American Writer

We need a reality TV show about writing, to make writing edgy and cool. It should be a reality-based contest to try to find the best writer among a gang of colorful characters. There could be the rebel who never wants to accept criticism (I'll use to be verbs if I want to, that's just my style!), the lovable one who can never get it quite right (oh, I thought haiku was 7-5-7!), and the misfit who struggles to fit in with everyone else (no one appreciates my sonnets about death!). Just imagine the hilarity when people from the street cue up to come write for the celebrity judges, who tear apart their cliche-riddled personal essays! The tears when we're getting close to the finish but one of the characters is still trying to wrap up the climax of a short story! The thrill of listening to the final product each week and calling in for our favorite piece!

I'd be happy to help produce the show, TV people. Just drop me a line.

Twilight of Legends (Major Sasuke spoilers!)

I had long looked forward to seeing the 22nd Sasuke competition broadcast on G4TV, and the day finally came today. Sasuke is a Japanese contest called Ninja Warrior in America, in which "one hundred determined athletes have accepted the challenge to become ... Ninja Warrior!" It's an obstacle course that tests the body and the spirit, a true measure of skill and willpower.

As the show progressed, my eagerness changed slowly to disappointment, and then to despair. One by one, my heroes all failed on the first stage, and relative nobodies advanced to the second stage... and then on to the third, and one actually made it to the fourth stage.

My giddiness mounted as an introductory program introduced a new G4 Ninja Challenge winner, David Campbell, a likeable bald guy with a very photogenic way of channeling mystical energies. Then the show announced, to my thrill, that freerunner and promising Ninja Warrior Levi Meeuwenburg would be returning; not only that, he made a one-week tour of Japan before the contest, visiting contest favorites Yamamoto Shingo, Takeda Toshihiro, and the legendary Nagano Makoto. Each of them were glad to welcome him and give him tips, but they were also all humble and encouraging rather than proud. We got to see Takeda's fire station, Yamamoto's gas station, and Nagano's fishing boat as they chatted with Levi and encouraged him. I think it's the humility and team spirit that I welcome so much about the Ninja Warrior All Stars: they all genuinely want everyone to succeed in the challenge. As Levi himself said, to him it's not a contest, it's a team sport.

They also brought back Luci something, who competed in the last Sasuke as well, but, frankly, I don't know why. It's good to have a girl, but she couldn't even compete the mini-Sasuke challenge G4 built in America. If she couldn't beat the practice run, what chance did she have in the real thing?

When the tournament itself started, I was giddy. Then, things started to happen. In a pair of bad signs, Yamamoto Shingo, who competed in every single Sasuke challenge, rising from gas jockey to the manager of three local gas stations in the eleven years of Sasuke, fell when he stumbled unexpectedly dismounted from the mat following the Halfpipe Attack. Then, the heroic Akiyama Kazuhiko, who completed the Fourth Sasuke (one of two men to have completed the challenge), slipped while attempting to climb up the side of the Halfpipe Attack and slid off. Akiyama, a former crab fisherman, was once a top competitor, but a degenerative disease has left him nearly blind. Still, he made it farther than most.

One of the men I was most looking forward to seeing was Yamada Katsumi. A former favorite to win it all, his wife and family left him for his all-out dedication to the contest, which also cost him his job. I used to think he could make it, too, but for years, he has failed to even get past the first stage. This time around, he fell from the Jumping Spider. If there is one person who I wish would make it all the way, I'd choose Yamada, because he's such a tragic figure, a real life Ahab.

Returning American decathlete Paul Terek also failed the Slider Jump, who was the first American to do exceptionally well in Sasuke, having gone to the third stage a few years ago (he's apparently also big in Japan, having won several other athletic game shows). I'm thrilled he tried again, though, and I hope he keeps going.

Then, disaster was compounded by further disaster. Several other favorites fell out with barely a mention. Then, Levi Meeuwenberg himself failed a new obstacle, the Slider Jump. Although five competitors had made it through, they were all relative unknowns, particularly two who were fresh from the Sasuke trials in Japan.

It was time to change pace. It was time for a dragon to spread his wings. It was time for hardened, smiling, tanned fisherman Nagano Makoto. Like a wise sensei, his positive attitude and wisdom, his encouragement and acceptance of all, are inspirational. And he started well, powering through the early parts of the course with no problem.

A calamity shook the heavens and the earth. All sound ceased, and a dragon fell flaming to the ground in an inferno of scorched hopes. Nagano failed to dismount the Slider Jump and splashed into the muddy water below. The great legend himself was humbled, stunned at his own failure. Every one of my favorites was out. I was heartbroken. I lost my composure, yelling, "No!" in disbelief. I wasn't being dramatic; I was genuinely moved.

The rest of the show was fascinating, but for reasons other than what I had hoped. Five newcomers entered the second stage, and, amazingly, four passed. Of the four, one made it through the grueling third stage, beating even Nagano's performance in the previous tournament. Then, he came within seconds of total victory. It seemed for the first thirty seconds of his climb like the humble shoe salesman who failed to qualify for the last two Sasukes would do it, but then he ran out of strength. Although I was hoping he would do it because that's what Nagano would have wanted, I am ashamed to say I'm glad he didn't make it. It shouldn't be so easy.

The show asked an interesting question: does this Sasuke mark the end of the All Star era? We've watched Yamada, Yamamoto, Takeda, Akiyama, and Nagano compete since almost the first. No tournament seems complete without Yamamoto's gas station cap, Takeda's orange fireman trousers, or Nagano's frosted hair and affable smile. But it's been ten years since the tournament started, and it might just be time for the new generation to take over.

Then again, the 19th competition was also a total wash for our favorites, with two no-names slipping through the first stage to wipe out early in the second. In the 21st tournament, Takeda and Nagano put in a fantastic performance, getting the two best results.

Will our heroes learn from their mistakes and come back stronger for one last hurrah? Will the All Stars who haven't succeeded yet have a chance to taste the sweet cup of success that has eluded them for so long? Will Nagano add a second victory to his dragon's hoard? Or, like all things, has the time of these legends ended, and is it time for a new group to rise to glory? I can't imagine now that anyone could take the place of the All Stars in my heart, even if they do take their place on top of the final climb to immortality on Mount Midoriyama. The All Stars are too loveable, too diverse, each with their own legendary stories behind them.

But one day, perhaps a new dragon will take flight.

((PS: It's sad to say, but I was almost as moved by this event as I was by the funeral of a dear friend that I went to over the weekend. There's something epic in Sasuke that I can't explain even in a blog of this length.))

Gene Generation

It had some interesting visual elements. Few and far between, especially buried under a combination of Blade Runner, The Matrix, and Dungeons and Dragons ripoffs. But it had some interesting visual elements.

The above is the only praise I can imagine for The Gene Generation. I have been following the progress of this film for a few years (has it been so long?) now, ever since I watched a trailer for it and was fascinated by the cyberpunk feel of it. The premise is really kind of awesome: there is a society in which one's worth is measured by the value of one's genes (a bit like Gattaca, but what's original these days?). There is a generation of criminals called "DNA hackers" who can alter a person's genes. There is, in turn, a group of assassins whose job it is to kill these DNA hackers because of the threat they represent to the delicate balance of society.

I found this quote about the film on another website: "In the dark decadent world of our future, Mankind has found themselves close to the extinction with the last city on Earth. Forced to implement a controversial Natural Selection process, the government built a wall surrounding the last city named Olympia. By a careful selection process using our genes and DNA, the Kalafkan Government chose only the best and most promising to survive the destruction of Olympia, before building a new city where it once was. This process led to a crime known as DNA Hacking, where people steal genes and DNA in hopes of entering Demeter. The government started hiring assassins, to take out and kill these hackers who have polluted the system. In exchange, the Assassins are granted entry to Demeter. Michelle (Bai Ling) is one of those Assassins. Forced to render her services to the government by any means necessary, Michelle can only hope that death wouldn’t take her soul down like Olympia would. The Gene Generation is a science fiction movie about romance, revenge and redemption" source

Holy shit, I say to myself. This sounds like a damn good movie. Apart from that incomprehensible line about death taking her soul down. That's a warning sign. ((Edit: And I also noticed later: how can the government implement a "Natural Selection" process? If the government is doing it, how is it natural? Isn't that the exact opposite of natural? Like this movie is the opposite of good?))

The first problem is what the film means by "altering genes." When I read the synopsis, I assumed that altering one's genes would, for instance, change eye color, hair color, possibly some physical features, depending on how implausible the show decided to be about the capacity of a device the size of a person's hand that jabs needles into your arm. I was wrong. Very wrong. Wrong like losing my glasses and mistaking an angry Doberman that's just been kicked in the nuts for kindly aunt Gretchen whose only happiness in life is a kiss on the cheek.

As it turns out, changing someone's genes can, in fact, do one of only two things in this film. The first is to close up wounds and heal disease (something shown in the show's intro and only mentioned later, never to play a part again). The second is to make a person sprout a mass of tentacles, writhe around, and die.

Re-read that last sentence. I should probably stop writing right there and let you fill in the rest of the movie for yourself. It probably wouldn't be far off the mark, and certainly won't be much worse than what I had to endure. The suck is endemic in this movie, like it was shot in Sucknicolor. There's a large middle-aged villain with long blonde hair and a deep voice; I'm convinced I've seen this exact character in another movie, possibly several others. There's a goateed mafia boss with a comically incompetent but seemingly limitless supply of leather-clad goons who spends most of the movie bitching about people not taking him seriously enough. There's a bunch of midgets wearing leather who show up just to have midgets wearing leather in the movie. Oh, hell. I'm sick of even thinking about this movie. Let's move on.

Bai Ling appears in a different outfit in every scene, and I have a sneaking suspicion the film's entire raison d'etre is for the producer/director to see her in these various skimpy leathery getups (not to mention out of them: there are two random shower scenes and an almost equally random sex scene). She wears so many different scandalous outfits, in fact, that in one scene where a character actually gives her clothes and says, "I brought you some clothes," I just about did myself in laughing. If there's one thing this chick has in abundance, it's clothes, although she appears to be hard up for cash in every other way.

She has a brother who is constantly getting into trouble for gambling and getting involved in crime. At one point, the mob boss I mentioned above pees on him. I stress, for reasons that will soon be apparent: he got peed on. Later in the film, he complains about having shit in his hair and smelling like shit. Another character comments that he smells like shit. Later, the mob boss laughs about having shat on this character. I'm not sure whether nobody on the set knows the basic but fundamental difference between the two bodily wastes, or whether they changed the one scene without bothering to change every bit of dialogue referring to it.

Speaking of bad changes: at one point, a character gets thrown through a window. I suppose they couldn't find a cheap graphics program that would simulate cracking glass and movement at the same time: the movie freezes for several seconds while cracks spread across the glass, the guy suspended in mid-air, and then the guy falls through. I was flabbergasted. In another part, during a hastily-cut fight scene, a still frame is shown for a full second. A small nitpick, perhaps; I guess nobody caught that nothing was happening in that clip. Was this thing edited in iMovie? The 3D effects are laughable, including 1990's style fire effects and unconvincing but repetitive shots of the city with a flying ship circling overhead. Oh, and apparently, in the future, cities exist in stone basins flanked by huge walls. And those stone walls have giant demons carved in them. Yeah.

But I've saved the worst for last. Faye Dunaway inexplicably appears in this movie... for about one minute. She gets a couple of lines, then suffers a catastrophic accident that leaves "her" a hanging torso prop covered in CG tentacles for the rest of the movie, never once moving from one tiny but oft-reused set. Her voice is also mushy, which I assume is because she got one look at the movie, called her agent, and finished the rest of her contract recording her lines over the phone from as far from the set as she could get.

Now, there's some leeway I could give this movie. It's apparently based on a comic, but since I have no knowledge or interest in it, I'll leave it at that. Also, the concept of "hacking" one's own genes is interesting. This movie, though? Come on.

Final Word: This film might have been just kind of bad with some redeeming qualities if it weren't for the tentacles, which feel like an afterthought added in post to spice things up. Cut out the writhing tentacles on the gene-altered people and just let them flop around and die instead; maybe their eyes go all black or something to show they're afflicted. Imagine watching a tender death scene where the main character watches the man she loves die... as his tentacles flop around. Mmmhmm. That's one of the last scenes of the movie.

Netflix Charges Extra for Blu-Ray

Dear [Bluefish],

As you may know, Blu-ray movies are more expensive than standard definition movies. As a result, we're going to start charging $1 a month (plus applicable taxes), in addition to your monthly membership charge, for unlimited access to Blu-ray movies.

The additional charge for unlimited Blu-ray access will be automatically added to your next billing statement on or after November 5th, 2008 and will be referenced in your Membership Terms and Details. If you wish to continue getting Blu-ray movies for $1 a month more, you don't need to do anything. If not, you can remove Blu-ray access anytime by visiting Your Account at the Netflix website.

If you have questions about this change or need any assistance, please call us anytime at 1-888-638-3549.

-The Netflix Team


I don't like this. I don't like this at all. I have a beautiful high-definition television and a Blu-ray player (my PS3), so I enjoy watching the remarkable clarity that is Blu-ray every now and then. On the other hand, I love old movies, Asian films, and esoteric films, none of which are generally available in Blu-ray format. I watch a Blu-ray movie perhaps once every other month, so as things stand, I would be paying two dollars extra for the chance to watch the higher definition.

I don't want to give up watching Blu-ray but I don't want to pay more for my Netflix membership. Aar! By me hook, this be encouragin' me to try fishin' in another of the seven seas.

Now, for a little analysis. To me, this suggests that Blu-ray isn't catching on, or else it would be moving toward becoming the dominant, standard medium rather than the one we pay extra for. What's preventing it? I think it's probably three things. First, people still don't have Blu-ray players and/or HD TVs. Second, most movies are still only on DVD, which means Blu-ray is more an occasional treat than a meat-and-potatoes experience. Third, streaming video over the internet is starting to compete with solid-form (VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray) media.

Does this mean Blu-ray will be the last big format that you can touch? Or will the next big thing pass Blu-ray by, like DVD did laserdisk? Or will, perhaps, Blu-ray catch on as the format becomes more common? Only time will tell, my friends. Only time will tell.

What's Bluefish's prediction? Blu-ray won't catch on and we'll get a new major media form in the next twenty years, within which time high-speed internet will be so widespread (and so fast) that streaming HD will be possible and solid-form media will fall away.

E3 and The Dark Knight

I have this to say about The Dark Knight: stop reading this and go watch it. It will kick the shit out of you.

Maggie Gyllenhaal's nose looks terrifyingly like Michael Jackson's. She is not a good-looking woman. That's a real shame, since every character seems to make a point of saying how good-looking she is in the movie, as though the producers were trying to convince me of something I know isn't true. And no, that's not a spoiler; the Joker says it in the trailer, and anything in the trailer isn't a spoiler.



I'll be honest: my review of E3 is a huge complaint-fest. Read this only if you want to hear me whining like a bitch with a skinned knee.

So I actually paid attention to the ultra-consumerist stack of advertisements and shamelessly masturbatory presentations that is the Electronic Entertainment Expo this year. At least, that's what I think E3 stands for; there wasn't a single indication WHAT the three E's are in this year's presentation, but that's neither here nor there. Apart from some significant website surfing, most of my information came from G4. Side note: holy crap. Watching G4 makes me feel like I'm watching a student production by a bunch of nerds on cocaine. Is there nobody on set who's older than thirty? What's meant to seem fun and random feels like a bunch of kids doing public access, except they get to interact with some real industry powerhouses, like some Bizarro world Wayne's World.

Moving along, there was almost nothing at E3 that got me excited for anything. One of Sony's few exclusive games is BigLittlePlanet or LittleBigPlanet or whatever it's called. It's so adorably cutesy I almost had to have a root canal just hearing about it, and it involves the sixaxis controller's direction sensing function. Note to Sony: get off the Wii bandwagon! I bought a PS3 because I don't give a shit which way my controller is pointing and neither should my system. So long as I'm pushing the right buttons and moving the right sticks, the controller could be up my ass, and that's fine (well, not technically, but you know what I mean). If I wanted to waggle a controller like a jackass trying to convince the system to do what I'm desperately trying to approximate, I would have bought a Nintendo.

I've been really excited for Left4Dead, but now I'm not so sure. They unveiled new footage to go with what they already showed us. The verdict? It looks like outdoor maps play just like the indoor ones, except with new backgrounds. Give me a break. This is starting to feel more and more like an endlessly repetitive, mind-numbing zombiefest that only a good multiplayer will possibly save. But I'm starting to doubt it.

Resistance 2, fortunately, made the hurting stop for a second by reassuring me that it has a multiplayer co-op mode. I breathed a sigh of relief. But wait: it's online only! If I want to play on the same console, I have to play competitively. Since I don't have any friends who own a PS3, I'm humped. Thanks, Resistance 2!

And Fallout 3 looks cool as hell (I'm already considering assless chaps and a leather facemask to get into the post-apocalyptic feel), but is also disappointingly single player. I'm starting to feel like the days of co-op multiplayer on one system are becoming a happy memory.

They were raving about Farcry 2 on G4. It doesn't look any better than games that were out years ago. Seriously, UT 2004 looked pretty comparable. It's nice of them to try to make games that will run on my five-year-old system, but there was seriously nothing in this game that set it out from anything else. It must have taken a whole trunkful of amphetimines to try to get excited about that game.

And what the hell, SquareEnix? Honestly, I shouldn't bitch about Final Fantasy XIII being on both X-Box 360 and the PS3 since I'm probably not going to plunk down sixty or seventy big ones to buy it, but seriously, I was hoping it would give the PS3 a big market boost to help it in the console wars so I'd have other, better games to look forward to. But no dice, so I'm pissed. It looks like the poor performance of the PS3 so far has caused SquareEnix to have second thoughts, so now they're in their "trial separation" phase, where they're still getting together now and then, but all they do is awkwardly watch TV until SquareEnix comes up with an excuse and leaves early, leaving Sony alone in bed and clutching a bottle of Jack Daniels, curled up in the fetal position wondering where it all went wrong.


This blog is for entertainment purposes only. Don't come crying to me if you disagree.

eXistenZ

What happens when you get a video gamer to write a screenplay? Although I can hardly be sure that this movie was written by a video gamer, it certainly feels like it. The dialogue is awful, the characters are flat, and the premise is a combination of thought-provoking and silly.

First, the bad: the props are ridiculous. The special effects are weak. The science behind it all is nonexistent. Don't even try to figure out the logic behind it all; trying to match real world logic to this movie is like trying to hook up an American toaster to a European electrical socket.

Now, the good. Yes, it does have Jude Law in it, although he doesn't really have much to do. It also kept me thinking. I did have to be quite generous with my interpretation and extrapolation, but all in all, this film can be an excellent way to get an interesting conversation going among a good bunch of people, and for that alone I'd suggest it.

The basic plot, such as there is, involves a video-game designer and the man who ends up having to protect her from an anti-video game conspiracy. You see, video games are so real in this movie that some people want to destroy them outright, before they destroy real life with their simulated reality. You'll be able to guess most of the plot twists long before they happen, but that's fine if it makes you feel clever, as it did me. Although that's a little like feeling uber after beating an 8 year old in CounterStrike. I constantly had the feeling that the movie was written by a kid who was 15, tops. You'll know what I mean when you watch a particularly awkward love scene between the two main characters in which the game compels them to kiss! Saucy!

At the end of the movie, my reaction was, "Yeah, yeah, all right. I get it already." There are echoes of The Matrix here, but also a few original ideas, and some of the scenes are downright thought-inducing. Watch for Ian Holm speaking Hungarian badly, and the Hungarian word "isten" in the title of the film, relates to one of the film's themes: that technology allows us to be gods of our own worlds. Wikipedia agrees with me.

Renaissance: Sci-Fi Computer Animation

You can tell it's France and it's gritty because it's raining and it's black and white.

I just got done watching a French film called Renaissance, so I thought I'd give you the skinny. Verdict: it's good enough, if you can forgive it a few flaws.

The skinny: The plot follows a French cop named Karas as he searches for a kidnapped researcher working for the corporation Avalon, which sells products offering "Health, Beauty, Longevity." He also runs across the kidnapped woman's older sister, who is something of a spitfire and, inevitably, the love interest, although her character really is very interesting. As Karas digs deeper, he uncovers conspiracy and corruption on all sides. And by the end... but why spoil it?

The film is rendered in black and white: pure-black and pure-white, with no grays. Think Sin City, but much harder on the eyes. Some of the shots are wonderful, but most of the time I was wishing I could just see the film without the effect, which hurt my head and had me confused some of the time about who exactly was doing what. The stunning visuals of the sprawling dystopian city of future Paris were also marred by this; some of the shots were great, but in many shots, I just couldn't figure out just what I was looking at. It created a very dreamlike, surreal atmosphere that I felt clashed with the film's gritty realism.

That being said, the characters were great. They were complex, serious individuals, but the film still allowed itself enough humor (although usually gallows humor) to make it work. Since the film was shot in CGI using motion-capture, the movements were photo-realistic (for the most part) and some of the subtleties of movement and expression looked great in the black-and-white style of the film. The faces of the main characters were well done. One of the advantages of CGI is that the emotions can be done so finely. Note the poster: that's the black/white animation when it's at its best. It really is beautiful, even hyper-realistic when it precisely highlights faces, bodies, and backgrounds. But a lot of the time, since it's all done digitally, the computer chose a black/white configuration that doesn't quite work. But again, when it does, hold onto your butts.

On the flip side, some of the characters looked rather poor, considering this was 2006 and therefore post-Final Fantasy: Advent Children, which in this humble reviewer's opinion is the best full-CGI film to date visually. The faces of the old characters, of which there are many, were particularly weird.

I should also warn you that the film's tag-line, "Live forever or die trying," doesn't apply to the protagonist's viewpoint. In fact, his is the opposite opinion. I found that mildly confusing.

THAT BEING SAID, (seriously, there were good points), the film's setting is beautiful. The science fiction stuff is something a little unrealistic, but it never takes away from the tone or plot. The plot itself is a little hackneyed, but the film pulls it off with style. I'd recommend seeing the film just for the visuals and some of the themes. When the film is working right, the tone is so right I could just drop myself right into it.

One last note: the very last bit of the film is highly confusing, and I have a feeling some studio bigshot added it because he wanted to adjust the ending a bit to suit his tastes. Without spoiling too much, hit the stop button when you see two characters talking against a white background after the movie has reached its conclusion. The film is effectively over: you can now finish your popcorn and leave the theater without being confused by that one last bit. The film ends perfectly if you end it there, with that ending being one of the best endings in science fiction I can think of.

I sincerely hope they make more movies like this. Adjust the color technique a bit, improve the character modeling, and kneecap whoever pinned on that ending bit, and you'll have a beautiful thing. Even flawed, this is definitely worth checking out.

Very last word, and then I promise I'm done: Fun game! Count how many shots of the Eiffel Tower this movie has. You can almost imagine someone jumping up and down shouting, "Hey! This is PARIS!"

That's no moon...

Remember the room with walls made of televisions in Fahrenheit 451? Well, I think you could make a wall out of this thing:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/sharp-rolls-out-gigantic-108inch-lcd-226761.php

Now to find a 108-inch space somewhere in your home to put this monster. To be frank, I really don't know how I'd deal with having something like this in my home. I feel like I'd wake up one morning to find that it had organized the lesser machines under its iron control, and the living room and kitchen had seceded to form Techopia.

The other question: how the hell do you install it? Does it come with the Russian Olympic weightlifting team to carry it into your house? Will you have to knock a hole in your wall to get it in, or do you just stick it on the floor and built up the walls around it?

If every 10 inches of screen is another 2 feet back of viewing distance, as they told me when I bought my TV, then you'll have to watch this thing from 20 feet away: in other words, you'll be watching from the next room.

Wow. Now that is high-tech.

The system is flawed

Netflix thinks I'd give the Gummi Bears cartoon series a rating of 4.2/5.

Clearly, something has gone very, very wrong in the world. It's like a disturbance in the Force. It made me feel almost bad to tell the system that I'm really not interested. Almost like I was saying no to a part of childhood....

Not that I ever watched that show. Okay, maybe once. But I was young and foolish. I also watched He-Man.

In quest of Steam-powered Happiness

So, no thanks to my good friend the Lord Admiral of Her Majesty's Airship Fleet, I've been looking into the steampunk thing recently. For those of you who don't know what that is, take one part Smashing Pumpkins's "Tonight, Tonight" video, one part Jules Verne, one part Charles Dickens, and one part Wild, Wild West, stir very thoroughly (to break up any chunks of Kenneth Branagh from the latter part), and voila! steampunk. Of course, I've known about this for a few years now, and I've read the first "major" steampunk book, The Difference Engine, partly because my lord and master (William Gibson) was one of the people who wrote it. But I haven't really gotten into the whole thing until the Admiral encouraged me to.

Part of my looking into this thing has involved some awesome art, notably a steampunk Dalek.

But most importantly of all, I've been looking for a video game that uses steampunk. Those of you who play World of Warcraft already know what I call steam-pathetic: steam-powered stuff that clanks around, but with none of the elegance or wonder of the Victorian age, and completely lacking that amazing quality of Victorian culture that true steampunk should embody.

That's exactly what I found in Silverfall. The game is a pretty average Diablo-clone. The graphics look good, the characters being the high point, but the story is flat as a Japanese woman, and the voice acting is laughable and pretty spotty:only the most major conversations have a voice element, the voice actor frequently says things differently than the text does, and at one point a character said "cur-stal" instead of "crystal," which really makes me wonder who they get to do these things. Then there was the biggest turd: the monsters level up with you and respawn in all the zones. That's right: when you first leave town, you fight level 1 or 2 zombies. Later, when you leave the same town the same way, you fight the same zombies, except now they're still your level. This completely takes away any point in levelling up and getting new equipment! In fact, you have to struggle to get new equipment just so you can keep killing the same monsters you were killing five or even ten levels ago! It's as if everything cost more just because you got a raise. Imagine if you had to write the exact same paper every year in high school and college, except it got a page longer every year. Yeah, that's basically the same thing. Then, to put the final nail in the coffin, there wasn't a hint of Victorian culture anywhere in it. Sure, there was the very most basic glimpse of steam-powered stuff (a steam-powered chainsaw sword being the high point) and the promise of a flying steam-city as a later base you can visit, but overall, I found it to be a very disappointing mix of World of Warcraft steam-powered gizmos and Diablo. Steam-pathetic indeed.

Then I tried Arcanum. If I can say one thing for Silverfall, it has very nice cell-shaded 3-d monsters and characters. Arcanum is the opposite. Sure, it was made five years before the other game, but its graphics are pre-Diablo. Can you say Fallout-riffic? The story had some very promising Victorian elements, though, even though the first town I came across was more Wild West than Victorian London. Then again, a Wild West character might be very at home in a steampunk adventure as a gunslinger/mechanic. Hmm....

All in all, I might actually buy Arcanum. Its graphics were pathetic one-dimensional crap and the story had me yelling "CHOO CHOO!" because there was no way off the train tracks, but at least it had that hint of Victorian elegance.

And you have to admit, trains are pretty steampunk.

Nicole Kidman!

I had a dream Nicole Kidman was dead. I think it was some kind of accidental overdose. I guess in my mind Heath Ledger and Nicole Kidman are connected. Well, they've both been in Batman movies and they're both Australian, so there IS a connection....

That being said, it's been almost ten years since Moulin Rouge. I know Nicole was still looking foxy in The Golden Compass, but that was more of a "my best friend's hot mom" kind of look, rather than a "that cute girl I'd pass notes to during class" look. I really need to update my mental list of hot women. I think Sharon Stone is still on there.

Help me, Keira Knightley. You're my only hope.

By "help" I mean "stop making Pirates of the Carribean movies" and "do something interesting with your life."

The Dustiest Place on Earth

I've been watching a Chinese television series, Laughing in the Wind, that's in the same vein as movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's also thoroughly chop-socky, in that characters spin like tops in the air and make statements like, "Your Purity Sword technique cannot best my Paper Tiger Style!" (The Purity Sword technique is really something they reference frequently on the show.) Also, even though it was released in 2004, its camera appears to be either something from the 1950s or someone's home camcorder. While I'm on the subject of production quality: maybe it's just my computer, but one of the episodes doubled up every sound effect. When swords hit, they clanged twice, foosteps beat twice, a cup smacked down on a table thumped twice. It hurt my head.

The translations are pretty bad, but generally decipherable, even though it's hard to take a show with an "evil party" at all seriously. Then there's the plot, or what there is of it. Although that's uncharitable of me to say: I get the feeling that there is a plot, which makes it all the more difficult for me to attempt to follow what's going on. New characters are tossed in without any background, and the main plot appears to completely vanish while the show spends half an hour on a group of characters you haven't seen before.

Then there's the martial arts. It looks kind of cool... sometimes. Other times it's people whirling around waving their swords in the air while the sound effects go TING TING TING TING TING! It's almost like watching little kids pretend to swordfight. The costumes are elaborate (albeit appearing to have come straight from a modern sewing machine) and the sets are typically good, even though some of the forest shots appear pretty plasticky.

All that being said, the characters are charming (if very one-sided), and so far that's been enough to keep watching. Netflix, what hast thou wrought?

Avatar, no!

I've heard a rumor that Avatar: the Last Airbender might be ending. This came to me through Facebook; apparently, the group that does the music for Avatar said that they were wrapping up doing the music for the "final episodes," which "will not disappoint."

Does this mean I won't give up hope for a fourth season? No way. But still, realistically, it looks like this might be the end for our heroes! I have to admit, I've been getting a bit of a weird vibe from the latest episodes. It seemed at the end of the second season that they were setting up for a much longer story. No spoilers, but things weren't exactly going the way our heroes might have hoped. Now, in the third season, it does feel like things have shifted to a much more direct (and, if I may say, a bit hurried) conclusion. Does this mean the show isn't awesome? Absolutely not; it's still my favorite show in television, even more than Battlestar Galactica. It does mean that it's going to break my heart if it ends, and particularly if it doesn't have an end worthy of the show. I want something epic, yet profound. Adventure and story all mixed together. And no "remember who you are!" nonsense.

More than anything, I'm really worried that the end will feel rushed or will leave plots unfinished. They should just take their time and make a fourth season. Water, Earth, Fire... we need an AIR SEASON! It's only obvious.

Wikipedia says that Avatar is making a lot of money as a franchise. Why end the cartoon now? So they can make a live-action movie? Give me a break.

Appa! Yip, yip!

On an unrelated note, they did finally publish the writing contest awards. They actually did it later the same day that I wrote my gripe. Did they listen? I call it coincidence. I didn't win in any other category. I'm very disappointed. As much as I want to keep up appearances as the artist himself and just shrug it off, I can't help but think that if I can't even place on a University-level, how am I ever going to write something that's loved by millions?

It Finally Happened: Video Games in Movies

I watched Avalon today. If a movie made in Poland by a Japanese crew with Polish actors about a virtual-reality war game sounds like a terrible waste of time to you, that's because it is. BUT something remarkable occurred while I was watching this movie. I realized it was the first time I have seen an accurate portrayal of what a video game is really like in a movie. They correctly used phrases like "experience points" and the levels really were video game-like levels. They even had different classes of characters, although what, exactly, those different classes do was kind of vague. There was a Mage class, for instance, that never did anything magey. No, I don't think that's a word, either.

The movie itself was just a SFX movie with pretty mid-range SFX. Watch The Matrix on one TV and Tron on the other, and you'll have a much better experience without missing anything.

Catching Up

It's been a couple of days, and what a couple of days! On Friday, I attended the Intermountain Graduate Conference here at Utah State. Because I didn't cancel my classes, it was very hectic going from teaching to registering to teaching again to presenting my paper to sitting in on part of a session to running to a poetry panel discussion. Wow, it makes me almost tired just writing about it! The paper I presented was a short story that I wrote around an issue of modern life, technology and the soul, the influence technology has on the sense of self and on culture, all those topics that deeply fascinate me. I worked with the idea that the story would be told just where technology comes into play, hence the story jumps between three scenes, and leaves out much of what happened.

On Saturday, I had a couple of friends over, and we watched an episode of the TV show Firefly followed by the movie Serenity. Ah, why do they cancel such good shows, when something like Friends runs forever? The Sci Fi channel should really have bought it. Then again, thinking of shows that really do run too long, maybe it's better to die before you're huge than to die long after you're interesting.

I value the TV shows that mean something. A good TV show, like a good book, should say something about how to live. That's why I much prefer a show like Firefly, with its messages of family, honesty, and courage, and even shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, to something more mainstream (and much less meaningful) like any number of cop dramas I could mention. A good TV show should show something about what makes a hero, and whoever doesn't aspire to being a hero seems like a waste of space to me.

Fanboys

I thought I'd weigh in on the "controversy" over the release of the Fanboys movie edited. Apparently, the movie was orinally about a guy who's dying of cancer, so his friends take him on a wild trip to Skywalker Ranch to get a copy of Star Wars Episode One before it's released so he can see it before he dies. The new version has no mention of the disease; the characters are just a bunch of geeks who want to see the film. The "controversy" (again, note the quotes) revolves around the fact that people who call themselves real Star Wars fans say the cut takes away the heart of the film and ends up making fun of the fans.

Here's a link to people bitching: http://stopdarthweinstein.chris-marquette.com/

First and foremost, this isn't an issue. No-one is clubbing baby seals. And hell, you have to club something small before you can graduate to something big like Scarren, so you might as well club baby seals, too. Second, and this goes back to the first thing and why I put quotes around controversy: nobody has heard of this. I would be very surprised if this movie saw wide release. It's probably going to show in three movie theaters and go to DVD in two weeks, where both versions will be available. Shouldn't these people be busier, I don't know, anticipating how awesome the new Clone Wars animated series is going to be? THAT's a good use of your time.

Bluefish signing off. Take care, my pot rosts.