November 2024 - Arkhaven Site

20NovNovember 20, 2024

Jaguar For MODERN AUDIENCES

Pictured: A Jaguar NOT for modern audiences. Jaguar, the legendary British auto manufacturer, not the South American bobcat, started life as the Swallow Sidecar company. They made, admittedly, handsome motorcycle sidecars. They expanded to become the Swallow Coachbuilding Company. Back in the 1920s, the British favored a model where the car's chassis, engine, brakes, and engineering guts in general would be built at one company and then taken to a coachbuilder who would fashion a bespoke body for the...

By The Dark HeraldUncategorizedComments Off

19NovNovember 19, 2024

Star Trek’s Tombstone

It's called Unification And it feels like a respectful sendoff to something that was once beloved by many. Like the kind of goodbye to the 23rd Century the old Trekkies wanted. The franchise is dead. Kurtzman Trek is a skinsuit zombie version of something that simply can't be brought back to life by today's Hollywood. There is no one left at this point that can do it and Alex Kurtzman is good enough at Hollywood power games that there are too many...

By The Dark HeraldUncategorizedComments Off

18NovNovember 18, 2024

First Impressions: Dune Prophecy

Have you ever wanted to see what a Merchant Ivory space opera would look like? Well, now you can! Okay, there’s more to it than that, but if you are a dude just be prepared, that’s all I’m saying. Dune: Prophecy started life as Dune: The Sisterhood and has been in development since before the plague. It may well have benefited from spending a little too much time in the bottle. It began development during a regime at Warner that was doing its...

By The Dark HeraldUncategorizedComments Off

16NovNovember 16, 2024

Half-Life 2 At Twenty

An upgraded version of Half-Life 2 has been made available to... I was going to say celebrate the twentieth anniversary but perhaps observe is a better term. In any case, you can't beat the price, which is free. The reason I say observe instead of celebrate is that at the end of day, the Half-Life series is up there with A Song of Ice and Fire, as a sprawling saga that will never be finished. As a story, it is literally...

By The Dark HeraldUncategorizedComments Off

16NovNovember 16, 2024

They Have No One But Rey

“Rey is the most valuable cinematic asset, In some ways the only one.” That is a quote from an alleged LucasFilm insider that the Hollywood Reporter talked to. What is unbelievably tragic is that he is perfectly right. LucasFilm at this point has nothing else. A lot of this comes down to Disney’s institutional commitments and incredibly passive-aggressive corporate culture. At Disney, even the mildest of constructive criticisms feels like a vicious attack because at Disney, it is. And if you are foolish or...

By The Dark HeraldUncategorizedComments Off

14NovNovember 14, 2024

The Dark Recommends: The Penguin

**There will be spoilers throughout** The Batman has its fans and I will grant it has a few things going for it. The main plot was decent enough. The muscle car Batmobile was at least a little different. Alfred was good. However, DEI was force-fed into it by the Warner comedy team of Sarnoff and Hamada. Catwoman lecturing Bruce Wayne on his White Male Privilege was stomach-churning. The Gotham City being flooded was a violent tonal shift, it hadn’t been...

By The Dark HeraldUncategorizedComments Off

14NovNovember 14, 2024

The New Disney CEO Will Be Worse?

Disney Chairman of the Board James Gorman's search committee apparently has orders from Bob Iger. "Find someone who will make the bastards miss me!" The internal Candidates at Disney haven't been all that promising. Jason Pitaro the Chairman of ESPN has done fine with his division but he doesn't have the connections he'd need to reestablish the broken key talent links in the entertainment industry, nor does he have experience dealing with the ridiculous egos and power trips of show business....

By The Dark HeraldUncategorizedComments Off

12NovNovember 12, 2024

The Captain of the Kotaku Concordia Has Fled the Ship

Editor of Kotaku and failed sex worker Alyssa Mercante has left Kotaku, right before it got hit by a massive round of layoffs. I don't like being fair to Mercante but I feel I need to be both to maintain my own standards for integrity and because she is incredibly litigious. She did not put Kotaku in the position it's in today. There was a string of terrible decisions that have been made starting with the shitcanning of Brian Crecente...

By The Dark HeraldUncategorizedComments Off

11NovNovember 11, 2024

Tony Todd RIP

"My beloved. May you rest in power sweet to the sweet in heaven," said Virginia Madsen, Todd's Candyman costar in a tearful post on Instagram. "The great actor Tony Todd has left us and now is an angel. As he was in life." Tony Todd was born in 1954 in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Hartford, Conn. He studied at the Eugene O'Neill National Theater Institute in Waterford, Conn., and Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, R.I. The six foot five...

By The Dark HeraldUncategorizedComments Off

08NovNovember 8, 2024

Why Was the Polling So Bad?

Democrats are absolutely beside themselves with rage over... Well everything at the moment but they feel they have once again been betrayed by the polling. This time they are completely right. A while back, Disney subsidiary ESPN bought up Nate Silver's 538 to help with their forecasting. It was actually a pretty smart idea. Then 538 gets transferred over to ABC News, which takes it away from Jason Pitaro and puts it under the control of... You guessed it! Dana Walden. Nate Silver...

By The Dark HeraldUncategorizedComments Off

Monthly Archives - November 2024