With a million species at risk of extinction, David Attenborough explores how this crisis of biodiversity has consequences for us all.
Month: October 2020
1619 – AntVentor (2018 video game)
AntVentor is a point & click adventure game, the first short chapter of the AntTrilogy series about an ant and his unusual adventures in a realistic macroworld.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (Windows) MINIMUM : OS: Windows 7 or higher, Processor: 1.8 GHz dual core CPU, Memory: 2 GB RAM, Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 3400 Series, Geforce 9400 Series with at least 512 MB VRAM, DirectX: Version 9.0c, Storage: 1800 MB available space, Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card, Additional Notes: Mouse is recommended
1618 – The Shivering Truth (TV Series 2018-)
The Shivering Truth is an American stop-motion animated surrealist sketch comedy television series created by Vernon Chatman and directed by Chatman and Cat Solen. The show is produced by Solen with PFFR and ShadowMachine, and features the voice talents of Janeane Garofalo, Chatman, Kevin Breznahan, Trey Parker, Miriam Tolan, Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Starlee Kine, Richard Steven Horvitz, Zack Pearlman, Maria Bamford, Conner O’Malley, David Cross, Martha Plimpton, Peter Serafinowicz, and Jordan Peele. The Shivering Truth premiered at midnight on December 9, 2018 on Adult Swim, with the pilot episode having been released online on May 22, 2018 on the Adult Swim website.
When announced in a press release by Adult Swim in May 2017, The Shivering Truth was described as “a delicately crafted, darkly surreal anthology comedy, a miniature propulsive omnibus cluster bomb of painfully riotous daymares all dripping with the orange goo of dream logic. A series of loosely-linked emotional parables about stories within tales that crawled out of the deepest caverns of your unconscious mind and became lovingly animated in breath-slapping stop motion – in other words, it is the TRUTH”.
The characters in the show are 10-inch (250 mm) puppets with wire-based armatures, created with silicon, wool, polystyrene, and resin. Chatman has noted several inspirations for his work on the show, including Terry Gilliam‘s work on Monty Python’s Flying Circus, stating that “I saw it when I was very young, so it scared me. I didn’t know when the animation was beginning or ending.” He also explained that “A lot of my influences are non-animated, primarily in short films, novels, even radio shows. A recent one is David Eagleman‘s books on the brain. He’s a neuroscientist and he gives you 40 different versions of the afterlife, and none of them can co-exist.” Solen has spoken on her inspirations as well, saying that “I loved the movie The Wizard of Speed and Time, which is a cautionary tale about making movies. Another film that I loved as a kid was Nicolas Roeg‘s [film] adaptation of Roald Dahl‘s The Witches, which featured both Anjelica Huston and Jim Henson‘s puppets. It scared me so much!” (wiki)
1617 – Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020)
A look at the final moments of a Las Vegas dive bar called ‘The Roaring 20s’. (fictional non-fiction)
Depicting the final day of a hangdog hangout called the Roaring 20’s, located well off of the plastic fantastic glitz of the Las Vegas strip, the film makes you wonder if gentrification is even the right term for whatever is going on here. Diving into this doco is a bit like hanging around in Star Wars’ Mos Eisley cantina long after Luke, Han and the gang have gone, leaving a slain bounty hunter and a severed arm behind them. (timeout)
“Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” might have been inspired by 2016, but it embodies 2020. (indiewire)
“The perfect distillation of bar life.” (spectrumculture)
1616 – Botanicula (2012 video game)
Botanicula is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Amanita Design. The game was released on April 19, 2012, for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The game was later ported to iOS and Android.
Botanicula follows the adventure of five botanical creatures (named Mr. Lantern, Mr. Twig, Mr. Poppy Head, Mr. Feather and Mrs. Mushroom) who are trying to save the last seed of their home tree from evil parasitic creatures that have infested their home. (wiki)
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (Windows): OS:Microsoft® Windows® XP/Vista/7/8/10, Processor:1.6 Ghz Processor, Memory:1 GB RAM, DirectX®:5.0, Hard Drive:550 MB HD space
TimeSpace Warps 