Again, this is not intended to be a review for the movie mentioned in the thread title. The fact that Be Kind Rewind (which I saw with my family on 2/24 at Regal Santa Cruz 9) was a superb movie that managed to retain that delightful charm of Michel Gondry (despite being, for all intents and purposes, a straight-up comedy) is not the issue at hand, but rather the relative unoriginality of upcoming film releases (see previous post for enlightenment on the subject).
Surprise movie time!
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-Never Back Down
Or as I like to call it: “UFC The Movie”. I’d love to make the derivative call on this one for being a blatant promotional film for the Ultimete Faghting Champtionship, but strictly speaking this is more like your standard sports film, unoriginal in every respect except for the precise origin of its script. ORIGINAL, and the main character looks like a reincarnation of Tom Cruise.
-Run, Fat Boy, Run
I’m a big fan of Simon Pegg’s work (and work to be?), so this trailer went over well with me. And Hank Azaria?!? Sign me up! I actually saw the teaser originally, which doesn’t convey the plot very well at all, but I fully intended to see it anyway. You all should too, as it appears to be ORIGINAL.
-Baby Mama
Whatever reaction I get when I see Simon Pegg onscreen, I get the exact opposite reaction with Tina Fey. She may have gussied herself up a little bit compared to her Saturday Night Live days, but I see through her act. She’s still as smarmy and annoying as ever, and bringing in her SNL friends isn’t going to help any. I was especially depressed to see John Hodgman in this trailer, because I worship the ground he walks on. Apparently his expert con man tactics aren’t paying the bills if he has to make cameos in this dreck. And even though this is approximately the seven trillionth pregnancy antics film released this year, it’s still probably ORIGINAL enough to beat the system.
-Get Smart
I have to admit, I wasn’t excited about this movie when I originally heard about it. Maybe I was afraid of them pulling an Inspector Gadget (a fair assumption, since Gadget was very similar to Maxwell Smart and voiced by Don Adams). Luckily, humans evolved the capacity to change their minds, like, hundreds of years ago, and Steve Carell appears to be playing the role splendidly. However, as it probably clear by now, this movie is an ADAPTATION of a television show of the same name. I’ll still probably go see it.
-Sex and The City
Ugh. Bleck. Ick. So stupid. Our theater played a TV ad for Lipstick Jungle before the trailers, and the creators were trying to play it up as somehow different from Sex and The City because… it has different actresses in it? All the promotional material I’ve seen for this movie SEQUEL/ADAPTATION seems to be playing off of its success on television, and nothing else. They say trailer, but there’s so little footage that one could only really call it a teaser. I’m a sucker for Chris Noth (apparently he’s dreamy? All I know is that he’s the best detective on Law & Order: Criminal Intent), but don’t expect me to drop the Hamilton come May.
Total: 40% (2/5)
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In summary: as of a February 24th screening of Be Kind Rewind at Regal Santa Cruz 9 in Santa Cruz, CA, Hollywood was on track to be 40% unoriginal. Thanks for playing, and please go see Be Kind Rewind at your earliest convenience. Here’s Michel Gondry’s sweded version of the trailer!
I’d like to take a brief moment to express my profound gratitude to Laura, the nice lady that handled my order over the phone. I was having trouble getting the shopping cart system to work via the website, so I called them directly. Not only did she place my order quickly, she was very receptive to my love of some random old cartoon show. She encouraged me to drop her company an email to let them now how much I wanted the rest of the DVD volumes to be produced (the answer is a lot), and I did so almost immediately, but I figured a mention on some no-name blog on the Innertubes would also be in order. Thanks Laura! It’s refreshing to see a company not only release classic content on DVD, but to go the extra mile with merchandising and responsiveness to the fans’ requests. If anyone here orders this DVD set, let Laura know how awesome she is.
Last Saturday, I went to see Jumper at AMC Saratoga 14 with a few friends. This isn’t a review of Jumper… well, Jumper sucked and blew, and it was dumb. There, I reviewed it. But this entry’s primary purpose isn’t to review Jumper, it’s to showcase a little game I made up awhile back. When you go out to see a movie, pay close attention to the trailers. Add one to the count for every:
-Remake (a newer version of a previously released movie) (Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job)
-Sequel (slash prequel slash interquel slash etc.; a movie taking place within the chronology of a previously released movie) (Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Land of the Dead)
-Adaptation (a movie based on a previous non-movie work, like a book, play, real life event, what have you) (I Am Legend, Iron Man)
Count each trailer that meets one of these conditions (movies that match multiple criteria still count as one, though they make interesting case studies and should be noted for posterity), and compare it to the total number of trailers, and you have a percentage that represents how many upcoming films are “unoriginal”. Of course, plenty of movies that don’t fall under these criteria are unoriginal in a multitude of other ways (entries in well-defined genres, ripoffs of other movies, some guy getting kicked in the crotch, and so on), but I’ll go out on a limb and say that my definition of an unoriginal film is a far less forgivable instance. How many times do we need to see The Incredible Hulk on the big screen (at least two, apparently)? I’d much rather see another Michel Gondry movie with whimsically low-budget special effects than another James Bond crapfest. With this game, we get a general idea about how the coming months will play out in terms of originality in Hollywood. If we sample enough movies, we might even be able to glean some useful data and (God willing) throw together some Excel spreadsheet charts!
On with the trailers!
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-The Happening
I’m very excited about this one. We haven’t had an M. Night Shammalammadingdong movie for a few years now, and I’m eager to see if he can top Lady in the Water, arguably the shittiest film of all time. The presence of Mark Wahlberg and a seemingly pointless reference to Colony Collapse Disorder in the trailer are icing on the cake as far as I’m concerned. While the Wikipedia mentions that this script started as a live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender (man, that would have been a really stupid idea), it no longer carries this distinction, and is therefore ORIGINAL.
-Street Kings
Keanu Reeves is at the top of his game when portraying a renegade cop who doesn’t play by the rules, so this will probably be good watchin’. I’m always sad to see more capable actors like Forest Whitaker get dragged down though. And looking at these credits, I see at least two rapper names (”Common” and “The Game”). Oh yeah, this’ll be good shit. But a cursory scan of the credits also doesn’t reveal the phrase “based on a short story by” or anything of that kind, so we’ve got another ORIGINAL on our hands.
-Wanted
Noble assassins that curve bullets around corners! It’s clear that these trailers were made just for me. What could have potentially been a freakish long streak of originality is blissfully broken by this ADAPTATION of a comic book miniseries.
-WALL-E
Pixar can do no wrong, and like every other film they’ve made, this one is 100% ORIGINAL. Though the robot’s resemblance to R.O.B. and Johnny Five is intriguing, I won’t hold it against them if the movie is up to their usual standards of excellence.
-10,000 BC
This film slides by on a technicality. Though it, as historical fiction, is loosely based on real life, it is not based on any specific real event, and therefore is ORIGINAL. The CGI blows though. So that’s something.
-The Bank Job
My brain didn’t retain any knowledge of this trailer after the film, so I’m glad I wrote it down so as to look up the video later. Wait, maybe “glad” isn’t the word I was looking for. There’s like sex and bank robberies and a bumbling ensemble cast and and other cliché bullshit, but the trailer proudly proclaims to be based on a true story, so it gets the dishonorable ADAPTATION stamp of disapproval. Oh yeah, and it sullies The Clash by playing London Calling at the end. Boo.
Total: 33.3% (2/6)
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So as of a February 16th screening of Jumper at AMC Saratoga 14 in Saratoga, CA, Hollywood was slated to be 33.3% unoriginal. Honestly, this is one of the best scores I’ve ever seen in my thus-far limited tallying, but now we’ve got hard data! Give this game a try the next time you go to the movies, and I’ll post your results (include date and location of viewing; the more random data, the better the pie charts!).
On a sidenote, “Hollywood Unoriginality Ratio” makes a great acronym to describe these dumb movies. Go me.
Still disheartened by those lucky Japanese kids playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl over a month ahead of us, I thought I’d console myself with a little bit of the previous entry in the series, Super Smash Bros. Melee. This was the sparkling diamond amid a sea of GameCube coal. It came out less than a month after the ‘Cube’s stateside release, and I played it almost daily for a long time. Even after unlocking all the characters and stages and sound tests, I still kept playing. The game had an amazingly well-refined balance and complexity to it that made each experience unique. I quite literally saw something new every time I played that game. Though the occasional Super Mario Sunshine or Resident Evil 4 would momentarily attract my attention, I’d always come back to Melee. I played and loved the original N64 game, but Melee surpassed it in every way. Only in the past year have I seriously neglected the game, but it wasn’t out of lack of enjoyment. My hope was to approach Brawl from a fresh perspective, untainted by Melee’s now antiquated graphics and control scheme. I want to be on the same play level as everyone else come release day. But since release day is now as far back as March 9th, I figured there wouldn’t be much harm in a little nostalgic run-through.
So I was sad to find that my save data was corrupted.
I guess six years is a long time to continually write and rewrite to a data file, but damnit, I had a lot of data! I had amassed thousands of hours (yes, thousands) of play time, fallen countless thousands of miles, and Link had racked up an impressive KO percentage. Kind of a bummer for all that to just disappear. Guess I’ll be making backups of such things in the future.
There, I said it. I’ll even go so far as to say it again:
There is no good reason for Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s release to be delayed over a freakin’ month after the Japanese release this week.
What have we been looking at all these months on the Smash Bros. Dojo? Screenshots and videos, every single one of them containing text or spoken dialogue in English. Clearly translation has been hand in hand with game development throughout the entire process. So how come Japan gets the game in January, and we have to wait until March? I wish Nintendo would offer explanations beyond “delays in the completion”. If the game’s coming out in Japan this week, it is finished.
When Melee came out on the GameCube back in December ‘01, it had been a mere two weeks since the Japanese release. Both games had the option to switch languages. I can’t understand what the holdup could possibly be getting this game stateside.
Nintendo: I was willing to put up with a several-month delay, but this latest one doesn’t even make any sense.
Also: that last statement doesn’t actually mean anything, because I’m still going to buy the game when it comes out, so obviously I’m gonna have to put up with the delays. But that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about the situation.
A group of, let’s face it, insane Zelda fans at cameronbanga.com have decided to play straight through Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess in the span of 48 hours! Go check out the live video feed! They’re also reading email during the event, so send them a message to show them your support, and let ‘em know who sent you! They’re also accepting money donations, and whatever they don’t spend on food is going toward Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play charity; if you’ve got any money to spend, Child’s Play is a great cause (I’ve talked about it in years past, they donate toys and video games to children in hospitals), and this is an awesome way to support a fine charity. But we can all agree that these guys are still a little crazy.
Crazy brilliant.
Please be aware that they sometimes say naughty things in the feed. I’m not gonna hold that against them, but you kids out there should tread lightly.
I’m not one to brag, but I consider myself to be something of an amazingly skilled artist (please note subtle sarcastic undertones). One day while bored at work (fixing computers doesn’t really tax the artistic muscles much), I noticed I had a large amount of twisty-ties at my disposal. Remembering that the characters in the excellent DS puzzle game Meteos were generally stick-figureish in design, I realized I could probably recreate one of them!
So I did! Press on to see the pic and revel in its artistic awesomeness!
Yeah yeah, this is another post about the Smash Bros. Dojo updates. Screw it, this one had some quality imagery.
We’re probably fairly well-acquainted with Kirby’s ability to copy his opponent’s powers, so at first glance this update may have appeared to be nothing new. But wait! New characters means new powers to copy and, more importantly, new looks to Kirbify! My favorite had to be Kirby as Snake, but there’s plenty of fanboyin’ to go around. Check him out won’t you:
As you may or may not be aware, discussion of my blog entries is handled on The Orange Belt forums. Until now, you had to register on the forum to comment, but it occurred to me that such a thing might be a little cumbersome. So I decided to open up commenting to guests! Just click the [discuss] link at the bottom of these blog posts, then click the “Post Reply” button and type stuff! Guests can only post replies though; no editing of posts, no thread creation, and no posting ability at all outside of the Dot Matrix forum (though other forum-runnin’ folks might change this eventually, I sincerely doubt it; I likely won’t be enabling guest-posting on my other subforums). I would still ask you to register on the forums and join the community, but if you just need to make a one-shot comment, that is now your wont. Wont away!
MediaWise has released the latest edition of its Video Game Report Card, keeping an eye on various trends in the video game-playing and -selling industry. The 26-page PDF seems to mostly read as I would expect (a lot of kids are playing M-rated games and have little difficulty purchasing them from most retail outlets, parents don’t play games with their kids, kids and parents argue about how much they should play). But the statistic that disturbed me the most had to do with parents’ knowledge of the ESRB rating system.
Or lack thereof.
In collaboration with Harris Interactive, MediaWise conducted a “national survey of parents and children to determine the role of video games in their lives.” This survey found, among other things, that 72% of parents “know little or nothing about the ratings system overall and many could not identify the meanings of specific ratings such as AO (Adults Only) and EC (Early Childhood).” It goes on to state that twice as many parents said they understood TV ratings as those which understood video game ratings (54% vs. 27%)!
This sad state of affairs has bothered me for some time, but I didn’t realize it was quite this bad. The survey brings up a few possible causes, such as a lack of effort on the part of retailers to educate their customers, but I honestly don’t understand what’s so impenetrable about the rating system that makes parents so clueless about the whole thing. Is it that the labels aren’t exactly the same as the MPAA rating system used for movies? I don’t have any hard numbers on it but people seem to be pretty well-versed in that department. It’s not like this information is difficult to come across either. A very quick Google search for “video game ratings” yielded a handy guide from the ESRB themselves! Here it is in its entirety:
And in case you think even this is too difficult to find, every game sold in every store has an ESRB rating and explanation printed on the back of the box. Sure, the ESRB system isn’t perfect. The difference in maturity between 17- and 18-year-olds is probably not well-defined enough to deserve two ratings, and yet we have M and AO. The addition of an E10+ adds unnecessary complexity. But these concepts boil down to a damn simple buying guide: if your kid is younger than the recommended minimum age, or if the game contains specific content you find objectionable, you don’t buy them the game. Yes, even if they really really really wanna beat up hookers with baseball bats because their friends have the game and why won’t you buy it for me if their moms and dads bought it for them you don’t really love me I hate you.
Ahem.
The sad fact of the matter is that I know parents that won’t let their kids see an R-rated movie, but they’ll let them play an M-rated game. I personally don’t believe a violent video game will beget a violent child, but if you think your child isn’t mature enough to watch The Godfather, then they’re not mature enough to play it either. Don’t feel too bad about it though, I heard that game wasn’t much to write home about.
Again, this is not intended to be a review for the movie mentioned in the thread title. The fact that Be Kind Rewind (which I saw with my family on 2/24 at Regal Santa Cruz 9) was a superb movie that managed to retain that delightful charm of Michel Gondry (despite being, for all intents and purposes, a straight-up comedy) is not the issue at hand, but rather the relative unoriginality of upcoming film releases (see previous post for enlightenment on the subject).
Last Saturday, I went to see 
There, I said it. I’ll even go so far as to say it again:
A group of, let’s face it, insane Zelda fans at cameronbanga.com have decided to play straight through Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess in the span of 48 hours! 
