Steven Helmer Publications

Synopsis: In the early 1990s, Nintendo controlled 95 percent of the home videogame market in the United States until an aggressive marketing campaign from Sega successfully challenged that dominance. However, Sega soon learned getting to the top was easier than staying at the top. This documentary tells the story through first-hand accounts from executives of both companies. Review: My wife and youngest daughter are at a middle school production of The Spongebob Musical . Since I had the TV to myself for a bit, I decided to watch a documentary and settled on Console Wars , which has been in my library for a few weeks. It turned out to be an interesting watch. I was a teenager when Sega Genesis came out and even owned one at some point (after it ended up on a clearance rack). I did not realize, however, just how much that game system and the feud it triggered with the then-monopolistic Nintendo, changed the entire video game industry. The marketing campaign that went into Sega's l...

Synopsis: This documentary follows a team of researchers as they take a submarine thousands of feet under the ocean floor to search for a "living fossil" believed to live in or near underwater volcanoes. The movie also discusses the other sea creatures that thrive in an area that wouldn't normally be expected to sustain life. Who's in it? The film is narrated by Ed Harris . Review: My wife and I discovered Volcanoes of the Deep Sea while I was scrolling through movies available on ScreenPix (which I recently added). She's had an interest in documentaries recently and we needed something to watch while having dinner, so I gave it a try. While not quite what we were expecting, it ended up being an informative film.  I think I can safely say I know about as much about volcanoes as the average person and when we started watching this, I figured it would feature a whole lot of explosions and lava (despite the fact I should have known better considering the film take...