I don't even know if prejudice exists anymore...

I read something fun tonight, talking about the role of women characters in movies and television. The Bechdel Test is a handy way to evaluate the gender-suck of a movie, composed of three parts:

1) there are at least two named female characters, who

2) talk to each other about

3) something other than a man.

It is ironic... reflecting this test against 30 Rock, which as been incorrectly described as the most liberal show on television. Yes, the main character is a successful career woman. At the same time, her knuckle-dragging conservative boss is always right, she constantly fails to balance her career against aspirations for family and children, and whenever she tries to make her workplace more healthy or less racist/sexist, she crumbles and decides she still needs the crutches of her feminine status and professional entitlement.

How does the show add up with the Bechdel Test? There is only one character on the show (as a regular) besides Liz Lemon who is female, and their conversations are usually about managing Jenna's crippling psychological issues or... men. I think there is an argument to be made that all this conservative victory and content on the show is presented effectively as satire, but still... there is a remarkable conformity along these lines.

Another fun fact about the 30 Rock: Rachel Dratch was originally cast as the star of the Girlie Show (supplanted by Tracy Jordan and feeling sucky and vulnerable). NBC balked, deciding that they needed a hotter female lead, so Rachel Dratch dropped to a series of cameos in season one, and disappeared after that. The new Jenna was awkward in early episodes, but the soon hit their stride with her playing a two-dimensional hot chick obsessed with her age, appearance, and exerting her own sexuality as a weapon.

The blog post where I found is a female screenwriter talking about all of the direction she received as a film student, from teachers telling her that the only way to get movies made was to write scripts that bring white males to the forefront and drop females into virtual-prop supporting roles. She has a lot to say about how the entire thing is framed as what "audiences want," while characters like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Conner are habitually rejected as one-off flukes. Though, interestingly, those characters fail the test too--that even though they are bad ass female characters, they don't have any female characters around them to interact with, essentially a definition of "token minority."

I'm reminded of a favorite scene from Farscape, a show I've always kind of thought as scifi's ultimate chick show. There is a new character, Jool, on the show, learning the ropes, figuring out how to use a pulse rifle and stuff. Chiana is going to leave her guarding the shuttle on the diseased spaceship infested with cannibal hippies, and they have a conversation about violence. Chiana punches Jool in the nose, Jool cries for a moment, and then punches Chiana back. Chiana says, "See? Violence. You'll get the hang of it."

Do you really believe in the argument put forward by all those coked out white guys to excuse so thoroughly dismissing female characters from normalized roles on the screen, that audiences just aren't interested in it? I simply don't... Farscape had a massive fanbase, and the show ran out of money because its audience growth couldn't keep up with the growth of the show's budget. Why didn't they keep the budget more conservative and keep the show on the air? Why is there a formulaic chick flick released once a month for peanuts, but so few dramas or gritty gangster indie flicks based around female characters?

Or any other damn thing... my point isn't even about women in film. It is about how consistently frustrated so many people I know are by Hollywood. The system just isn't set up to give people what they want.

Which is to say, my bottom line is:

Bring back Arrested Development.

Also, I'm not sure if racism exists anymore, either:

Angry at Lost

I got caught up in the last season of Lost. And... honestly, I feel insulted by this last episode. So many dramatic reveals, none of which hadn't been anticipated. Spoilers:

1. Claire's "special friend" is the smoke monster. Duh. Because the smoke monster has been impersonating dead people, and Claire walked into the jungle with her dead father.
2. Claire doesn't know what happened to her baby, and thinks the Others have him. Didn't see it coming, and yet, duh. The smoke monster is a liar.
3. Jacob has been watching Jack, and the rest of the Losties and many others, since childhood. Duh. He's been interacting with them, delivering nudges, since donkey's years, suggesting omniscience (if not omnipotence). Surprise: Jacob uses a lighthouse mirror as a sort of scrying pool--virgin entrails are a lot more fun.
4. Jacob doesn't think the people in the Temple are safe from the smoke monster. Duh. We already saw the smoke monster kill a guy protected by magic dust; plus, smokey's got a posse (Claire, now Sawyer, maybe others).
5. More people from the Island took day jobs in the parallel reality. Duh. The Ben reveal was a bit of a surprise, and yet--the Island mysteriously sunk, and apparently there were survivors.
6. Parallel Jack is a dick. Duh. Regular Jack is a dick.

But, apparently, last night's episode seems to have blown some minds. Are you glad you aren't watching this? You're fortunately, and a better man than me.

One last thing... I've been pissy about this show because it always seemed to be that the end would be kinda capricious and basically out of left field. At least the evidence is mounting that the conclusion is going to be telegraphed like the Staypuft Marshmellow Man trying to land a right hook on Godzilla.

My money: Hurley gets a throne, Jack and Sawyer sacrifice themselves in a joint act of nobility, smokey dies (or gets his wish in an ironic sort of way), and Kate and some mess of other (very few) survivors get to go home, having learned a valuable lesson. What the Island is will be left just enough of a mystery that no one gets to have been right.

Godzilla toys with Staypuft for a while, then lights him up with atomic fire. It is a five minute fight that might last ten if Godzilla is hung over and Staypuft gets an assist from Zuul.

Queasytoons

Daria is finally coming to DVD. I know you've all been waiting with baited breath.

Honestly, I find myself surprised at not giving even a tiny little shit about this. It was a fun show, back in the day, but I failed to roll over any of those feelings as relevant to who I am now.

Top YouTube results for "Daria" include the following:

[first clip deleted for being intolerably dumb]





Wow, underwhelming.

Side thought: Despite my relative maturity level, this show still presents cartoons I'd like to bone.

I had a friend in high school who was a massive fan of Daria. And also a retard*.

Seriously, a teacher once tried to get me to help him with his vocab worksheet so she could go do something else (I said no). And once I dumbfounded him by explaining that the Matrix isn't profound because I can bend a spoon with my finger, and that I can move objects with my mind by way of my hand. "That isn't how it works!" "No, look, it is. Three-dee House of Beef. Wha-woo, wha-woo." Seriously. No, and he was also retarded*, like he drooled and was in special ed and shit. And was obsessed with a movie I never caught the name of where Buddy Holly fought zombies with a katana (which, honestly, sounded cool).

Maybe that killed Daria for me.

Or maybe it was always an example of MTV's steady decline from horse-puckey into bullshit, excused at the time as the inevitable consequence of their fluke successes, of which Liquid Television, Aeon Flux, and Beavis and Butthead are unfortunately represented as precedents.

Sidebar: if They made an animation anthology, as a feature movie like Heavy Metal, every year or every other year (like James Bond!), I'd be a slave to that. And what a wonderful forum for all that good shit like what came from Liquid Television... and Heavy Metal... and to turn all that Heavy Metal and 2000AD content into cartoons. Seriously, guy... that's a movie ticket and a full-price DVD purchase from me and a half-million other dweebs, guaranteed into perpetuity.

I don't know... maybe Daria was okay. Hmm. Things to think about.

*The proprietors of Restless Natives will give Sarah Palin a quarter for every utterance of "retard" under their byline the moment she sucks a black cock.

Fuck NPR

I try to keep my political content off of this blog. Strictly, this can still be considered media criticism.

Douchebaggery:

But Democrats seem to be setting their sights a little lower this time around.

One woman at the Bennet fundraiser held a sign with the number '51' on it -- as if to say, the party that had a 60-vote lock on the Senate several weeks ago, will now feel fortunate to hold onto a bare majority.

--Scott Horsley, NPR Douchebag

First, Bennet is a Democratic incumbent in the US Senate. What NPR Douchebag seems to think is a protestor (I guess?) is a person holding up a sign that points out that Democrats control the Senate with 51-votes. "A bare majority." As in, a majority, like the US Constitution says is what you need to get shit passed in the US Senate. As in, the major criticism of Democrats and their failure to pass anything coming from the Left and the Democratic base.

But, no. NPR guys instead sees a sign that--somewhat obscurely--substantiates the "Obama losing Colorado" narrative in his story. Here's another fun trick these guys use:

As a presidential candidate, Obama won Colorado by 9 points. But his approval rating in the state now is lower than his national average.

"Lower than his national average"? Why not tell us his approval rating? Because it is still a net positive nationally, and presumably is still a net positive in Colorado. Meanwhile, contrasting this non-statistic with a 9-point lead sounds like Obama is in deep trouble. Lazy reporting or a reporter with an agenda--take your pick.

What's funny, though, is the reaction of the blogger who brought this to my attention:

All I know is I ended up on the bathroom floor with half the shower curtain wrapped around me, a bar of soap embedded in the ceiling, and a cat looking down at me with an expression that read, "You just had to listen to NPR. When will you learn?"

I recently spent ten hours a week in my car commuting to work (daily for a year), so I drank my fill of NPR. It is shit. Shallow reporting. Trite conclusions that aren't substantiated by the facts. And very, very self-satisfied. I would literally find myself screaming at the radio on at least a monthly basis, and this was with increasingly rare listening.

The best example is a story they were doing on an upcoming Census in Lebanon, and how because the Constitution of that country guarantees specific executive offices and legislative majorities based on sectarian demographics (the largest group--Maronite Christians--always get to be president, for example), this could result in the collapse of the only Democracy where Christians and Muslims share power in the Middle East. Things they did not mention:

• The French wrote this Constitution.
• They wrote the constitution after drawing a border for Lebanon (which, historically, should have been a part of Palestine or, more properly, Syria) after the original Census in the 1930s, guaranteeing a proportion of 11 Christians for every 10 Muslims.
• Political power was locked in, with no new Census either required by the Constitution or conducted since then.
• Since Lebanese independence in the 1940s, birth rates and immigration (not including Palestinian refugees, who have never been allowed to join Lebanon) have resulted in vastly more Muslims than Christians in modern Lebanon.
• When this fact, combined with increasing demands for a new Census or a new power-sharing agreement, reached a crescendo in the 1970s, an ultra-nationalist Maronite coalition fired the opening shots in a Civil War which lasted from 1975 to 1990.
• The current peace exists only because the central government, which continues to be lead by a Maronite president but with a power-sharing legislature, has been effectively stripped of all power and functions. Lebanon is now run by regional citizen groups.
• Like Hezzbollah, who the United States and Israel consider a terrorist organization. After the recent Israeli bombing campaign in Lebanon, Hezzbollah was far more effective as a first responder and in the subsequent reconstruction than the Lebanese government.
• It isn't a Democracy if the Maronites always get to pick the president, no matter what the outcome of the election, or if the representation of the legislature is locked according to sectarian demographics that haven't been accurate for fifty years.

There basically isn't a single thing about the story I heard that has the slightest bit of baring on what is going on in Lebanon (the government doesn't govern--no one cares), what has happened in Lebanon (power sharing???), or in any way informs the listener.

I was just happy to find out I'm not the only one who screams at the radio when NPR does shit that is stupid. And fucking smug. God damnit, I would love to wipe that horrible little smirk of their face.

On the other hand, KPFA is awesome, which frees me from the shackles of NPR for drive time news, world music, cultural and granola shit on the radio. They stream online and lots of their shows are available via podcast. Their day-in-news summaries are pretty straight-news (no agenda), but bullshit free, which is nice. Their investigative reporting and book talks and stuff depress me, so I take it in small doses; all of it is good. Their Saturday morning Gospel show, from 6-9am, is superb.

NPR is like the George Lucas of journalism, "I made Star Wars, love me." You haven't made a single contribution to human society since 1977, you worthless hack, and your rare successful projects in the interim are flukes that have been entirely owed to other people, none of whom have received their due credit. (Case in point: Lawrence Kasdan, you assclown, for his scripts on Empire, Return of the Jedi, or Raiders of the Lost Ark, not a single one of which you wrote, directed, or produced.) Take a seat in the back, turn creative control over to better men, and pray we let you off the hook for the prequels and special editions, you cankerous rat-semen pustule.

Danny Glover is Captain Ahab vs. the great white DRAGON

Looks like we're getting a new Moby Dick movie starring Danny Glover as the fun loving Captain Ahab, and Moby Dick will be played by a white DRAGON. Yeah, a fucking dragon. Even if this turns out to be total trash, I'm gonna love it. I have always loved the book and the old Gregory Peck movie, and to move it to a fantasy setting is really exciting. Watching the video it would seem that they aren't straying to far from the source as far as mood and characters. I'm sure there are some people that will bitch to no end about the choice to make Moby Dick a dragon, but that seems like a pretty easy jump and one that doesn't have to effect the story, really, at all. Cross your fingers this in hopes that this doesn't suck.

Eleventh Doctor

Well... this is a bit disappointing:

But that is very clearly the monster from Blink, so that's a positive.

I've spent some time here talking about how they seem to be pushing The Doctor into something ... different. The way they put it in Waters of Mars, the penultimate episode of the fifth not-a-season, was "Time Lord Victorious" as opposed to "Time Lord Survivor." It is darker and more powerful... which, of course, always makes me happy.

Basically: the rules exist because bad shit happens when you break them (intentionally or not). But you can control the damage by breaking other rules. If you really can see the whole of creation, and especially if you are the solitary actor on your level of power and awareness, you can use the power of time like a god. Remember Rose at the end of season one? "I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself." The Doctor seems to be heading in that direction.

I really like it. And I have no way of telling from that trailer or anything else I've seen or heard, but I hope he continues to move in that direction.

Late, unrelated update:

Wtf?

Are people leaving Google? Should you?

Over on Gizmodo there seems to be a lot of anti-Google sentiment as of late. I know Buzz was a buzz kill, and was riddled bad ideas, like assuming that everyone in my address book is someone I want to know how I'm doing. Bad choices, no doubt, but are they bad enough to make people jump ship?

One post at Gizmodo even goes as far as to offer up alternatives to commonly used Google services, though after reading it I think a lot of it is bullshit. I have use many of the services mentioned and found that they couldn't live up to things as simple and effective as Gmail. BUT, as Google adds more services it's becoming harder to opt out of them, because of a classic Microsoft trick, you know the one, embedding Internet Explorer into Windows. Well, Google is playing the same game, Buzz is part of Gmail, and even though I "shut it off", Buzz is still a regular visitor when I log into Reader and Gmail.

I guess the question I have is, at what point do/should we jump the Google ship?

I know I have been considering switching to Wordpress to host my blog, though, I have NEVER liked Blogger, so that opinion is bias. But it does offer a lot of nifty features that I would like to have in Blogger, and I always assumed that they were missing because of the streamline Google approach. Though as time has passed that streamline Google approach seems more and more like laziness or lack of interest.

The two hardest services for me to leave would be Gmail and Reader, but if Buzz continues to make choices for me and share my info with everybody in my address book I don't see much of a choice but to leave.

So that's all me, my bitching, but I'm not alone in this distrust of Google. Here, a blogger, Harriet Jacobs, posts on Gizmodo a story about Buzz that is a pretty scary proposition.

Here is what she had to say:

"I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother. There's a BIG drop-off between them and my other "most frequent" contacts. You know who my third most frequent contact is. My abusive ex-husband.

Which is why it's SO EXCITING, Google, that you AUTOMATICALLY allowed all my most frequent contacts access to my Reader, including all the comments I've made on Reader items, usually shared with my boyfriend, who I had NO REASON to hide my current location or workplace from, and never did.

My other most frequent contacts? Other friends of Flint's.

Oh, also, people who email my ANONYMOUS blog account, which gets forwarded to my personal account. They are frequent contacts as well. Most of them, they are nice people. Some of them are probably nice but a little unbalanced and scary. A minority of them - but the minority that emails me the most, thus becoming FREQUENT - are psychotic men who think I deserve to be raped because I keep a blog about how I do not deserve to be raped, and this apparently causes the Hulk rage.

I can't block these people, because I never made a Google profile or Buzz profile, due to privacy concerns (apparently and resoundingly founded!). Which doesn't matter anyway, because every time I do block them, they are following me again in an hour. I'm hoping that they, like me, do not realize and are not intentionally following me, but that's the optimistic half of the glass. My pessimistic half is of the abyss, and it is staring back at you with a redolent stink-eye.

Oh, yes, I suppose I could opt out of Buzz - which I did when it was introduced, though that apparently has no effect on whether or not I am now using Buzz - but as soon as I did that, all sorts of new people were following me on my Reader! People I couldn't block, because I am not on Buzz!

Fuck you, Google. My privacy concerns are not trite. They are linked to my actual physical safety, and I will now have to spend the next few days maintaining that safety by continually knocking down followers as they pop up. A few days is how long I expect it will take before you either knock this shit off, or I delete every Google account I have ever had and use Bing out of fucking spite.

Fuck you, Google. You have destroyed over ten years of my goodwill and adoration, just so you could try and out-MySpace MySpace."

Okay, she's pissed, I get it, but using Bing under any circumstances is a bad idea.

And then there's Google CEO Eric Schmidt's "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." sentiment from CNBC.

And as much as that idea of using judgment and not doing bad things is true, that doesn't change the fact that some people NEED privacy, like Harriet and her abusive ex-husband. How about a gay person that needs to talk about it but isn't ready to tell everyone? What about kids' Gamils, sure their parents need access, but by that same token they need to be able to be blocked from crazy fuckers. I could go on for awhile asking these questions, but that's not the point of this. The point is to what end? When do we jump ship and find something a little more private? Or when do we give up privacy all together for the sake the internet?

One more little note and I'm done, this came from the comments to Harriet's post on Gizmodo:

" The issue I find is that my child got on Buzz. Now I can read the chats that he had with his friends. He is just 10 years old. I found out his private thoughts that he had only shared with his friends. Then I realized I can read and learn about what his friends are talking about or thinking about. Then I realized, if I were a sick person, I could follow in public or in hiding other children. If one of the other parent’s happened to be a sick individual, my son could be stalked too. It is a matter of time before my daughter gets on. One might say parents need to supervise or limit the children’s use of internet. I had to give my son a talk about privacy today and showed him what I saw. This is not about adults making their own decisions. It is about children who don’t know what they are doing being protected as well. I bet kids don’t read contracts or fine print. Most adults don’t. Automating is fine to a certain point, but exposing what was once a private conversation with a few of your friends is wrong… and I feel it is not right that I can read what young boys and girls are doing… and they don’t even know me and they don’t know I am able to read or watch them anytime I wish." - bryn.higgins

Not at all a Warhammer Weekly round-up.

I had hopes of doing a second Warhammer Weekly round-up, but then I remembered GW only really announces new things once a month, so I have nothing to post in regards to that.

In other news Heavy Rain comes out this week and I picked up a Indigo Prophecy, which was Quantic Dream's first run at a more story based game, needless to say when your competition is Halo 2 you're not going to do well, and IP didn't do well at all but the few people I know that did play it loved it, So I am going to give it a shot before I drown myself in Heavy Rain. I will report back upon completion of IP.

Entertainment as a whole seems to be a little slow lately, bummer. On the bright side it's given me plenty of time to do other stupid things.

Peace out.

Weekly

I didn't keep the Weekly thing working this week. I think I'm just going to post stuff as it comes up, which, like ShadyURL, people seem to like or which, like Kevin "Fat Fat Fat" Smith's adventure, stop being interesting a week later. Anyway, here's the stale shit I should have posted no later than yesterday.

Also, I believe Buzz made a contribution to the blog's title banner. Glorious. *applauds*

A.V Club collects a long list of movies, music, arts (etc), that people were once misguidedly in love with. Items that particularly resonate with me: Ferris Bueller, Donnie Darko, and American Beauty. I'm not sure what to add, but, how about movies I bought and never watched: Silence of the Lambs, Planet Terror, and Ghostbusters 1 and 2. You got anything that comes to mind? (2/12)

Kevin Smith got kicked from a plane for being too fat (he reminds me of Buzz with more money, fewer apologies, and less chronic pain). My understanding is, whatever the seating policy, air captains have final authority on everything; which sounds like a cop-out because it is. As it is, Kevin is daring them to bring the row of seats on Daily Show so he can demonstrate himself lowering the armrests and buckling his seatbelt. Personally, I've flown the same Southwest flight from Oakland to Burbank, which I bring up for no other reason than that I am thus worldly. (2/14)

This week in violence: Sound-off on your top five stand-up comedians who are better known as actors that you want to see get ass-fucked by a coke-snorting mule. Mine:

1. Chevy Chase, for never having been funny at any time ever
2. Jerry Seinfeld, who may not really fit this category but nevertheless deserves to get donkey-raped
3. Jay Mohr, for his Chris Walken impersonation
4. Kevin Pollack, for general douchebaggery despite a decent Chris Walken impersonation
5. Paul Reiser, for taking Jay Leno's side in a particularly douchbaggy way, for Mad About You, and most especially for that shitty open theme music to Mad About You you want us all to think you wrote. Douche.

Regarding Buzz: It is funny, for all the complaining about how Facebook and Twitter only exist so people can share every bowel movement with the world, when Google actually moved to do that, there was a general panic. It turned out most social networking users only want to share certain bowel movements with certain discreet social networks. Btw: Split pea soup, 'nuff said.

Last Saturday (2/13), Google announced that they were making changes to fix the privacy shit with Buzz, and that it will be accomplished in a few days. More on the changes and how the roll out was so fucked up.

Also: is anyone using Reader or getting any bang out of the blog follow function? The blogs I "follow" haven't updated in the blogger interface in months, and Reader seems similarly laggy and disconnected from reality. Is there something worthwhile in this projects? Or do I really just have a congenital difficulty with .rss?

Click the link.

Maybe not particularly interesting to those who don't tweet, but I intend to have a lot of fun with this: http://5z8.info/girlsgonewildpart1.wmv_h5m0k_hookers

Documentary

The Dungeon Masters.

I suppose it could be worse... it could focus on all the sexually frustrated boy-men who make us look bad. I'll take the sexually frustrated angry chick who thinks she's a drow and the naked army guy.

Hey, they made a video for this, too:

I had a horrible dream in hypersleep...

...that Keanu Reeves was going to play Spike Spiegel in a live action version of Cowboy Bebop.

Keanu Reeves is taking on another sci-fi mission for 20th Century Fox. The "Day the Earth Stood Still" star is attached to topline a live-action bigscreen adaptation of the Japanese anime TV series "Cowboy Bebop" for the studio.

I happened to discover a June 2009 article in Variety confirming this... much more recently than anything I had heard previously. This depresses me greatly. They are talking about a 2011 release date.

Keanu was brilliant in Constantine, as a pissed-off, doesn't-give-a-shit badass. That isn't how I read Spike at all... I can see how someone might make the mistake, but it is so wrong. All of that smiling, all of that rhythm.

I hope I'm wrong.

Not that we need a live action Cowboy Bebop in the first place. Who the fuck do you cast for Faye? (If you say Jessica Alba, I'm come into to your home and kill you.)

Dirty Canadian Scifi

Excellent news! Seasons One and Two of Lexx are posted, in their entirety, on Hulu.

Lexx is probably best described as soap opera, but its absurd dimensions basically transcend genre. The crew are thrown together by chance and launched on a tour of the two universes, full of pulpy sex and violence. The production was a joint production between Canadian and German broadcasters, bringing even more kinky weirdness into play. I just can't say enough about how much this show is a campy feast for the senses.

It is a key piece of the strain of science fiction that subverts Star Trek's cultural monopoly on modern science fiction television. Lexx is in many ways the successor to Red Dwarf, just a lot more exploitative and adventury, with an actual universe for them to explore. Dropping some of the more exploitative aspects and bringing it further in line with traditional space opera, and you get a forerunner to Farscape.

The first season is four episodes long, and has its high points. The first episode showcases one of the funniest perversions of law I've ever seen (a key theme in the series--"Lexx" is from the Latin for "law"). The rest of the season is a bit more forgettable, with episode four the only one having plot significance, but they are all fun, featuring, in order, Tim Curry, Rutger Hauer, and Malcolm MacDowell.

The second season is, I believe, one of the single greatest bits of scifi they've ever put on television. Every episode is strange and different, unrestrained and glorious. It is low budget, but absolutely fearless in pursuing imagination and id. The best episodes are early in the season, too: Terminal, Lyekka, Laff Trak.

The third season may be one of the most ambitious things they've attempted in scifi, pulling in theological and fantasy elements (something that usually drives me apeshit crazy in scifi) in a truly clever way. The fourth season brings them to our modern Earth... which, of course, is fun and stupid. I must collect these shows, too.

Anyway, give Lexx a look on Hulu if you haven't seen it. And rewatch it if you have. I'm hoping this appearance on Hulu means that they are contemplating another DVD release, and are gauging support. What has been put out on DVD in the past is ... hard to come by.

Also on the subject of Canadian crap television, I've been watching Starhunter 2300 on Netflix. There are bits of Lexx peeking out around the edges--probably just the result of a shallow talent pool, picking up this project that came after Lexx finished--but they've gone in a very different direction. I think they are trying to pull of a more-serious, more-moody version of Cowboy Bebop, complete with an instrumental remix of Peter Gabriel's Darkness for theme music.

Despite the off-putting cover image, this isn't all horrible. The writing falls down in what should be the best moments of the show, but that's the biggest complaint. It is like a lot of television in needing a few episodes to find its spacelegs. So far, I am finding it to be very watchable crap.

EA giving it away.

EA is giving away all the Command and Conquer Classic titles, check it out here.

One future for the Spider-man movies, I hope.

Weekly

Links collected through the week...

Video of Robot Chicken writers playing DnD are up at wizards.com/dnd. It seems to be updating often.

To my knowledge, the Left hasn't nominated Avatar for any PHL-awards, but that doesn't mean teabaggers haven't latched onto James Cameron as an ideological enemy. (Avatar plus schools and Anderson Cooper are actually the only places my list and theirs don't overlap.)

Like all populists, tea partiers are suspicious of power and influence, and anyone who wields them. Their villain list includes the big banks; bailed-out corporations; James Cameron, whose Avatar is seen as a veiled denunciation of the U.S. military; Republican Party institutional figures they feel ignored by, such as chairman Michael Steele; colleges and universities (the more prestigious, the more evil); TheWashington Post; Anderson Cooper; and even FOX News pundits, such as Bill O'Reilly, who have heaped scorn on the tea-party movement's more militant oddballs. (2/9)

According to this, an insider on the set plus this picture predict that Chris Meloni is gonna put the spurs to Beecher at least one more time on SVU. Soon? (2/11)

Tarantino discusses Ingorious Basterds with Rachel Maddow, including commentary on the film's War on Terror dimension. (2/11)

Guy I don't know builds a conditional list on "which SF movie most plausibly depicts what the Earth will be like in the next few decades." He includes 2001, Blade Runner, Children of Men, 28 Days Later, Terminator and District 9. Of course, he's wrong, because the next few decades will be like Tron, except for all the computer world stuff. Which is deeply depressing, even though we could have done a lot worse. (2/12)

Yeah, Google *really* fucked up with the privacy issues of Buzz. They were trying to leverage all of the awesome, comprehensive services they provide into an overnight, sprawling social networking hub. They fucked up bad. (2/13)

I'm going to start another one of these to go up next Sunday. If contributers have anything to share, just click edit from the Edit Posts menu and add what you want.

White Lunar

Well, this was a bit dissappointing.

The music is exactly what I expected, given Nick Cave and Warren Ellis's collaborations on the soundtracks of The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (both movies, highly recommended). And also some of the dominant elements in Grinderman ("When My Love Comes Down," perhaps my favorite on the album, comes particularly to mind). It is moody, ambient(?), and richly textured... excellent mellow-out music.

In lieu of a Proposition clip, I offer this... a version of one of the better songs on White Lunar, also from the Propoistion soundtrack, mashed up with movie bits:

I got really excited when I saw that Cave and Ellis released an album, and then got really sad when I realized it was not an album but a collection of bits from their soundtrack work. Exactly what I was afraid of turned out to be the case... it lacks cohesion, and many of the tracks are short and feel uncompleted. This kind of music is really served by dwelling on a sound and an idea for a while, feeling it out and building an arc, but the bulk of this two-disk compilation feels like exactly what it is... Cave and Ellis developed a feeling for one point in a movie, crafted a minute or two of it, and then moved on to something else. It feels unfinished and unsatisfying.

But, there are a half dozen actual songs scattered across the two albums, and it is pleasant listening. I don't feel bad about picking this up, but I would definitely otherwise encourage anyone who might have been inclined to seek this out... wait to steal it from a friend.

Star Wars RPG License

With Saga Edition being the final Star Wars game from Wizards of the Coast, I am left wondering who will pick up the license now? Being that it is Star Wars it's not going to sit around long before someone grabs it and runs.

I had thought that it might go to White Wolf, as they are the only company that has a fan base near WotC, and they have an established system, though I have a very hard time seeing WW picking this up. Not to mention they aim at retarded, goth nerds that like vampires, not really the place for lightsabers and wookies, ya know? And after what they did to BESM, I really couldn't handle seeing what they do to Star Wars.

The other prime candidate is Paizo, the gang behind Pathfinder, they have the best track record with 3.5 and they have a huge fan base that is half WotC fans, which makes for an easy transfer. The shitty part about this is if it did happen, we might end up with Monte Cook's World of Star Wars, basically it's Revised Edition all over again. As much as I love D20, I don't think it's the place for Star Wars, but this seems like a very possible pairing.

After those two there isn't much left. I don't see Steve Jackson Games picking it up, since GURPS will let you play a Star Wars game without needing anything more than what is already out there. Catalyst Games is far too small for this license and the only system they have is Shadowrun, which wouldn't meld well at all. Pinnacle Entertainment is a very distant choice here, they are tiny and their system is much like GURPS, in that you don't need a Star Wars book to run a Star Wars campaign.

There is another group that could make a last ditch effort at picking this up, namely, Green Ronin. GR doesn't have a lot going right now, they have some games that they have handled well but without the hype machine to back them. If they landed Star Wars it could very easily make them into a formidable gaming company, after all they already have Mutants and Masterminds, Song of Fire and Ice, True20, and the new Dragon Age RPG. I don't know how possible this is but it might be LucasFilms' best choice, and it might be GR's only hope, as they have been scraping by since 4th Edition came out.

I have no idea what will happen with the Star Wars license and I don't believe we will see a new game in at least 4 years. However, I am hoping beyond hope that someone like GR picks it up since they would have the most to gain from making a solid and supported Star Wars game.

Stargate Universe

I really enjoyed Stargate Universe.

It is survival science fiction, in the model of Battlestar Galactica (reboot), except without bad guys to fight (so far). Plots revolve around location resources, dealing with politics and tension within the group, and saving themselves from the messes they put themselves in. The tone is muted, with little or no gunfire, and I think character studies are the point of the show. The scifi is good, too, and a lot more sophisticated than the usual SG-1 action adventure.

I watched it all on Hulu, and unfortunately, only the last five episodes of the first season (10 episodes long) are still posted. I don't think spoilers will impact your appreciation of the show, but if you want a taste, start with episode 8, Time. Knocked my socks off.

Buzz Disappointment

I disabled Buzz in my gmail this morning, and deleted all of my posts. It was an act of frustration.

I can make it so my profile won't display my full name (which is a lie, but that's not the point), but it won't let me comment on or even "like" other buzz posts unless I enable this. I think it wants me to enable my follow and followed lists, which, also, isn't a big problem, but pisses me off.

I clicked the link, "why do I have to enable my profile" or whatever (even though I can't disable it completely, as I can my blogger profile), but it didn't quite explain why this was essential to my use of Buzz. It explained how awesome it will be, and how other people can find me, and how groups of friends can find each other more easily. Well, maybe I don't want full functionality. I certainly don't in Facebook, and they've accommodated me in that.

Kinda.

I'm probably just being immature, but this pisses me off. I'll set up and play around with whatever thing you think will be awesome, but this coming a bit too deep into what I perceive to be my personal space--gmail and blogger. My Facebook and Twitter are both connected to my old Hotmail email account, which was 3000 unread emails because I've let it go to spam.

Buzz feels like Wave's seventeen year-old sister is rubbing up against me at a mutual friend's wedding. She's got a small acne problem, but her boobs are nice enough to ignore that, if she wasn't an underaged girl rubbing up against me in a public place.

Tell me how it turns out.

Heavy Rain review over on Kotaku

Kotaku had posted their review of Heavy Rain, and it sounds like what I'm looking for in a game. Fuck, I'm gonna be broke this month. First AvP, then Heavy Rain, and to top it off God of War 3 in March. So many games so little time.

*update* It looks like Kotaku wasn't the only place to get their copy of Heavy Rain early, several notable game websites are posting their reviews, which is strange since most sites have a not-before-the-game-is-released policy. Though whatever policy they have doesn't matter cause this game is getting rave reviews, there was one reviews that was fairly low, but out of a dozen plus, it's not enough to change my mind.

Here is a link to the Heavy Rain game raking (game ranking gathers posted review scores and averages them out into a mega-score) page: Heavy Rain rating

Fuck Lost.

I've been in an abusive relationship with this show, but I think I'm finding my way out.

Basically, the show works like a drug dealer... they give you a hit, and it isn't all that bad. But it begs the question, "what the fuck?" What is in The Hatch, who are The Others, what the fuck is this smoke monster thing? I dropped out after the first season conclusion, because the answers they did offer all just resulted in more questions. Which is bullshit, and my resolution was to wait it out until everyone said it was, or was not, worth watching.

But then the cool kids sucked me back in. I did seasons two through five in a marathon over Christmas, and that locked me in hard. It is maddening.

What pisses me off most, even more than wishing Jack would die of a rectal bleed, is all the fucking chattering about "what it means?!?"

Have you seen anything else JJ Abrahms has ever done? "Alias"? "Fringe"? This is the guy who *wrote* the screenplay for Armageddon. He even managed to drain the more intellectual aspects out of Star Trek in his reboot. Not that that is a bad thing. By and large, I love his work... it is excited, unexpected, and over-the-top. These are good things. But deep? Not so much.

We've got time travel involved, we may have parallel dimensions (I don't think so), we've got miracles going off left and right, supernatural beings, and Egyptian ruins... Lost is the ultimate tangled clusterfuck of scifi and pseudo-religious bullshit, and it was expertly designed to skull-fuck you into submission. And what is the big payoff going to be? Look at the people involved... expect Back to the Future in the final conclusion, not something profound.

I'm fucking stuck in this, and I'm going to follow it to the end... but, I've found a coping mechanism. I'm absolutely sure I've got everything "wrong," meaning arbitrary decisions by the creators will not track my thinking, but I've assembled the thing in my head in a way that relies heavily on Doctor Who technobabble. The tension around the mystery is largely defused at this point, because I can explain everything I see within that frame... if the writers decide to do something different, then fuck them--they didn't trick me, they just decided to do something else.

The coolest thing from last night's episode was when Its Always Sunny's Mac showed up to put his balls on Jack's face. Then Kate shot him and I got sad. This show needs more teabagging.

Fuck lost.

Google Buzz?

Gmail invited me to start participating in Buzz this morning. I can't tell if this is supposed to be a Facebook killer or a Twitter killer.

What I've seen so far looks like a weird hybrid. I'm "technically" a power twitter user, and I don't see something in Buzz that will replace Twitter for me (yet). I would really like it to kill Facebook dead, though. The only thing about Facebook that ever appealed to me was the friend feed--a good way of sharing updates and bits of media in a closed, personal network. I can't even tell if Buzz posts are open or closed yet--though I had to close my Facebook manually to keep my mother from snooping, so I'm guessing it is open.

It seems Google is going to roll this out over the next few days. So far they harvested seven people for me to follow, out of my address book. I may trim that down. I hope to see some of you pop up there, though. And I really hope this means Facebook's days are numbered.

More.

My twitter.

Update: Not having more control over who will see my updates could be a big problem here. Because Facebook is a discreet network, it is easy enough to toggle shit to "hide my from everyone except friends." Because Buzz is linked to Gmail, it will require a bit more management, and thus more figuring out. *groan*

If anyone wants me to pass along shit I figure out about Buzz's privacy settings, let me know.

Update 2: There is a privacy concern linked to Buzz, already. This freaked me out, too, but I think it is an overblown concern. It automatically builds a follow-list out of your email list, and that list is public. Which created a huge security breach for journalists with anonymous sources.

You can trim your follow list, but, like the man says, email is very different from social networking. Also, you can build your own private postings list, which should create that closed community aspect I maintain with my Facebook. Unfortunately, I don't like that this feels like picking and choosing friends.

Update and comment as you learn more about the privacy functionality of Buzz.

Update 3: No, there is a toggle under "edit profile" when you're looking at your profile that lets you hide your real name and your follow lists. Thank jeebus. I'm thinking Google really shot itself in the foot with this roll-out.

Lynchtoons

I don't think David Lynch knows the difference between a wookie and an ewok.

Via.

Heavy Rain

Just finished playing through the Heavy Rain demo, and though it tills nothing about the story of the game (with the exception of the stuff we already knew), I am completely hooked. This really feels like a truly adult game, there is no candy coating, it's hard hitting neo noir, with interaction.

The breakdown is thus: you play as several different people all with the same goal, stop the origami killer from striking again, but all the motives are very different. You play as an FBI agent, a private detective, the father of a victim, and a woman who's connection is yet unknown. Each story is different and depending on what choices you make during the game directly affect the outcome of the story. If one of your characters dies you will have to play the game again to learn what could have happened to him, there is no extra lives, there is no life bar, if you can't do it, you either try again because failure couldn't kill you, or you die. The controls are minimal, there is NO hud (heads-up display), and keen observation and persistence are your only allies.

The only downside is that the game is only on the Playstation 3.

Nevertheless, if you get a raging hard-on for neo noir, and need to mainline pulp-cop-drama, this game is what you NEED.

Cops and Robbers

I watched Heat again, twice in two weeks, and continue to be blown away by how good it is.

I yelled at a guy the other day for calling The Godfather a "serious study of the lives of gangsters." It certainly is... in a world where lawlessness and vice dollars have no effect on the people who benefit from them. I really hated The Sopranos, but at least there you saw the availability of drugs and women, and commonplace violence, rubbing off on the characters who benefit from them.

Heat centers on a really tight crew, who keep their shit together, keep tabs on one anothers' bad habits, and are at the top of their game. And yet, crime takes its toll. And the cops who are hunting them are equally badass, and dedicated, and that takes a toll too. And above all the brilliant crime drama of cops and robbers, you get a story about how these badasses seek and relate to normal human relationships... all of which are, inevitably fucked up, but remain very human and interesting. Is there better crime drama, in movie form and outside the noir drama (though, this is debatable).

Is there a better Cops and Robbers movie?

I can't think of one. Soliciting suggestions.

Something else that caught my attention... the bad guys are using assault rifles, firing 5.56 and 7.62mm. Those rounds will shred body armor, and the 7.62 can trash a vehicle real good, too. Cop body armor is basically worthless against these slugs. In the first hit, they leave a couple of these rounds in a couple of bodies, so it is definitely sitting in the cops' minds that, if they try to arrest the bad guys, they are going to come under serious and *very* potentially lethal gunfire. The cops don't mention it, though, and don't belabor the point for the rubes in the audience. (Maybe they just didn't have to, as the climax very much recalls the North Hollywood Shootout of 1997--wait, no it didn't, because Heat came out in 1995. It also adds to my wtf factor that the cops had assault rifles so handy--though it wouldn't if dialog established that the Robbery-Homicide guys had made preparations to take on storm trooper bank robbers.)

I can't decide if that is inspired or not, but it certainly adds to the flavor. Everyone on all sides is a badass who knows the stakes and doesn't need to dwell on it. It is a Michael Mann flare, as far as I can tell, and it feels good. Of course, I could be talking out of my ass on weapons caliber and shit.

Either way, seeing Al Pacino man-handle Henry Rollins is a beautiful thing. I am reminded of one of my favorite scenes in television in all time, and one of the best in NYPD Blue, where Andy is sitting with his son, recently recruited into the cops, telling him how to do the job. They are talking about how to move some guys off a corner (one cop, three thugs), and they don't want to go. "Then you use your night stick, show them what you learned at the academy. As a cop, you don't lose a fight. You lose a fight, you lose your life."

Really, really good shit.

Right now, I am watching The Yakuza, streaming on Netflix.

Robert Mitchum may have been at his best in this movie, doing the world-weary noir protagonist with more depth and feeling than I think I've ever seen. He returns to Japan in the mid-1970s, where he had been a hood during the occupation, to get a friend out of trouble. The supporting cast is impeccable, and this may be Sydney Pollack's best drama.

The film is a lost masterpiece of neo noir, too. The plot and characters are incredibly complex, and well-executed. The twist is breathtaking. Everyone drifts in poorly defined roles (Mitchum has been a soldier, cop, private detective, and gangster), lacking forward momentum, constrained by circumstances and obligations, and there's tragedy on every square inch of film. Culminating in what may be one of my top ten fight scenes of all time.

And it is beautiful. This came out in the 1970s, so they lay on the cultural tourism real thick, but somehow it manages to avoid being tacky. The combination of modern and classic elements in the set design is marvelous, and the location scouts really took advantage of what Japan has to offer.

RoboCop Remake

Apparently, Darren Aronofsky is slated to direct a remake of RoboCop. This makes me vomit.

I have a lot of weird feelings attached to RoboCop... on the one hand, it is a Marxist critique of Frankenstein. On the other hand, it is packaged as a glorious reactionary circus. An evil corporation takes over Detroit's civic functions, builds soulless mechanical monstrosities that randomly kill people, and it all turns out okay because a Reagan-esque old guy fires the bad guy. (Who, unlike Aliens, doesn't happen to be a Jew... progress!)

What can you possibly add to RoboCop? It is a bizarre, freakish mockery of social commentary that happens to be a super-awesome action movie. With robots and cyborgs. And Peter Weller!

Honestly, I believe this should have been an awesome franchise, but that it buckled because no one had the balls to take it where they should have. But then, they did with Alien, and that resulted in Alien3... which was awesome, but kinda killed the franchise. And then Joss Whedon walked in an gave the dead horse a facial.

(And, when you hear Joss's side of it, he says, "I wouldn't have ended it with Ripley making out with a pumpkin." Which is similar to his alternative to Return of the Jedi, "I wouldn't have ended it with Lando piloting the Falcon next to a weird frog person." Very creative, Joss, pointing out what is wrong without actually describing your better ideas. The correct answer is, "no magic powers for Ripley, and no Ripley either cuz she's dead," in the former and in the latter, "Ewoks, Ewoks, Ewoks." You suck, and if you had any sense, you would have let Ben Edlund write Serenity and have found a sea cucumber to direct it. If you were my twin, I'd get facial reconstruction surgery so no one would confuse me with you.)

A RoboCop remake? Really? Cuz, I discovered the remake thinking they could do a great 25th re-release in theaters... in 2012. Remakes, as a general rule, are a dumb idea. Remaking something young enough that I'd brag about fucking it? Fuck you.

And Darren Aronofsky? The only thing that could improve RoboCop is for it to be more like Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Wrestler. ...which actually might be the one good idea in there. The basic essence of RoboCop is so horrible that I you don't need to twist the knife to drive the point home. But you can. And if Darren Aronofsky does one thing well, it is draining the fun out of something (math, heroin, professional wrestling) and using it to make you give suicide serious consideration. I hope he does cyborgs next. Weeeeee!

And, why a remake instead of a fun, exploitative crossover? The Terminator franchise is on the rocks. Make this movie:

Weekly Warhammer Round-up

In an effort to add some content I'm gonna run down the new shit Games Workshop is through out there to eat our money, so yeah here goes:

GW announced yesterday a new Venerable Dreadnought, this is neither here nor there, the old dread was, well, old and metal, nine thousand pounds of metal. BUT it looked super sweet.



Great looking model, right? You're damn right, it's so sick it's in the hospital dying of full body cancer. Here's what they replaced it with:



Not the same level of over-indulgent badassery.

They also announced a new Ork dread, that is pretty and an improvement over the 12 year old model I had come to love.



They also threw out a new Flash Git model, but this is the ONLY flash git model, lets hope more are on there way, if not I see this as a waste of metal.



Last but not least, we have new Killa Kanz, 'bout fucking time.



So there you have it, all the Warhammer new fit to know, cross your fingers for some new badass models coming with the Blood Angels Codex next month.

Doctor Who

I've been spending a lot of time with Doctor Who over the last few weeks. Five years after the reboot started, I think they've established and completed a single, cohesive character arc for The Doctor which, the more I dwell on it, I find quite breathtaking.

The show really plays up its campier, creature-of-the-week aspects, which misdirect from the more-serious character study of The Doctor. The Ninth Doctor (Ecclesson) was a hard-bitten realist, a resurrection he seems to have chosen during the Time War, and in that form he drifted for who knows how long, alone. After travelling with Rose, he resurrects as David Tennant, a much sillier, clownish person, and in that, I really see him trying to shake off the memory of the War, the genocides he himself committed, and the friends he's lost. He is deeply in denial.

It doesn't work, and the reboot's major arc is him facing the reality of who he is, that by involving himself so much in these crises (and bringing normal people with him), he participates in atrocities. I'm not sure how he resolved that, internally, but it is fascinating--and inevitable.

It is all streaming on netflix (except a few from right at the end). Rewatch a few particularly arc-significant episodes, and see if you see what I see:

• Rose (episode 1.1), with lone wanderer Ninth Doctor
• Parting of the Ways (episode 1.13), resolution for the Ninth Doctor
• The Runaway Bride (3rd Christmas special), the Tenth Doctor needs someone to stop him
• Human Nature and the Family of Blood (3.8 and 3.9), the Tenth Doctor's normal life
• Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead (4.9 and 4.10), a glimpse of The Doctor's future
• The Waters of Mars (4.16), The Doctor finally tries to break the rules--especially interesting given future-Doctor's accomplishments in Forest of the Dead

There are others, too. I'll return to this topic, but I'm interested in your thoughts--some of which I am sure are worthy of their own posts.

Don't miss the amendments to the fourth season, which were provided as a sort of alternative to a full fifth season while the show decided on its next incarnation:

• The Next Doctor
• The Planet of the Dead
• The Waters of Mars
• The End of Time (pt 1 and 2)

Trinity 2009

2009 was a good year for my Holy Trinity of music: Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, and Nick Cave.

First, there is Leonard Cohen's world tour, which started in London. Despite having nothing new (and skipping all of his Dear Heather songs--a personal disappointment), it was a great show and a great concert album. And I finally got to see him live, which is really its own experience.

Tom Waits and Nick Cave, though... they both had offerings last year, but I have yet to sample either of them. Now that all my late-arriving Christmas presents are accounted for, I'm going to start collecting these for myself.

Tom Waits released his own live album, Glitter and Doom, which collects his favorite performances from throughout a 2008 national tour (which I can't believe I missed). There are a few tracks I don't recognize on the listing, but overall I expect it to be a retread of his best stuff. Tom Waits has been described as the greatest live performer of all time, due basically to his improvisation and persona. Having devoured the audio version of his VH1 Storytellers, I believe it...

Nick Cave's offering is a compilation assembling his work on film soundtracks with Warren Ellis, White Lunar. I love their work together, but I'm not quite sure how much I'm going to enjoy this. Sound tracks aren't really a class of music I've ever really consumed--I like albums, whole albums, that you actually spend some time with. I never hit shuffle. Anyway, the soundtrack on The Proposition was an ambient joygasm for me, and I'm looking forward to this documentary on Cambodian prostitutes that he scored.

So, unless I'm dissuaded, I'm going to have to make an Amazon order today.

I'm also going to have to pick up The Death of Bunny Monroe before it becomes impossibly expensive to find.

The Other Avatar

Is anyone else as dissappointed by 30 second Last Airbender trailer as I am?

(Link in case the embed isn't working.)

In tone, it reminds me a little bit of Super Mario Brothers, where the only sensible thing to do was make a dark and depressing film version of the cute and cuddly original medium. And how did they manage to make bending look so ... silly. In the TRAILER.

Maybe I'm being too critical. I've only seen the first season, and seen it recently, but am enjoying it so far. I hope they release an extender trailer of this soon, too... My understanding is that this will continue (and finish?) the story line of the cartoon, but I think there is still a lot of wiggle room.

Ben Browder, Claudia Black

I am rewatching the first season of Farscape, and just had a super-girlie, giggly moment at some one of the earliest flirty bits between Crichton and Aeryn. I've described this show as the for-chicks version of Star Wars, and I stand by that. Relationship drama all over the place, weak female characters, and very little testosterone-intensive peacocking.

It just occurred to me that Ben Browder has really gone no where with his post-Farscape career. Claudia Black? She's popping up all over the place, and especially in video game voice work. Why?

Browder and Black both migrated to Stargate SG1 after Farscape ended, I think as a sort of gesture to people like me who were outraged by the cliffhanger cancelation. Black led the way for the transition with a guest spot that turned into a permanent role. She was fun and hot, and added something the show had missed throughout its run--a resident scoundrel on the team. Browder, on the other hand, was kinda supposed to replace O'Neal but played it more like Teal'c, and the result was kinda boring and uninteresting.

He's conventionally good looking (aka uninteresting), and while he's great acting out a subtle romance that builds over years and getting his ass kicked on screen, I'm not sure there is a lot there. Anyway, I still have fond associations with him from Farscape. If you spot him in something good, let me know.

Also: I'm serious about Farscape being a chick show. Anyone looking for geeky viewing options while breaking in a girlfriend need look no further.

God, I am suck a chick.