Magazine article concerning the Playstation one games Dino Crisis one and two:

Dino Crisis One

(1)   Expert Codebook, Volume Five, EGM Strategy Guides, “Display until April 3, 2000”, Ziff Davis, p. 16-28.

(2)   Game Pro Magazine, November, 1999. NOTE: This is a 16 page separate supplement that came with the magazine. It is not in the magazine itself.

Dino Crisis Two

(3)   Game Pro Magazine, #143, August, 2000, p.42, Preview Article.

(4)   Expert Gamer, November, 2000, Issue 77, p. 72-91.

SPOILERS!

“Below” (2002) directed by David Twohy

One of my favorite film genres is the submarine movie. While the submarine movie often follows a familiar pattern, I find the environment endlessly fascinating. The pattern of this genre of film always involves the boat (submarines are always referred to as boats, regardless of their size) suffering a depth charge attack, usually about the middle of the film. This convention is inherently dramatic and always makes for a good and exciting scene. The depth charge scene in “Below” is one of the finest in the genre. After many near misses a depth charge lands on the deck of the Tiger Shark. The explosive device proceeds to roll and bounce across the deck before almost being caught in the railing and finally slipping over the side of the vessel. The sound effects and CGI used here are excellent and make this moment almost unendurably suspenseful.

In fact, “Below” uses sound to great effect all through the film. The tearing of the hull when the hooks are used against the boat and the sound of whales are a few examples of evocative sound effects used in the movie. Later, as the haunting increases in intensity, we hear tapping and other ghostly sounds that add greatly to the haunting atmosphere aboard the submarine. The musical score is first rate. The movie is set in 1943 and avoids any modern or contemporary musical styles that would have destroyed the mood so carefully crafted by the filmmakers. The creaking of the hull and the sound of breathing emanating from the Captain’s cabin are particularly effective.

The photography contributes to the cogency of the narrative. The use of light and shadow and characters seen in silhouette add to the feelings of mystery and uncertainty. Areas in shadow and darkness are suddenly lit for great shock effect. The scene with the manta rays is an excellent example of this. Also, before the hydrogen explosion, a series of shots showing a crewmember’s picture of his daughter and another crewmember’s stacked dominoes is later repeated after the blast with the photograph still on the wall but now singed at the edges and turned into a photographic negative and the stacked dominoes now also blackened and singed, but still standing. It personalizes the event which increases its emotional impact.

SPOILERS!

“Lifeforce” (1985) starring Steve Railsback, Patrick Stewart and Mathilda May

Directed by Tobe Hooper

“Lifeforce” is a film, like “Blade Runner” and “2001: A Space Odyssey”, that I was fortunate enough to see on a large screen during its original release. The alien spacecraft, the bat-like creatures, London overrun by zombies and, best of all, a naked Mathilda May are best appreciated on a big screen.

The aspect of “Lifeforce” that most stays in my memory in how it keeps throwing new imagery at the viewer while maintaining its storyline. The situation presented is intended to resemble a disease vector. It starts with the “vampire girl” and soon threatens to engulf the entire world (or at least the British Isles).

The human race does not defeat the alien threat. All it manages to do is live to fight another day. However, with mankind now sufficiently advanced to anticipate the creatures’ return the human race now has a fighting chance.

Frozen Decade

Anything I write about movies will contain SPOILERS. Read at your own risk. Readers who have not seen the films being discussed should refrain from reading my reviews prior to viewing the films, unless they are unconcerned with knowing the ending in advance.

During the 1970s American filmmakers developed a love affair with the freeze frame. This lasted throughout the decade but became less common toward the end of the decade due to overuse. Films such as Norman Jewison’s “Rollerball” (1975), “Shoot” (1976)  and the ABC Movie of the Week “A Cold Night’s Death” (1973)  all end with a freeze frame. Even Stanley Kubrick, one of the most unconventional of directors, chose to end his 1975 costume drama “Barry Lyndon” with a freeze frame. Before the end of the decade the freeze frame had become such an overused device that it abruptly vanished from the cinema and has seldom been seen since that time.

The freeze frame represented the pessimism of Seventies cinema. The view that we are trapped by forces larger than ourselves as individuals was visually conveyed to the audience by the use of this filmic imagery. Large scale epic or small scale drama, made for TV movie or big budget Hollywood blockbuster, viewers in front of a movie or television screen during this decade were highly likely to see the narrative end with a frozen image.

The freeze frame conveys a view of the world that we are trapped, like flies in amber, in the circumstances of our time and environment, unable to break the bonds of our reality. As the pessimistic seventies were left behind for the manic optimism of the eighties the glory days of the freeze frame melted away into

the false dawn of America in the eighties.