Just google "ESRB Oblivion" and you'll see what I'm about to rant about. To recap: Someone made a skin for "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion", which allows you to play as a topless woman. As a result, the ESRB (Game Ratings Board) re-rated the game, changing it from "Teen" to "Mature". The ESRB has since claimed that the re-rate was not only for the nudity, but also because the ESRB "just now noticed" some gore they hadn't seen before. Whatever the explanation, the little ratings square on the Oblivion box now says "nudity" in the description.
We could spend days arguing whether or not seeing breasts could damage a child's mind. I'm generally pro-nudity, as long as it's not sexual nudity. Heck, as I write this, I've got Halsman/Dali's "In Voluptate Mors" as my desktop. Besides, Oblivion was already rated "Teen", and I seriously doubt there are many teens who've never seen a breast.
But that's not the point. The Ratings Boards have started basing their ratings not just on the content included with the game, but also on fan-created content that can be downloaded. This is flat-out ridiculous. First off, for any game that uses skins, players can make nude patches. I doubt there's a single first-person-shooter out there that doesn't have nude skins available for it. But it doesn't stop there. There are many games where skins/mods weren't even intended, but players found ways to replace character models with nudity.
Right now I'm glancing at my own shelves, and in just a few seconds I've already counted 5 "Teen" rated games that have nude patches available online. If the ESRB is going to rate games based on user-made content, then they'll have to start giving EVERY game an "M" rating. And if every game has the same rating, then of course the ratings system is useless.
The ESRB will notice this eventually. If they use Oblivion as an example, then they'll start looking at the downloads available for all the games they rate. Sooner or later they'll notice that every game is getting a "Mature" rating. (And if not, then they're just not Googling hard enough.) My fear is that they'll try to solve the wrong problem... instead of revising the ratings system, they'll try to outlaw the mods.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
Lady in the Water
To sum up, it's pretty good. Not Shymalan's best, but not his worst either. I liked it better than "The Village" and "Signs", but not as much as "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable".
The reason I put the summary first, is because it's hard to explain this movie without spoilers. Okay, that goes for a lot of Shyamalan's stuff. But while most of his movies have a twist in the last five minutes, this one has its twists throughout. Or rather, it doesn't have any big twists a la "Sixth Sense", but the overall plot is the movie's secret. This is why most of the trailers only show footage from the first five minutes. So anyway, if you haven't seen it, and still intend to, you can stop reading now.
There is a fine line between silly and artsy. For instance, my favorite horror movie is "The Grudge". Normally I'm not afraid of naked Japanese boys who meow; but The Grudge had the right direction, mood, lighting, pace, etc, and it made it work. However, not everyone was able to get "into" the movie to the same degree, and the result is that it either comes off silly or scary, no in-between. If you don't watch The Grudge in the right mindset - you gotta turn off the lights, give it your full attention, etc - then you're going to giggle a lot more than you jump. One of my friends said The Grudge was one of the stupidest movies she'd ever seen; later I found out she watched it with her talkative grandmother and fast-forwarded through the "boring" parts.
Lady In The Water is the same way. If I were to tell you the story straight out, you'd think I was describing an animated Disney film. It is a movie about a fairy tale, a bedtime story that turns out to be based in reality. The characters even identify themselves with characters in the fairy tale, to the point that the movie even makes some in-jokes about how stories are written. Think "Wes Craven's New Nightmare". And these were my favorite parts of the movie. The writer in me loves jokes about dialogue and exposition.
The main character, Cleveland (played by Paul Giamatti), plays his part like a young Richard Dreyfus in "Jaws". He was very entertaining to watch, except for the fact that Cleveland has a stuttering problem. But that's just one of my little pet peeves; I never could stand watching Porky Pig cartoons either. Shyamalan himself has a fairly large role in this one, and he does a good job.
The movie starts out quickly. I was expecting Cleveland to ponder the mysterious swimmer for half the movie before he ever saw her, but 10 minutes into the movie they're already on speaking terms. It was a bit unbelievable how quickly Cleveland accepted he was in a supernatural situation, and it was even stranger how everyone he told immediately believed him as well. But that's nitpicky, and we're all tired of seeing the same old "nobody believes the hero" crap movies have been re-hashing since 1958's "The Blob".
It's a very clean movie. Not much cursing (actually I don't remember any at all, but better safe than sorry), no nudity, very little blood. There are a couple of scenes that will scare the young'uns, but it's definitely not a horror movie. I'm actually a bit peeved at the cleanliness... I consider myself neither pervert nor prude, but I hate it when movies are cut for ratings purposes, rather than for art's sake. The "Lady" has several nude scenes that are shot from some very clever camera angles, but I'll never know if that was for art's sake, or to keep the PG-13 rating. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and go with art, but only because of an inside joke they make about it later.
Lady in the Water is not very deep, no pun intended. It's interesting, but not that memorable. I'm glad I saw it, but I'm also glad I saw it as a matinee.
The reason I put the summary first, is because it's hard to explain this movie without spoilers. Okay, that goes for a lot of Shyamalan's stuff. But while most of his movies have a twist in the last five minutes, this one has its twists throughout. Or rather, it doesn't have any big twists a la "Sixth Sense", but the overall plot is the movie's secret. This is why most of the trailers only show footage from the first five minutes. So anyway, if you haven't seen it, and still intend to, you can stop reading now.
There is a fine line between silly and artsy. For instance, my favorite horror movie is "The Grudge". Normally I'm not afraid of naked Japanese boys who meow; but The Grudge had the right direction, mood, lighting, pace, etc, and it made it work. However, not everyone was able to get "into" the movie to the same degree, and the result is that it either comes off silly or scary, no in-between. If you don't watch The Grudge in the right mindset - you gotta turn off the lights, give it your full attention, etc - then you're going to giggle a lot more than you jump. One of my friends said The Grudge was one of the stupidest movies she'd ever seen; later I found out she watched it with her talkative grandmother and fast-forwarded through the "boring" parts.
Lady In The Water is the same way. If I were to tell you the story straight out, you'd think I was describing an animated Disney film. It is a movie about a fairy tale, a bedtime story that turns out to be based in reality. The characters even identify themselves with characters in the fairy tale, to the point that the movie even makes some in-jokes about how stories are written. Think "Wes Craven's New Nightmare". And these were my favorite parts of the movie. The writer in me loves jokes about dialogue and exposition.
The main character, Cleveland (played by Paul Giamatti), plays his part like a young Richard Dreyfus in "Jaws". He was very entertaining to watch, except for the fact that Cleveland has a stuttering problem. But that's just one of my little pet peeves; I never could stand watching Porky Pig cartoons either. Shyamalan himself has a fairly large role in this one, and he does a good job.
The movie starts out quickly. I was expecting Cleveland to ponder the mysterious swimmer for half the movie before he ever saw her, but 10 minutes into the movie they're already on speaking terms. It was a bit unbelievable how quickly Cleveland accepted he was in a supernatural situation, and it was even stranger how everyone he told immediately believed him as well. But that's nitpicky, and we're all tired of seeing the same old "nobody believes the hero" crap movies have been re-hashing since 1958's "The Blob".
It's a very clean movie. Not much cursing (actually I don't remember any at all, but better safe than sorry), no nudity, very little blood. There are a couple of scenes that will scare the young'uns, but it's definitely not a horror movie. I'm actually a bit peeved at the cleanliness... I consider myself neither pervert nor prude, but I hate it when movies are cut for ratings purposes, rather than for art's sake. The "Lady" has several nude scenes that are shot from some very clever camera angles, but I'll never know if that was for art's sake, or to keep the PG-13 rating. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and go with art, but only because of an inside joke they make about it later.
Lady in the Water is not very deep, no pun intended. It's interesting, but not that memorable. I'm glad I saw it, but I'm also glad I saw it as a matinee.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Had a Letter Printed in KODT
Nothing big here...
I have a subscription to Knights of the Dinner Table, but I don't actually read it every month. Since I like it mostly for the strips, I don't bother until I have several issues to read in a row, so it lasts longer. The strip is generally an ongoing story, and reading a single issue by itself just doesn't go anywhere.
So typically, I'll let the issues stack up somewhere for a few months, then take them with me on a long car trip or something. Which is what we did yesterday - we took an overnight trip to Evansville, Indiana. KJ got to go gambling, and this morning we went to a really nice zoo. The Mesker Park Zoo, to be exact. It's a great place; I highly recommend it. It's part park, part zoo, and it lets you get a lot closer to the animals than most zoos I've been to.
Anyway, back to KODT... So here it is, mid-July, and I just now notice that they printed a letter of mine in the march issue. I made a KODT reference in my Itropa mod, and I couldn't resist sending them a pic. From Knights of the Dinner Table, Issue 113 (March '06), page 8:
Here's a better view of the picture I sent them:
I have a subscription to Knights of the Dinner Table, but I don't actually read it every month. Since I like it mostly for the strips, I don't bother until I have several issues to read in a row, so it lasts longer. The strip is generally an ongoing story, and reading a single issue by itself just doesn't go anywhere.
So typically, I'll let the issues stack up somewhere for a few months, then take them with me on a long car trip or something. Which is what we did yesterday - we took an overnight trip to Evansville, Indiana. KJ got to go gambling, and this morning we went to a really nice zoo. The Mesker Park Zoo, to be exact. It's a great place; I highly recommend it. It's part park, part zoo, and it lets you get a lot closer to the animals than most zoos I've been to.
Anyway, back to KODT... So here it is, mid-July, and I just now notice that they printed a letter of mine in the march issue. I made a KODT reference in my Itropa mod, and I couldn't resist sending them a pic. From Knights of the Dinner Table, Issue 113 (March '06), page 8:
Here's a better view of the picture I sent them:
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Evil Dead 2 at the Belcourt Theater
Okay, so I've seen Evil Dead 2 more than enough times, and it's probably my favorite campy horror film. But last night I got to see it the way it should be seen: On a theater screen full of geeks, all laughing and making fun of it. At the Belcourt Theater in downtown Nashville, they have late showings of cult classics. This was my first visit, but I plan to go back many, many times in the future. People dressed up, people talked back to the screen... It's almost like Rocky Horror, only with a different movie each week.
If you haven't seen Evil Dead 2, I'm not going to waste my time explaining the "plot", only to say that it's one of the funniest, silliest, over-the-top low-budget horror movies ever made. It's one of those movies you are expected to have seen if you want to be considered hip on cult film. And therefore, if you haven't seen it before, you aren't likely to now either, you heathen. Just go back to your non-creative, uninspired life, and watch whichever insipid drama you find the least exciting; after all, excessive smiling causes wrinkles.
Besides, the purpose of this blog entry is not to praise the movie - it doesn't need my help. The theater is the real star. Those of you who live around here: if you're one of "my" crowd - the sci-fi/horror buffs who can quote hundreds of movie lines, the outcasts who didn't date much in high school yet had twice as much fun as popular kids, the collectors who display Star Wars toys the way some people display fine china, then this theater was made for you.
If you haven't seen Evil Dead 2, I'm not going to waste my time explaining the "plot", only to say that it's one of the funniest, silliest, over-the-top low-budget horror movies ever made. It's one of those movies you are expected to have seen if you want to be considered hip on cult film. And therefore, if you haven't seen it before, you aren't likely to now either, you heathen. Just go back to your non-creative, uninspired life, and watch whichever insipid drama you find the least exciting; after all, excessive smiling causes wrinkles.
Besides, the purpose of this blog entry is not to praise the movie - it doesn't need my help. The theater is the real star. Those of you who live around here: if you're one of "my" crowd - the sci-fi/horror buffs who can quote hundreds of movie lines, the outcasts who didn't date much in high school yet had twice as much fun as popular kids, the collectors who display Star Wars toys the way some people display fine china, then this theater was made for you.
A Scanner Darkly
It's hard to explain this movie, especially without spoilers. There's just no way I can do it justice. It's artsy and experimental; on one hand it's eye-candy, on another it's social commentary. I keep wanting to compare it to Sin City, even though they're absolutely nothing alike.
So let's start with the reviews. When I first read about A Scanner Darkly, I was afraid that I wouldn't like the plot. Having seen similar reviews of Sin City, I prepared myself for a very pretty movie with plenty to see, but nothing I wanted to remember. Actually, the reviews kind of made it sound like an animated Dazed and Confused, one of my least favorite movies of all time.
Scanner is sci-fi, in that it takes place in the near future, and has some advanced technology. I'm really not sure why this is neccessary. The "Scanners" - Big Brother types who keep tabs on drug addicts - wear these bizzare high-tech constantly-morphing outfits to hide their true identities. Neat concept, but in the end they could have accomplished the same thing just by wearing any all-over concealing costume. I don't want my tax dollars going toward these 100-million-dollar suits when they could accomplish the same thing with a parka and a Darth Vader mask. It's not like they were disguising themselves as specific other people; they were disguising themselves as "every man".
The plot revolves around a futuristic drug, (again, it's nothing so fantastic that it had to be sci-fi), the people who are doing this drug, and the people who are trying to arrest the users. The movie's highlights are actually the drug-induced ramblings of the main characters... I guess in that respect, it is like Dazed and Conused, only this time the conversations are actually funny. It's the perfect amount of humor, too. Just enough to keep you entertained, but not enough to make drug use actually look inviting. It's a great balance - the users are the heroes of the movie, but it still manages to deliver a strong anti-drug message. At least to those of us who were paying attention.
Update: Btw, you can watch the first 24 minutes of the movie here:
http://media.filmforce.ign.com/media/670/670907/vids_1.html
So let's start with the reviews. When I first read about A Scanner Darkly, I was afraid that I wouldn't like the plot. Having seen similar reviews of Sin City, I prepared myself for a very pretty movie with plenty to see, but nothing I wanted to remember. Actually, the reviews kind of made it sound like an animated Dazed and Confused, one of my least favorite movies of all time.
Scanner is sci-fi, in that it takes place in the near future, and has some advanced technology. I'm really not sure why this is neccessary. The "Scanners" - Big Brother types who keep tabs on drug addicts - wear these bizzare high-tech constantly-morphing outfits to hide their true identities. Neat concept, but in the end they could have accomplished the same thing just by wearing any all-over concealing costume. I don't want my tax dollars going toward these 100-million-dollar suits when they could accomplish the same thing with a parka and a Darth Vader mask. It's not like they were disguising themselves as specific other people; they were disguising themselves as "every man".
The plot revolves around a futuristic drug, (again, it's nothing so fantastic that it had to be sci-fi), the people who are doing this drug, and the people who are trying to arrest the users. The movie's highlights are actually the drug-induced ramblings of the main characters... I guess in that respect, it is like Dazed and Conused, only this time the conversations are actually funny. It's the perfect amount of humor, too. Just enough to keep you entertained, but not enough to make drug use actually look inviting. It's a great balance - the users are the heroes of the movie, but it still manages to deliver a strong anti-drug message. At least to those of us who were paying attention.
Update: Btw, you can watch the first 24 minutes of the movie here:
http://media.filmforce.ign.com/media/670/670907/vids_1.html
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
In a word: Wheeeeeeee!
Honestly, I never expected them to make a Pirates sequel. I just felt that it was the perfect self-contained movie, and I while I LOVED the first one, I really didn't feel I needed to know what happened to the characters next. For a while I had heard they were making a prequel, which sounded sort of boring to me - I kept thinking of the Mummy/Scorpion King movies. Besides, the original Pirates is such comic gold, such a magic movie. Even if you have the best writers, directors, and actors in Hollywood, luck is still a major factor in whether your movie is a hit. I don't mean to dismiss anyone's hard work, I'm just saying that even the best-planned projects can sink under their own weight without a little luck. And so my worries about Pirates 2 were quite justified.
So how did it go? Well, for the first half of the movie, I was still a bit worried. The original Pirates had something fun every minute. But for the first 45 minutes, Dead Man's Chest only had something fun every 5 minutes or so. I was still enjoying the movie, happy to see these characters again, but I was worried that it was never really going to take off. I thought the way they kept bringing the characters back together was a bit contrived, and it seemed like a lot of useless setup unless there was going to be a huge payoff.
After an hour into the movie, I was hooked. The magic was back: humor, creative action scenes, over-the-top swordplay and lots of eye candy. I was completely entertained right up until the end. By the way, like Pirates 1, make sure you stay through the end of the credits, there's another cute little tag.
In Short, if you liked the first one, you'll like this one. I don't have to tell you to go see it; fans of the first will have seen it by now anyway. But if you're riding the fence, go ahead and buy a ticket, I don't think you'll regret it.
Now... about the ending. (Possible spoiler alert)
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
P
A
C
E
I didn't know it was going to be a two-parter. I'm not quite sure how I missed that - usually I pay attention to this stuff. I had heard that a third movie was already being planned, but I didn't know it was part 2 of this movie. The sudden cliffhanger ending annoyed me. Generally speaking, even when it's part 2 of a trilogy, a movie still has a definite beginning, middle, and end. In "Empire Strikes Back", the climax was the fight between Luke & Darth. In "Back To The Future 2", even though 2 & 3 were being filmed at the same time, they solved the movie's main plot point (the almanac screwing up the timeline) before introducing the cliffhanger (Doc Brown getting trapped in the past). Okay, there's exceptions... Kill Bill, for instance... but in Kill Bill, "Volume 1" was in the damn title!
But to me, Pirates 2 felt like it stopped in the middle. Yes, there is a climax when Jack encounters the (spoiler), and there is a little surprise right before the credits. But it still felt like they could have said "To Be Continued" at any point, and it would have been the same. I guess that's the mark of a successful movie, that it left me wanting more, and it's even better that we know more is coming. But I'd rather they have trimmed the first 45 minutes a little more (like have Elizabeth leave WITH Will, rather than spend so much time getting her back into his arms) , and made it one big long movie. I mean, if audiences can survive 3 hours of LOTR or Titanic, surely we can handle an extra hour of Pirates.
The other thing that annoys me: The first movie showed off the special effects of the dead people. The sequel showed off the special effects of the fish people. With this one cut in half, it looks like the third one will also be about the fish people... Come on, for a third movie, I want to see all-new bad guys! Keep in mind this is being said without really knowing anything about the third movie. I'm hoping I'm surprised.
Honestly, I never expected them to make a Pirates sequel. I just felt that it was the perfect self-contained movie, and I while I LOVED the first one, I really didn't feel I needed to know what happened to the characters next. For a while I had heard they were making a prequel, which sounded sort of boring to me - I kept thinking of the Mummy/Scorpion King movies. Besides, the original Pirates is such comic gold, such a magic movie. Even if you have the best writers, directors, and actors in Hollywood, luck is still a major factor in whether your movie is a hit. I don't mean to dismiss anyone's hard work, I'm just saying that even the best-planned projects can sink under their own weight without a little luck. And so my worries about Pirates 2 were quite justified.
So how did it go? Well, for the first half of the movie, I was still a bit worried. The original Pirates had something fun every minute. But for the first 45 minutes, Dead Man's Chest only had something fun every 5 minutes or so. I was still enjoying the movie, happy to see these characters again, but I was worried that it was never really going to take off. I thought the way they kept bringing the characters back together was a bit contrived, and it seemed like a lot of useless setup unless there was going to be a huge payoff.
After an hour into the movie, I was hooked. The magic was back: humor, creative action scenes, over-the-top swordplay and lots of eye candy. I was completely entertained right up until the end. By the way, like Pirates 1, make sure you stay through the end of the credits, there's another cute little tag.
In Short, if you liked the first one, you'll like this one. I don't have to tell you to go see it; fans of the first will have seen it by now anyway. But if you're riding the fence, go ahead and buy a ticket, I don't think you'll regret it.
Now... about the ending. (Possible spoiler alert)
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
P
A
C
E
I didn't know it was going to be a two-parter. I'm not quite sure how I missed that - usually I pay attention to this stuff. I had heard that a third movie was already being planned, but I didn't know it was part 2 of this movie. The sudden cliffhanger ending annoyed me. Generally speaking, even when it's part 2 of a trilogy, a movie still has a definite beginning, middle, and end. In "Empire Strikes Back", the climax was the fight between Luke & Darth. In "Back To The Future 2", even though 2 & 3 were being filmed at the same time, they solved the movie's main plot point (the almanac screwing up the timeline) before introducing the cliffhanger (Doc Brown getting trapped in the past). Okay, there's exceptions... Kill Bill, for instance... but in Kill Bill, "Volume 1" was in the damn title!
But to me, Pirates 2 felt like it stopped in the middle. Yes, there is a climax when Jack encounters the (spoiler), and there is a little surprise right before the credits. But it still felt like they could have said "To Be Continued" at any point, and it would have been the same. I guess that's the mark of a successful movie, that it left me wanting more, and it's even better that we know more is coming. But I'd rather they have trimmed the first 45 minutes a little more (like have Elizabeth leave WITH Will, rather than spend so much time getting her back into his arms) , and made it one big long movie. I mean, if audiences can survive 3 hours of LOTR or Titanic, surely we can handle an extra hour of Pirates.
The other thing that annoys me: The first movie showed off the special effects of the dead people. The sequel showed off the special effects of the fish people. With this one cut in half, it looks like the third one will also be about the fish people... Come on, for a third movie, I want to see all-new bad guys! Keep in mind this is being said without really knowing anything about the third movie. I'm hoping I'm surprised.
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