noir | xirdalium

who wrote it?

Posted on Monday, 21st November 2011 by zephyrin_xirdalDecember 20, 2012

zeph’s pop culture quiz #4 All right, everybody recognizes him standing in the background. But who wrote the novel the movie is based on? The movie is an unusual adaptation, because the other novels of the series were adapted to the silver screen decades earlier, with iconic actors almost defining a genre. UPDATE and solution (26 November 2011): My apologies for updating so late. Especially as ↵klandestino already solved the riddle, and provided a ↑YouTube link as proof, the day it was posted: In the background it of course is Arnold Schwarzenegger (not appearing in the movie’s credits), the guy … Continue reading →

ignition—ablaze rewritten

Posted on Wednesday, 9th April 2008 by zephyrin_xirdalOctober 4, 2012

manuscript-day two of 100 My having an appointment here and now renders the situation odd. Else there would be little wonder in the downtown Manhattan spaghetti joint being perfectly deserted at that time of night. Way past the graveyard shift, uncanny twilight, floor covered by classical black and white checker tile, rows of lavishly upholstered benches, matching diner-style tables squeezed in-between, an enormous mahogany bar in the back, and nobody to be seen. A cliché setting not missing its target, bringing home the menacing ambience quite nicely. Just if I would not be nervous and frightened enough … Continue reading →

welcome back to bright falls

Posted on Wednesday, 16th January 2008 by zephyrin_xirdalOctober 14, 2012

cyberian nomadism confirmed Once a real member of a real online community, always a member. ADM, whom I know since ye olde days of Max-Payne glory, yesterday evening sent me an e-mail, notifying me of the resurrected ↑BrightFalls.net—plus dipping my nose into the fact, that the Alan-Wake related links in the sidebar of my blog are outdated. The relaunch of ADM’s site is a perfect up-to-date example of what, among other things, I am always bragging about in the academical realm: “My” community is the central slice of the online-fanhood gathered around the games “Max Payne” (Remedy Entertainment 2001), … Continue reading →

game noir

Posted on Wednesday, 14th March 2007 by zephyrin_xirdalOctober 14, 2012

Michael Mosel, a student at Marburg University, CC-licenced his paper “↑Film noir Computerspiele—marketing gag oder reales ‘noir gaming’?“ [“Film noir computer games—marketing ruse or real ‘noir gaming’?” | .pdf | 907KB] and ↑published it online, as his brother ↑notified us at ↑PlasticThinking. MOSEL, MICHAEL. 2006. Film noir Computerspiele—marketing gag oder reales ‘noir gaming’? Thesis for the seminary Film Noir by Burkhard Röwekamp, Institut für Medienwissenschaft, Fachbereich 09: Germanistik und Kunstwissenschaften, Philipps-Universität Marburg. After giving a nice introduction into the subject of “film noir”, the paper deals with the games “↑Max Payne“ and “↑Grim Fandango“. Until now I only was … Continue reading →

ablaze

Posted on Friday, 8th December 2006 by zephyrin_xirdalOctober 14, 2012

If it wasn’t for my having an appointment here and now, there’d be little wonder in the downtown Manhattan spaghetti joint being perfectly deserted at that time of night. Way past the graveyard shift, uncanny twilight, floor covered by classical black and white checker tile, rows of lavishly upholstered benches, matching diner-style tables squeezed between them, an enormous mahogani bar in the back, and nobody to be seen. A cliché setting. But the cliché doesn’t miss its target and brings home the menacing ambience quite nicely. Just if I’d not be nervous and frightened enough yet. Alas, there’s no … Continue reading →

interview at the diner

Posted on Sunday, 29th May 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalOctober 14, 2012

Maniac and Aavenr from the much respected Max-Payne-site ↑Deep Six met with Remedy’s Sam Lake (Lead Writer and the man who lent his face to the original Max Payne—although at first glance I thought it was Mickey Rourke, no offence ;-) and Petri Järvilehto (Lead Game Designer) at a Diner like seen above (I mean an online one) and conducted an enlightening ↑interview [via ↑AlanWAKE.Net] on Alan Wake. Now we know about the story from first hand: SL: Alan Wake is a successful horror writer. For the material of his first novel, he used the strange dreams that he had … Continue reading →

in the wake

Posted on Thursday, 19th May 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalOctober 14, 2012

With ↵Alan Wake a new, albeit concealed door to the anthropological understanding of online-communities appeared for me. Striding through this portal hopefully will allow me to shed light on the ↵issues my project is concerned with, by swimming in the wake of a new community. There is the chance to ‘be there’ from the very beginning, to follow every phase of community-building, appropriation, change, and so on. I dropped into the original Max-Payne community quite early, but never was a first-hour member. With Alan Wake I dare say I am. And now the situation is different, because meanwhile—after struggling to … Continue reading →

alan wake

Posted on Wednesday, 18th May 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalOctober 14, 2012

a psychological action thriller As ↑E3 approached the usual straylight had again started to sift through the closed hatches of the nordic creator gods’ realm—and hit my modding community of course, too. Everything seems to have started on 19 April 2005 with a casual ↑sidenote at cgonline, saying that a new game by “Max Payne creators ↑Remedy“ will be showcased at E3. Then ↑Remedy said that it will be something new, completely different. On 21 April 2005 Lon Matero posted at the ↑3DR forums that he had discovered something: Remedy has ↑registered Alan Wake as a trademark (The only … Continue reading →

xirdalium

Blog by Zephyrin Xirdal (since 2001)

Tag Archives: noir