Archive Page 10
April 27th, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Sometimes from tragedy something amazing is born. Imagine a boy, shocked by the violent death of a parent. As he grows toward manhood, he hones his body and mind to prepare himself for pursuit of his mother’s killer. Cloaked, he acts only at night, slowly catching the attention of the police as he faces down vicious criminals. Now give that movie a title, “Boy Wonder”, and you expect a good if slightly derivative superhero origin story.
That’s not what we have here. In fact, the title is a bit of misdirection like much of this tightly-scripted, dark, vigilante thriller. Although the movie might have intention to portray the tragic boy, Sean Donovan, as a gritty comic book hero, the character lacks Batman’s moral code that keeps him from becoming just like the criminals he targets. The tagline on the poster, “Beware the Hero”, is appropriate and contributes to the superhero/thriller misdirection. Again, if you put any superhero notions aside and watch the film for what it is giving you, you’ll be rewarded.
The movie is dark and violent. The acting is all top notch with a special nod to Daniel Stewart Sherman in a role which could have come across as something much less three-dimensional. The plot is creative and engaging. You keep trying to get a step ahead of it. I don’t want to step in any spoilers but the beautiful Zulay Henao gives a rich performance as the cop in the cop/vigilante dance with the film’s lead, Caleb Steinmeyer.
As to the look of the film, most of the scenes are gritty and realistic with typical cinematic touches to the flashback scenes. The locations feel true to the story and the movie was filmed in Brooklyn and New York City by natives, not farmed out to faux New Yorks of Toronto or elsewhere. That really helps the feel of it all especially when the events of the story could easily be re-interpreted in the unrealistic lens of superhero comics. The setting keeps the plot firmly grounded in reality.
So I would recommend the movie with 4.5 stars for adult audiences only. Just don’t expect to see do-gooders in tights capturing colorful villains. More information at the film’s website.
April 22nd, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Well I don’t have time for a full-blown book review, but I gotta shout about “Horns of Ruin” by Tim Akers. It’s fantasy with technology that isn’t classic steampunk but isn’t modern either. The expressions of using magic are visceral as we follow along with a Paladin named Eva Forge. She’s trained with combat magics, a big sword and her “bullygun” (i.e. a revolver). Akers just uses words in a fresh, evocative way that really pulls you in. There is a godking, the last of three Immortal Brothers, undead walking around with steampunk hearts, a cult of assassins worshipping one of the dead Immortal Brothers called the Betrayer. Just good good good stuff. I’d love to play in a game set in this world, but everyone would have to read the book first to get the feel and understand how the ‘world’ works. Back in our high school days, that might have worked out, but alas, not today. Still, it’s one of the few books I’ve read lately that just teems with gaming ideas.
February 2nd, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Well, gang, I finally have a product of my sole authorship in the marketplace. (Another personal RPG industry milestone reached!)
I wrote Adventure Havens: Temples in the spring of 2010 for Bards and Sages publishers. It underwent the typical editing and extensive play-testing in the latter part of 2010 and has just been published on DriveThruRPG.
For the low, low price of just $4.99, you can get a 53-page collection of twelve fantasy campaign ‘adventure seeds’ complete with descriptions, story hooks, fully d20-statted NPCs. The temples are divided into Wilderness and City temples and attempt to stretch the typical notions of temples in fantasy campaigns. Your heroes might find the Contemplative Temple of Silence a refuge, at least at first. The Traveling Temple of Twisted Fate could wander into the village they are resupplying in, offering a few days of entertainment and distraction. Darker encounters are there as well. Encounters are defined for each temple offering a range of CR values to give any adventuring party a challenge.
January 30th, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Every month I write a column for Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine called Gaming the Movies. From time to time, I take material I didn’t have room for in the column and add it here as bonus content. I also have created a couple full GtM columns published here for free. Today’s addition to that is a piece on using the movie Secretariat for your fantasy role-playing game. I hope it inspires a few people.
January 3rd, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Okay, straight out I’ll say that I’m not a big fan of the whole zombie-mania. I mean 28 Days rocked and the new “Walking Dead” TV series is pretty good too. Zombie+ClassicLit did NOT work. So my hopes for Ex-Heroes, a novel crossing superheroes with zombies, were not high.
I was proven dead, er undead, wrong. Peter Clines’ novel is original and an exciting read. He has his own original heroes which don’t clone popular existing heroes. They exist in a world that also has comic books so heroes tease each other about whether or not they could beat Spider-Man. He is effective in his use of flashbacks to fill in the origins of the heroes and the threads of the plot leading to the current day. The cause of the zombie outbreak is also explained in a cool way that you never see coming.
I’d give it a great recommendation whether you like zombie or superhero novels.
December 7th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Added some more goodies to the Terriers – Bonus content page here on Dragonlaird Gaming. Also submitted the column to Kenzerco.
December 6th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Okay, you heard it here first. If Terriers is resurrected after being cancelled today, y’all have me to thank. That’s right, I started the online petition to have FX Networks give the series more time. Please stop by and help us save great writing: http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/saveterrierstvshow
And no, Terriers is not a dog reality show. One of the flaws of the marketing of the show is letting them keep the name Terriers which apparently confused a lot of people. Face it, if I didn’t know what it was and saw it in the TV listings, I’d never think hip comedy-drama noir in sunny southern California with Donal Logue in it.
I love this show. As you can see from my previous posts, I’m finishing up a column on it right now. Great writing, characters who have really hooked me, gripping storylines, layered mysteries. And they ended the damn show on a cliffhanger for Pete’s sake! (Actual pantheon of the deity Pete has not been determined as of press time)
So help me out and take a second to sign the petition. I made it very easy to do. http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/saveterrierstvshow
December 4th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
I love the Terriers TV show. Soup to nuts, Donal Logue to Michael Raymond-James and the rest, from Ted Griffin to Shawn Ryan to Tim Minear (who always seems to have a hand in great shows, say like… Firefly). So I’m currently writing my next “Gaming the Movies” column on Terriers, jammin’ to Robert Duncan’s Gunfight Epiphany (the theme song), and hoping it gets renewed for next year. These 12-episode seasons are just way too short but hopefully it will make it more affordable for F/X to renew.
Anyway, I’ve already put up a page of bonus content which is copied from and copyright of the Terriers F/X Official Website. I captured it so it wouldn’t be lost whenever they take down the official show page on their site.
Catch an episode of Terriers on F/X while they’re running reruns and get ready to game it when my column runs in Knights of the Dinner Table magazine.
Cheers!
November 28th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Things are ramping up here at Dragonlaird Gaming. In addition to our regular monthly column, Gaming the Movies, in the Knights of the Dinner Table magazine, we’re putting plans in place for the first Dragonlaird Gaming publication. Things aren’t set in stone yet, so I don’t want to say too much, but over the next couple months, I’ll keep all of you updated as I make progress. I’m very excited about getting into more writing and working with the concept that is on the table.
My book for Bards and Sages, Adventure Havens: Temples, has completed editing and should be appearing soon on DriveThruRPG.
I’m also open to requests for other Serenity, Gamemaster, Savage Worlds, etc. content to add to this site for free. Just drop us a comment on the blog.
Cheers, Jim
September 27th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Greetings folks, I just wanted to make a short post to let folks know that I’m still writing the movie column for Knights of the Dinner Table but my day job has not left me much time for gaming or writing. I’m in a rewrite for the Adventure Havens: Temples book I wrote for Bards and Sages but not much else.
Next column? Planet of the Apes. 🙂