Elsewhere: Piper on Twitter, Coffee, Google+, Mortal Kombat, etc.

Drew
M. Leary of Filmwell critiques a review of Terrance Malick’s Tree of Life from the Gospel Coalition.

John Piper says Twitter is“a demanding form, not a lazy one.”

Ever wonder how drugs get across our borders? The L.A. Times takes a fascinating look at this issue.

Slate asks a pivotal question, “is coffee good or bad for us?”

“The Use of Voice in Portal 2” – this might be the clearest articulation I have read on why the Portal games excel in balancing gameplay and narrative.

A couple of articles I read recently that made me want to revisit L.A. Noire. The first is a recent article by Mike Schiller titled, “Unplugging the Player from the Protagonist” and a less recent review of the game by Tom Bissel. Additionally, the Brainy Gamer Podcast recently hosted a fascinating discussion of the game with Bissel and Brian Taylor as guests.

Greg Sandoval says the Web TV takeover is still a long way off.

Jason
The A.V. Club interviews noted music critic Simon Reynolds about his new book Retromania, in which Reynolds explores the idea that “in an era when aging bands endlessly reissue old albums and younger artists regurgitate their parents’ record collections, nobody seems to be coming up with anything new.”

Does Google Plus represent the end of personal blogging?

The 2011 Toronto International Film Festival — one of the largest film festivals in the world — is right around the corner, and its first batch of films have been announced. Titles include the latest films from David Cronenberg, Alexander Payne, Nicolas Winding Refn, Marc Forster, and Francis Ford Coppola.

How the internet created an age of rage: “The worldwide web has made critics of us all. But with commenters able to hide behind a cloak of anonymity, the blog and chatroom have become forums for hatred and bile.”

Richard
I related to much of this description of how Mortal Kombat influenced Scott Juster as a kid.

According to Dr. Moore, immigrants are people too.

“My loyalty to a faceless employer did not go over well with the missus; she’s now married to someone else, and I’m a lawyer. I drive away in a red sports car, alone but surrounded by the fruits of my labor. That’s the thing about fruit. Eventually, it always rots.” Believe it or not, that’s a quote from a fantastic review of a game called Convergence, that you can play right now in your browser!