Generic Movie: Hollywood as of 1980 or as of Its Origins?

Sean Mattie and I have been discussing, via email, the current fiscal/narrative conservatism that Hollywood seems to be exhibiting of late. His argument, and it is a common argument among critics, is that Hollywood is "no longer" in the business of making original productions and now busies themselves with adaptations of other works and long strings of sequels/remakes.

Having read The Day of the Locust (and seen the movie) and The Loved One (and seen that movie too), I am less critical of modern Hollywood than he is. I think that Hollywood has always been in the business of being risk averse and that the question to consider is whether the overall quality of entertainment offered today is less than that of any other given point in history. I am also of the opinion that quality is up compared to most eras of cinema, but that classic movies of the past are...well...Classic.

Speaking of The Day of the Locust, the thing I have always liked most about the Simpsons television show is how Homer Simpson continually visually references his namesake and his "big hands" in the majority of episodes. Every time Homer is choking Bart, you are getting a glimpse of the end of The Day of the Locust.

MBA Finals, not to be confused with NBA Finals

I am currently in the midst of Finals season for the quarter and posting has been light. Sorry, but my mind is currently filled with visions of Share of Voice and Net Present Value, and has been distracted from the world of popular culture.

Supercrew RPG Update

Back in January, I reviewed the independently published superhero roleplaying game "Supercrew." Overall, I gave the game a glowing review.

In conclusion, I think that this is an excellent game at a reasonable price. It isn't likely to replace Savage Worlds' Necessary Evil campaign in my game rotation any time soon, but I think I'll be trying to fit it in when some players don't show up for our regular sessions.

But there was one small thing that kept nagging at the back of my consciousness. I really wanted the game to have more online support. In fact, I wanted it to have any online support.

Well...the good folks at Kaleidoskop have updated their website so that it now includes a support site for players of the English language edition of the game. So far the site merely includes some sample pages from the game and character sheets for use in your home campaign, but it's a good start.

I'd still like to see some more support with regard to designing obstacles and villains for the heroes to face or an English language version of their Hjältegalleri which features a number of characters created using the system would be helpful. While it isn't difficult to figure out what Gravitationskontroll or Noll Friktion are in English, Osynlighetskappa is another matter entirely.

Tron: Legacy Releases Second Trailer

I mentioned in an earlier post that December 17, 2010 will be a very busy day at the movies. That day will see the release of The Smurfs, Yogi Bear, Tron: Legacy, and The Green Hornet. I am eagerly awaiting Tron: Legacy and I can already hear my twin daughters -- who will be 33 months this December -- trying to pressure me into taking them to see The Smurfs or Yogi Bear.

Late last year, Disney released a teaser trailer for Tron: Legacy that demonstrated how cool lightcycles look with modern computer effects. They looked stunning with 80s "super computer" visual effects, and the new ones are just as mind-blowing as the original effects where when they first came out.

I have always thought that the original Tron film did a great job of conveying basic computer concepts to a wide audience. The fact that it conveyed these concepts with visual storytelling concepts made it all that much better. I wonder how many Gen X computer programmers and video game designers were inspired by Tron? The inter-relatedness of programs in Tron, and its use of the "Master Control Program," predated the internet and the Windows operating system -- or the Apache HTTP Server Project -- but the world presented in the film "assumed" such advances would take place. The film forever shaped how I viewed "cyber landscapes" when I read the fiction of William Gibson or Bruce Sterling.

It's hard for sequels, especially sequels separated by decades, to recapture the magic of earlier episodes of a film series. In many ways, remakes have an easier time introducing entertainment to new audiences or rekindling fandom among old hands. Compare the Star Wars prequels and Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, and their reception, to JJ Abrams' Star Trek or the Battlestar Galactica television reboot. The "sequels" earned fan ire, and didn't fire the imagination of new generations in the same way as earlier entries had.

Tron: Legacy is taking the more difficult path. It is a direct sequel of the original film, though one where the "real time" between the two films is the same as the time that has passed during the films. The use of the narrative trope of a son looking for his lost father -- and his legacy -- is as old as Homer, and it is a good narrative technique for introducing new audiences to old ideas without overly irritating the older audience. One can forgive narrative exposition when it has a narrative purpose. I don't know how this story will play out, and one can certainly induct very little about the plot of the new Tron movie from the newest trailer, but the more I find out about the sequel the more I want to watch it.

Obviously, this is a film that I will have to see in 3D.

PULP 2.0 Press Publising BROTHER BLOOD

I don't normally cut and paste press releases on this site, but I am making an exception in this case. PULP 2.0's publisher Bill Cunningham is a friend of Cinerati and he has a strong vision with regards to promoting modern pulp fiction. Cunningham remembers well the bygone days when a young reader could pick up action packed fiction filled with references to "blazing twin .45s" where "sinister cabals" lurked around every corner, and where only heroes who were quick to pull the trigger could save the day. This was back before publishers decided that "Young Adult" readers "needed" heroes who "stupified" and "paralyzed" their opponents. The stakes were life and death, and the heroes meted out death with righteousness.

Cunningham's PULP 2.0 production company is releasing a series of book and other products that revel in this pulp spirit. In the tradition of the classic film Blacula, their first publication is the blaxploitation novel BROTHER BLOOD.

For Immediate Release:
Pulp 2.0 Press
Newpulpmedia@gmail.com





New Publisher Pulp 2.0 Press Officially Launches
with Author Donald F. Glut's
Lost Vampire Blaxploitation Novel BROTHER BLOOD

Company to specialize in quality pulp entertainment, reprinting rare classics and developing new properties
in the classic pulp form for the Horror, Scifi and Action-Adventure audiences


Los Angeles, CA - Bill Cunningham, the Mad Pulp Bastard (yes, that's his job title) of new publishing label Pulp 2.0 Press today announced its premiere pulp novel release, Brother Blood from author Donald F. Glut (The Empire Strikes Back novelization, TV's Transformers, The X-Men and comics' The Occult Files of Doctor Spektor). Brother Blood is a horror "blaxploitation" novel set in 1969 Los Angeles in and around the world famous landmarks of the Sunset Strip. Sexy Preston Duval is a sinister vampire stalking the streets of Los Angeles, building a vampire army to take over the city.

"Brother Blood is an old school pulp novel that captures the tone of the sort of material we'll be publishing here at Pulp 2.0 Press," said Cunningham. "Besides being a piece of pure entertainment, Blood captures the feeling of the time - having been originally written in 1969, three years before Blacula - and is premiering in english and novel form. It was published previously in the 70's in an edited, magazine form in German. "


Brother Blood will be published and distributed worldwide through Createspace's (www.creatspace.com) print-on- demand service and Amazon.com with low-cost digital editions available later for Kindle and other e-readers. Each print edition will feature "Extras" containing behind-the-scenes information, articles, photo essays and other exclusive entertainment.

In addition to collectible print editions for all of their releases, Pulp 2.0 Press has launched a promotion program for each of their titles. Starting with Brother Blood each Pulp 2.0 title will also feature signed extremely limited edition cover proofs that will be available free to only five lucky readers who are the first ones to send in pictures with themselves holding the book. Winners will be posted on the company's Facebook page: (www.facebook.com/pulp2ohpress).


In addition to the signed cover proof promotions, each title will be supported with various types of merchandise geared toward fans - posters, t-shirts and branded novelty items. Quality pulp entertainment items that fans can easily acquire.

"The whole company came about because so many cool pulp and exploitation novels that I wanted to read had fallen out of print and were really hard to track down. I figured that if the only way I was going to be able to read these books in affordable editions was to publish them - then I would do that. I tracked Don (Glut) down and licensed several of his books - more of which we'll announce soon - and got underway."

Cunningham added, " Since that initial startup we've added several artists and writers to the mix as well as a web marketing manager. We've all signed on to the idea of creating the kind of books we as fans want to see and figuring the best way to make pulp fiction fans happy. As a youngster I remember the classic Famous Monsters magazine and how editor Forrest J. Ackerman used to get monster fans involved. Those fans eventually grew up to become the very professionals they were enamored with in the first place. You'll recognize some of the names: John Carpenter, Joe Dante and yes, Donald F. Glut. Thanks to the internet and meeting fans at conventions we can do the same and connect them with quality genre entertainment more than ever before - hence, the name and the mission Pulp 2.0. "

# # #


For more information, or to schedule an interview please contact:

newpulpmedia@gmail.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pulp2ohpress
Twitter: @madpulpbastard
www.pulp2ohpress.com
www.donaldfglut.com

Brother Blood
By Donald F Glut, cover art by Nik Macaluso from Pulp 2.0 Press

The classic vampire "blaxploitation" novel from author Donald F. Glut (THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, TRANSFORMERS). A vampire stalks 1969's groovy Sunset Strip. The police are clueless but a trio of true believers know the horror in their midst. Written in the same style as the original Dracula, Brother Blood is a bloodsucker for the Groovy Age.


Publication Date:Feb 05 2010
ISBN/EAN13:1450576397 / 9781450576390
Page Count: 372
Binding Type: US Trade Paper
Trim Size: 5.25" x 8"
Language: English
Color:Black and White
Related Categories: Fiction / Horror
Retail: $18.99

Some Thoughts on Tunnels and Trolls -- Why It Matters

Those who play Role Playing Games as a hobby know that it isn't always easy to find a group of like minded enthusiasts in order to form a regular "gaming group." As the hobby has expanded, gamers have been able to scratch the RPG itch by playing single player computer RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, video game console rpgs from Dragon Warrior to Dragon Age, or Massive Multiplayer RPGs like World of Warcraft and Dungeons and Dragons: Online. (You can watch videos for some of these games below.)

There hasn't always been such a rich market of available distractions for the gaming hobbyist. In fact, if you were a gamer in the early 1980s -- particularly a young gamer for whom college was a mere aspiration -- there were really only three solutions. You could used the "random solo dungeon" tables in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide, you could play a Fighting Fantasy Gamebook, or you could play a Tunnels and Trolls solo adventure. As I mentioned earlier, if it hadn't been for Tunnels and Trolls your only option would have been the "random solo dungeon" tables in the DMG.

Tunnels and Trolls provided a much needed service for the gaming community with its solo adventures. Not only did they provide the inspiration for the excellent Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, but the T&T solos provided hours of entertainment in and of themselves. They also demonstrated how the T&T rules system was an ideal RPG system for solo play. T&T's rules were simple, quick, and abstract, three things that are essential if one is trying to create a game for solitaire play. The early T&T solos were fairly crude in their presentation and content, particularly when compared to the Fighting Fantasy (and later Lone Wolf) Gamebooks, but as first movers they created a wonderful sub-category of adventure gaming -- one that I still enjoy today.

Buffalo Castle, the first solo module, was written by Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo Games and is a very basic -- though sometimes wildly chaotic -- dungeon crawl. The castle's denizens don't make much sense, and "your" motivation for adventure is pure "profiteering" of the kind common in early RPG adventures. But there is something to be said for entering a room that Tardis-like is larger on the inside than the castle that surrounds it -- a room filled with a herd of buffalo. One imagines that Loomis' work in the Play-by-Mail marketplace may have been a part of his inspiration in drafting a solo adventure.



Ken St. Andre's Deathtrap Equalizer Dungeon quickly adapted the solo module format in a manner that attempted to increase repeat play. The module is best described as a "Gonzo Romp" adventure where death or success can happen at the turn of a page, and where the author punishes readers almost on a whim.

It wasn't until Ken St. Andre's Arena of Khazan and Michael Stackpole's City of Terrors that the solo reached a level of sophistication that made replay not merely fun, but more rewarding that playing through the adventure a single time. I still find myself returning to the Arena of Khazan in the hopes of attaining wealth and glory -- or freedom if I happened to have been "recruited" as a new gladiator like Spartacus in the new Starz TV series.

The solos are worth a look and a play through both as artifacts of the history of RPGs and as experiences on their own -- especially the later modules where narrative components become more important than the first few. I've never quite been convinced that T&T works well as a "group" game, its combat system lacks a kind of "cinematic granularity" that feeds the imaginations of the players with whom I have typically played. But I think that it has some core elements that could be translated into a great group game. This is especially true of T&T's underlying "Saving Throw" system, which I'll be examining in a couple of upcoming posts.



While D&D's influence on computer/video games is undeniable. One should not overlook the influence that T&T and its solo adventures had on that field either. Ken St. Andre worked on the classic video game Wasteland, which was the inspiration for the Fallout series of video game rpgs. Ian Livingstone, of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks series, went on to develop a video game version of his own Deathtrap Dungeon with a little video game company he co-founded. It's called Eidos. Maybe you've heard of it. They did a little game called Tomb Raider.

FFG to Release Battles of Weteros: A Battlelore Game

Fantasy Flight Games has mated George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire and Richard Borg's Battlelore customizable Wargame and created Battles of Westeros: A Battlelore Game. The many brain cells that I have devoted to these two wonderful entertainment products have formed an endorphin mosh pit and are bashing into each other in celebration.

I can really think of no two products that would better mesh together than the fictional world of Westeros and Richard Borg's Command and Colors offshoot Battlelore. Given that A Song of Ice and Fire is filled with echoes of the Wars of the Roses and the Hundred Year's War, and that Battlelore is a Fantasy adaptation of the Hundred Year's War (and other Medieval conflicts, the combination is staggeringly obvious.

This should be a pairing without possible criticism...yet somehow Christian Peterson manages to create controversy in what should be a seamless win.

As I mentioned above, Borg's Command and Colors game engine creates the mechanical backbone for the Battlelore customizable Wargame. Command and Colors is an easy to learn, yet extremely deep, simulation engine that combines quick play with tactical depth. The engine has been used in several successful, and fun, wargames, including: Battlecry (my favorite Civil War game), Command and Colors: Ancients (arguably the best "ancients" wargame ever as it appeals to both the veteran and the neophyte), and Memoir '44 (an excellent WWII wargame). This list includes some of the most successful wargames ever produced, and with good reason given the strength of the Command and Colors system. It is this system's brand that gives the name Battlelore the premium that it has.



Sadly, according to this interview, "The classic BattleLore game is based on Richard Borg’s Command and Colors game system, while Battles of Westeros is an entirely new engine, one that is significantly more involved than C&C and more in tune with FFG’s design principles."

How one can call a game a Battlelore game when it doesn't share a rules set is beyond me. It seems that Peterson is attempting to get the financial premium that the brand Battlelore brings, without bringing the play style that that premium promises. There are likely a couple of reasons for this.

First, as Peterson says, FFG wants a game that is more in tune with FFG's design principles. FFG games have their own brand preconceptions, and deserve a substantial premium on their own. Games like Descent, Doom, World of Warcraft, Runebound, and Middle Earth Quest share qualities and design philosophies. Wanting to produce a game that shares these philosophies and thus maintains the FFG brand is important to be sure. Given the strength of Tide of Iron, FFGs excellent customizable WWII wargame, one wonders why they didn't brand Battles of Westeros as a Tide of Iron game. This is especially true given the fact that the game is going to have significant differences from its related "brand" and will likely share more with Tide of Iron than Battlelore.

Second, Richard Borg owns the copyright on the Command and Colors system that underlies the Battlelore game. Even though FFG owns the right to produce Battlelore games, they likely didn't want to have to pay Borg for other products in a related line. The easiest way to avoid that is to create a new rules set while still leveraging the brand identity due to some stylistic similarities. Contrary to "gamer knowledge" it is likely that the mechanics of games can in fact be copyrighted and FFG is being smart in not attempting to lift the mechanics and move them into their own game in an attempt to cheat Borg out of his money. Better to create a new system than engage in legal battles. While I might criticize FFG for "misapplying" the Battlelore brand, I can praise them for respecting copyright.

As you might guess, it is my belief that the Battles of Westeros game will feel more like a fantasy version of Tide of Iron than a Westeros version of Battlelore, but I don't think that is a bad thing at all. Tide of Iron is a wonderful game that holds its own against Memoir '44 with regard to flexibility and customization. Though Tide of Iron is more Squad Leader Lite than Battlelore's evolution of We the People style card driven game play.

Regardless, I'll be certain to purchase the game when it comes available -- and this is given the fact that I have committed myself to severely restricting new game purchases this year.