Category Archives: Articles

Awards – The Costumes of 2020 That Made Us Say ‘Hot Damn’

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You can use many techniques to help build your world, ground your setting, or give dimensions to your characters. You can use music, you can create elaborate sets, but one of the best ways is the costumes you make.

People instantly judge a character within moments on the screen, and the outfits are an essential part of that first impression. More than this, you can also use costumes as a way for storytelling, what do they say about this world, what do they say about how a character is progressing. 

Costumes can build worlds, tell us details we can only see, but also they can make us say ‘hot damn’ look at that beading on that dress, that must have taken hours to do. So without further ado, these are the costumes that made us say ‘hot damn’ in 2020. Be warned that there may be some slight spoilers ahead for the films in question. Also, please click on the banners to be taken to the full review.     

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Awards – Cinematography That Made You Go Wow in 2020!

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Cinematography is an art form that can be as bold as a gong crashing after a moment of silence, or as subtle as the tide coming in. It elevates a film to the heights of accolade or turns a movie into a frustrating mess when it misfires.

While at the heart of cinematography is the Director of Photography or Cinematographer, to get something from the script to the final shot takes a whole team of professionals, and it is their talent that we champion today.

So without further ado, these are the moments of cinematography that took our breaths away in 2020. Be warned that there may be some slight spoilers ahead for the films in question. Also, click on the banners to be taken to the full reviews.

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Awards – The of Best of Australian Cinema in 2020

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It was a fantastic year for Australian Cinema, with each film I saw knocking it out of the park. There were intimate documentaries, films that held up a mirror to society, and those that brought the action to a new level.

This list will be looking more at the locally made Australian productions/co-productions and not just films filmed in Australia.

So without further ado, these are the best of Australian Cinema in 2020. Be warned that there will be some big spoilers ahead for the films in question. Also, click on the banner to go to the full reviews.  

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Awards – The Films from 2020 That Showed Off the Wonderful Glory of Animation

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Animation is a form of filmmaking that is often related to second-tier status, something just for kids. This is by both the organisations giving out the awards and also by the very guilds that are meant to be promoting their member’s work. However, they are not second-tier films, and in many ways, it is the animated films that are pushing the frontiers of filmmaking and what is possible, and they should be championed for the work that they do.     

Animated films can be hand-drawn, stop/clay motion, computer-generated, it does not matter, but all of them show amazing techniques of hundreds of artists that bring the work to life.

So without further ado, these are the animated films that showed us the glory of animation in 2020. Be warned that there may be some slight spoilers ahead for the films in question. Also, click on the banners to go to the full reviews of each of the films 

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Awards – Explosions, Guns, and Punches, Oh My. The Best Action of 2020

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A good Action sequence is something that is truly amazing to watch, as it can be as expansive as explosions crashing across the screen, or more intimate, like a duel between two people. This gives the best action scenes such a range and in 2020 we were given some truly amazing spectacles.

For me, the best action scenes are those that excel in every element, whether that be live actions, special effects, digital effects, or animation and bring every facet to shine. It is also the category that looks at some of the department’s people don’t often fully understand like stunt coordination or the 2nd unit.

So without further ado, these are the moments of action that awed us in 2020. Be warned that there may be some slight spoilers ahead for the films in question. Also, click on the banners to see the reviews of each film.

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The Expanse: Season 5 Primer

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TL;DR – With the new season of The Expanse coming out in less than a week, we will catch you up on where all the characters are before the show explodes back onto our screens.  

The Expanse: Season 5. image Credit: Amazon Studios.

The Expanse: Season 5 Primer –

With the next season of The Expanse coming out in under a week, I thought I would stop fretting and counting down the time until release and put that energy into something productive. With that in mind, below you will find a primer for the new season to catch you up on everything you need to know before Friday. For the sake of spoilers, we will be covering everything that has been released in the show so far, and the couple of early clips that have been released from the season but no more. To make this easy, we’ll first give a general overview before explore where each of the main characters are at the start of the season.

Overview:

The general overview is that the new season of The Expanse will drop on Amazon Prime this Friday/Saturday depending on your particular timezone. However, this season, not all the episodes will go live at the same time. The Expanse will be following the lead of The Boys earlier this year that released the first three episodes at once and then weekly from thereon. Personally, I found this to combine the best features of both binging and weekly release, and it worked great with The Boys, so I am looking forward to it here.

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Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass – Babylon Pack – Map-It

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TL;DR – Every single feature of Civilization VI (at time of posting) in one Map, this time featuring the new addition Babylon.

Babylon Maps –

Today we got the latest update to Civilization VI with the newest addition to the New Frontier Pass. The next pit stop is back into the Cradle of Civilization with Babylon. So once again, we are going to dive back into the world of Cartography plus Video Games. If you want more detailed information on anything that appears on the Map, you can find it at our Civilization VI Cartographic Educational Database.

 Now as always, a couple of notes before we start, first the Civilization boundaries on the Map are based more on clarity than anything else, so in most cases, they conform to their modern counterparts. We have also worked using the commonly implemented political borders, not necessarily what nations claim, and this means making some judgement calls which you will see below. Also, while all attempts have been made to make sure that everything is accurately placed, putting this together meant working from multiple different sources, and map projections. As such, no matter how much you try, there might be some slight discrepancies here and there.
We will be mostly going over the new additions and changes to the Map in this update, if you want to learn more about some of the location choices that we made you can find more detail in our First Full Civilization Big Map and out Gathering Storm Update Map.  

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Video Game News for the Week of the 8th of November in the Year of our Lord 2020 – Article

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TL;DR – From remasters, to loot boxes, to COVID-19, we look at the Video Games news from the week

It has been a busy week for video games, and while many people are diving into the next-gen consoles this week (not super jelly at all), I thought it would be a good time to look back at the news that was this week for video games and related

Mass Effect Remastered –

Mass Effect 2. Image Credit: BioWare/EA.

The worst kept secret of video games has finally been announced on N7 Day with all three of the original Mass Effect Trilogy (sorry Andromeda). The remaster officially called the Mass Effect Legendary Edition will be out in Spring (or Autumn for those of us Down Under) in 2021.

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Map-It Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass – Pirates Scenario

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TL;DR – All hands hoay, for we have a map to buried booty, all ye need to do is hoist the mainsail and let not the crown nor man catch yee.

Map-It Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass - Pirates Scenario. Image Credit: Brian MacNamara.

Pirates Scenario Map –

Today the good people at Firaxis Games released a new scenario for Civilization VI that harkened back to the old Sid Meier’s Pirates!

I will say one small thing, there is one city missing, and I am sorry, but there be no Gibraltar here, this felt like a map that would not have inserts for some reason.


Well, it might not be a full update to the game, but who am I to stare down a good map and not pull out the canvas and ink quill. So set sail on the open seas, enjoy the map of the Pirates Scenario and always remember that X Marks the spot.

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The Women of The Expanse

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TL;DR – Here we explore the many wonderful women that make up the world of The Expanse.

The Women of The Expanse Article –

We are living in the age of prestige television and among that rise has been a Golden Age for Science Fiction on TV. In that rise, The Expanse has been one major standout and has some of the most rounded and best characters on TV at the moment. Today we are going to explore a facet of The Expanse that has been one of its best factors which is its representation of women. While there have been some great female characters across modern science fiction, in The Expanse we get so many examples throughout the series that it is a prominent part of why the show works as well as it does.

Just one note before we dive in, The Expanse is both a TV series and (first) a series of novels. While the TV series has been a faithful adaptation of the books, there are some character differences between the two. So for the sake of clarity, we will be focusing on the representation in the TV show, this also helps in regards to where we fall with Spoilers. With this in mind, at the time of writing four seasons of the TV show have been released covering Leviathan Wakes, Caliban’s War, Abaddon’s Gate, and Cibola Burn. With that, we will be focusing on those stories, but as Season Five (Nemesis Games) is coming soon, we may make some allusions to content there.

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