My mom went to see this, cause she's a huge fan of the books. Going in she thought it would be kinda bad, tho I dunno why exactly. I think the main character is a bit older than she was in the books or something? Anyway, she was more or less pleased with the flick.

I don't plan on seeing it as it doesn't look like something I'd care for. If I want to watch a bunch of kids run around a forest killing each other, I'll watch Kinji Fukasaku's modern classic Battle Royale, thank you very much. /Cinema Snob

BTW: Battle Royale just got a bluray release in the US recently.

New Mozart music.
It sounds a bit unlike mozart at first, but once it gets into it, it does sound like something Mozart would write. This is either a legit thing, or there's someone out there who's amazingly good at forging documents AND writing music that sounds like Mozart music...

I have played many of those, tho not the whole trilogies of sly and jak, and I've only watched other people play anything that's been released on the 360 and PS3 cause I don't have those systems. I had a 360, but GTA 4 made me so angry that I nearly spiked my 360 on my driveway and instead sold it to a neighbor for $50 along with all the games I had (like 4 games that all kinda pissed me off or bored me aside from GTA 4) just to get the thing out of my house. I have arkham asylum for PC and I thought it was pretty blah. The combat is fun the first couple times and the semi-open-world is kinda fun to just flop around in for a while being all ninja stealthy, but after an hour or so it got boring and monotonous. It was also way too easy, but maybe that's just cause I was the god damn batman.

Skyrim's OK, but I find that the most fun thing to do with it is just wander around and explore all the nooks and crannies. The actual missions are kinda tedious after you've done any significant number of them. LA Noire I've not played, but I doubt I'd like it based on various let's plays I've seen (on top the the whole GTA 4 rage issue I have). Psychonaughts is awesome, the HL and Portal games are great, SotC is fucking amazing and one of my favorite games of all time...

I think my issue with games boils down to the developers not understanding that there are two stories going on: The one they're telling through the narrative and the One the player is creating as they play the game. Personally, I prefer it when games back off the narrative, give me some fun mechanics and challenging problems to deal with and let me go make my own story.

SotC is a perfect blend of narrative and generative gameplay. It tells you to kill big monster things to save your girlfriend. You go and do it, but each one has their own strategies to them. Some of them you have to attack a certain way, other ones you can be more freeform with. If you're good at the game you can use physics to undermine the predefined solution the developers gave you. And no one ever tells you anything about how to raise your health or endurance. If you're the sort of gamer who likes to explore and experiment you can just figure it out on your own.

But I love games like Dwarf Fortress and Sim City and tactical sims that allow you to create your own solutions to problems, or games that will just randomly throw shit at you and force you to deal with it with whatever resources you have. You can create your own narrative at that point, and that experience is uniquely yours. All Dwarf Fortress embarks start out the same, and some players use the same sort of tactics, but no two forts are the same, and no two embark points are the same. You might be able to build a super-huge fortress with 200+ dwarves and tons of resources  and a thriving economy, or maybe you'll disturb a forgotten beast made of smoking ash that spits vemon and has 8 legs that will destroy your fort in a minute flat. I love that sort of stuff, and there are very very few mainstream games that allow for that sort of unique gameplay experience. A lot of them feel like you're eating McDonalds. Everyone's experience is the same, you all see the same scripted sequences, you all have the same mine go off that nearly kills you but doesn't quite, you all experience that one time when your teammate crashed the jeep and forced you to steal the APC from the enemy encampment that's two clicks to the south-east, etc.

I feel that the whole point of having a medium like this is to allow players to have the same basic game elements but have their own experience with it.

I saw a penis. I'm going to go sacrifice some virgins in the glorious name of Satan.

I might watch the whole thing. The guy spends the first ten minutes just saying "this video is evil, bro!" When he gets into the actual "analysis" of the video, he basically just points out things anyone can see if you have a set of eyes. "There's penises all over the place. The artists claim it's because the video is about what they feel is an inhumane circumcision ritual in south africa, but I know the truth. It's because they're devil worshipers! Look, there's crude drawings of children in the background! This clearly is supposed to represent the children whose minds they're warping and has nothing at all to do with the fact that if you refuse to undergo this ritual you are branded a child and shunned in society. That's why this guy who has refused to undergo the ritual in our video is surrounded by these drawings. Because he's warping your children's minds."

"ZOMG! ANOTHER PENIS!"

It's both hilarious and sad at the same time. I feel genuine pity for people who think that simple images of nude people are evil.

EDIT: OMG it's the jews. This video went from crazy dude rambling about penises to hating on jews. I understand why you are so pissed now. I paused it just before he started in on them when I posted the first time. I was all "this isn't really hate, it's just dumb..." Now I see.

I draw and paint.

I occasionally make music when I get the fancy. I use the term "music" loosely.

I write a lot of stuff. Mostly movie ideas and treatments.

I do a lot of 3D modelling. I used to do it a lot more than I do now - like all the god damn time, every day - because I wanted to work in the games industry making 3D graphics and/or animation, but then the videogame industry decided that the best course of action was to make game graphics look as generic and lifeless as possible while simultaneously falling further and further down into the uncanny valley, and that making said graphics should be the most soul-crushingly uncreative and tedious thing you could possibly do. The people who play games seem to mostly agree that this was a good decision. I have my doubts.

I'm getting a lot of animation practice lately as well...

I have one project that I'm working on right now, and several more lined up and ready to go.

That's Ms. Foster to you, buster.

I think she's hot, but I've got things for Beth Gibbons and Tilda Swinton, so I'm probably in a very small minority. I think Jodie Foster looks a lot better than most other actresses simple because she looks like a person and not like a real doll. Also one of the best in terms of acting ability.

If you were going to make it today, tho, Portman is probably the best possible choice. People say Noomi Rapace is right up there in the acting department, but I don't think I've ever seen her in an actual movie. No, I still haven't seen Girl With The Dragon Tattoo...

This was apparently leaked out of Disney. It's a making-of on Emperor's New Groove. Apparently Disney canned it because it doesn't paint the prettiest picture.

It was shot by Sting's wife as part of their contract to do the music for the film, so it's kinda like Sting's POV on how the movie got made. Pretty interesting.

Clearly your Sansa Fuse was unable to deal with that much awesomeness at once. The one track it did process correctly was just too much for it to bear. Next time, try loading one track, then wait ten minutes or so and let it recover some strength and load the next, etc.

Wow, how did I miss that!? Thanks for the heads up.

Too bad they don't have Bell & Sebastian on there. I finally tracked down someone selling bootlegs on DVD a while back. If you've not seen it and you understand french, there's a legitimate DVD box set you can import (which I have) in two parts. One of the best children's shows ever made, in my opinion.

In other randomness:

I am amused at the reactions this trailer is getting:
1/3 of people say "OMG this looks fucking awesome!"
1/3 of people say "OMG this looks fucking cheesy and stupid!"
1/3 of people say "OMG this is so unrealistic and stupid!"

Myself, I agree with all of them. It looks stupid and unrealistic and cheesy, but completely off the rails and awesome. It makes me sad that 2/3 of people are apparently unable to enjoy something like this for what it is. This is clearly not trying to win realism awards. The only thing I wish it had was way more cheesy dialogue and stupid action one-liners coming from Lincoln.

Hollywood can keep raping my childhood all it wants. They'll never touch the things I really liked, cause the things I liked when I was a kid were too dramatic and not action movie material. Belle & Sebastian FTW!

I liked Skyline. Well...  "liked" is a relative term, I guess...  I didn't mind it. It was watchable. I hope they make a sequel, just cause it made me curious.

But yeah, the whole alien ninja turtles thing is weird. It fundamentally alters the idea, and you have to wonder about certain things. Will Splinter be involved? Will Shredder be another alien? Also, aren't we kinda sick of aliens by now? We've got Battleship, Skyline, Battle: LA, Transformers, District 9 and so many others in the last few years. Why are we so obsessed with aliens lately? Is it due to the tensions about immigration and/or invading forces that want to just blow shit up like terrorist or something?

And we need to knock it off with the zombies and vampires as well. Especially zombies.

Fuck zombies.

He may have voiced a character in a Star Wars show, but he played a live-action character in the Star Trek movie. I think it's clear which of the two franchises he favors now...
... that being the one that pays him more money...
As far as modern trends toward the portrayal of the military in movies, especially when it comes to how we portray 'enemies', the audience has grown to understand that the 'bad guys' aren't really the grunts. It's the leaders. The guys with the guns are following orders, same as the other guys. Back in the 40's and 50's there was a ton of propaganda portraying the nazis and japanese as evil, cruel, american-hating dogs who juts loved to kill americans and wanted to enslave us all. In truth, the majority of the german and japanese people were just as terrified of us as we were of them. When I watch those films today it feels creepy and weird.

There's a strong anti-war sentiment today, so making gung-ho movies where your righteous military guys are just going around blowing away bad guys in burkas who pop out from around walls or jump out of bushes and go "boogaboogaboo!" isn't really gonna go over well. Frankly, it pisses me off whenever those movies DO get popular. I don't mind so much if the movie is just being a big stupid cheesefest, but if you're trying to portray any kind of realistic scenario, it's better to portray everyone as human. Even the 'bad guys".

I thought the same thing. I kept expecting the next song to be an "I ate gary" song.

Fucking nice, Teague. I'm pimping it to friends as well, but I don't know many people. I like that it's about musicals as much as it is about Max, Gary and the apocalypse.