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Master of dungeons.

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A couple of months ago, my friend (and bandmate ) Pete asked me if I knew anything about DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. I am a middle-aged nerd, so, yeah, I know something about D & D. Pete, who also has nerdy interests, had somehow made it to near middle-age without ever playing D & D. Or any other old-fashioned pencil/paper/dice role-playing game. Even though I haven’t played DUNGEONS & DRAGONS in 30 years, I offered to run a game so Pete could experience an old-school R.P.G. first-hand. We invited a few more friends and set a play date — that was today, Black Friday. After setting the date, I panicked a bit. Because I wasn’t sure where to start. Thankfully, the internet is much more advanced than it was the last time I played DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. A couple of months ago, my friend (and bandmate ) Pete asked me if I knew anything about Dungeons & Dragons . I am a middle-aged nerd, so, yeah, I know something about D & D . Pete, who also has nerdy interests, had s...
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Screenwriting software.

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Back in the olden times, when people wrote movie scripts with typewriters, I can only imagine that properly formatting a screenplay was tedious at best. (If you’re not familiar with what a screenplay looks like, check out this NoFilmSchool.com article that explains how screenplays are formatted and why they are formatted that way.) When I first started writing screenplays in the early 2000s, software was available to make the process easier. But the industry standard, Final Draft, was famously expensive. And the competition wasn’t cheap. Chuck and I won a copy of Movie Magic Screenwriter at an early Sidewalk Film Fest . (I think it was called “Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000” at the time, because back then all the software companies were appending a “2000” to the end of whatever they named their software.) I am pretty sure I wrote Hide and Creep using that software. I guess if we hadn’t won that, I would have written it in Word and manually put in all the weird tabs and spacing t...
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Ranking classic STAR TREK.

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The classic 1960s STAR TREK TV series is one of my favorite shows of all time. In the 1970s and ’80s, STAR TREK reruns were one of the best sci-fi things available. Especially to a youngster like me who lived in a rural area with no cable TV. I’m somewhat obsessive about the show. Especially now, since I have my DVDs of it ripped and readily available on my home media streaming server. Having watched every episode a few times (and favorite episodes several times), I have opinions. I decided I’d start making... The classic 1960s Star Trek TV series is one of my favorite shows of all time. In the 1970s and ’80s, Star Trek reruns were one of the best sci-fi things available. Especially to a youngster like me who lived in a rural area with no cable TV. I’m somewhat obsessive about the show. Especially now, since I have my DVDs of it ripped and readily available on my home media streaming server. Having watched every episode a few times (and favorite episodes several times),...
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Endorsements.

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When elected officials do terrible stuff — and they seem to be doing a lot of terrible stuff these days — it’s frustrating to see people who could stand up to those elected officials stay silent. I mean, I can say it’s bad when states basically outlaw D.E.I. programs, but I’m just a guy with a blog. I’d like to see business leaders and university presidents standing up against bad policy. When elected officials do terrible stuff — and they seem to be doing a lot of terrible stuff these days — it’s frustrating to see people who could stand up to those elected officials stay silent. I mean, I can say it’s bad when states basically outlaw D.E.I. programs , but I’m just a guy with a blog. I’d like to see business leaders and university presidents standing up against bad policy. So it’s nice to see Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish both endorse Kamala Harris for president. I suspect a lot of people in the entertainment industry are loathe to make political endorsements because the...
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Behind on blogging.

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I am trying to update this blog regularly, but I am not succeeding. I do have about 150 web browser tabs open on my phone of stuff I might want to blog about. So I am at least thinking about blogging. I finally got to visit Dr. No’s comic book store in Georgia. I didn’t get any comic books there, but I did see some very cool Morlock action figures (from the 1960 Time Machine movie). There’s a toy store in the same strip mall as Dr. No’s called 2nd Chance Toys and Collectibles . They have an impressive collection of vintage toys, including several very cool Shogun Warriors toys that are, unfortunately, too pricey for me. Speaking of comics, there’s an omnibus coming out soon collecting a bunch of Marvel/DC crossover comics. I suspect a lot of Gen X comic book fans have a soft spot for these comics. It always seemed like an extra big deal when Spider-Man would meet Superman or the X-Men would meet the Teen Titans. I’m glad these comics are being reissued, because they’ve...
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TRON double features.

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Disney-Post-STAR WARS-Live-Action-Movies Double Feature: THE BLACK HOLE (1979) / TRON (1982); 1980s-Wendy Carlos Double Feature: THE SHINING (1980) / TRON; 1980s-Jeff Bridges-Sci-Fi Double Feature: TRON / STARMAN (1984); 1980s-Computer-Hackers Double Feature: TRON / WARGAMES (1983); First-Gen-CGI Double Feature: TRON / THE LAST STARFIGHTER (1984); Teleporter-Mishap Double Feature: TRON / THE FLY (1986); TRON Double Feature: TRON / TRON: LEGACY (2010); World-Inside-the-Computer Double Feature: TRON / WRECK-IT RALPH (2012) Disney-Post- Star Wars -Live-Action-Movies Double Feature: The Black Hole (1979) / Tron (1982) 1980s-Wendy Carlos Double Feature: The Shining (1980) / Tron 1980s-Jeff Bridges-Sci-Fi Double Feature: Tron / Starman (1984) 1980s-Computer-Hackers Double Feature: Tron / WarGames (1983) First-Gen-CGI Double Feature: Tron / The Last Starfighter (1984) Teleporter-Mishap Double Feature: Tron / The Fly (1986) ...
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Some other reasons movies are so long these days.

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In the 1980s, CDs became the music industry standard for album releases. Even though CDs were smaller than the vinyl LPs they replaced, they could hold more music. A twelve-inch record can hold 45 minutes (give or take) of music, while a CD can hold more than 70 minutes of music. Some musicians decided that their albums needed to fill up a CD, even if they didn’t have 70 minutes of good music ready, and we got a lot of hour-long albums that would have been a lot better if they’d been edited down to 40 minutes. I’ve been thinking about the overlong albums of the ’80s and ’90s lately because of the overlong movies of the 2020s. I am certainly not the first person to complain that movies are too long these days. Vanity Fair published a piece on the subject last year. The Vanity Fair article mentions that producers and cinema owners and audiences complain about long movies. But those complaints don’t carry as much weight as they used to, and I can think of a couple of reasons for...
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Shot on iPhone (and Panavision).

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Apple likes to brag that a lot of their commercials and promotional videos are “shot on iPhone.” But of course Apple can afford some wild accessories for their iPhones, including Panavision lenses! Stu Maschwitz wrote an excellent blog post about how one attaches a pro cinema lens to an iPhone. Blackmagic has created a dual-lens 3D camera for making immersive video for Apple’s Vision Pro VR goggles. I’m not that interested in VR, but I think VR goggles would be fun for watching old 3D horror and sci-fi movies like Creature From the Black Lagoon and It Came From Outer Space . And it might be fun to shoot a movie in the style of those classic 3D movies with this new Blackmagic camera. Ben Pearson wrote a lengthy and revealing article about the modern state of film scores over at Slashfilm . It was revealing to me, at least. Among other things, Pearson tries to figure out why we have fewer memorable musical themes in modern movies. No details yet, but apparently Kino Lorber i...
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