• The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature gets an official reveal trailer confirming that fairies are so back

    First Enchantment

    The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature gets an official reveal trailer confirming that fairies are so back
    As promised, Maxis has dropped the first trailer for the next major expansion to The Sims 4, coming this July.

    Image credit: EA / Maxis

    News

    by Sherif Saed
    Contributing Editor

    Additional contributions by
    Rebecca Jones

    Published on June 12, 2025

    Our first look at Enchanted by Nature, the new expansion coming to The Sims 4 next month, has officially arrived. Maxis and EA previously confirmed that the first trailer would be dropping today, before we get a deep look at gameplay on June 26.
    This is the game’s first major expansion since Businesses & Hobbies arrived in March, and as the name suggests, adds nature-inspired content.

    To see this content please enable targeting cookies.

    The major reveal, of course, is the long-anticipated return of fairies to The Sims, and it looks as though plenty of notes have been taken from their extremely well-received debut as a playable occult type back in The Sims 3. We all kind of saw that one coming though, since EA are surely too canny to blatantly tease Simmers with a popular returning feature only to pull the rug out.
    More unexpectedly, it seems that your Sims will soon be able to reject indoor life entirely by foraging for their meals, wild bathing, and sleeping out under the stars. All fun and games until they run afoul of one of several new and interesting ailments being introduced in the pack; fortunately, treating said ailments with traditional remedies also seems to have a big role to play as part of the new Apothecary... crafting type? Skill? Career? We'll surely find out more in that gameplay trailer, due out later this month.
    All of this takes place the new world of Innisgreen, which is partially inspired by Ireland, but only if you squint through a heavy layer of folklore and fantasy theming. It's definitely more Hobbiton than 21st century hometown for the most part, unless our Irish cousins have started living in whimsical treehouses and neglected to tell us; although one neighbourhood does seem to be based on the more down-to-earth setting of Cobh, County Cork — home of the famous "Deck of Cards" painted houses.

    To see this content please enable targeting cookies.

    Enchanted by Nature is part of a larger nature-themed season for The Sims 4. Though the expansion itself doesn’t arrive until July 10, the limited-time event, Nature’s Calling, kicks off June 24 to set the scene for what’s to come. Then, on July 1, the game’s next update will arrive, bringing with it more nature-themed skins and other customisation options.
    This is all part of The Sims 4’s June-August roadmap, which developer Maxis outlined just last week. The roadmap also revealed another major update is scheduled for August 19, itself adding even more customisation options to the game.
    Next up, of course, is the proper Enchanted by Nature gameplay reveal, which takes place just two weeks from now, on Thursday, June 26.
    #sims #enchanted #nature #gets #official
    The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature gets an official reveal trailer confirming that fairies are so back
    First Enchantment The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature gets an official reveal trailer confirming that fairies are so back As promised, Maxis has dropped the first trailer for the next major expansion to The Sims 4, coming this July. Image credit: EA / Maxis News by Sherif Saed Contributing Editor Additional contributions by Rebecca Jones Published on June 12, 2025 Our first look at Enchanted by Nature, the new expansion coming to The Sims 4 next month, has officially arrived. Maxis and EA previously confirmed that the first trailer would be dropping today, before we get a deep look at gameplay on June 26. This is the game’s first major expansion since Businesses & Hobbies arrived in March, and as the name suggests, adds nature-inspired content. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The major reveal, of course, is the long-anticipated return of fairies to The Sims, and it looks as though plenty of notes have been taken from their extremely well-received debut as a playable occult type back in The Sims 3. We all kind of saw that one coming though, since EA are surely too canny to blatantly tease Simmers with a popular returning feature only to pull the rug out. More unexpectedly, it seems that your Sims will soon be able to reject indoor life entirely by foraging for their meals, wild bathing, and sleeping out under the stars. All fun and games until they run afoul of one of several new and interesting ailments being introduced in the pack; fortunately, treating said ailments with traditional remedies also seems to have a big role to play as part of the new Apothecary... crafting type? Skill? Career? We'll surely find out more in that gameplay trailer, due out later this month. All of this takes place the new world of Innisgreen, which is partially inspired by Ireland, but only if you squint through a heavy layer of folklore and fantasy theming. It's definitely more Hobbiton than 21st century hometown for the most part, unless our Irish cousins have started living in whimsical treehouses and neglected to tell us; although one neighbourhood does seem to be based on the more down-to-earth setting of Cobh, County Cork — home of the famous "Deck of Cards" painted houses. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Enchanted by Nature is part of a larger nature-themed season for The Sims 4. Though the expansion itself doesn’t arrive until July 10, the limited-time event, Nature’s Calling, kicks off June 24 to set the scene for what’s to come. Then, on July 1, the game’s next update will arrive, bringing with it more nature-themed skins and other customisation options. This is all part of The Sims 4’s June-August roadmap, which developer Maxis outlined just last week. The roadmap also revealed another major update is scheduled for August 19, itself adding even more customisation options to the game. Next up, of course, is the proper Enchanted by Nature gameplay reveal, which takes place just two weeks from now, on Thursday, June 26. #sims #enchanted #nature #gets #official
    WWW.VG247.COM
    The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature gets an official reveal trailer confirming that fairies are so back
    First Enchantment The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature gets an official reveal trailer confirming that fairies are so back As promised, Maxis has dropped the first trailer for the next major expansion to The Sims 4, coming this July. Image credit: EA / Maxis News by Sherif Saed Contributing Editor Additional contributions by Rebecca Jones Published on June 12, 2025 Our first look at Enchanted by Nature, the new expansion coming to The Sims 4 next month, has officially arrived. Maxis and EA previously confirmed that the first trailer would be dropping today, before we get a deep look at gameplay on June 26. This is the game’s first major expansion since Businesses & Hobbies arrived in March, and as the name suggests, adds nature-inspired content. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The major reveal, of course, is the long-anticipated return of fairies to The Sims, and it looks as though plenty of notes have been taken from their extremely well-received debut as a playable occult type back in The Sims 3. We all kind of saw that one coming though, since EA are surely too canny to blatantly tease Simmers with a popular returning feature only to pull the rug out. More unexpectedly, it seems that your Sims will soon be able to reject indoor life entirely by foraging for their meals, wild bathing, and sleeping out under the stars. All fun and games until they run afoul of one of several new and interesting ailments being introduced in the pack; fortunately, treating said ailments with traditional remedies also seems to have a big role to play as part of the new Apothecary... crafting type? Skill? Career? We'll surely find out more in that gameplay trailer, due out later this month. All of this takes place the new world of Innisgreen, which is partially inspired by Ireland, but only if you squint through a heavy layer of folklore and fantasy theming. It's definitely more Hobbiton than 21st century hometown for the most part, unless our Irish cousins have started living in whimsical treehouses and neglected to tell us; although one neighbourhood does seem to be based on the more down-to-earth setting of Cobh, County Cork — home of the famous "Deck of Cards" painted houses. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Enchanted by Nature is part of a larger nature-themed season for The Sims 4. Though the expansion itself doesn’t arrive until July 10, the limited-time event, Nature’s Calling, kicks off June 24 to set the scene for what’s to come. Then, on July 1, the game’s next update will arrive, bringing with it more nature-themed skins and other customisation options. This is all part of The Sims 4’s June-August roadmap, which developer Maxis outlined just last week. The roadmap also revealed another major update is scheduled for August 19, itself adding even more customisation options to the game. Next up, of course, is the proper Enchanted by Nature gameplay reveal, which takes place just two weeks from now, on Thursday, June 26.
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  • A beginner’s guide for FFXIV’s Occult Crescent

    FFXIV: Dawntrail’s field operation is the Occult Crescent, a huge piece of content that dropped in patch 7.25 and should keep you busy for a while. This content is somewhat tied to the Dawntrail relic weapon, and serves as a great way to kill time while also running some pretty exciting content.

    Below we explain where to unlock the Occult Crescent in FFXIV and cover details about what the Occult Crescent even is.

    How to unlock the Occult Crescent in FFXIV

    To unlock the Occult Crescent, you’ll need to have at least one combat job at level 100 and have completed the main portion of the Dawntrail expansion.Once that’s situated, you’ll just need to start the quest “One Last Hurrah” from the Expedition Messenger in Tuliyollal:

    Follow this quest line to unlock access to the Occult Crescent.

    What is the Occult Crescent?

    The Occult Crescent is the field operation for the Dawntrail expansion. This is separate, instanced content that plunges you onto a huge map with a bunch of mechanics specific to this area.

    In the Occult Crescent maps, you’ll level your “knowledge” rather than your actual job level, and the enemies around the map will deal and take damage based on that knowledge level. If you get attacked by a level 20 monster when you’re only at knowledge level one, be prepared to die.

    The Occult Crescent shares a lot of quirks with its predecessors, like Eureka or Bozja:

    You lose knowledge EXPwhen you die and then choose to revive back at base.

    You cannot fly around the map, but you can ride your mount.

    Special “critical encounters” spawn around the map, locking you into tough and chaotic battles against a big enemy or unique pack of enemies.

    Just like bunnies in Eureka, you can help Magic Pots in specific FATEs to be led to treasure.

    Specific to the Occult Crescent, there are Phantom Jobs, which are like… mini-jobs you can take on to give you extra skills to help out. Some are unlocked right away, like Phantom Bard or Phantom Knight, but some require you to buy them from the local shop or get a specific drop from a critical encounter.

    After finding some survey points, completing some quests, and hitting knowledge rank 20, you’ll be able to participate in “The Forked Tower,” a 48-person dungeon for unique rewards.

    So, yep. Your main goal here is to run around, completing FATEs and critical encounters to gain knowledge EXP and rank up. You’ll also amass currency along the way that you can use for special rewards.

    Starting tips for conquering the Occult Crescent

    If this is your first time stepping foot into a field operation, it can be a lot. Here are some tips to help you out:

    Unlike in previous field operations, you can freely unlock aethernet teleport points, with no need to worry about progression or level. You’ll want to reveal the map and unlock these ASAP so you can quickly jump into critical encounters.

    To participate in critical encounters, you’ll need to head over to the area labeled with the blue FATE icon and wait in the huge circle or square on the ground. If you don’t make it there by the time the encounter starts, you will not be able to participate.

    You can go it alone, but partying up is much better. A simple “lfg” in shout chat should net you an invite. If no invite comes, you may need to start collecting your own straggler players to make a party of your own.

    If you’re low level, stay out of the vision of those high-leveled baddies to avoid death. When in doubt, walk behind them and hug walls to stay out of their way.

    With those two above points being made, if you do die, sending a request for a revive alongside a “<pos>” in shout chat will tell players your location so that they can help you. Choosing to revive back at base will lose you EXP and possibly levels, so try not to do that too much.

    Don’t forget to use your Phantom Job skills. It can be easy to get too locked in to a critical encounter, but don’t forget that you have some useful exclusive tools at your disposal.

    Don’t get discouraged by your rampant deaths in critical encounters. These fights are chaotic and involve a lot of pattern recognition and memorization. It takes a bit to learn and you’ll get there!

    Open those chests! You may see just chillin’ chests on the floor. While a lot of them will give you weird junk, some of them have valuables like mounts, minions, and glamour inside.

    Consider buying the riding map first and the other stuff after. Getting to zoom around the map at a faster speed will help the grind a lot. You can buy the map from the “Expedition Antiquarian” NPC at the base camp for 3,000 silver pieces.

    Once you level up enough Phantom Jobs, you can use their buffing skills and then swap jobs while retaining the buffs. This makes Phantom Bard a pretty nice job to level early, as it can grant you an Phantom Job EXP buff.

    That said, this whole thing is a learning experience — everyone alongside you is also figuring stuff out, us included.
    #beginners #guide #ffxivs #occult #crescent
    A beginner’s guide for FFXIV’s Occult Crescent
    FFXIV: Dawntrail’s field operation is the Occult Crescent, a huge piece of content that dropped in patch 7.25 and should keep you busy for a while. This content is somewhat tied to the Dawntrail relic weapon, and serves as a great way to kill time while also running some pretty exciting content. Below we explain where to unlock the Occult Crescent in FFXIV and cover details about what the Occult Crescent even is. How to unlock the Occult Crescent in FFXIV To unlock the Occult Crescent, you’ll need to have at least one combat job at level 100 and have completed the main portion of the Dawntrail expansion.Once that’s situated, you’ll just need to start the quest “One Last Hurrah” from the Expedition Messenger in Tuliyollal: Follow this quest line to unlock access to the Occult Crescent. What is the Occult Crescent? The Occult Crescent is the field operation for the Dawntrail expansion. This is separate, instanced content that plunges you onto a huge map with a bunch of mechanics specific to this area. In the Occult Crescent maps, you’ll level your “knowledge” rather than your actual job level, and the enemies around the map will deal and take damage based on that knowledge level. If you get attacked by a level 20 monster when you’re only at knowledge level one, be prepared to die. The Occult Crescent shares a lot of quirks with its predecessors, like Eureka or Bozja: You lose knowledge EXPwhen you die and then choose to revive back at base. You cannot fly around the map, but you can ride your mount. Special “critical encounters” spawn around the map, locking you into tough and chaotic battles against a big enemy or unique pack of enemies. Just like bunnies in Eureka, you can help Magic Pots in specific FATEs to be led to treasure. Specific to the Occult Crescent, there are Phantom Jobs, which are like… mini-jobs you can take on to give you extra skills to help out. Some are unlocked right away, like Phantom Bard or Phantom Knight, but some require you to buy them from the local shop or get a specific drop from a critical encounter. After finding some survey points, completing some quests, and hitting knowledge rank 20, you’ll be able to participate in “The Forked Tower,” a 48-person dungeon for unique rewards. So, yep. Your main goal here is to run around, completing FATEs and critical encounters to gain knowledge EXP and rank up. You’ll also amass currency along the way that you can use for special rewards. Starting tips for conquering the Occult Crescent If this is your first time stepping foot into a field operation, it can be a lot. Here are some tips to help you out: Unlike in previous field operations, you can freely unlock aethernet teleport points, with no need to worry about progression or level. You’ll want to reveal the map and unlock these ASAP so you can quickly jump into critical encounters. To participate in critical encounters, you’ll need to head over to the area labeled with the blue FATE icon and wait in the huge circle or square on the ground. If you don’t make it there by the time the encounter starts, you will not be able to participate. You can go it alone, but partying up is much better. A simple “lfg” in shout chat should net you an invite. If no invite comes, you may need to start collecting your own straggler players to make a party of your own. If you’re low level, stay out of the vision of those high-leveled baddies to avoid death. When in doubt, walk behind them and hug walls to stay out of their way. With those two above points being made, if you do die, sending a request for a revive alongside a “<pos>” in shout chat will tell players your location so that they can help you. Choosing to revive back at base will lose you EXP and possibly levels, so try not to do that too much. Don’t forget to use your Phantom Job skills. It can be easy to get too locked in to a critical encounter, but don’t forget that you have some useful exclusive tools at your disposal. Don’t get discouraged by your rampant deaths in critical encounters. These fights are chaotic and involve a lot of pattern recognition and memorization. It takes a bit to learn and you’ll get there! Open those chests! You may see just chillin’ chests on the floor. While a lot of them will give you weird junk, some of them have valuables like mounts, minions, and glamour inside. Consider buying the riding map first and the other stuff after. Getting to zoom around the map at a faster speed will help the grind a lot. You can buy the map from the “Expedition Antiquarian” NPC at the base camp for 3,000 silver pieces. Once you level up enough Phantom Jobs, you can use their buffing skills and then swap jobs while retaining the buffs. This makes Phantom Bard a pretty nice job to level early, as it can grant you an Phantom Job EXP buff. That said, this whole thing is a learning experience — everyone alongside you is also figuring stuff out, us included. #beginners #guide #ffxivs #occult #crescent
    WWW.POLYGON.COM
    A beginner’s guide for FFXIV’s Occult Crescent
    FFXIV: Dawntrail’s field operation is the Occult Crescent, a huge piece of content that dropped in patch 7.25 and should keep you busy for a while. This content is somewhat tied to the Dawntrail relic weapon (though you’ll be able to complete the weapon without necessarily partaking in the field op), and serves as a great way to kill time while also running some pretty exciting content. Below we explain where to unlock the Occult Crescent in FFXIV and cover details about what the Occult Crescent even is. How to unlock the Occult Crescent in FFXIV To unlock the Occult Crescent, you’ll need to have at least one combat job at level 100 and have completed the main portion of the Dawntrail expansion. (Y’know, the main story quest that is literally called “Dawntrail.”) Once that’s situated, you’ll just need to start the quest “One Last Hurrah” from the Expedition Messenger in Tuliyollal: Follow this quest line to unlock access to the Occult Crescent. What is the Occult Crescent? The Occult Crescent is the field operation for the Dawntrail expansion. This is separate, instanced content that plunges you onto a huge map with a bunch of mechanics specific to this area. In the Occult Crescent maps, you’ll level your “knowledge” rather than your actual job level, and the enemies around the map will deal and take damage based on that knowledge level. If you get attacked by a level 20 monster when you’re only at knowledge level one, be prepared to die. The Occult Crescent shares a lot of quirks with its predecessors, like Eureka or Bozja: You lose knowledge EXP (and potentially levels) when you die and then choose to revive back at base (but you don’t lose any when you get raised by another player). You cannot fly around the map, but you can ride your mount. Special “critical encounters” spawn around the map, locking you into tough and chaotic battles against a big enemy or unique pack of enemies. Just like bunnies in Eureka, you can help Magic Pots in specific FATEs to be led to treasure. Specific to the Occult Crescent, there are Phantom Jobs, which are like… mini-jobs you can take on to give you extra skills to help out. Some are unlocked right away, like Phantom Bard or Phantom Knight, but some require you to buy them from the local shop or get a specific drop from a critical encounter. After finding some survey points, completing some quests, and hitting knowledge rank 20, you’ll be able to participate in “The Forked Tower,” a 48-person dungeon for unique rewards. So, yep. Your main goal here is to run around, completing FATEs and critical encounters to gain knowledge EXP and rank up. You’ll also amass currency along the way that you can use for special rewards. Starting tips for conquering the Occult Crescent If this is your first time stepping foot into a field operation, it can be a lot. Here are some tips to help you out: Unlike in previous field operations, you can freely unlock aethernet teleport points, with no need to worry about progression or level. You’ll want to reveal the map and unlock these ASAP so you can quickly jump into critical encounters. To participate in critical encounters, you’ll need to head over to the area labeled with the blue FATE icon and wait in the huge circle or square on the ground. If you don’t make it there by the time the encounter starts, you will not be able to participate. You can go it alone, but partying up is much better. A simple “lfg” in shout chat should net you an invite. If no invite comes, you may need to start collecting your own straggler players to make a party of your own. If you’re low level, stay out of the vision of those high-leveled baddies to avoid death. When in doubt, walk behind them and hug walls to stay out of their way. With those two above points being made, if you do die, sending a request for a revive alongside a “<pos>” in shout chat will tell players your location so that they can help you. Choosing to revive back at base will lose you EXP and possibly levels, so try not to do that too much. Don’t forget to use your Phantom Job skills. It can be easy to get too locked in to a critical encounter, but don’t forget that you have some useful exclusive tools at your disposal. Don’t get discouraged by your rampant deaths in critical encounters. These fights are chaotic and involve a lot of pattern recognition and memorization. It takes a bit to learn and you’ll get there! Open those chests! You may see just chillin’ chests on the floor. While a lot of them will give you weird junk, some of them have valuables like mounts, minions, and glamour inside. Consider buying the riding map first and the other stuff after. Getting to zoom around the map at a faster speed will help the grind a lot. You can buy the map from the “Expedition Antiquarian” NPC at the base camp for 3,000 silver pieces. Once you level up enough Phantom Jobs, you can use their buffing skills and then swap jobs while retaining the buffs. This makes Phantom Bard a pretty nice job to level early, as it can grant you an Phantom Job EXP buff. That said, this whole thing is a learning experience — everyone alongside you is also figuring stuff out, us included.
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  • Following the breakout success of Metaphor Refantazio, Atlus’ only action-RPG gets a second lease of life on Switch 2 (and it’s pretty good, too)

    Soul Trader

    Following the breakout success of Metaphor Refantazio, Atlus’ only action-RPG gets a second lease of life on Switch 2Nearly 20 years later, Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army proves that there’s a bit of life left in the peculiar spin-off series yet.

    Image credit: Atlus

    Article

    by Dom Peppiatt
    Editor-in-chief

    Published on May 21, 2025

    By now, you should know what to expect from an Atlus game. Whether you’re wading into the Boschian fever dream of Metaphor Refantazio or winding your way down the seven circles of hell in Shin Megami Tensei, Atlus likes it dark. Dark and weird. Unconstrained by the trappings of normalcy. A bit edgy and a bit juvenile, but all provocative and goth.
    Raidou Kuzonha vs. The Soulless Army is no exception. The curious PS2 gamecarries on Atlus’ fascination with the occult and the Satanic, but with one major variation from all the developer’s other titles: this one is an action-RPG.

    To see this content please enable targeting cookies.

    Now, you need to immediately get your brain away from the idea it’s a Soulslike, or anything similar. It’s more of a hack-and-slash, peppered with the need for strategic flourish. Unlike previous MegaTen games, your protagonist, Raidou Kuzunoha, can attack with either his close range sword or his long range gun. But this wouldn’t be a MegaTen game without demons, so of course Kuzunoha can also summon two demons at a time to help in battle.
    At launch, this game was fine. I’m a MegaTen sicko, so of course I played this as soon as it hit the PAL market. It wasn’t anything to write home about, really, and the combat was grating more than it was inventive. But, oh my, how all that has changed now - nearly two decades later.
    Coming to the Switch 2 at launch, Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army Remastered is a bit of a misnomer. What we’re getting here is more of an enhanced version, and one that actually feels like a natural and intentional growth of the original game. And do you know why that is? Because, somehow, many of the same developers that worked on Raidou and its sequel during the PS2 era are still at the studio.

    This is Tsuchigumo, and I don't think he likes you very much. | Image credit: Atlus

    Yeah, I know, right? What’s effectively happened here is that Atlus has been able to say to its staff: “hey, remember that game you very nearly got right at launch in 2006? Have another swing at it. Load it with all those cool combat ideas you wanted, improve the systems, take what we’ve learned in the last 19 years and go wild”. And the result is an enhanced piece of niche role-playing history that plays better than ever.
    First up, Atlus has remade the game’s pre-rendered backgrounds into actual 3D. Everything looked fine before, but now there’s more interactivity, more impetus to get off the beaten path. Atlus has crammed more demons into the roster, too, meaning you’ve got more freedom in how you approach battles, as well as more options for summoning and fusing. Again, this feels like a direct reply to criticisms of the game’s small offering at launch in 2006. If you’re a MegaTen sicko, you’ll appreciate the additions of demons like Idun, Hayataro, and more from SMT:5.
    The combat upgrades themselves - more status effects, a more streamlined menu, more movement for Raidou in battle, more control over your demons - all seem to have been retroactively added into the game from the second in the series. No complaints, here; Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon improved upon the first game in nearly every way. It makes for a far better experience than the original game, and one that actually stands up pretty well in 2025. It’s not exactly going to blow newcomers away, but it’s novel - and a perfect ‘on the go’ kinda game to show off on the Switch 2’s fancy hardware.

    I'll defeat you with the power of friendship and this gun I found. | Image credit: Atlus

    Another small quality-of-life thing that’s worth mentioning is the encounter rate. It’s been fixed. No more random encounters. Instead, demons are visible on-screen and youget to choose when to engage. To make things even more engaging, we’ve got English voice acting, too… And you know what? It’s pretty good!
    And that may be what makes this re-release so appealing to me, actually. The original Raidou games contain some of the most enjoyable, and memorable, narrative moments from any title Atlus has ever made. Yes, that includes Persona. There is a humour to these games that really works - and the interactions between Raidou himself and his familiar cat Gouto is a great example of good games writing: tutorializing whilst delivering story.
    Your demons have all those powers outside battle. The weird, occult-leaning setting of 1920s Japan is fairly unique, and Atlus does well to dive into how curious it is, understanding that it’s a time of change, a time of anxiety, but also of excitement and growth. Having this coloured in with competent and fun voice-acting is something I didn’t know I needed.

    Batles are a bit complicated, but once you nail the rhythm, they work well. | Image credit: Atlus

    This is a far better product than I was expecting, honestly. The Shin Megami Tensei 3 remaster was fairly basic and barebones, but this… this is a shining example of how you can re-release a game some 19 years later and have it actually offer something new, and fix things that the original version lacked. After a brief preview, this has gone from ‘hm, that’s interesting’ to ‘oh, well I’m going to buy that, then.’ Your mileage may vary, of course, but I think this is a fascinating example of what Atlus can cook up with its legacy titles.
    Now, where’s my Digital Devil Saga 1 + 2 HD Remaster, ey?
    #following #breakout #success #metaphor #refantazio
    Following the breakout success of Metaphor Refantazio, Atlus’ only action-RPG gets a second lease of life on Switch 2 (and it’s pretty good, too)
    Soul Trader Following the breakout success of Metaphor Refantazio, Atlus’ only action-RPG gets a second lease of life on Switch 2Nearly 20 years later, Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army proves that there’s a bit of life left in the peculiar spin-off series yet. Image credit: Atlus Article by Dom Peppiatt Editor-in-chief Published on May 21, 2025 By now, you should know what to expect from an Atlus game. Whether you’re wading into the Boschian fever dream of Metaphor Refantazio or winding your way down the seven circles of hell in Shin Megami Tensei, Atlus likes it dark. Dark and weird. Unconstrained by the trappings of normalcy. A bit edgy and a bit juvenile, but all provocative and goth. Raidou Kuzonha vs. The Soulless Army is no exception. The curious PS2 gamecarries on Atlus’ fascination with the occult and the Satanic, but with one major variation from all the developer’s other titles: this one is an action-RPG. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Now, you need to immediately get your brain away from the idea it’s a Soulslike, or anything similar. It’s more of a hack-and-slash, peppered with the need for strategic flourish. Unlike previous MegaTen games, your protagonist, Raidou Kuzunoha, can attack with either his close range sword or his long range gun. But this wouldn’t be a MegaTen game without demons, so of course Kuzunoha can also summon two demons at a time to help in battle. At launch, this game was fine. I’m a MegaTen sicko, so of course I played this as soon as it hit the PAL market. It wasn’t anything to write home about, really, and the combat was grating more than it was inventive. But, oh my, how all that has changed now - nearly two decades later. Coming to the Switch 2 at launch, Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army Remastered is a bit of a misnomer. What we’re getting here is more of an enhanced version, and one that actually feels like a natural and intentional growth of the original game. And do you know why that is? Because, somehow, many of the same developers that worked on Raidou and its sequel during the PS2 era are still at the studio. This is Tsuchigumo, and I don't think he likes you very much. | Image credit: Atlus Yeah, I know, right? What’s effectively happened here is that Atlus has been able to say to its staff: “hey, remember that game you very nearly got right at launch in 2006? Have another swing at it. Load it with all those cool combat ideas you wanted, improve the systems, take what we’ve learned in the last 19 years and go wild”. And the result is an enhanced piece of niche role-playing history that plays better than ever. First up, Atlus has remade the game’s pre-rendered backgrounds into actual 3D. Everything looked fine before, but now there’s more interactivity, more impetus to get off the beaten path. Atlus has crammed more demons into the roster, too, meaning you’ve got more freedom in how you approach battles, as well as more options for summoning and fusing. Again, this feels like a direct reply to criticisms of the game’s small offering at launch in 2006. If you’re a MegaTen sicko, you’ll appreciate the additions of demons like Idun, Hayataro, and more from SMT:5. The combat upgrades themselves - more status effects, a more streamlined menu, more movement for Raidou in battle, more control over your demons - all seem to have been retroactively added into the game from the second in the series. No complaints, here; Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon improved upon the first game in nearly every way. It makes for a far better experience than the original game, and one that actually stands up pretty well in 2025. It’s not exactly going to blow newcomers away, but it’s novel - and a perfect ‘on the go’ kinda game to show off on the Switch 2’s fancy hardware. I'll defeat you with the power of friendship and this gun I found. | Image credit: Atlus Another small quality-of-life thing that’s worth mentioning is the encounter rate. It’s been fixed. No more random encounters. Instead, demons are visible on-screen and youget to choose when to engage. To make things even more engaging, we’ve got English voice acting, too… And you know what? It’s pretty good! And that may be what makes this re-release so appealing to me, actually. The original Raidou games contain some of the most enjoyable, and memorable, narrative moments from any title Atlus has ever made. Yes, that includes Persona. There is a humour to these games that really works - and the interactions between Raidou himself and his familiar cat Gouto is a great example of good games writing: tutorializing whilst delivering story. Your demons have all those powers outside battle. The weird, occult-leaning setting of 1920s Japan is fairly unique, and Atlus does well to dive into how curious it is, understanding that it’s a time of change, a time of anxiety, but also of excitement and growth. Having this coloured in with competent and fun voice-acting is something I didn’t know I needed. Batles are a bit complicated, but once you nail the rhythm, they work well. | Image credit: Atlus This is a far better product than I was expecting, honestly. The Shin Megami Tensei 3 remaster was fairly basic and barebones, but this… this is a shining example of how you can re-release a game some 19 years later and have it actually offer something new, and fix things that the original version lacked. After a brief preview, this has gone from ‘hm, that’s interesting’ to ‘oh, well I’m going to buy that, then.’ Your mileage may vary, of course, but I think this is a fascinating example of what Atlus can cook up with its legacy titles. Now, where’s my Digital Devil Saga 1 + 2 HD Remaster, ey? #following #breakout #success #metaphor #refantazio
    WWW.VG247.COM
    Following the breakout success of Metaphor Refantazio, Atlus’ only action-RPG gets a second lease of life on Switch 2 (and it’s pretty good, too)
    Soul Trader Following the breakout success of Metaphor Refantazio, Atlus’ only action-RPG gets a second lease of life on Switch 2 (and it’s pretty good, too) Nearly 20 years later, Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army proves that there’s a bit of life left in the peculiar spin-off series yet. Image credit: Atlus Article by Dom Peppiatt Editor-in-chief Published on May 21, 2025 By now, you should know what to expect from an Atlus game. Whether you’re wading into the Boschian fever dream of Metaphor Refantazio or winding your way down the seven circles of hell in Shin Megami Tensei, Atlus likes it dark. Dark and weird. Unconstrained by the trappings of normalcy. A bit edgy and a bit juvenile, but all provocative and goth. Raidou Kuzonha vs. The Soulless Army is no exception. The curious PS2 game (which enjoyed a 2006 release in Japan and North America, and 2007 in PAL regions) carries on Atlus’ fascination with the occult and the Satanic, but with one major variation from all the developer’s other titles: this one is an action-RPG. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Now, you need to immediately get your brain away from the idea it’s a Soulslike, or anything similar. It’s more of a hack-and-slash, peppered with the need for strategic flourish. Unlike previous MegaTen games (and their use of the phenomenal Press Turn system), your protagonist, Raidou Kuzunoha, can attack with either his close range sword or his long range gun. But this wouldn’t be a MegaTen game without demons, so of course Kuzunoha can also summon two demons at a time to help in battle. At launch, this game was fine. I’m a MegaTen sicko, so of course I played this as soon as it hit the PAL market (I also played the sequel, later, which is better in almost every way). It wasn’t anything to write home about, really, and the combat was grating more than it was inventive. But, oh my, how all that has changed now - nearly two decades later. Coming to the Switch 2 at launch, Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army Remastered is a bit of a misnomer. What we’re getting here is more of an enhanced version, and one that actually feels like a natural and intentional growth of the original game. And do you know why that is? Because, somehow, many of the same developers that worked on Raidou and its sequel during the PS2 era are still at the studio. This is Tsuchigumo, and I don't think he likes you very much. | Image credit: Atlus Yeah, I know, right? What’s effectively happened here is that Atlus has been able to say to its staff: “hey, remember that game you very nearly got right at launch in 2006? Have another swing at it. Load it with all those cool combat ideas you wanted, improve the systems, take what we’ve learned in the last 19 years and go wild”. And the result is an enhanced piece of niche role-playing history that plays better than ever. First up, Atlus has remade the game’s pre-rendered backgrounds into actual 3D. Everything looked fine before, but now there’s more interactivity, more impetus to get off the beaten path (and, potentially, more to actually do - negating some criticism of the game’s short length from its release). Atlus has crammed more demons into the roster, too, meaning you’ve got more freedom in how you approach battles, as well as more options for summoning and fusing. Again, this feels like a direct reply to criticisms of the game’s small offering at launch in 2006. If you’re a MegaTen sicko, you’ll appreciate the additions of demons like Idun, Hayataro, and more from SMT:5. The combat upgrades themselves - more status effects, a more streamlined menu, more movement for Raidou in battle, more control over your demons - all seem to have been retroactively added into the game from the second in the series. No complaints, here; Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon improved upon the first game in nearly every way. It makes for a far better experience than the original game, and one that actually stands up pretty well in 2025. It’s not exactly going to blow newcomers away, but it’s novel - and a perfect ‘on the go’ kinda game to show off on the Switch 2’s fancy hardware. I'll defeat you with the power of friendship and this gun I found. | Image credit: Atlus Another small quality-of-life thing that’s worth mentioning is the encounter rate. It’s been fixed. No more random encounters. Instead, demons are visible on-screen and you (sort of) get to choose when to engage. To make things even more engaging, we’ve got English voice acting, too… And you know what? It’s pretty good! And that may be what makes this re-release so appealing to me, actually. The original Raidou games contain some of the most enjoyable, and memorable, narrative moments from any title Atlus has ever made. Yes, that includes Persona. There is a humour to these games that really works - and the interactions between Raidou himself and his familiar cat Gouto is a great example of good games writing: tutorializing whilst delivering story. Your demons have all those powers outside battle (so you can reveal the hidden thoughts of NPCs - often vulgar, always funny - or roleplay as a detective to see more in a given scene). The weird, occult-leaning setting of 1920s Japan is fairly unique, and Atlus does well to dive into how curious it is, understanding that it’s a time of change, a time of anxiety, but also of excitement and growth. Having this coloured in with competent and fun voice-acting is something I didn’t know I needed. Batles are a bit complicated, but once you nail the rhythm, they work well. | Image credit: Atlus This is a far better product than I was expecting, honestly. The Shin Megami Tensei 3 remaster was fairly basic and barebones, but this… this is a shining example of how you can re-release a game some 19 years later and have it actually offer something new, and fix things that the original version lacked. After a brief preview, this has gone from ‘hm, that’s interesting’ to ‘oh, well I’m going to buy that, then.’ Your mileage may vary, of course, but I think this is a fascinating example of what Atlus can cook up with its legacy titles. Now, where’s my Digital Devil Saga 1 + 2 HD Remaster, ey?
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  • A Unique Portfolio of Hilma af Klint’s Botanical Drawings Communes with Nature’s Spiritual Side

    “Woodrush, Viola, Golden Saxifrage, Field Horsetail, Marsh Marigold, Lesser Celandine, Sedge” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 9/16 inches. All images courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, shared with permission
    A Unique Portfolio of Hilma af Klint’s Botanical Drawings Communes with Nature’s Spiritual Side
    May 21, 2025
    Kate Mothes

    With the Industrial Revolution in full swing at the turn of the 20th century, jobs and opportunities attracted people to burgeoning cities. New technologies were being developed at breakneck speed and discoveries within the natural sciences introduced people to invisible yet potent concepts like radio waves and X-rays.
    During this period of social transformation, philosophical or occult religious movements like Spiritualism and Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy offered ways to not only connect within a like-minded community but to explore the afterlife—the so-called spirit world—and the very fabric of the universe.
    “Sunflower” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 3/4 × 10 9/16 inches
    For Hilma af Klint, like many who sought refuge and inspiration in these belief systems, a spiritual link to her surroundings united her with the natural world during “a period of massive change…as people from all levels of society were searching for something new to hold on to,” Johan af Klint and Hedvig Ersman wrote about the Swedish artist’s spiritual journey.
    Now on view at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers highlights the institution’s recent acquisition of a phenomenal, 46-leaf portfolio called Nature Studies.
    During the spring and summer of 1919 and 1920, af Klint recorded Sweden’s seasonal flora, from lilies of the valley and sunflowers to violets and cherry blossoms. Beyond traditional botanical studies, the artist incorporates her characteristic abstractions and diagrams, surrounding each rendering with esoteric annotations and geometries.
    “One has to think of the realm of the nature spirits as the realm of thought; these entities hover around us, some like driving winds, others like soft summer breezes,” af Klint once said.
    “Lily of The Valley, Water Avens, Common Milkwort” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 5/8 inches
    Grids with unique color relationships or energetic spirals accompany renderings of field woodrush or marsh marigold, and tree specimens are paired with dotted checkerboards. “Through these forms, af Klint seeks to reveal, in her words, ‘what stands behind the flowers,'” the museum says, “reflecting her belief that studying nature uncovers truths about the human condition.”
    What Stands Behind the Flowers continues through September 27 and is accompanied by a catalogue that is slated for release on Tuesday. Find your copy on Bookshop, and plan your visit to MoMA on the museum’s website.
    “Yellow Star-of-Bethlehem, Lungwort, Coltsfoot, Nailwort, Pasqueflower” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 9/16 inches
    “Common Lime” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 5/8 inches
    “Tulip” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 5/8 inches
    Next article
    #unique #portfolio #hilma #klints #botanical
    A Unique Portfolio of Hilma af Klint’s Botanical Drawings Communes with Nature’s Spiritual Side
    “Woodrush, Viola, Golden Saxifrage, Field Horsetail, Marsh Marigold, Lesser Celandine, Sedge” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 9/16 inches. All images courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, shared with permission A Unique Portfolio of Hilma af Klint’s Botanical Drawings Communes with Nature’s Spiritual Side May 21, 2025 Kate Mothes With the Industrial Revolution in full swing at the turn of the 20th century, jobs and opportunities attracted people to burgeoning cities. New technologies were being developed at breakneck speed and discoveries within the natural sciences introduced people to invisible yet potent concepts like radio waves and X-rays. During this period of social transformation, philosophical or occult religious movements like Spiritualism and Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy offered ways to not only connect within a like-minded community but to explore the afterlife—the so-called spirit world—and the very fabric of the universe. “Sunflower” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 3/4 × 10 9/16 inches For Hilma af Klint, like many who sought refuge and inspiration in these belief systems, a spiritual link to her surroundings united her with the natural world during “a period of massive change…as people from all levels of society were searching for something new to hold on to,” Johan af Klint and Hedvig Ersman wrote about the Swedish artist’s spiritual journey. Now on view at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers highlights the institution’s recent acquisition of a phenomenal, 46-leaf portfolio called Nature Studies. During the spring and summer of 1919 and 1920, af Klint recorded Sweden’s seasonal flora, from lilies of the valley and sunflowers to violets and cherry blossoms. Beyond traditional botanical studies, the artist incorporates her characteristic abstractions and diagrams, surrounding each rendering with esoteric annotations and geometries. “One has to think of the realm of the nature spirits as the realm of thought; these entities hover around us, some like driving winds, others like soft summer breezes,” af Klint once said. “Lily of The Valley, Water Avens, Common Milkwort” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 5/8 inches Grids with unique color relationships or energetic spirals accompany renderings of field woodrush or marsh marigold, and tree specimens are paired with dotted checkerboards. “Through these forms, af Klint seeks to reveal, in her words, ‘what stands behind the flowers,'” the museum says, “reflecting her belief that studying nature uncovers truths about the human condition.” What Stands Behind the Flowers continues through September 27 and is accompanied by a catalogue that is slated for release on Tuesday. Find your copy on Bookshop, and plan your visit to MoMA on the museum’s website. “Yellow Star-of-Bethlehem, Lungwort, Coltsfoot, Nailwort, Pasqueflower” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 9/16 inches “Common Lime” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 5/8 inches “Tulip” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’, watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 5/8 inches Next article #unique #portfolio #hilma #klints #botanical
    WWW.THISISCOLOSSAL.COM
    A Unique Portfolio of Hilma af Klint’s Botanical Drawings Communes with Nature’s Spiritual Side
    “Woodrush, Viola, Golden Saxifrage, Field Horsetail, Marsh Marigold, Lesser Celandine, Sedge (Frylet, Violen, Gullpudran, Åkerfräknet, Kabelöken, Svalörten, Starrgräset)” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’ (1919), watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 9/16 inches. All images courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, shared with permission A Unique Portfolio of Hilma af Klint’s Botanical Drawings Communes with Nature’s Spiritual Side May 21, 2025 Kate Mothes With the Industrial Revolution in full swing at the turn of the 20th century, jobs and opportunities attracted people to burgeoning cities. New technologies were being developed at breakneck speed and discoveries within the natural sciences introduced people to invisible yet potent concepts like radio waves and X-rays. During this period of social transformation, philosophical or occult religious movements like Spiritualism and Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy offered ways to not only connect within a like-minded community but to explore the afterlife—the so-called spirit world—and the very fabric of the universe. “Sunflower (Solrosen)” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’ (1919), watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 3/4 × 10 9/16 inches For Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), like many who sought refuge and inspiration in these belief systems, a spiritual link to her surroundings united her with the natural world during “a period of massive change…as people from all levels of society were searching for something new to hold on to,” Johan af Klint and Hedvig Ersman wrote about the Swedish artist’s spiritual journey. Now on view at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers highlights the institution’s recent acquisition of a phenomenal, 46-leaf portfolio called Nature Studies. During the spring and summer of 1919 and 1920, af Klint recorded Sweden’s seasonal flora, from lilies of the valley and sunflowers to violets and cherry blossoms. Beyond traditional botanical studies, the artist incorporates her characteristic abstractions and diagrams, surrounding each rendering with esoteric annotations and geometries. “One has to think of the realm of the nature spirits as the realm of thought; these entities hover around us, some like driving winds, others like soft summer breezes,” af Klint once said. “Lily of The Valley, Water Avens, Common Milkwort (Liljekonvaljen, Fårkummern, Jungfrulinet)” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’ (1919), watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 5/8 inches Grids with unique color relationships or energetic spirals accompany renderings of field woodrush or marsh marigold, and tree specimens are paired with dotted checkerboards. “Through these forms, af Klint seeks to reveal, in her words, ‘what stands behind the flowers,'” the museum says, “reflecting her belief that studying nature uncovers truths about the human condition.” What Stands Behind the Flowers continues through September 27 and is accompanied by a catalogue that is slated for release on Tuesday. Find your copy on Bookshop, and plan your visit to MoMA on the museum’s website. “Yellow Star-of-Bethlehem, Lungwort, Coltsfoot, Nailwort, Pasqueflower (Vårlöken, Lungörten, Hästhoförten, Nagelörten, Backsippan)” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’ (1919), watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 9/16 inches “Common Lime (Linden)” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’ (1919), watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 5/8 inches “Tulip (Tulpanen)” from the portfolio ‘Dornach Nature Studies’ (1920), watercolor, pencil, ink, and metallic paint on paper from a portfolio of 46 drawings, sheet: 19 5/8 × 10 5/8 inches Next article
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  • A Roguelite Deckbuilder Where I'm An Exorcist Detective Fighting Demons? Yes, Please

    Malys is quite the surprise as a follow-up to Summerfall Studios' first game, Stray Gods: A Roleplaying Musical. Rather than craft another superb choice-driven visual novel with an emphasis on music and Greek myth, Summerfall's next game is a turn-based roguelite deckbuilder set in a demon-filled city. The tone looks to be far darker and there's a lot more to the gameplay this time around, but much like Summerfall Studios' first game, Malys looks like a visual delight and features characters I desperately want to get to know."There was an initial question, do we want to do this more as a visual novel, more like Stray Gods?" Summerfall creative director David Gaider told me during an exclusive gameplay preview of Malys. "Because Stray Gods did not have much in the way of gameplay, we wanted to try something that has more gameplay to prove that we're a studio that can do something that's fun and still narrative-driven but that has a very strong gameplay loop at its heart."Even the weaker demons can pack a punch.In Malys, you play as a former priest turned exorcist named Noah. He's striving to cross the entirety of a city to reach a major demon waiting for him on the other side, but lesser demons block his path. Each confrontation has a chance of wearing on Noah's will, and if it is fully depleted, he collapses, only to awaken back at the start of his journey with a time reset. These time loops allow Noah to better prepare for future runs and gain the trust of citizens, but he isn't the only one who remembers everything that transpires with every loop: A mysterious celestial, a powerful occultist, and a seemingly friendly masked demon are immune to the time rewinds, too.Continue Reading at GameSpot
    #roguelite #deckbuilder #where #i039m #exorcist
    A Roguelite Deckbuilder Where I'm An Exorcist Detective Fighting Demons? Yes, Please
    Malys is quite the surprise as a follow-up to Summerfall Studios' first game, Stray Gods: A Roleplaying Musical. Rather than craft another superb choice-driven visual novel with an emphasis on music and Greek myth, Summerfall's next game is a turn-based roguelite deckbuilder set in a demon-filled city. The tone looks to be far darker and there's a lot more to the gameplay this time around, but much like Summerfall Studios' first game, Malys looks like a visual delight and features characters I desperately want to get to know."There was an initial question, do we want to do this more as a visual novel, more like Stray Gods?" Summerfall creative director David Gaider told me during an exclusive gameplay preview of Malys. "Because Stray Gods did not have much in the way of gameplay, we wanted to try something that has more gameplay to prove that we're a studio that can do something that's fun and still narrative-driven but that has a very strong gameplay loop at its heart."Even the weaker demons can pack a punch.In Malys, you play as a former priest turned exorcist named Noah. He's striving to cross the entirety of a city to reach a major demon waiting for him on the other side, but lesser demons block his path. Each confrontation has a chance of wearing on Noah's will, and if it is fully depleted, he collapses, only to awaken back at the start of his journey with a time reset. These time loops allow Noah to better prepare for future runs and gain the trust of citizens, but he isn't the only one who remembers everything that transpires with every loop: A mysterious celestial, a powerful occultist, and a seemingly friendly masked demon are immune to the time rewinds, too.Continue Reading at GameSpot #roguelite #deckbuilder #where #i039m #exorcist
    WWW.GAMESPOT.COM
    A Roguelite Deckbuilder Where I'm An Exorcist Detective Fighting Demons? Yes, Please
    Malys is quite the surprise as a follow-up to Summerfall Studios' first game, Stray Gods: A Roleplaying Musical. Rather than craft another superb choice-driven visual novel with an emphasis on music and Greek myth, Summerfall's next game is a turn-based roguelite deckbuilder set in a demon-filled city. The tone looks to be far darker and there's a lot more to the gameplay this time around, but much like Summerfall Studios' first game, Malys looks like a visual delight and features characters I desperately want to get to know."There was an initial question, do we want to do this more as a visual novel, more like Stray Gods?" Summerfall creative director David Gaider told me during an exclusive gameplay preview of Malys. "Because Stray Gods did not have much in the way of gameplay, we wanted to try something that has more gameplay to prove that we're a studio that can do something that's fun and still narrative-driven but that has a very strong gameplay loop at its heart."Even the weaker demons can pack a punch.In Malys, you play as a former priest turned exorcist named Noah. He's striving to cross the entirety of a city to reach a major demon waiting for him on the other side, but lesser demons block his path. Each confrontation has a chance of wearing on Noah's will, and if it is fully depleted, he collapses, only to awaken back at the start of his journey with a time reset. These time loops allow Noah to better prepare for future runs and gain the trust of citizens, but he isn't the only one who remembers everything that transpires with every loop: A mysterious celestial, a powerful occultist, and a seemingly friendly masked demon are immune to the time rewinds, too.Continue Reading at GameSpot
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  • A New Exhibition Brings Fresh Recognition to a Groundbreaking But Largely Forgotten Surrealist

    A New Exhibition Brings Fresh Recognition to a Groundbreaking But Largely Forgotten Surrealist
    At London’s Tate Britain, a major retrospective takes a long look at the work of Margaret Ithell Colquhoun

    Connections between the natural world, the divine and the erotic were a favorite theme for Colquhoun, who described Earth Process, 1940, as an “image from a half-conscious experience.”
    Tate, presented by the National Trust 2016. © Tate. Photo © TateBritish artist and writer Margaret Ithell Colquhoun was a pioneer of Surrealist “automatism,” creating images from charcoal shavings or letting her unconscious take charge of a pen. Such methods had a “divinatory power,” she explained, comparing them to “the practices of clairvoyants who use … tea leaves and coffee grounds to set in motion their telepathic faculty.” While she traveled in the same circles as household names like Salvador Dalí, Colquhoun broke with Surrealism in 1940 to focus on the occult, a move that may have contributed to her relative obscurity by the time of her death in 1988.
    This month, however, a major retrospective of Colquhoun’s work will open at London’s Tate Britain, after a stint at the museum’s Cornwall branch. It’s the first since her rediscovery by a new generation of artists drawn to her explorations of women’s sexuality, spirituality and the natural world. “Over the years I have followed the path blazed by Colquhoun,” writes the British artist Linder Sterling, in an essay about the show, and felt “her encouragement from beyond the grave.”   

    Gorgon, Ithell Colquhoun, 1946.

    Private Collection © Spire Healthcare, © Noise Abatement Society, © Samaritans

    Ages of Man, Ithell Colquhoun, 1944.

    Tate, Presented by the National Trust 2016, accessioned 2022 © Tate. Photo © TateAlcove, Ithell Colquhoun, 1946.

    Private Collection © Spire Healthcare, © Noise Abatement Society, © Samaritans

    Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just This article is a selection from the June 2025 issue of Smithsonian magazine

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    #new #exhibition #brings #fresh #recognition
    A New Exhibition Brings Fresh Recognition to a Groundbreaking But Largely Forgotten Surrealist
    A New Exhibition Brings Fresh Recognition to a Groundbreaking But Largely Forgotten Surrealist At London’s Tate Britain, a major retrospective takes a long look at the work of Margaret Ithell Colquhoun Connections between the natural world, the divine and the erotic were a favorite theme for Colquhoun, who described Earth Process, 1940, as an “image from a half-conscious experience.” Tate, presented by the National Trust 2016. © Tate. Photo © TateBritish artist and writer Margaret Ithell Colquhoun was a pioneer of Surrealist “automatism,” creating images from charcoal shavings or letting her unconscious take charge of a pen. Such methods had a “divinatory power,” she explained, comparing them to “the practices of clairvoyants who use … tea leaves and coffee grounds to set in motion their telepathic faculty.” While she traveled in the same circles as household names like Salvador Dalí, Colquhoun broke with Surrealism in 1940 to focus on the occult, a move that may have contributed to her relative obscurity by the time of her death in 1988. This month, however, a major retrospective of Colquhoun’s work will open at London’s Tate Britain, after a stint at the museum’s Cornwall branch. It’s the first since her rediscovery by a new generation of artists drawn to her explorations of women’s sexuality, spirituality and the natural world. “Over the years I have followed the path blazed by Colquhoun,” writes the British artist Linder Sterling, in an essay about the show, and felt “her encouragement from beyond the grave.”    Gorgon, Ithell Colquhoun, 1946. Private Collection © Spire Healthcare, © Noise Abatement Society, © Samaritans Ages of Man, Ithell Colquhoun, 1944. Tate, Presented by the National Trust 2016, accessioned 2022 © Tate. Photo © TateAlcove, Ithell Colquhoun, 1946. Private Collection © Spire Healthcare, © Noise Abatement Society, © Samaritans Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just This article is a selection from the June 2025 issue of Smithsonian magazine Get the latest Travel & Culture stories in your inbox. More about: Art Art History Artists Modern Art Surrealism #new #exhibition #brings #fresh #recognition
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    A New Exhibition Brings Fresh Recognition to a Groundbreaking But Largely Forgotten Surrealist
    A New Exhibition Brings Fresh Recognition to a Groundbreaking But Largely Forgotten Surrealist At London’s Tate Britain, a major retrospective takes a long look at the work of Margaret Ithell Colquhoun Connections between the natural world, the divine and the erotic were a favorite theme for Colquhoun, who described Earth Process, 1940, as an “image from a half-conscious experience.” Tate, presented by the National Trust 2016. © Tate. Photo © Tate (Sam Day) British artist and writer Margaret Ithell Colquhoun was a pioneer of Surrealist “automatism,” creating images from charcoal shavings or letting her unconscious take charge of a pen. Such methods had a “divinatory power,” she explained, comparing them to “the practices of clairvoyants who use … tea leaves and coffee grounds to set in motion their telepathic faculty.” While she traveled in the same circles as household names like Salvador Dalí, Colquhoun broke with Surrealism in 1940 to focus on the occult, a move that may have contributed to her relative obscurity by the time of her death in 1988. This month, however, a major retrospective of Colquhoun’s work will open at London’s Tate Britain, after a stint at the museum’s Cornwall branch. It’s the first since her rediscovery by a new generation of artists drawn to her explorations of women’s sexuality, spirituality and the natural world. “Over the years I have followed the path blazed by Colquhoun,” writes the British artist Linder Sterling, in an essay about the show, and felt “her encouragement from beyond the grave.”    Gorgon, Ithell Colquhoun, 1946. Private Collection © Spire Healthcare, © Noise Abatement Society, © Samaritans Ages of Man, Ithell Colquhoun, 1944. Tate, Presented by the National Trust 2016, accessioned 2022 © Tate. Photo © Tate (Joe Humphrys) Alcove, Ithell Colquhoun, 1946. Private Collection © Spire Healthcare, © Noise Abatement Society, © Samaritans Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $19.99 This article is a selection from the June 2025 issue of Smithsonian magazine Get the latest Travel & Culture stories in your inbox. More about: Art Art History Artists Modern Art Surrealism
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  • The 1990s Were a Golden Age for Period Piece Movies and Literary Adaptations

    Recently a friend mentioned how much of a shame it was that, generally speaking, there are few of those backdoor “classic” reimaginings today like the ones we had growing up. And after thinking for a moment, I agreed. Children and teens of the ‘90s were treated to an embarrassment of riches when it came to the Bard and Bard-adjacent films. Nearly every week seemed to offer another modernization of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, or Geoffrey Chaucer, all retrofitted with a wink and a nudge to appeal to teenagers reading much the same texts in high school or university.
    But then when looking back at the sweep of 1990s cinema beyond just “teen movies,” it was more than only Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger vehicles that were getting the classical treatment. In fact the ‘90s, and to a large extent the ‘80s as well, was an era ripe with indie studios and Hollywood majors treating classic literaturewith the sanctity nowadays reserved for comic books and video games. It was a time when some of the most exciting or ambitious artists working in the industry sought to trade in the bullets and brutality of New Hollywood from a decade or two earlier in favor of the even more brutal constraints of corsets and top hats.

    Shakespeare was arguably bigger business in tinsel town than at any other point during this period, and we saw some of the most faithful and enduring adaptations of Austen or Louisa May Alcott make it to the screen. Why is that and can it happen again? Let’s look back at the golden age of period piece costumed dramas and splashy literary adaptations…

    Mozart and Merchant Ivory
    Since the beginning of the medium, moviemakers have looked back at well-worn and familiar stories for inspiration and audience familiarity. Not too many years after making his enduring trip to the moon, Georges Méliès adapted Hamlet into a roughly 10-minute silent short in 1907. And of course before Kenneth Branagh, Laurence Olivier had Hollywood falling in love with the Bard… at least as long it was Larry in the tights.

    Even so, literary adaptations were often constrained, particularly in Hollywood where filmmakers had to contend with the limitations of censorship via the Hays Code and preconceived notions about what an American audience would enjoy. The most popular costumed dramas tended to therefore be vanity projects or something of a more sensational hue—think biblical or swords and sandals epics.
    So it’s difficult to point to an exact moment where that changed in the 1980s, yet we’d hazard to suggest the close together Oscar seasons of 1984 and 1986 had a lot to do with it. After all, the first was the year that Miloš Forman’s AmadeusA Room with a View. Considered by Forster scholars one of the author’s slighter works, the film had critics like Roger Ebert swooning that it was a masterpiece.
    In the case of Amadeus, the director of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—a zeitgeist-shaping portrait of modern oppression and control from about a decade earlier—was taking the story of Mozart and making it a punk rock tragicomedy. Based on a Peter Shaffer play of the same name, Forman and Shaffer radically reimagined the story, making it both funnier and darker as Forman strove to pose Mozart as a modern day rebel iconoclast with his wig resembling as much Sid Vicious as the Age of Enlightenment. Located atop Tom Hulce’s giggling head, it signaled a movie that had all the trappings of melodrama but felt accessible and exciting to a wide modern audience.
    It went on to do relatively big business and win Best Picture. While not the first period film to do so, it was the first in a long while set in what could be construed as the distant past. Otherwise, most of the recent winners were dramas or dramedies about the modern world: Kramer vs. Kramer, The Deer Hunter, and Annie Hall. They reflected an audience that wanted to get away from the artificiality of their parents’ cinema, which in the U.S. associated historical costumes with thephoniness of Ben-Huror Oliver!.
    Yet perhaps the movie that proved this was the beginning of a popular trend came a few years later via the British masterpiece A Room with a View. To be sure, the partnership of Merchant and Ivory had been going for more than 20 years by the time they got to adapting Forster, including with several other costumed dramas and period pieces. However, those films were mixed with modern comedies and dramas like rock ’n roll-infused The Guruand Jane Austen in Manhattan. More importantly, all of these films tended to be art house pictures; small chamber pieces intended for a limited audience.
    Yet as the marketing campaign would later trumpet about A Room with a View—the ethereal romantic dramedy which introduced Daniel Day-Lewis and a fresh-faced Helena Bonham Carter to the U.S.—this movie had the “highest single theatre gross in the country!”The film’s combination of Forster’s wry satire and cynicism about English aristocracy in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era, coupled with the sweeping romance of Puccini arias and Tuscan countrysides, made it a massive success.

    It also defined what became the “Merchant Ivory” period piece forever after, including in future Oscar and box office darlings like the Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, and Carter-starring Howard’s End, and Hopkins and Thompson’s reunion in The Remains of the Day. These were all distinctly British and understated pictures, with Remains being an outright tragedy delivered in a hushed whisper, but their relative success with a certain type of moviegoer and Academy voter signaled to Hollywood that there was gold up in ‘em hills. And soon enough, more than just Forman on the American side was going up there to mine it.

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    20th Century Studios
    Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, and the Auteur’s Costumed Drama
    In 1990, Michael Mann was one of the hottest creatives working in Hollywood. As the executive producer and sometime-director on NBC’s edgypolice drama, Miami Vice, he played a direct hand in proving American television could be “gritty” and artistic. Even the episodes he didn’t helm were defined by the standards he insisted upon—such as never putting cool guys Crockett and Tubbs in a red or brown car. It would clash with the neon-light-on-celluloid aesthetic that Mann developed for the series.
    As that series was winding down by 1990, Mann was more in demand than ever to make any film project he might have wanted—something perhaps in-keeping with Vice or gritty crime thrillers he’d made in the ’80s like serial killer thriller Manhunter. Instead he sought to adapt a childhood favorite for the screen, James Fenimore Cooper’s 19th century American frontier novel, The Last of the Mohicans. Certainly a problematic text in its original form with its imperial-fantasy riff on the French and Indian Warwhere Indigenous tribes in what is today upstate New York were either reduced to the noble or cruel savage stereotypes, the text proved a jumping off point for Mann to craft a gripping, primal, and prestigious film.
    He also made a movie that far exceeded its source material with The Last of the Mohicans being an often wordless opera of big emotions played in silence by Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, and Wes Studi, all while Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman’s musical score looms like thunderclouds across the mountainous landscape. It is an elevated action movie, and a beautiful drama that did bigger business in the U.S. than Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and Tom Cruise vehicle A Few Good Men in the same year. It also would create a precedent we’d see followed time and again throughout the rest of the decade.
    Some of the biggest and most respected filmmakers of the moment, many of them praised under auteur theory, were looking to literary classics for an audience that craved them. After the one-two genre punch of Goodfellasand Cape Fear, Martin Scorsese made one of his most ambitious and underrated films: a stone-cold 1993 masterpiece inspired by an Edith Wharton novel, The Age of Innocence.
    It’s a story that Scorsese argues is just as brutal, if not more so, than his gangster pictures. Indeed, The Age of Innocence remains the best cinematic representation of the Gilded Age in the U.S., capturing the lush pageantry of the most elite New Yorkers’ lifestyles in their robber baron heyday, as well as how class snobbery metastasized into a ruthless tribalism that doomed the romantic yearnings of one conformist attorneyand this would-be divorcée love of his life.

    It might not have been a hit in its time, but Ang Lee’s breakout in the U.S. a year later definitely was. The Taiwanese filmmaker was already the toast of international and independent cinema via movies like The Wedding Banquetand martial arts-adjacent Pushing Hands, but it is when he directed a flawless adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility in 1995 that he became a Hollywood favorite who would soon get movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragonand Hulkgreenlit. Sense and Sensibility benefits greatly, too, from a marvelous cast with Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet, and Alan Rickman among its ensemble. It also captured the sophisticated satirical and melancholic underpinnings of Austen’s pen that most previous Hollywood adaptations never scratched.
    It set a standard that most of the best Austen adaptations to this day are measured by, be it Joe Wright and Keira Knightley’s cinematic take on Pride and Prejudice a decade later, various attempts at Emma from the 1990s with Gwyneth Paltrow to this decade with Anya Taylor-Joy, or even Netflix’s recent Dakota Johnson-led Persuasion adaptation.
    Columbia / Sony
    A Dark Universe of Gods and Monsters
    Meanwhile, right before Columbia Pictures greenlit Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence and later Gillian Armstrong’s still delightfulinterpretation of Little Women in 1994, the same studio signed off on its first period piece with Winona Ryder attached to star. And it was Dracula.
    Considered a folly of hubris at the time by rivals who snickered to Variety it should be renamed “Bonfire of the Vampires”, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was Francis Ford Coppola’s lurid and magnificent reimagining of Stoker’s definitive Victorian novel. Published in 1897 with on-the-nose metaphors for London society’s anxieties over foreigners, sexual promiscuity and disease, and the so-called “New Woman” working in the professional classes, Coppola saw all of that potential in the well-worn and adapted vampire novel. He also correctly predicted there was a box office hit if he could bring all those elements out in an exciting and anachronistic fever dream for the MTV generation.
    Love or hate Coppola’s looseness with Stoker’s novel—which is pretty audacious since he put the author’s name in the title—Coppola crafted one of the most sumptuous and expensive depictions of Victorian society ever put onscreen, winning costume designer Eiko Ishioka an Oscar for the effort. He also made an unexpected holiday hit that played like bloody gangbusters alongside Home Alone 2 and Aladdin that winter.
    It set a standard for what can in retrospect be considered a pseudo “dark universe” of classic literary monsters getting ostensibly faithful and expensive adaptations by Hollywood. Coppola himself produced Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a film that is actually in many ways closer to the thematic letter of its author than Bram Stoker’s Dracula ever was. It was also a worse movie that flopped, but it looked spectacular as the only major Frankenstein movie to remember Shelley set the story during the Age of Enlightenment in the late 18th century.

    Yet while Frankenstein failed, Tom Cruise and Neil Jordan would have a lot of success in the same year adapting Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. The book admittedly was recent, having been published in 1976, but the story’s roots and setting in 18th and 19th century bayou occultism were not. It was also a grandiose costumed drama where the guy who played Top Gun’s Maverick would sink fangs into young Brad Pitt’s neck in a scene dripping in homoeroticism.
    This trend continued throughout the ‘90s with some successes, like Tim Burton’s wildly revisionistSleepy Hollow in 1999, and some misses. For instance, did you remember that Julia Roberts at the height of her stardom appeared in a revisionist take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where she played the not-so-good doctor’s maid? It’s called Mary Reilly, by the by.
    The Samuel Goldwyn Company
    The Resurgence of Shakespeare
    Of course when talking about classic literature and storytelling, one name rises above most others in the schools and curriculums of the English-speaking world. Yet curiously it was only in the 1990s that someone really lit on the idea of making a movie directly based on the Bard tailored almost exclusively for that demographic: Baz Luhrmann in 1996, who reconfigured the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet into the visual language of MTV. He even stylized the title as William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet.
    That proved the tip of an anachronistic iceberg whose cast included Leonardo DiCaprio at the height of his heartthrob powers as Romeo and real-life teenager Claire Danes as his Capulet amore. Their Verona was a Neverland composite of Miami, Rio de Janeiro, and the nightly news, with hyper music video editing and frenetic neon-hued melodrama. Some older scholars viewed Luhrmann’s anachronisms as an abomination, but as a Millennial, I can attest we loved this thing back in the day. Many still do.
    But it was hardly the first box office breakout for Shakespeare in the ‘90s. When the decade began, the helmer of another cinematic Romeo and Juliet classic from a different era, Franco Zeffirelli, attempted to make Hamlet exciting for “kids these days” by casting Mel Gibson right in the midst of his Lethal Weapon popularity as the indecisive Dane. To the modern eye, it is hard to remember Gibson was a heartthrob of sorts in the ‘80s and early ‘90s—or generally viewed as a dashing star worthy of heroic leading men roles.
    Nonetheless, there is quite a bit to like about Hamletif you can look past Gibson’s off-screen behavior in the following decades, or the fact Zeffirelli cuts what is a four-hour play down to less than 2.5 hours. Gibson actually makes for a credible and genuinely mad Hamlet, and Zeffirelli mines the medieval melancholy of the story well with production design, costumes, and location shooting at real Norman castles. Plus, Helena Bonham Carter remains the best Ophelia ever put to screen. Hamletwould eventually be overshadowed, though, both by Gibson’s awful behavior and because of a much grander and bombastic adaptation from the man who became the King of Shakespeare Movies in the ‘90s: Kenneth Branagh.

    Aye, Branagh might deserve the most credit for the Shakespearean renaissance in this era, beginning with his adaptation of Henry V, which featured the makings of Branagh’s troupe of former RSC favorites turned film actors: Derek Jacobi, Brian Blessed, and of course his future wife, Emma Thompson. Together the pair would mount what is in this writer’s opinion the best film ever based on a Shakespeare play, the divine and breezy Much Ado About Nothing, a perfect encapsulation of perhaps the first romantic comedy ever written that features Branagh and Thompson as the sharp-tongued, dueling lovers Benedict and Beatrice. It also features Denzel Washington as a dashing Renaissance prince, Kate Beckinsale in her breakout role, and a gloriously over-the-top score by Patrick Doyle.
    It would define the style of Branagh’s following ‘90s efforts, whether they went off-the-rails like in the aforementioned Frankenstein, or right back on them in the 70mm-filmed, ultra wide and sunny adaptation of Hamlet he helmed in 1996. Avoiding the psychological and Freudian interpretations of the Danish prince chased by Olivier and Zeffirelli, Branagh turns Hamlet into a romantic hero spearheading an all-star ensemble cast. At the play’s full four-hour length, Hamletis indulgent. Yet somehow that befits the material. Branagh would also star as Iago in Oliver Parker’s Othelloopposite Laurence Fishburne and reconfigure the Bard as a musical in his own directorial effort, Love’s Labour’s Lost.
    It paved the way for more outside-the-box Shakespeare movies by the end of the decade like Julie Taymor’s deconstructionist Titusand the A Midsummer Night’s Dream from 1999 where Kevin Kline turns into an ass and makes out with Michelle Pfeiffer.
    CBS via Getty Images
    The Birth of the Teenage Shakespeare RemixAs popular as the Shakespeare movie became in the ‘90s, what’s curiously unique about this era is the simultaneous rise of movies that adapted either the Bard or other highly respected literary writers and turned them into a pure teenage dream. We’re talking moving past modernizing Romeo and Juliet like Luhrmann did, or repurposing it for high New York society like Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim aimed with West Side Story.
    These were straight, unapologetic youth films that also proved clever reworkings of classic storytelling structure. Among the best directly derived from Shakespeare is the movie that made Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger Gen-X icons, 10 Things I Hate About You, a happily campy update of The Taming of the Shrew set in a fairytale high school also populated by future Christopher Nolan favorites like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and David Krumholtz. Stiles would, in fact, do this kind of remix a number times in the more serious-faced modernization of Othello, O, which also starred Mekhi Phifer as a tragically distrusting high school sports star instead of warrior, and Michael Almereyda and Ethan Hawke’s own Hamlet, the third Hamlet movie in 10 years, albeit this one set in turn-of-the-century NYC.
    Ledger also returned to the concept by adapting another, even older literary giant, in this case the medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer, for A Knight’s Tale, an anachronistic blending of the medieval and modern where peasants grooved in the jousting tournament stands to Queen. There was also the strange attempt to turn Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ Dangerous Liaisons from 1782 into an erotic thriller for teensvia the lusty Cruel Intentions

    However, easily the best of these remains Amy Heckerling’s CluelessEmma from the Regency period to a fairytale version of 1990s Beverly Hills. Foregoing modern fads and simply inventing her own—with the assumption anything she wrote in 1994 would be dated by ’95—Heckerling create a faux yet now authentically iconic language and fashion style via Cher, a charmed SoCal princess who is so well-meaning in her matchmaking mischief that she defies any attempts to detest her entitlement or vanity. You kind of are even low-key chill that the happy ending is she hooks up with her step brother. It’s a classic!
    And the Rest
    There are many, many more examples we could examine from this era. These can include the sublime like the Gillian Armstrong-directed Little Women of 1994 starring Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, and Kirsten Dunst; and they can include the wretched like the Demi Moore and Gary Oldman-led The Scarlet Letter. There were more plays adapted, a la Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and then those that just had some fun with playwrights, as seen in the over-celebrated Shakespeare in LoveBraveheart.
    More than a few of these won Best Picture Oscars as well, including Braveheart, Shakespeare in Love, and James Cameron’s little 1997 movie you might have heard about elsewhere: Titanic. And yet, this type of film has by and large gone away. Once in a while one comes along that still works, such as Greta Gerwig’s own revisionist interpretation of Little Women. That beautiful film was a good-sized hit in 2019, but it did not exactly usher in a new era of literary adaptations.
    Now such projects, like everything else not considered four-quadrant intellectual property by studio bean counters, is mostly relegated to long-form stream series. Which in some cases is fine. Many would argue the best version of Pride & Prejudice was the BBC production… also from the ‘90s, mind. But whether it is original period piece films or adaptations, unless you’re Robert Eggers, period piece storytelling and “great adaptations” have been abandoned to the small screen and full-on wish fulfillment anachronisms like Bridgerton.
    This seems due to studios increasingly eschewing anything that isn’t reliably based on a brand that middle-aged adults loved. But in that case… it might be worth reminding them that ‘90s kids are getting older and having children of their own. There may again be a market beyond the occasional Gerwig swing, or Eggers take on Dracula, for classic stories; a new audience being raised to want modern riffs inspired by tales that have endured for years and centuries. These stories are mostly in the public domain too. And recent original hits like Sinners suggests you don’t even need a classic story to connect with audiences. So perhaps once again, a play’s the thing in which they can catch the conscience of the… consumer? Or something like that.
    #1990s #were #golden #age #period
    The 1990s Were a Golden Age for Period Piece Movies and Literary Adaptations
    Recently a friend mentioned how much of a shame it was that, generally speaking, there are few of those backdoor “classic” reimaginings today like the ones we had growing up. And after thinking for a moment, I agreed. Children and teens of the ‘90s were treated to an embarrassment of riches when it came to the Bard and Bard-adjacent films. Nearly every week seemed to offer another modernization of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, or Geoffrey Chaucer, all retrofitted with a wink and a nudge to appeal to teenagers reading much the same texts in high school or university. But then when looking back at the sweep of 1990s cinema beyond just “teen movies,” it was more than only Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger vehicles that were getting the classical treatment. In fact the ‘90s, and to a large extent the ‘80s as well, was an era ripe with indie studios and Hollywood majors treating classic literaturewith the sanctity nowadays reserved for comic books and video games. It was a time when some of the most exciting or ambitious artists working in the industry sought to trade in the bullets and brutality of New Hollywood from a decade or two earlier in favor of the even more brutal constraints of corsets and top hats. Shakespeare was arguably bigger business in tinsel town than at any other point during this period, and we saw some of the most faithful and enduring adaptations of Austen or Louisa May Alcott make it to the screen. Why is that and can it happen again? Let’s look back at the golden age of period piece costumed dramas and splashy literary adaptations… Mozart and Merchant Ivory Since the beginning of the medium, moviemakers have looked back at well-worn and familiar stories for inspiration and audience familiarity. Not too many years after making his enduring trip to the moon, Georges Méliès adapted Hamlet into a roughly 10-minute silent short in 1907. And of course before Kenneth Branagh, Laurence Olivier had Hollywood falling in love with the Bard… at least as long it was Larry in the tights. Even so, literary adaptations were often constrained, particularly in Hollywood where filmmakers had to contend with the limitations of censorship via the Hays Code and preconceived notions about what an American audience would enjoy. The most popular costumed dramas tended to therefore be vanity projects or something of a more sensational hue—think biblical or swords and sandals epics. So it’s difficult to point to an exact moment where that changed in the 1980s, yet we’d hazard to suggest the close together Oscar seasons of 1984 and 1986 had a lot to do with it. After all, the first was the year that Miloš Forman’s AmadeusA Room with a View. Considered by Forster scholars one of the author’s slighter works, the film had critics like Roger Ebert swooning that it was a masterpiece. In the case of Amadeus, the director of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—a zeitgeist-shaping portrait of modern oppression and control from about a decade earlier—was taking the story of Mozart and making it a punk rock tragicomedy. Based on a Peter Shaffer play of the same name, Forman and Shaffer radically reimagined the story, making it both funnier and darker as Forman strove to pose Mozart as a modern day rebel iconoclast with his wig resembling as much Sid Vicious as the Age of Enlightenment. Located atop Tom Hulce’s giggling head, it signaled a movie that had all the trappings of melodrama but felt accessible and exciting to a wide modern audience. It went on to do relatively big business and win Best Picture. While not the first period film to do so, it was the first in a long while set in what could be construed as the distant past. Otherwise, most of the recent winners were dramas or dramedies about the modern world: Kramer vs. Kramer, The Deer Hunter, and Annie Hall. They reflected an audience that wanted to get away from the artificiality of their parents’ cinema, which in the U.S. associated historical costumes with thephoniness of Ben-Huror Oliver!. Yet perhaps the movie that proved this was the beginning of a popular trend came a few years later via the British masterpiece A Room with a View. To be sure, the partnership of Merchant and Ivory had been going for more than 20 years by the time they got to adapting Forster, including with several other costumed dramas and period pieces. However, those films were mixed with modern comedies and dramas like rock ’n roll-infused The Guruand Jane Austen in Manhattan. More importantly, all of these films tended to be art house pictures; small chamber pieces intended for a limited audience. Yet as the marketing campaign would later trumpet about A Room with a View—the ethereal romantic dramedy which introduced Daniel Day-Lewis and a fresh-faced Helena Bonham Carter to the U.S.—this movie had the “highest single theatre gross in the country!”The film’s combination of Forster’s wry satire and cynicism about English aristocracy in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era, coupled with the sweeping romance of Puccini arias and Tuscan countrysides, made it a massive success. It also defined what became the “Merchant Ivory” period piece forever after, including in future Oscar and box office darlings like the Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, and Carter-starring Howard’s End, and Hopkins and Thompson’s reunion in The Remains of the Day. These were all distinctly British and understated pictures, with Remains being an outright tragedy delivered in a hushed whisper, but their relative success with a certain type of moviegoer and Academy voter signaled to Hollywood that there was gold up in ‘em hills. And soon enough, more than just Forman on the American side was going up there to mine it. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! 20th Century Studios Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, and the Auteur’s Costumed Drama In 1990, Michael Mann was one of the hottest creatives working in Hollywood. As the executive producer and sometime-director on NBC’s edgypolice drama, Miami Vice, he played a direct hand in proving American television could be “gritty” and artistic. Even the episodes he didn’t helm were defined by the standards he insisted upon—such as never putting cool guys Crockett and Tubbs in a red or brown car. It would clash with the neon-light-on-celluloid aesthetic that Mann developed for the series. As that series was winding down by 1990, Mann was more in demand than ever to make any film project he might have wanted—something perhaps in-keeping with Vice or gritty crime thrillers he’d made in the ’80s like serial killer thriller Manhunter. Instead he sought to adapt a childhood favorite for the screen, James Fenimore Cooper’s 19th century American frontier novel, The Last of the Mohicans. Certainly a problematic text in its original form with its imperial-fantasy riff on the French and Indian Warwhere Indigenous tribes in what is today upstate New York were either reduced to the noble or cruel savage stereotypes, the text proved a jumping off point for Mann to craft a gripping, primal, and prestigious film. He also made a movie that far exceeded its source material with The Last of the Mohicans being an often wordless opera of big emotions played in silence by Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, and Wes Studi, all while Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman’s musical score looms like thunderclouds across the mountainous landscape. It is an elevated action movie, and a beautiful drama that did bigger business in the U.S. than Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and Tom Cruise vehicle A Few Good Men in the same year. It also would create a precedent we’d see followed time and again throughout the rest of the decade. Some of the biggest and most respected filmmakers of the moment, many of them praised under auteur theory, were looking to literary classics for an audience that craved them. After the one-two genre punch of Goodfellasand Cape Fear, Martin Scorsese made one of his most ambitious and underrated films: a stone-cold 1993 masterpiece inspired by an Edith Wharton novel, The Age of Innocence. It’s a story that Scorsese argues is just as brutal, if not more so, than his gangster pictures. Indeed, The Age of Innocence remains the best cinematic representation of the Gilded Age in the U.S., capturing the lush pageantry of the most elite New Yorkers’ lifestyles in their robber baron heyday, as well as how class snobbery metastasized into a ruthless tribalism that doomed the romantic yearnings of one conformist attorneyand this would-be divorcée love of his life. It might not have been a hit in its time, but Ang Lee’s breakout in the U.S. a year later definitely was. The Taiwanese filmmaker was already the toast of international and independent cinema via movies like The Wedding Banquetand martial arts-adjacent Pushing Hands, but it is when he directed a flawless adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility in 1995 that he became a Hollywood favorite who would soon get movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragonand Hulkgreenlit. Sense and Sensibility benefits greatly, too, from a marvelous cast with Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet, and Alan Rickman among its ensemble. It also captured the sophisticated satirical and melancholic underpinnings of Austen’s pen that most previous Hollywood adaptations never scratched. It set a standard that most of the best Austen adaptations to this day are measured by, be it Joe Wright and Keira Knightley’s cinematic take on Pride and Prejudice a decade later, various attempts at Emma from the 1990s with Gwyneth Paltrow to this decade with Anya Taylor-Joy, or even Netflix’s recent Dakota Johnson-led Persuasion adaptation. Columbia / Sony A Dark Universe of Gods and Monsters Meanwhile, right before Columbia Pictures greenlit Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence and later Gillian Armstrong’s still delightfulinterpretation of Little Women in 1994, the same studio signed off on its first period piece with Winona Ryder attached to star. And it was Dracula. Considered a folly of hubris at the time by rivals who snickered to Variety it should be renamed “Bonfire of the Vampires”, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was Francis Ford Coppola’s lurid and magnificent reimagining of Stoker’s definitive Victorian novel. Published in 1897 with on-the-nose metaphors for London society’s anxieties over foreigners, sexual promiscuity and disease, and the so-called “New Woman” working in the professional classes, Coppola saw all of that potential in the well-worn and adapted vampire novel. He also correctly predicted there was a box office hit if he could bring all those elements out in an exciting and anachronistic fever dream for the MTV generation. Love or hate Coppola’s looseness with Stoker’s novel—which is pretty audacious since he put the author’s name in the title—Coppola crafted one of the most sumptuous and expensive depictions of Victorian society ever put onscreen, winning costume designer Eiko Ishioka an Oscar for the effort. He also made an unexpected holiday hit that played like bloody gangbusters alongside Home Alone 2 and Aladdin that winter. It set a standard for what can in retrospect be considered a pseudo “dark universe” of classic literary monsters getting ostensibly faithful and expensive adaptations by Hollywood. Coppola himself produced Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a film that is actually in many ways closer to the thematic letter of its author than Bram Stoker’s Dracula ever was. It was also a worse movie that flopped, but it looked spectacular as the only major Frankenstein movie to remember Shelley set the story during the Age of Enlightenment in the late 18th century. Yet while Frankenstein failed, Tom Cruise and Neil Jordan would have a lot of success in the same year adapting Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. The book admittedly was recent, having been published in 1976, but the story’s roots and setting in 18th and 19th century bayou occultism were not. It was also a grandiose costumed drama where the guy who played Top Gun’s Maverick would sink fangs into young Brad Pitt’s neck in a scene dripping in homoeroticism. This trend continued throughout the ‘90s with some successes, like Tim Burton’s wildly revisionistSleepy Hollow in 1999, and some misses. For instance, did you remember that Julia Roberts at the height of her stardom appeared in a revisionist take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where she played the not-so-good doctor’s maid? It’s called Mary Reilly, by the by. The Samuel Goldwyn Company The Resurgence of Shakespeare Of course when talking about classic literature and storytelling, one name rises above most others in the schools and curriculums of the English-speaking world. Yet curiously it was only in the 1990s that someone really lit on the idea of making a movie directly based on the Bard tailored almost exclusively for that demographic: Baz Luhrmann in 1996, who reconfigured the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet into the visual language of MTV. He even stylized the title as William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. That proved the tip of an anachronistic iceberg whose cast included Leonardo DiCaprio at the height of his heartthrob powers as Romeo and real-life teenager Claire Danes as his Capulet amore. Their Verona was a Neverland composite of Miami, Rio de Janeiro, and the nightly news, with hyper music video editing and frenetic neon-hued melodrama. Some older scholars viewed Luhrmann’s anachronisms as an abomination, but as a Millennial, I can attest we loved this thing back in the day. Many still do. But it was hardly the first box office breakout for Shakespeare in the ‘90s. When the decade began, the helmer of another cinematic Romeo and Juliet classic from a different era, Franco Zeffirelli, attempted to make Hamlet exciting for “kids these days” by casting Mel Gibson right in the midst of his Lethal Weapon popularity as the indecisive Dane. To the modern eye, it is hard to remember Gibson was a heartthrob of sorts in the ‘80s and early ‘90s—or generally viewed as a dashing star worthy of heroic leading men roles. Nonetheless, there is quite a bit to like about Hamletif you can look past Gibson’s off-screen behavior in the following decades, or the fact Zeffirelli cuts what is a four-hour play down to less than 2.5 hours. Gibson actually makes for a credible and genuinely mad Hamlet, and Zeffirelli mines the medieval melancholy of the story well with production design, costumes, and location shooting at real Norman castles. Plus, Helena Bonham Carter remains the best Ophelia ever put to screen. Hamletwould eventually be overshadowed, though, both by Gibson’s awful behavior and because of a much grander and bombastic adaptation from the man who became the King of Shakespeare Movies in the ‘90s: Kenneth Branagh. Aye, Branagh might deserve the most credit for the Shakespearean renaissance in this era, beginning with his adaptation of Henry V, which featured the makings of Branagh’s troupe of former RSC favorites turned film actors: Derek Jacobi, Brian Blessed, and of course his future wife, Emma Thompson. Together the pair would mount what is in this writer’s opinion the best film ever based on a Shakespeare play, the divine and breezy Much Ado About Nothing, a perfect encapsulation of perhaps the first romantic comedy ever written that features Branagh and Thompson as the sharp-tongued, dueling lovers Benedict and Beatrice. It also features Denzel Washington as a dashing Renaissance prince, Kate Beckinsale in her breakout role, and a gloriously over-the-top score by Patrick Doyle. It would define the style of Branagh’s following ‘90s efforts, whether they went off-the-rails like in the aforementioned Frankenstein, or right back on them in the 70mm-filmed, ultra wide and sunny adaptation of Hamlet he helmed in 1996. Avoiding the psychological and Freudian interpretations of the Danish prince chased by Olivier and Zeffirelli, Branagh turns Hamlet into a romantic hero spearheading an all-star ensemble cast. At the play’s full four-hour length, Hamletis indulgent. Yet somehow that befits the material. Branagh would also star as Iago in Oliver Parker’s Othelloopposite Laurence Fishburne and reconfigure the Bard as a musical in his own directorial effort, Love’s Labour’s Lost. It paved the way for more outside-the-box Shakespeare movies by the end of the decade like Julie Taymor’s deconstructionist Titusand the A Midsummer Night’s Dream from 1999 where Kevin Kline turns into an ass and makes out with Michelle Pfeiffer. CBS via Getty Images The Birth of the Teenage Shakespeare RemixAs popular as the Shakespeare movie became in the ‘90s, what’s curiously unique about this era is the simultaneous rise of movies that adapted either the Bard or other highly respected literary writers and turned them into a pure teenage dream. We’re talking moving past modernizing Romeo and Juliet like Luhrmann did, or repurposing it for high New York society like Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim aimed with West Side Story. These were straight, unapologetic youth films that also proved clever reworkings of classic storytelling structure. Among the best directly derived from Shakespeare is the movie that made Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger Gen-X icons, 10 Things I Hate About You, a happily campy update of The Taming of the Shrew set in a fairytale high school also populated by future Christopher Nolan favorites like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and David Krumholtz. Stiles would, in fact, do this kind of remix a number times in the more serious-faced modernization of Othello, O, which also starred Mekhi Phifer as a tragically distrusting high school sports star instead of warrior, and Michael Almereyda and Ethan Hawke’s own Hamlet, the third Hamlet movie in 10 years, albeit this one set in turn-of-the-century NYC. Ledger also returned to the concept by adapting another, even older literary giant, in this case the medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer, for A Knight’s Tale, an anachronistic blending of the medieval and modern where peasants grooved in the jousting tournament stands to Queen. There was also the strange attempt to turn Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ Dangerous Liaisons from 1782 into an erotic thriller for teensvia the lusty Cruel Intentions However, easily the best of these remains Amy Heckerling’s CluelessEmma from the Regency period to a fairytale version of 1990s Beverly Hills. Foregoing modern fads and simply inventing her own—with the assumption anything she wrote in 1994 would be dated by ’95—Heckerling create a faux yet now authentically iconic language and fashion style via Cher, a charmed SoCal princess who is so well-meaning in her matchmaking mischief that she defies any attempts to detest her entitlement or vanity. You kind of are even low-key chill that the happy ending is she hooks up with her step brother. It’s a classic! And the Rest There are many, many more examples we could examine from this era. These can include the sublime like the Gillian Armstrong-directed Little Women of 1994 starring Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, and Kirsten Dunst; and they can include the wretched like the Demi Moore and Gary Oldman-led The Scarlet Letter. There were more plays adapted, a la Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and then those that just had some fun with playwrights, as seen in the over-celebrated Shakespeare in LoveBraveheart. More than a few of these won Best Picture Oscars as well, including Braveheart, Shakespeare in Love, and James Cameron’s little 1997 movie you might have heard about elsewhere: Titanic. And yet, this type of film has by and large gone away. Once in a while one comes along that still works, such as Greta Gerwig’s own revisionist interpretation of Little Women. That beautiful film was a good-sized hit in 2019, but it did not exactly usher in a new era of literary adaptations. Now such projects, like everything else not considered four-quadrant intellectual property by studio bean counters, is mostly relegated to long-form stream series. Which in some cases is fine. Many would argue the best version of Pride & Prejudice was the BBC production… also from the ‘90s, mind. But whether it is original period piece films or adaptations, unless you’re Robert Eggers, period piece storytelling and “great adaptations” have been abandoned to the small screen and full-on wish fulfillment anachronisms like Bridgerton. This seems due to studios increasingly eschewing anything that isn’t reliably based on a brand that middle-aged adults loved. But in that case… it might be worth reminding them that ‘90s kids are getting older and having children of their own. There may again be a market beyond the occasional Gerwig swing, or Eggers take on Dracula, for classic stories; a new audience being raised to want modern riffs inspired by tales that have endured for years and centuries. These stories are mostly in the public domain too. And recent original hits like Sinners suggests you don’t even need a classic story to connect with audiences. So perhaps once again, a play’s the thing in which they can catch the conscience of the… consumer? Or something like that. #1990s #were #golden #age #period
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    The 1990s Were a Golden Age for Period Piece Movies and Literary Adaptations
    Recently a friend mentioned how much of a shame it was that, generally speaking, there are few of those backdoor “classic” reimaginings today like the ones we had growing up. And after thinking for a moment, I agreed. Children and teens of the ‘90s were treated to an embarrassment of riches when it came to the Bard and Bard-adjacent films. Nearly every week seemed to offer another modernization of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, or Geoffrey Chaucer, all retrofitted with a wink and a nudge to appeal to teenagers reading much the same texts in high school or university. But then when looking back at the sweep of 1990s cinema beyond just “teen movies,” it was more than only Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger vehicles that were getting the classical treatment. In fact the ‘90s, and to a large extent the ‘80s as well, was an era ripe with indie studios and Hollywood majors treating classic literature (if largely of the English variety) with the sanctity nowadays reserved for comic books and video games. It was a time when some of the most exciting or ambitious artists working in the industry sought to trade in the bullets and brutality of New Hollywood from a decade or two earlier in favor of the even more brutal constraints of corsets and top hats. Shakespeare was arguably bigger business in tinsel town than at any other point during this period, and we saw some of the most faithful and enduring adaptations of Austen or Louisa May Alcott make it to the screen. Why is that and can it happen again? Let’s look back at the golden age of period piece costumed dramas and splashy literary adaptations… Mozart and Merchant Ivory Since the beginning of the medium, moviemakers have looked back at well-worn and familiar stories for inspiration and audience familiarity. Not too many years after making his enduring trip to the moon, Georges Méliès adapted Hamlet into a roughly 10-minute silent short in 1907. And of course before Kenneth Branagh, Laurence Olivier had Hollywood falling in love with the Bard… at least as long it was Larry in the tights. Even so, literary adaptations were often constrained, particularly in Hollywood where filmmakers had to contend with the limitations of censorship via the Hays Code and preconceived notions about what an American audience would enjoy. The most popular costumed dramas tended to therefore be vanity projects or something of a more sensational hue—think biblical or swords and sandals epics. So it’s difficult to point to an exact moment where that changed in the 1980s, yet we’d hazard to suggest the close together Oscar seasons of 1984 and 1986 had a lot to do with it. After all, the first was the year that Miloš Forman’s AmadeusA Room with a View. Considered by Forster scholars one of the author’s slighter works, the film had critics like Roger Ebert swooning that it was a masterpiece. In the case of Amadeus, the director of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)—a zeitgeist-shaping portrait of modern oppression and control from about a decade earlier—was taking the story of Mozart and making it a punk rock tragicomedy. Based on a Peter Shaffer play of the same name, Forman and Shaffer radically reimagined the story, making it both funnier and darker as Forman strove to pose Mozart as a modern day rebel iconoclast with his wig resembling as much Sid Vicious as the Age of Enlightenment. Located atop Tom Hulce’s giggling head, it signaled a movie that had all the trappings of melodrama but felt accessible and exciting to a wide modern audience. It went on to do relatively big business and win Best Picture. While not the first period film to do so, it was the first in a long while set in what could be construed as the distant past (Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi won the year before but that was based on a subject matter in the living memory of most Academy voters). Otherwise, most of the recent winners were dramas or dramedies about the modern world: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), The Deer Hunter (1978), and Annie Hall (1977). They reflected an audience that wanted to get away from the artificiality of their parents’ cinema, which in the U.S. associated historical costumes with the (grand) phoniness of Ben-Hur (1959) or Oliver! (1968). Yet perhaps the movie that proved this was the beginning of a popular trend came a few years later via the British masterpiece A Room with a View. To be sure, the partnership of Merchant and Ivory had been going for more than 20 years by the time they got to adapting Forster, including with several other costumed dramas and period pieces. However, those films were mixed with modern comedies and dramas like rock ’n roll-infused The Guru (1969) and Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980). More importantly, all of these films tended to be art house pictures; small chamber pieces intended for a limited audience. Yet as the marketing campaign would later trumpet about A Room with a View—the ethereal romantic dramedy which introduced Daniel Day-Lewis and a fresh-faced Helena Bonham Carter to the U.S.—this movie had the “highest single theatre gross in the country!” (It’s fun to remember a time when a movie just selling out in New York every day could make it a hit.) The film’s combination of Forster’s wry satire and cynicism about English aristocracy in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era, coupled with the sweeping romance of Puccini arias and Tuscan countrysides, made it a massive success. It also defined what became the “Merchant Ivory” period piece forever after, including in future Oscar and box office darlings like the Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, and Carter-starring Howard’s End (1992), and Hopkins and Thompson’s reunion in The Remains of the Day (1993). These were all distinctly British and understated pictures, with Remains being an outright tragedy delivered in a hushed whisper, but their relative success with a certain type of moviegoer and Academy voter signaled to Hollywood that there was gold up in ‘em hills. And soon enough, more than just Forman on the American side was going up there to mine it. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! 20th Century Studios Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, and the Auteur’s Costumed Drama In 1990, Michael Mann was one of the hottest creatives working in Hollywood. As the executive producer and sometime-director on NBC’s edgy (by ‘80s standards) police drama, Miami Vice, he played a direct hand in proving American television could be “gritty” and artistic. Even the episodes he didn’t helm were defined by the standards he insisted upon—such as never putting cool guys Crockett and Tubbs in a red or brown car. It would clash with the neon-light-on-celluloid aesthetic that Mann developed for the series. As that series was winding down by 1990, Mann was more in demand than ever to make any film project he might have wanted—something perhaps in-keeping with Vice or gritty crime thrillers he’d made in the ’80s like serial killer thriller Manhunter (1986). Instead he sought to adapt a childhood favorite for the screen, James Fenimore Cooper’s 19th century American frontier novel, The Last of the Mohicans. Certainly a problematic text in its original form with its imperial-fantasy riff on the French and Indian War (or Seven Years War) where Indigenous tribes in what is today upstate New York were either reduced to the noble or cruel savage stereotypes, the text proved a jumping off point for Mann to craft a gripping, primal, and prestigious film. He also made a movie that far exceeded its source material with The Last of the Mohicans being an often wordless opera of big emotions played in silence by Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, and Wes Studi, all while Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman’s musical score looms like thunderclouds across the mountainous landscape. It is an elevated action movie, and a beautiful drama that did bigger business in the U.S. than Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and Tom Cruise vehicle A Few Good Men in the same year. It also would create a precedent we’d see followed time and again throughout the rest of the decade. Some of the biggest and most respected filmmakers of the moment, many of them praised under auteur theory, were looking to literary classics for an audience that craved them. After the one-two genre punch of Goodfellas (1990) and Cape Fear (1991), Martin Scorsese made one of his most ambitious and underrated films: a stone-cold 1993 masterpiece inspired by an Edith Wharton novel, The Age of Innocence. It’s a story that Scorsese argues is just as brutal, if not more so, than his gangster pictures. Indeed, The Age of Innocence remains the best cinematic representation of the Gilded Age in the U.S., capturing the lush pageantry of the most elite New Yorkers’ lifestyles in their robber baron heyday, as well as how class snobbery metastasized into a ruthless tribalism that doomed the romantic yearnings of one conformist attorney (again Daniel Day-Lewis) and this would-be divorcée love of his life (Michelle Pfeiffer). It might not have been a hit in its time, but Ang Lee’s breakout in the U.S. a year later definitely was. The Taiwanese filmmaker was already the toast of international and independent cinema via movies like The Wedding Banquet (1993) and martial arts-adjacent Pushing Hands (1991), but it is when he directed a flawless adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility in 1995 that he became a Hollywood favorite who would soon get movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Hulk (2003) greenlit. Sense and Sensibility benefits greatly, too, from a marvelous cast with Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet, and Alan Rickman among its ensemble. It also captured the sophisticated satirical and melancholic underpinnings of Austen’s pen that most previous Hollywood adaptations never scratched. It set a standard that most of the best Austen adaptations to this day are measured by, be it Joe Wright and Keira Knightley’s cinematic take on Pride and Prejudice a decade later, various attempts at Emma from the 1990s with Gwyneth Paltrow to this decade with Anya Taylor-Joy, or even Netflix’s recent Dakota Johnson-led Persuasion adaptation. Columbia / Sony A Dark Universe of Gods and Monsters Meanwhile, right before Columbia Pictures greenlit Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence and later Gillian Armstrong’s still delightful (and arguably definitive) interpretation of Little Women in 1994, the same studio signed off on its first period piece with Winona Ryder attached to star. And it was Dracula. Considered a folly of hubris at the time by rivals who snickered to Variety it should be renamed “Bonfire of the Vampires” (in reference to a notorious Brian De Palma bomb from 1990), Bram Stoker’s Dracula was Francis Ford Coppola’s lurid and magnificent reimagining of Stoker’s definitive Victorian novel. Published in 1897 with on-the-nose metaphors for London society’s anxieties over foreigners, sexual promiscuity and disease, and the so-called “New Woman” working in the professional classes, Coppola saw all of that potential in the well-worn and adapted vampire novel. He also correctly predicted there was a box office hit if he could bring all those elements out in an exciting and anachronistic fever dream for the MTV generation. Love or hate Coppola’s looseness with Stoker’s novel—which is pretty audacious since he put the author’s name in the title—Coppola crafted one of the most sumptuous and expensive depictions of Victorian society ever put onscreen, winning costume designer Eiko Ishioka an Oscar for the effort. He also made an unexpected holiday hit that played like bloody gangbusters alongside Home Alone 2 and Aladdin that winter. It set a standard for what can in retrospect be considered a pseudo “dark universe” of classic literary monsters getting ostensibly faithful and expensive adaptations by Hollywood. Coppola himself produced Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), a film that is actually in many ways closer to the thematic letter of its author than Bram Stoker’s Dracula ever was. It was also a worse movie that flopped, but it looked spectacular as the only major Frankenstein movie to remember Shelley set the story during the Age of Enlightenment in the late 18th century. Yet while Frankenstein failed, Tom Cruise and Neil Jordan would have a lot of success in the same year adapting Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. The book admittedly was recent, having been published in 1976, but the story’s roots and setting in 18th and 19th century bayou occultism were not. It was also a grandiose costumed drama where the guy who played Top Gun’s Maverick would sink fangs into young Brad Pitt’s neck in a scene dripping in homoeroticism. This trend continued throughout the ‘90s with some successes, like Tim Burton’s wildly revisionist (and Coppola-produced) Sleepy Hollow in 1999, and some misses. For instance, did you remember that Julia Roberts at the height of her stardom appeared in a revisionist take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where she played the not-so-good doctor’s maid? It’s called Mary Reilly (1996), by the by. The Samuel Goldwyn Company The Resurgence of Shakespeare Of course when talking about classic literature and storytelling, one name rises above most others in the schools and curriculums of the English-speaking world. Yet curiously it was only in the 1990s that someone really lit on the idea of making a movie directly based on the Bard tailored almost exclusively for that demographic: Baz Luhrmann in 1996, who reconfigured the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet into the visual language of MTV. He even stylized the title as William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. That proved the tip of an anachronistic iceberg whose cast included Leonardo DiCaprio at the height of his heartthrob powers as Romeo and real-life teenager Claire Danes as his Capulet amore. Their Verona was a Neverland composite of Miami, Rio de Janeiro, and the nightly news, with hyper music video editing and frenetic neon-hued melodrama. Some older scholars viewed Luhrmann’s anachronisms as an abomination, but as a Millennial, I can attest we loved this thing back in the day. Many still do. But it was hardly the first box office breakout for Shakespeare in the ‘90s. When the decade began, the helmer of another cinematic Romeo and Juliet classic from a different era, Franco Zeffirelli, attempted to make Hamlet exciting for “kids these days” by casting Mel Gibson right in the midst of his Lethal Weapon popularity as the indecisive Dane. To the modern eye, it is hard to remember Gibson was a heartthrob of sorts in the ‘80s and early ‘90s—or generally viewed as a dashing star worthy of heroic leading men roles. Nonetheless, there is quite a bit to like about Hamlet (1990) if you can look past Gibson’s off-screen behavior in the following decades, or the fact Zeffirelli cuts what is a four-hour play down to less than 2.5 hours. Gibson actually makes for a credible and genuinely mad Hamlet (perhaps not a surprise now), and Zeffirelli mines the medieval melancholy of the story well with production design, costumes, and location shooting at real Norman castles. Plus, Helena Bonham Carter remains the best Ophelia ever put to screen. Hamlet (1990) would eventually be overshadowed, though, both by Gibson’s awful behavior and because of a much grander and bombastic adaptation from the man who became the King of Shakespeare Movies in the ‘90s: Kenneth Branagh. Aye, Branagh might deserve the most credit for the Shakespearean renaissance in this era, beginning with his adaptation of Henry V (1989), which featured the makings of Branagh’s troupe of former RSC favorites turned film actors: Derek Jacobi, Brian Blessed, and of course his future wife (and ex), Emma Thompson. Together the pair would mount what is in this writer’s opinion the best film ever based on a Shakespeare play, the divine and breezy Much Ado About Nothing (1993), a perfect encapsulation of perhaps the first romantic comedy ever written that features Branagh and Thompson as the sharp-tongued, dueling lovers Benedict and Beatrice. It also features Denzel Washington as a dashing Renaissance prince, Kate Beckinsale in her breakout role, and a gloriously over-the-top score by Patrick Doyle. It would define the style of Branagh’s following ‘90s efforts, whether they went off-the-rails like in the aforementioned Frankenstein, or right back on them in the 70mm-filmed, ultra wide and sunny adaptation of Hamlet he helmed in 1996. Avoiding the psychological and Freudian interpretations of the Danish prince chased by Olivier and Zeffirelli, Branagh turns Hamlet into a romantic hero spearheading an all-star ensemble cast. At the play’s full four-hour length, Hamlet (1996) is indulgent. Yet somehow that befits the material. Branagh would also star as Iago in Oliver Parker’s Othello (1995) opposite Laurence Fishburne and reconfigure the Bard as a musical in his own directorial effort, Love’s Labour’s Lost (2000). It paved the way for more outside-the-box Shakespeare movies by the end of the decade like Julie Taymor’s deconstructionist Titus (1999) and the A Midsummer Night’s Dream from 1999 where Kevin Kline turns into an ass and makes out with Michelle Pfeiffer. CBS via Getty Images The Birth of the Teenage Shakespeare Remix (and Austen, and Chaucer, and…) As popular as the Shakespeare movie became in the ‘90s, what’s curiously unique about this era is the simultaneous rise of movies that adapted either the Bard or other highly respected literary writers and turned them into a pure teenage dream. We’re talking moving past modernizing Romeo and Juliet like Luhrmann did, or repurposing it for high New York society like Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim aimed with West Side Story. These were straight, unapologetic youth films that also proved clever reworkings of classic storytelling structure. Among the best directly derived from Shakespeare is the movie that made Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger Gen-X icons, 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), a happily campy update of The Taming of the Shrew set in a fairytale high school also populated by future Christopher Nolan favorites like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and David Krumholtz. Stiles would, in fact, do this kind of remix a number times in the more serious-faced modernization of Othello, O (2000), which also starred Mekhi Phifer as a tragically distrusting high school sports star instead of warrior, and Michael Almereyda and Ethan Hawke’s own Hamlet (2000), the third Hamlet movie in 10 years, albeit this one set in turn-of-the-century NYC. Ledger also returned to the concept by adapting another, even older literary giant, in this case the medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer, for A Knight’s Tale (2001), an anachronistic blending of the medieval and modern where peasants grooved in the jousting tournament stands to Queen. There was also the strange attempt to turn Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ Dangerous Liaisons from 1782 into an erotic thriller for teens (the ‘90s were weird, huh?) via the lusty Cruel Intentions However, easily the best of these remains Amy Heckerling’s CluelessEmma from the Regency period to a fairytale version of 1990s Beverly Hills. Foregoing modern fads and simply inventing her own—with the assumption anything she wrote in 1994 would be dated by ’95—Heckerling create a faux yet now authentically iconic language and fashion style via Cher (Alicia Silverstone), a charmed SoCal princess who is so well-meaning in her matchmaking mischief that she defies any attempts to detest her entitlement or vanity. You kind of are even low-key chill that the happy ending is she hooks up with her step brother (Paul Rudd). It’s a classic! And the Rest There are many, many more examples we could examine from this era. These can include the sublime like the Gillian Armstrong-directed Little Women of 1994 starring Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, and Kirsten Dunst; and they can include the wretched like the Demi Moore and Gary Oldman-led The Scarlet Letter (1995). There were more plays adapted, a la Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (again with Ryder and Day-Lewis!), and then those that just had some fun with playwrights, as seen in the over-celebrated Shakespeare in LoveBraveheart (1995). More than a few of these won Best Picture Oscars as well, including Braveheart, Shakespeare in Love, and James Cameron’s little 1997 movie you might have heard about elsewhere: Titanic. And yet, this type of film has by and large gone away. Once in a while one comes along that still works, such as Greta Gerwig’s own revisionist interpretation of Little Women. That beautiful film was a good-sized hit in 2019, but it did not exactly usher in a new era of literary adaptations. Now such projects, like everything else not considered four-quadrant intellectual property by studio bean counters, is mostly relegated to long-form stream series. Which in some cases is fine. Many would argue the best version of Pride & Prejudice was the BBC production… also from the ‘90s, mind. But whether it is original period piece films or adaptations, unless you’re Robert Eggers (who arguably isn’t making films for the same mainstream sensibility the likes of Gerwig or, for that matter, Coppola were), period piece storytelling and “great adaptations” have been abandoned to the small screen and full-on wish fulfillment anachronisms like Bridgerton. This seems due to studios increasingly eschewing anything that isn’t reliably based on a brand that middle-aged adults loved. But in that case… it might be worth reminding them that ‘90s kids are getting older and having children of their own. There may again be a market beyond the occasional Gerwig swing, or Eggers take on Dracula, for classic stories; a new audience being raised to want modern riffs inspired by tales that have endured for years and centuries. These stories are mostly in the public domain too. And recent original hits like Sinners suggests you don’t even need a classic story to connect with audiences. So perhaps once again, a play’s the thing in which they can catch the conscience of the… consumer? Or something like that.
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