Noiseless Chatter Archive

I wonder how many years running I’ll be able to start these announcements with “What a fuckin’ year, eh?” Anyway, last year we celebrated Halloween by leaning directly into the worst tendencies of man with George A. Romero’s First Dead Trilogy. This time, let’s just have fun with some silly movies that have no social relevance or satirical value at all. None! I promise! Why are you looking at me that way?! Beginning Oct. 17, join me for Trilogy of Terror VII: Vehicular Homicide. It will consist of longform analyses of the following films: Duel (1971) – coming Oct. 17 Death Race 2000 (1975) – coming Oct. 24 Christine (1983) – coming Oct. 31 I’m posting this announcment far in advance so that you will have plenty of time to seek out and watch the films, if you’re interested. Death Race 2000 appears to be available in its entirety, for free, on YouTube. Christine also seems to be there, albeit in parts. Duel is available for purchase or rent through Amazon, iTunes, and pro...

For the next two weeks, you can download the Summer Invasion Game Bundle from StoryBundle by paying whatever you like. I’m honored to be a part of it, as I’ve supported StoryBundle many times in the past and I’ve gotten a lot of fantastic eBooks out of it. This bundle includes two of the most recent Boss Fight Books titles: my book on Resident Evil , and Gabe Durham’s excellent book on Majora’s Mask . I helped edit the latter, so this is like an honor within an honor. If you don’t have my book yet, this is a great way to get your hands on a digital copy. And if you do have it…well, you probably don’t have all of the others, so maybe give it a go anyway! Even better is the fact that proceeds benefit Women in Games . Please do check it out and consider extending your support. Also, HELLO, as long as we’re here, a few updates: – Resident Evil on Amazon: A few of you have asked about the availability of physical copies through Amazon. Right now, it is only available through th...

Next month will be the first anniversary of my Resident Evil book’s publication date. About a year ago as I write this, copies were being sent to various outlets and their reviews started going live. It was an exciting time. It still is, to be honest. It feels like forever ago and it feels like yesterday. One thing I’ve wanted to do for a while and…haven’t gotten around to doing is making some autographed copies available for anyone interested. What better time to do so? Other than a few months ago maybe? Anyway, I have now set aside 50 copies of Resident Evil . I will sign and number them as they are ordered, and I will remove ordering information from this post once they are all gone. Each one comes with a bookmark that was previously only available to backers of the Boss Fight Books pre-order campaign. I had a few left over, so I figured, what the hell. The cost is $20, which is about the cost of a new copy plus shipping. If you would prefer to order directly through...

I was devastated to learn this morning of the recent passing of Stephen Dunn . To many, he was a name in poetry collections. To others, of course, he was a friend. To me, he was a mentor. I’ve had the good fortune of being encouraged in my writing for just about my entire life. Teachers and colleagues and friends all encouraged me in my work. I was told that I was good, then I was told that I was very good, and at some point I started to believe it. By the time I enrolled at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey (it’s a university now), 22 years ago, I was already a writer. Not really, but that’s the answer I would have given you if you’d asked. Stockton had a top-notch literature faculty. I am confident that that fact has not changed. But Stephen Dunn was its crown jewel. He was a celebrated poet, and he taught writing workshops. I was told many times to take one of them, and I did as soon as I could. They were small courses — around eight students — and they met for ...

Well, sort of! My time with Star Trek has come to an end for now. I’ve made it to the end of The Original Series, but I do intend to watch the films at some point in the near-ish future. After that? I’ll almost certainly get around to The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager , and maybe some other things as well. I’m open to suggestions, but those are all stories for another time. Right now, I’m taking a look back at season three of The Original Series. I was interested in this season for extremely selfish and thoroughly disrespectful reasons. Or, reason: “Spock’s Brain.” For decades I had been hearing about how terrible this episode was. It wasn’t just the worst episode of The Original Series; it was among the worst episodes of television, full stop. How could I not want to watch it? That, as Van once put it, was honey to the bee. We can learn a lot from the way things fall apart. Sometimes it’s our only real chance to get a peek inside something we love. When a pi...

With our other two films this year, the YouTube personalities behind them had clear areas of expertise. For James Rolfe, it was video games. For Red Letter Media, it was films. In each case (in different ways), the films they made used that expertise as their creative focus. That made sense, however successful or not the end results might have been. Now we have Ashens, and…what is Ashens? I suppose I could also ask “Who is Ashens?” There’s an easy answer to that, though: Ashens is Stuart Ashen, a Norwich-based…humorist? Technology buff? Author? Okay, I take it back; that answer is not much easier. Let’s start at the beginning. In my review of Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie , I laid out a hypothetical pitch for a television version of the YouTube show Technology Connections. It was, of course, hilarious. My point was that it would have been impossible to get a show with such a loose format made. Ashens is even looser. The most universal description of Ashens videos I ...