A New Home, A New Beginning

It´s time to move out of the bird´s nest and begin my new life and chapter at the city of Zeist starting as of today on August 19th, 2017. At the age of 29, I personally feel that I am one of the last people of my generation to move out, but truthfully, that´s just a social pressure, and me and my parents were happy that I could keep living in peace at home for so long.

As I finally move away from my youth town Maarssen, where I first grew up in the residential area Reigerskamp, and until yesterday in Zwanenkamp, I think back of the countless and numerous memories I have made at each of them.

Finally, independence, freedom and opportunities are within my hands truly, and I can´t wait to adjust my lifestyle towards this. My maisonette or duplex with two floors has been cleaned, painted and made more personal through the furniture I have chosen, and the neighborhood seems to be calm.

As my living room will be inviting, modern and social, my office will be dedicated towards my IT based studies, while my sleeping room will be equipped with a boxspring bed, which is a first for me, and I am eager to sleep on it!

A fourth room shall be entirely dedicated towards my retro gaming scene, as well as the fact that I have started collecting officially as of last February. Aside from hooking that all up, I also expect that I will eventually attempt to build my own custom arcade cabinet in there.

The future of myself, my family, friends, love and of course Flok Factory itself shall continue and expand, as I have become a proud uncle as of last June, and I am already getting aware of friends of friends living close by, and that making new friendships and acquaintances will happen very likely.                                          

Here's to the best new beginning I can imagine!

Power Unlimited

While North Americans were treated and grew up with Nintendo Power in my youth, Dutch kids on the other hand would be exposed to Power Unlimited, a gaming magazine that actually is still getting published to this present day.

During the 90´s, this is what would inform, excite and humorous me regarding video games. The crew´s noteworthy feature for me was that pretty much each in game screenshot would be somehow made a joke about by final editor Ed Wiggemans.

My first exposure towards the worldwide madness coverage, that is Electronic Entertainment Expo, would always be covered in this magazine, and I distinctively remember the chosen crew members always getting excited not just because of the flight and the announcements, but also because of the booth babes!

It was always my first experience with the art of crafting game reviews. I remember that the crew had the tendency to fuse personal experiences with the articles before talking about the games themselves, and while this was for the most part acceptable, eventually I would get tired of it.

Flash forward to the middle 00´s/2000's, what was the reason for me cancelling the subscription? I was getting tired of the crew's repetitive content, humor and criticism I guess. Plus around that time, I was exposed to online game reviews such as on GameFAQs anyway, I figured that this would be the right choice.

Power Unlimited is still going strong both as a magazine, as the television program Gamekings, and digitally on www.pu.nl. Looking back at it now over a decade later. I still fondly remember that I would anticipate with excitement for upcoming video games, seeing the score ratings, and laughing out loud about the humor it had so much to share and offer.

Nostalgia is remarkable.

Dunkirk

 

All great things come to an end.

Christopher Nolan´s portfolio has been unprecedented over the years, and by now, everyone who is even slightly enthousiastic about film making and critique in general can name pretty much all of his major directional works, minus maybe Following(1998) and Insomnia(2002).

After taking a year longer to release his latest, it seems that the momentum of the expectations surrounding Nolan have started to lower a bit. By no means is it a bad film in any aspect, but from what we have seen previously, it's quality is in overall lesser.

Dunkirk is the dramatic and intense adaptation of a miraculous World War II event where Allied forces where surrounded in masses by the Germans, and while doom was lurking over their heads, hundreds of civilian boats from the United Kingdom where able to evacuate and save the soldiers.

Starring a slew of new and veteran actors, Nolan always seems to approach this mixture, and so far it has worked out. From the opening scene of avoiding enemy gunfire and lining up for further orders to the arrival and celebration of a massive evacuation, the camera will show you plenty of different views.

3 subplots seem to be working out here through interconnection as the general direction is of course about the surrounded forces getting trapped and eventually escaping unexpectedly. A young boy hides on a mole while saving privates inbetween, an older man is dedicated towards bringing all of the young men back home by sea, and a young man fights in the skies while later on taking down a bomber, saving many lives.

The cinematography and the soundtrack say much more than the plot and the characters themselves in the picture. Hans Zimmer is once again collaborating, and Dunkirk's soundtrack is another stellar piece of intense instruments building up on the film's beautiful cinematography, which if you ask me is it's best factor.

Fionn Whitehead, Tom Hardy and Mark Rylance must all deal with difficult choices and moral dilemma's as the war rages on on the seas, lands and skies of Dunkirk, otherwise also known in Dutch as Duinkerken, but in reality, filming locations among that main one also included Urk in The Netherlands.

The movie had many amounts of extra's to emphasize the reality and drama of the actual event, plus the explosions, bombardments and shooting seemed to equally reflect on those themes. It's also interesting to note that Nolan consciously decided not to let the Germans appear on screen, as well as keeping dialogue to a bare minimum, which enhanced the pace, and the movie was over before I knew it, which always is a good sign to me.

Dunkirk is a different kind of war movie, which shows defeat in a spectacular way, and although it is inevitable to happen in any war, perhaps the sense of homecoming and retaliation were best seen at the ending, where Winston Churchill delivers a speech and unlike The Dark Knight Rises, makes defeat an emotional victory.

Rating: 8.5