketing hat which is, by its very nature, mad! Regular readers may recall that we did a Doctor Who giveaway last year and we’ll do a few more this year: all to help build an audience for Jabberwocky Audio Theater. You may also remember that I’ve occasionally mentioned the work of Russell Nohelty on behalf…
If your 2019 has been bereft of geeky, geeky mashups thus far, have we got the video for you! Behold: nearly all the Disney princesses playing D&D (with Belle as DM, which just makes sense). In case you not only like it, but love it, they apparently have a crowdfunding campaign going through February.