Monthly Archives - December 2023

RE:Play – Doom (30th Anniversary)

DOOM! PC gaming is doomed! Microsoft has bought up Blizzard and they already owned Bethesda.  That’s it! It’s just gonna be consoles from now on. If it ain’t Xbox or PlayStation you ain’t playing! Game over, man. GAME OVER! Get your panties out of a knot. I’ve heard PC gaming is dead more times in my life than I’ve been killed in TF2. Guess what, these genius prophets of the gaming apocalypse have gotten it wrong every single time. Blizzard games might become...

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Meet Apocalypse Elton John

A24 studios hasn't been terrible in the past. Truth be told they've got some good movies under their belt like Ex Machina and Everything, Everywhere All at Once. Civil War is clearly not going to be one of these good ones. I honestly don't know what the story is but the trailer looks utterly ridiculous. The first line is that 19 states have seceded from the United States. The Western Alliance is lead by California and... TEXAS?!?!? Anyway here's...

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The Dark Herald Recommends: The Boy and the Heron 

“Thinking like Copernicus that our Earth is a celestial body moving within the vastness of space, or thinking that our Earth is fixed at the center of the universe, are two ways of thinking that, in reality, are not only related to astronomy. Even when we think about things like the world around us or our own lives, the truth is that we are still revolving around them after all.” Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka, 1937   Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka,...

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The Wolves are Circling Disney 

I am in the process of writing a book on the decline of the Disney empire. Except I may be writing a book on the decline and fall of the Disney empire.  I am really not sure how far Reedy Creek is going to reach.   Sure anybody who looked at it figured that Mickey the Great and Terrible had had a hand in that cookie jar but we also figured that RCID was too much of a golden goose to risk...

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The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend Doctor Who 

It's a Kind of Magic Those words were difficult to write but I don’t really have any choice.   This disaster in three parts is mostly unwatchable.   I’ve already covered the first part. The second was a bottle episode where Donna and the Doctor get trapped with their evil doppelgangers on a space station and have to survive just long enough for the Tardis to repair itself. Which as typical luck would have it, worked out perfectly. The infamous Isaac Newton opening...

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David Drake RIP

Legendary military science fiction author David Drake has passed away at the age of 78. David Drake was born in Dubuque Iowa in 1945. His studies at Duke Law were interrupted when he was drafted into the Army. He served with the "Black Horse Regiment." in Vietnam and Cambodia. After the war, he finished his legal studies and became an Assistant DA in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He eventually quit the law to become a bus driver. In 1978,...

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The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend Pennyworth

BUMPED: due to a busted knuckle. (12/8/23) Pennyworth caught my attention in passing.  There was something else on Epix,* I wanted to watch when I spotted its thumbnail.  I appear to have become something of a branch swinger so far as the streaming services go.  I enroll in one for a month, watch its halo properties, and then cancel and move on to the next service, leaving the last one sobbing in broken-hearted misery. DC’s Pennyworth was clearly supposed to be about Bruce Wayne’s faithful...

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More Good News Bob… Ready?

As bad as November was for Bob Iger, December has been so much worse. Yesterday the Reedy Creek Improvement District was read into the record, this is now a public document anyone can read. The investigations in Florida are already underway. Whether the Fed will do anything about a company so thoroughly connected to the Democratic party is another question. I am doubtful but it can do nothing about Florida's investigations and once those convictions start coming in,...

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RE:Animation – Superman (1940)

UPDATED (12/7/23): Just skip to the bottom if you've read this one before. Welcome to the start of my new series of retrospectives on classic superhero animated productions here at Arkhaven Blog.  And I am beginning with the granddaddy of them all. Superman (1941). The animation quality of the 1940s Superman animated serials has never been equaled since.  The art design was a deco vision whose colors were both vivacious while being subtly layered and vibrant.  The character movement was analog realistic.  There was nothing...

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First Impressions: The Pendragon Cycle

I am not a notable fan of the Daily Wire. I personally tend to view it as Instapundit with money. I ignore it for the same reason that I ignore Fox News. While I am uninterested in its media content I'm not unaware of it It was nice that they gave Gina Carrano a movie to star in after Kathleen Kennedy and LucasFilm torched her career for political reasons. The Ladyballers movie looked a hell of...

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