Been a while, eh? School is getting busy… not unmanageable get-me-depressed busy, but busy enough to have little free time, and when I do have free time, I spend it watching movies and TV instead of doing anything creative. Shame on me, perhaps? No, no shame in creative people watching movies and TV, it’s only shameful for those noncreative boring people.
I went to see There Will Be Blood the other day… I’d give it 5 out of 10 stars, which is slightly positive. What I didn’t like: the plot, or at least the very weak one. Hardly any sense of rising action and climax. Hardly any sense of a purposeful progression of events. Lack of those things in and of itself is not bad, depending on what the subject is. The man’s life just wasn’t that interesting. What a liked: great use of dissonant music. If you like that kind of music in a concert hall… eh… but with a narrative it certainly has a place. The only part of the film in which I found the music to be annoying was when H.W. got thrown into the air by the explosion and his father carried him away; there’s this really annoying repeating rhythm played with wooden blocks… it sounds awful. Also, I liked the cinematography at some parts, especially the longer takes. I just love long takes. The final scene was also fun, though deathly. “I drink your milkshake” is just so quotable.
Ya know, I didn’t think The Godfather was that great…
Anyway, I didn’t buy the C4 Engine… I went ahead and updated my 3D GameStudio instead. It was $100 less and I’m already familiar with how it works. Actually, I sort of have to reacquaint myself with it, but at least I recognize just about everything. I also noticed the new Visual C++ Express 2008 is now out, and Microsoft is sporting some free 3D game creation tools along with it. I haven’t explored it yet, but it look interesting. However, it looks like they want you to pay to use some of the tools, which would be dumb (the website looks a bit tricky… it’s hard to tell what’s free and what isn’t, so be careful and don’t get too excited). I think I’ll stick to 3DGS for now.