My good buddy, Mr. Crews is correct. We're not quite dead...yet. To all three of you (if that) reading this humble blog, I apologize for the delays. I'm working on a lot of projects at once, some I hope to throw around and get recognized for, others to help me improve my work in the difficult craft of writing.
In other news, video gaming to be exact, two new games which have utterly mesmerized me are Tom Clancy's EndWar and EA's new stylistic project, Mirror's Edge.
EndWar follows the typical Clancy game format (save it's RTS design) in which a future not unlike our own is under major military jeopardy and you get to play the highly trained tactical commander in charge of fighting the last war of history. The fun thing about this little gem of a game is all the controls are voice-based. Sure, you can play the game by using the Xbox controller and looking around with the analog sticks, but the real command treat is barking out orders to your infantry and tanks and watching them perform admirably in the face of certain destruction. It's a great addition to an all ready stunning looking game.
For Mirror's Edge, we change gears a bit. Okay, a lot. The game is intensely first-person, and you play Faith, a "Runner" in a shiny pristine authoritarian future. When information is controlled by the government, the rebels and resistance fans have gone low-tech, employing parkour (or freerunner) agents to physically race their information and clandestine plans around the city. It's a great kinetic game with intense visuals and lightning-quick pacing. The demo is short but very sweet.
For those of you with Xbox 360s out there, check out these demos now. EndWar is all ready out in stores, and Mirror's Edge will be released in a few days as of this writing. More later.
Despite the eerie silence of late, we're not dead! The shooting script and story-boarding for "Valley of Heroes" are nearly finalized and soon "filming"\dubbing can begin. As usual, RBKearney is the lead for this project so if you want to help talk to him, but if he's busy you can talk to me. Anyone with a microphone can apply for voice acting, however filming will more restricted by practical constraints. Updates to follow soon!
Well, 'tis been a long time since I have posted. I told you all I was reading Choke and The Road, and when I finished I'll let you know how they were, but I'll get to that in a minute. For me, my road to adulthood has just begun because only last Thursday did I, your humble poster, move on to college. It was a tough 6 and a half hour drive that began at some time after 4 am, and I was running on very little sleep, plus I was a little hungover. Yeah, fun day. My dad had me drive some of the way down, and I almost fell asleep a couple times.
But I made it, so that's all that matters, and I fucking love it. And, yes, fuck was totally necessary.
Now on to business. Choke was great. I'm not going to say anything about it because that'll ruin it. Just go out and see the movie if you don't want to read the book. Apparently Chuck Palahniuk loved the movie and felt it really captured the spirit of the book, so that has me sold.
Now, on to The Road. Uh, that was one of the most depressing books I have ever read. And you know what else? Nothing really happens! They walk around for three hundred pages! And avoid cannibals and other horrors that are even worse and I really don't want to mention. And the end sucks. It's not bad, it's just so... middle of the road. It should be sad, but it's somewhat hopeful, but most of all the world they live in is still shitty and won't ever change. Sounds kind of familiar, huh? The whole book is a metaphor for day to day life, and I get that, but it's going to be tough to make a good movie out of it. I'll still see it, but, there are things that will probably be sanitized, and characters that will be expanded upon unnecessarily, just so it's not all Viggo and the kid. And that's unfortunate.
And, today I'll leave you with the trailer for the movie Watchmen. Now, I'm sure all of you have seen this trailer, but I want to expand everyone's analytical side with this. Just so you know, I read the graphic novel, which was amazing and doesn't seem like it'll translate well, but we'll see. Plus, the guy who did 300 is doing this one, and I hated 300 (me and like three other people). So, I don't know if I'll see this one, but the trailer has me so intrigued even though I know already what happens. What I want you all to do is watch this trailer, but listen closely to the lyrics of the song (which is "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning" by the Smashing Pumpkins) and follow along with the scenes, and just how well it all goes together. I keep watching this trailer over and over, and it just pulls me in so well.
"Valley of Heroes" the first official Two Tons Production of 2008 is in the pre-production phase. We currently need voice-actors and available body actors (for Halo 3). The story is a military drama/action piece and is set within Halo canon. The script is roughly 20-25 pages (depending on format) and will most likely be split into a four episode mini-series. I have an Audition Sheet for those interested in voice-acting. If interested in hearing more about the project or finding out how you can get involved, email me at burke.kearney@gmail.com or message me here or on the www.machinima.com forums. My handle there is "Foxtrot". My Xbox Live Gamertag is Foxtrotarmy, so that's an equally valid way of contacting me. Until next time!
Hey all you out there in the interweb, this is a new weekly segment called "Spotlight on Machinima." Seeing as how Two Tons Productions is currently in the Pre-Production phase of a Halo 3 short, as well as the beginnings of writing for a WoW series (hopefully to be donated to a studio that can film it properly) I figured it'd be a nice touch to showcase some of the finer workings of our filmmaking brethren in action. You can look forward to this segment every week on Wednesday. And for the record, while on the subject, "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" will be back this week, but on Thursday. Sorry for the delay, but you can expect Week 3's coverage of that to continue tomorrow.
The inaugural piece I intend to show is Episode 5 in a running Call of Duty 4 series called "Retaliation". You can find it on www.machinima.com and YouTube. Embedded here is the film and I want you all to take note on how with very little dialogue, great sound effects, lighting, and camera movements, even a video game can achieve cinematic quality in action scenes.
This is a video that I'm afraid not many people have seen. It's Rooster Teeth's very own accurate reproduction of the events in time that led up to the cataclysmic unveiling of the undeniably greatest machinima series ever made: Red Vs. Blue.
The video stars Burnie Burns (the voice of "Church" in Red Vs. Blue) and Geoff Ramsey (nee Fink, the voice of "Grif" in the show).
Well, it's finally happened. I got the call today, the official offer of employment with the United States Border Patrol! I leave 2 weeks from now for my new home, Eagle Pass, Texas. Now, I go into training and don't get out until November 7th, so the next two weeks is all you'll hear of me until after then. Hopefully then I can continue input into this great project of awesomeness. But, the next two weeks I shall persist in my efforts to type!
Ok, well, it's been a while since I last posted, but, I have a strong feeling this post is going to be a little more coherent than usual. I am posting today to let you all know about two movies I am very excited about, the two I am most looking forward to for the rest of 2008, and some have probably heard little to nothing about. First is Choke. Based off of a novel written by Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club), it is a story about a man, Victor Mancini, who will go around to restaurants and pretend to choke on food, get saved, and then the saviors, feeling responsible for him, will send money to him on a monthly basis, which he uses to pay for his mother's hospital bills. His mother doesn't remember who he is, and she wasn't a very good mother in the first place. Oh, and I almost forgot: Victor is a sex addict, and he goes to group therapy for it, where he usually picks up a new chick to have sex with. His best friend is obsessed with masturbation, and the two work in a colonial style theme park. If you're all not sold yet, watch this:
And for some of you brave souls, here's the uncensored trailer: http://www.vimeo.com/1336990?pg=embed&sec=1336990
Don't watch it with your parents around, because there are boobs galore. The movie is written and directed by Clark Greg, an actor turned director, and it won the Special Jury Prize (whatever that means) at Sundance. It's been described as "slimy, weird, and oddly lighthearted to boot." It comes out in September, although I believe it's only a limited release, but I'll be living in the LA area, so it won't matter to me! Hah!
The other movie I want to talk about is called The Road, written and directed by people I've never heard of. It stars Viggo Mortensen (you can sign me up already, he's gooood, and not just in LOTR either!) and is about a father and son traveling through a post-apocalyptic American landscape. But, what really sells me on this movie is that it was based off a book written by Cormac McCarthy. Unfortunately, I'm sure most of you don't know this name, but he was responsible for the novel No Country for Old Men, the movie that won Best Picture. Well, I read the novel after seeing the movie, and oddly, I liked the movie more. It might have something to do with the fact that the Coen Brothers wrote and directed it, and they're simply amazing. Also, I was not the only one to think the movie was better. The teacher who told me I had to go see No Country also read the book afterwards and liked the movie more, and then we got another teacher to read the book and watch the movie, and, what do you know, the movie was better. I'll save that debate for another time, the book was still REALLY good, and definitely worth reading. So, back to The Road. This movie doesn't have a trailer yet, which is worrisome due to the fact that it's out in November (then again, the new Harry Potter movie didn't have it's first trailer come out until yesterday... still, it's LATE). Plus, I don't really remember No Country being heavily advertised before it picked up Oscar steam. I saw that movie without once seeing a single trailer, which I can honestly say has never happened before or after that. Plus, it's the Weinstein Company producing, and they're notorious for under-advertising all of their movies, not just the bad ones. So look out late November, this movie will be out, but will any advertisements be? I'm not certain.
Also, I've started reading Choke, and I'm about a third of the way through, and it's awesome. I have The Road, and hopefully I'll start in in the next couple of days. I'll let you all know what I think of the books when I'm done with them.
Finally, I just wanted to say, there are other movies I'm looking forward to, these two just jump out because they're weirdly unadvertised. I'm also looking forward to Quantum of Solace (mostly because it's coming out on my birthday, so, yeah, that's going to be AWESOME) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. That is probably my number one most anticipated movie, mostly because it's directed by my personal favorite director David Fincher, who also did Alien 3 (he hates it, I like the assembly cut), Se7en (amazing), The Game (I really liked it), Fight Club (one of the best movies EVER), Panic Room (never seen it, and probably never will) and Zodiac (my favorite of his, although not as popular because people wanted more killings... fucking idiots). So, yes, I'm sure you've all seen the trailer for it, it was with the new Indiana Jones movie, and it looks good.
The Wal-Mart Greeters (6-0) Keep Up The Pace, Despite Lag
The Wal-Mart Greeters (your favorite "home" team) is still undefeated after playing six out of the ten games of this Summer Season. Today's schedule consisted of a game against Wii Pwn, the only team the Greeters hadn't faced yet, and then finished off with a rematch against Team Cobra. The inital volleys were ugly at best, lag befalling the entire competition. Wii Pwn had some teamwork issues as they started breaking apart mentally on the field, which (combined strategically with the horrific lag) led to a decisive victory for the Greeters. It was a bit disputed in the several intermissions between attempts at a lag-free game. Seems Wii Pwn had very poor connections and just couldn't cover it up with good playing. Too bad, so sad.
The second game went a little better (at least as far as lag is concerned) when only Foxtrotarmy lagged. Unfortunately this spilled over to the rest of the team and initially getting any hammer kills was almost impossible. This allowed Team Cobra to get an early lead (the first for any team against the Greeters the entire Season) but it was soon countered when Foxtrot's connection slightly bettered. Unfortunately it wasn't enough for a clean game, but the end result worked out, and Team Cobra didn't dispute heavily at the end-game lobby. It was charted up as a victory, 6-3 for the Greeters. That was the highest scoring game for any opposition to the Greeters, the previous being a series of 7-2 victories against a myriad of Division 13 Teams.
Here's the current Division 13 Standings.
1) The Wal-Mart Greeters (6-0) (36 goals for)/(9 against) 2) The Flying Fire Monsters (4-2) (22 goals for)/(23 against) 3) Team Cobra (3-3) (20 goals for)/(25 against) 4) Giant Pizza Kings (3-3) (20 goals for)/(25 against) 5) Wii Pwn (2-4) (10 goals for)/(26 against) 6) The Huguenots (0-6) (0 goals for)/(0 against) -These guys have forfeited EVERY game-
Today, for the first time, I signed up for and played Metal Gear Online. Whereas most games, I usually skip the single player and go straight to multiplayer yumminess (or is it yummyness?), such as the case with Battlefield: Bad Company, with Metal Gear Solid 4, doubt and skepticism fouled my incredibly righteous aura. MGS' single player has always been the top of the top, just ahead of those other single player greats Half-Life and Duke Nukem. Now, Half-Life has one of the most fun and addictive multiplayers ever to grace the pixelated world. Could Hideo Kojima and team elaborate on their masterpiece, and transform it from a single to a multiplayer game?
After 2 hours of gameplay today, I can most assuredly say that Metal Gear Online is fucking amazing. That's the simplest way of putting it. Expletive and all.
What's so damn glorious about MGO is it's frustratingly novel concept of being...difficult. Not difficult as in "OMGZ HAXXORZ I CANT GET KILLZORZ"...rather more in the sense of that long forgotten word in multiplayer shooter games...STRATEGY.
Yes, strategy ACTUALLY matters in this one, folks. The SOP (play MGS4 and you'll know all about that, my children) system makes working together with your team INCREDIBLY easy, fluid, and useful. And you need it. The maps are large and small alike, catering to many different tactics and strategies. It is very easy to get flanked and outmaneuvered in MGO, which makes teamwork a NECESSITY rather than just another tactic. Running off on your own, like in all those other online games? Forget it. Sure, you can get away with it sometimes, but those who play MGS in the first place are more than your average gamer. These people have honed their strategy and skillzorx to this game ever since 1987. In the first ten minutes of play, I quickly learned to use the buddy system. The game is perfectly paced, not too ridiculous to overwhelm, but insane enough to give you sweaty palms and a calorie burning heart rate every encounter. The system for buying guns is very similar to the single player, using Drebin Points. In other words, you gotta earn the points by kickin ass if you want the good guns and ammo. The different game modes are very interesting and fun as well, but of course the best of the best (as always) is the good ol' Team Deathmatch.
Metal Gear Online is good for many reasons...I mean it WAS based off of the best video game series ever created. But the complexity of the multiplayer and it's depth and difficulty truly make this a multiplayer experience for the truly die hard MGS fans, and those looking for a multiplayer game that's more than just bunny hopping and grenade lobbing spawn camping.
I am back from DC, but nevermind that. I have sad news. I have beaten Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. 23 hours, 28 minutes, and 04 seconds into the game, I officially put the controller down, and wiped away the single tear streaming down my face. Now that the game is over, I look back over the past days worth of gaming, and realize that I am a changed man. The MGS games have always had a knack for changing people, what with it's deeply engrossing and moving storyline...but this last installment takes it all. I do not want to delve deep into this topic once more, for you yourself must play through the epic. The end boss battle is the best boss battle in the history of gaming. Nothing else comes close. Nothing. The story, and the way it is capped off in the end...it is as if a supreme being created it from the most pure and divine of sources. Now that I have finally played through the MGS series, I know not what to do with life...
Here's the second installment in the new "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" Series. This time we're going to do a focus on comic and graphic novel based movies. Let's get it rolling!
THE GOOD: Watchmen is in its final Post-Production phases, and if you saw The Dark Knight then you got a most tantalizing view of this upcoming comic great from the director of 300, Zack Snyder. The trailer showcased many of Snyder's (now) trademark styles of slow motion sweeping camera movements and over-the-top visual feasts of color and effects. For 300 it was a perfect fit. I'm currently in the process of reading the graphic novel (rated in the Top 100 greatest NOVELS of all time by Time Magazine) and I can see (having read 300 before the movie) that Snyder's style will fit the dark themes and morbid happenings of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic masterpiece. David Hayter (the infamous voice of Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid series) penned the script and Hayter's past works have included the original X-Men and X-2, so he knows his way around a comic interpretation. All and all this looks to be great adaptation and interpretation of a great work of art. Watchmen is slated for release on March 6th, 2009.
THE BAD: Spider-Man 4 is currently in script format. Now I was considering using this for The Ugly, but I figured considering all the other things it could be, this wasn't the worst case scenario. It's still in script form, so no word yet on who the main villains will be, or whether Tobey Maguire will even come back as the titular role. Rumors on the street are pointing at characters like Scorpion and The Vulture coming into play, but again, these are just rumors. While on the subject of speculation, let's dive into a little ourselves. This could be a chance for the Spider-Man franchise to jump onto the bandwagon of merging the Marvel Universe into one cohesive structure. After Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk's strong allusions to other Marvel characters and even an Avengers Movie, maybe the creator's of Spider-Man realized there was a lot of missed opportunities to be had with mixing and matching. If that's the case, could the next Fantastic Four be laden with references to S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers? Maybe the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man team up? Who knows, I'm just rambling now. But at any rate, know that Spider-Man 4 does exist, and Sony has paid Marvel to renew their rights to the cinematic Spider-Man franchise. The tentative release date is May 2011. More details as they come, valued readers!
THE UGLY: Justice League: Mortal. While I'm a fan of Batman and the likes and would want to see a Justice League movie as much as the Avengers one Marvel is spouting around, this project in and of itself is tripping all over itself like it has two left feet at a dance marathon. The project is tabled right now, Warner Bros. wanted to rewrite the script and then the Writer's Strike occured and so the development has been inevitably and indeterminably delayed. Casting had started, and part of why this earned an "Ugly" is because none of the cast of the super-hero super-squad are related to the other movies going around with the same names. The Avengers and Marvel have managed to keep the big name actors onboard and with the Avengers movie we can definitely look forward to seeing Robert Downey, Jr's Iron Man mixing it up with some of the other big name super-lads. But there's no Christian Bale behind the Bat mask here, and not even that even that guy from Superman Returns. Hopefully if they get the script rewritten and everything works out, this will be a great movie. I don't wish any movie to be shitty, but sometimes life just works out like that. In this case, in its current state: No Good. But given some time and real effort, and it could be awesome.
Okay, this post is here to inform you of all the things that I've mentioned in previous posts and the like, to keep you all updated entirely on the happenings of Two Tons and all the lovely young organizations involved with this prestigious collection of filmmakers and creative entrepreneurs.
IN GRIFBALL: The Wal-Mart Greeters are dominating the 13th Division of the Grifball Summer League. Here's the Past Schedule and Results:
WEEK 1 - GAME 1: Wal-Mart Greeters (8) vs. Team Cobra (1) WEEK 1 - GAME 2: Wal-Mart Greeters (7) vs. Giant Pizza King (2) WEEK 2 - GAME 1: Wal-Mart Greeters (0*) vs. The Huguenots (0) WEEK 2 - GAME 2: Wal-Mart Greeters (7) vs. The Flying Fire Monsters (2)
OVERALL STANDINGS: 4-0
*The Huguenots forfeited their game so no goals were scored by either team, though because the Wal-Mart Greeters were present at game time, we got the victory.*
IN COMPUTER TROUBLE LAND: My iMac is currently with the fine folks at the Apple Store where they're replacing the hard drive which I apparently scrambled beyond all repair. So hopefully that'll be better in due time.
More to come as I think of it! Until next time, Ladies and Gents.
I come to you with the gravest of news. The Chevy Blazer that I called my own private vehicle has officially crapped out. It's kaput. It's dead. Done. Game over, man, game over. At approximately 8:00pm last night (Thursday night) I left for Jacksonville (as mentioned in "Holiday Inn Excess"). Well I woke up at 7:00am today and ate my continental breakfast and went out to start on my epic journey...again.
The tow truck showed up, towing me poopy Blazer to a nice little hole-in-the-wall repair shop where a nameless grease-monkey in an dark olive muscle shirt and oily cargo pants determined immediately the problem resided in the shitty battery I had and the fact I was two quarts low on oil and engine coolant (which, coincidentally explained the consistently fickle air conditioning issues I had been having.) These fluids were replaced and the battery was replaced with a brand new Interstate battery.
It was only 100 miles from that point to get to Atlantic Beach for a gargantuan family reunion (on my Father's side incidentally). Well the mysterious clicking sound I had heard the night before (the audible harbinger to immediate system shut-down in the Blazer) had returned. And then, a mere 30 miles from the hotel where the Reunion takes place, my Blazer repeated its fatal crsah, in the middle of a four-lane highway. I managed to restart the vehicle and get it safely off the road before it died again...this time for good I'm told.
The coolant and oil (that had both been replaced an hour before, if you recall) had all fried away and gone off into the wind as stinky smoke. When towed to a nearby mechanic, they discovered the rings in the engine were shot, and had two recommendations.
One: $4,500 replacement/rebuilding of the engine... Two: Fill it up with new fluids and sell it at a wholesale auction IMMEDIATELY.
Moral of the story: I'm stuck in Jacksonville with no car, and if I make it back to Tallahassee in a timely manner then I'll have no vehicle, no job, and be shit out of luck. So...yeah, that's where my life stands right now.
I'm writing this brief article from the bed in a Holiday Inn Express somewhere between Tallahassee, Florida and Jacksonville, Florida. The reason I am writing this article atop this comfortable Queen-sized bed with this obnoxiously efficient air conditioning is because my car decided it was going on strike...in the middle of the interstate going about 70 miles per hour.
As I pulled onto the off-ramp to investigate a mysterious clacking sound when the accelerator was pressed, my RPMs fell down to 0, and my dashboard died, along with the engine and the battery.
Lack of power-steering and anti-lock brake systems didn't stop me however and I am obviously still alive, despite one your heinous attempts to prematurely end my soon-to-be prosperous life. You'll have to try harder than that! In the meantime, while Saxman's in DC I'll have to pick up the pace to keep the articles flowing and moving, and despite being at a family reunion all weekend long, you'll still find me out and about on the interweb and updating this site! Keep on truckin' out there, world!
I am now over 14 hours into the divine creation that is Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
So, yeah, I can't really express to you how INSANE things have gotten since I last posted. In a mere 8 hours of gameplay from my previous post, so many crazy out of control situations have gone down.
The action is INCREDIBLE. When the shit goes down, it THROWS down. Explosions everywhere, people dying left and right on both sides, and you're caught smack in the middle. Besides the action, the moments where you sneak by enemies are just as heartpounding. On one occasion (no spoilers, no worries) I spent 45 minutes sneaking by enemies. Yeah, it took forever, but not getting a single alert in the whole area was rewarding enough.
While the action is *read above* INCREDIBLE, it doesn't come near the intensity nor beauty of the story...the plot, what Metal Gear Solid is truly known for. It's as engrossing as ever...sucking you in and not letting go, haunting your dreams, your vacant thoughts, everything becomes dominated by the story. Well, that is if you are like me (and Mr. Kearney, who is much more addicted to Mr. Snake's story than I) and you LIVE off of the story behind Metal Gear Solid. Not a cut-scene goes by where your jaw doesn't drop, where you don't gasp in disbelief or horror, where you bury your face in your hands. It's truly compelling, though if you don't have a base knowledge of the previous games' story lines, you will not nearly be able to appreciate the immense beauty the story emits.
I stopped playing at 8pm tonight, having reached my limitation of awesomeness. I had a good point to stop at, and since I'm flying to D.C. tomorrow until next Tuesday, I won't be playing the game (I'm crying already...I miss Snake) or posting here. So this is goodbye for a few days. I'll put up a post next Tuesday sometime, after a round of Metal Gear Solid 4. It's like reading holy scripture...but with headshots and alert phases.
If you've played (and been relatively active in the community of) PC Games in the past five years, then you've probably heard of Far Cry, the game that made island vistas and free-roaming gameplay a realistic possibility. Well if you've also read Two Ton's articles for the past 5 days, then you probably know where this is going.
Far Cry has been made into a movie, and is achieving theatrical release, next Friday, August 1st...and since Germany and German companies are plastered all over the release details and business information, it only took a quick glance to confirm the most God-awful fate a videogame movie can acquire: Director (if such a term could be used without choking on your own vomit) Uwe Boll.
The bastard has struck again and used the classic German tax-evasion loophole to make his movie at a budget of $30,000,000. The theatrical release mentioned earlier is for the United States so if you're (un)lucky enough to live near Boll's private theater, then I doubt you're going to see much in the way this film (piece of shit). I'm going to embed the trailer in this article so you can watch it without having to leave the safe-haven of our little enclave, because I honestly care about all of your well-beings and don't want to see you venturing off to Boll's territory to watch his sado-masochistic interpretation of videogame films. It also stars Til Schweiger as Jack Carver, the protagonist (let's hope...you know what, screw that. Hope's got enough to worry about then to be shipped off to Boll-world). It's also got that bald guy who was the general in Stargate SG-1. Maybe he should just look into being typecast and get away from this monstrosity.
If you've survived this trailer, kudos. In fact, email me and I'll send you a virtual prize, because that's just super-human...see what I did there? If you watched the trailer you did, if not...don't worry, it's not worth it. Peace out, kids, keep it real, and let's get ready to start a petition to officially shut down Uwe Boll, because my cinematic and videogame loving heart can't take much more of this. God Bless you Valve and the peace of mind you give me with Half-Life.
In my attempt to formulate words to describe Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3), my vocabulary seems wholly inadequate. Were I to say that MGS4 is 'godlike', that in itself would be an insult to the great Hideo Kojima...mere words can not do justice to what MGS4 truly is. It is beyond human comprehension that such a heavenly game could even be thought of, let alone created. No, I'm wrong...it's not a game...it's a portal to nirvana...a gateway through which one can reach salvation. The best part? I say all of this after only playing through roughly 8 or 9 hours of the game. This was accomplished just today, starting at 10:00 AM and playing nonstop. I have only just now eaten a meal today. I am actually getting an idea of how Hideo Kojima made this game...I'm pretty sure (and this is after heavy research on my part to verify these facts) that he took MGS, MGS2, MGS3, crack-cocaine, the sun, Super Bowl Sunday, and Christmas and put all the ingredients into a giant pot and boiled them together. After that, he took 1 tablespoon of the resulting substance (anymore would've been considered suicide on his part for the sheer awesomeness) and took it in shot form, chasing it with Tequila. Then Hideo watched his favorite movie "Escape from New York" and then cried from it's sheer bodaciousness, and his tears were taken to a top secret lab in Japan, the same place they keep Godzilla. There, they extracted an element from the tears, known only as "FoxAwesome" and directly coated each MGS4 game disc. That is how this game was created. It has to be. I would speak of divine intervention, but Hideo is about as divine as you can get.
More impessions to come as I play the game further...
Just know that tonight, as I lay in bed searching for missing sleep, I will cry until I see Snake again.
The world of movies is a magical land, covered in new releases and previews that makes our skin tingle, and even so, there are also shocking announcements that make us cringe in disbelief and horror. This little segment is going to detail the Good (the stuff you look forward to), the Bad (the stuff that's not so hot) and the Ugly (the WTF M8 section).
JULY 22nd 2008
THE GOOD: Angels & Demons is officially filming, starring Tom Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon in this prequel based on Dan Brown's novel. The reason this qualifies as "Good" is because the storyline and plot are much more intriguing and less controversial for the sake of being controversial. Plus there's a helping hand of science involved. Oh, and Ewan McGregor is attached to the project. So that's definitely good. Ron Howard will be reprising his role as director, and overall, the film looks to be amazing, but especially so if everyone's gotten over some of the mindless controversy surrounding the first one. This prequel truly is the better of the two though. Let's hope the cinematic interpretation is equally so.
THE BAD: Jurassic Park IV. Okay, so that poster is fake and I had to search Google to find it, but that's the not the point of this (though it equally qualifies as "Bad"). Jurassic Park IV is listed in script form, not yet even to pre-production. There are a few glimmers of hope perhaps for this work, one is that William Monahan is the screenwriter for this project. Monahan wrote the scripts for The Departed and Kingdom of Heaven and having said that, knows how to write a decent screenplay (of course). However it would seem that unless Christian Bale (the newly appointed Savior of Franchises) becomes attached to this project, it's unlikely it'll be able to save the great novel and original film from the filth that Jurassic Park III and even the ending of The Lost World carved out for it.
THE UGLY: Dragon Ball the goddamn movie. Yeah, I know. You see why I saved it for last? The plot involves Young Goku (I knew my worst fears were confirmed when I read that) following his dying father's wishes and searching out Master Roshi. Now as far as I can tell, it's going to follow (roughly) the plot of the original series. They're probably saving the Z suffix for the sequel, God help us if it warrants a sequel. I can't even begin to fathom what else I could say regarding this....it comes out 2009....I'm gonna go kill myself.
This won’t be too in depth, or too dramatic of a post…for I don’t have much depth or dramaticness. Yes, that word is on purpose.
As with many people my age (a large and ominous 20), the first ‘Terminator’ movie I saw was not the first one, but the second one, ‘Judgment Day’. And being but a small child at the time of viewing, I precisely remember my first true impression of the movie: when both the Terminator and the T1000 arrive in the “present-day” of 'Judgment Day', circa 1994, coming from the future of 2029. They both arrive in giant orbs of electricity…stark naked. I was more than shocked, I was really shocked.
Now that I’m more mature, albeit only slightly, I can truly appreciate the first two ‘Terminator’ movies for what they are…sheer brilliance. The third movie is left out of this “sheer brilliance” category for obvious reasons if you have seen it…the film just doesn’t come near the expansive story telling and pure righteousness of the first two. But let’s face it, the ‘Terminator’ series has hugely influenced the action/science fiction genre. After the mediocrity that was ‘Rise of the Machines’, can the series revive itself?
Yes, and the series will catapult once more to the forefront of moviegoer’s popularity. Why, Saxman, however do you come up with these outlandish statements? Well, of course I kid myself, as most avid moviegoers already know of ‘Salvation’ (especially after the teaser trailer from ‘The Dark Knight’) and the main reason it will be supreme-awesome-mindblowing-tubular-genius: Christian Bale.
Christian Bale as John Connor! Do I even have to say/type anything? I mean, really? He’s exactly the badass, manly man needed to portray the tough and hardened John Connor in the future. A quick glimpse at some of Bale’s roles to prove the point: most obviously his newly acquired role of Batman, Cleric John Preston in 'Equilibrium' (if you have not seen this movie, shame on you, you go now!), and his role in the '3:10 to Yuma' remake. Awesomeness in human form. But we all know about Christian Bale. What of the others in the upcoming movie?
Director of ‘Salvation’ McG doesn’t have the type of resume I’d vie for in making the next Terminator. His notables on “Director” list include the 'Charlie’s Angels' movies and 'We Are Marshall'…and that’s it. When it comes to being Producer, it’s all about the television shows, such as 'The O.C.' and 'Supernatural.' This having been said, I think he’ll do great things, because the man has a vision for the movie. He’s been quoted saying that his film will “…begin again very much in the spirit of what Nolan did with Batman.” So basically, taking the franchise and rebuffing it for today’s world. And with a great cast working under him, he’s going to change the way we view ‘Terminator’.
Bryce Dallas Howard (think main chick in The Village and Lady in the Water, and Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3) will play Kate Connor, John’s wife. She’s the daughter of the famous Ron Howard, nuff said, eh? Well she’s a damn brilliant actress, I would say. Her performances in the M. Night movies are stellar…cosmic is a better word. Oh yeah, and she’s gorgeous. I’m down with that.
But wait! Who oh who is the new Terminator? Sam Worthington, that’s who! An award winning and very famous Aussie actor, Sam has also been chosen by the great James Cameron to be the lead in his new movie 'Avatar,' which has nothing to do with the great Nickelodeon show. Yes, I watch Nickelodeon, get over it.
Others in the cast include Common, the rapper, Helen Bonham Carter, who’s basically amazingly amazing, Moon Bloodgood, and Anton Yelchin (who’s playing Pavel Chekov in the upcoming JJ Abrams Star Trek).
So…basically…all in all…this movie is taking the Terminator franchise in a new direction, with a new hero. That’s just plain exciting. Plain exciting? That’s an oxymoron. And I like it.
Unfortunately, the moral of this long drawn out tale of computer betrayal is that my iMac is dead. 3 Months old and the damn thing doesn't even work anymore. What's more is that when I called Apple Care to get it all fixed up nice and dandy, the lady on the phone seemed even more flabbergasted than I on how I destroyed it. In my narrative I would spell out in excruciating detail how the Windows commandos waited until the middle of the night and the middle of the conference between the two warring computer factions and then immediately invaded the remaining 300 gigs of space.
You see, instead of partitioning my drive like Boot Camp is supposed to, it just reformatted the whole damn thing into a Windows NTSF lay out. Well when it rebooted and I went to install Windows I obeyed all the normal commands. Unfortunately for me, I had the Windows Service Pack 1 CD, and you need Service Pack 2 specifically for Windows to run on an OS X Leopard Apple machine. So then I got stuck in a never-ending loop of installing windows until I finally figured out how to eject the CD and put the Leopard installer back in.
Again, most unfortunate because I could've solved all my problems if I had just reinstalled Leopard right there, but no. I had to screw it up even more. So now whenever I boot up my iMac it gets stuck on the damn white-loading screen and I can't do anything except make it beep and eject a CD in it (which is nice in some occasions).
So the morose ending to this sad tale is that I'm going home (Jax) this weekend and I have to take my useless brick of a computer with me and give it to the only Apple Store within 500 miles of me, and see if they can fix it over the course of the weekend. It's really quite the shituation. And yes, that does say "shit"-uation.
Anyways, enough pointless ramblings. I just wanted to wrap up this story so I can focus on writing more crap about movies and games and the like. And we might have a new writer participating in the coming days, so that'll be awesome. Peace out.
The Wal-Mart Greeters Introduce Division 13 to Every Day Low Scores
While working on the more narrative-based exposition of my Apple/Windows conflict, I figure I'll update you humble readers (all 3 of you) on the exploits of the local Grifball Team. First a little history.
The Wal-Mart Greeters came from simple enough beginnings...minimum wage, 24/7 store hours, and missing front teeth that gave a creepy lisp and awkward giddiness to everything they said. Things couldn't get any better. But there was more in store for these 6 humble men...and boys. Fresh off the happy-go-lucky sensations that only Rooster Teeth's Red Vs. Blue series could give them, and a new contagious Halo 3 sport known as Grifball, Team Captain-to-be Phlapjak (Brett Holton) gathered his forces. Yours truly, codename Foxtrotarmy while on the field joined in his crusade, and it wasn't long before InBreed (Nathan Monroe), and ages old acquaintance also caught the bug. The three set off to find pick-up games in the local matchmaking windows, and see if they could have what it takes to live the life of their idols and play in an official Grifball League. Just like the pros. During skirmish they met and were forced (reluctantly at first) to play with a wise-cracking referential humor genius who was known only by the enigmatic title of "Vinny." Fearing the Mob had finally caught up with him, InBreed disappeared from practices for a few days. Vinny's handle, Master Hotspot, inspired confidence in the others however, and enlisting a fire-breathing young rookie named DaLil Irish7 (James Kearney) the team was formed.
The "Master" Hotspot took Irish under his wing and trained him in the ways of the Roflcopter but was immediately frustrated with the young rook's progress, demoting him to the emasculating callsign of "Free Smackies." Smackies was known to drink his way to sleep in the hotels while on the road due to the humiliation. But while Hotspot and Irish trained themselves to death every night, Phlapjak and Foxtrot were busy strategizing. They realized that more was needed, especially Red Shirts and back up players. InBreed was found through contacts in the FBI and brought back onto the roster. Now with one back up ready to go at a moment's notice, the team began formal practices. They recruited hobos and vagabonds to play against them, lining the walls of their little local Grifball court with their blood. Soon they were running out of ragamuffins to practice against. Then a figure from Foxtrot's past entered the equation.
Devilish Jumper (Two Ton Production's very own DL Crews) appeared from the shadows of a misty morning and offered his services, valiantly taking up any kind of opposing force against the newly forming Wal-Mart Greeters. His intense defenses as well as hardcore training regime formed the several other pick-up players into a well-oiled practice squad and gave the Wal-Mart Greeters the training they needed to get into shape for the coming Season. But no tale like this ends happily for all involved.
Jumper was shortly thereafter shanghaied when found passed out a pub, drunk. The Wal-Mart Greeters never saw him again, though occasionally get postcards from exotic locales with "help me" written in encoded letters on the back. They don't often write back.
Game Time. Wednesday, July 16th 2008 and the Wal-Mart Greeters are stretching out, putting on their armor, and preparing for a whirlwind adventure in hammering, swording, exploding, scoring (in both a sporting and biblical sense), and complete and utter desecration of corpses. Only one problem. Master Hotspot was nowhere to be found, his protege, Irish, ready to go at a moment's notice. InBreed had once again felt that Hotspot's disappearance met impending doom and had similarly vanished off the face of the Earth. With only three players and only five minutes to game time, the Wal-Mart Greeters seemed doomed to forfeit their first official double-header, and start the season 0-2. Phlapjak pulled a dangerous gambit. Pulling in a familial relation who had trained with the team in the past, a last minute replacement seemed to save the day. But then Hotspot appeared at the last second, moments before the buzzers sounded and the team walked onto the court. The team signed autographs and wished their fans goodbye as they were ushered by officials onto the court for the opening song and dance. It was a beautiful number, and when the first bell rang out and the ball dropped into the center of the court, the Wal-Mart Greeters (Phlapjak, Foxtrotarmy, Master Hotspot, and DaLil Irish7) became reality, and Division 13 subsequently exploded.
Millions of Innocent Megabytes Destroyed Where They Slept
I come today bearing the gravest of news. A dastardly attack brought on by Bill Gates' private cyber-army during a movement towards a peaceful coexistant between Steve Jobs' humble little iMaccers. The battlefield: Tallahassee. The Time: The middle of the goddamn night.
Young Robert Kearney decided that one fateful night he was tired of the fighting. Of the heartbreak. Could he ever reconcile the thousands of dollars of entertaining videogames with the thousands of dollars of the state-of-the-art film editing and screenwriting software he had floating around? He could if he made a bold proposal. Unbeknownst to him he would set in motion a cataclysmic series of events that would forever alter the battlefield of his desktop computer, and bring back and old ally turned foe in the form of his MacBook Pro.
So Mr. Kearney proposed to the Apple Gods a new training regime. Get the Apple-minded megabytes the proper training they needed and prepare them for a diplomatic mission. They had all ready become quite adept and familiar with dealing with the Microsoft Office ambassadors, and the two got along quite well, signs that a hopeful future was brimming for the normally hostile factions. Kearney was pleased.
The name of the program was Boot Camp. Put the little cyber-trites through a rigorous training exerciser, pen off a section of their land and send an invite to the Microsoft neighbors to set up shot and begin the road to a bright future of cooperation. Final Cut and Brothers in Arms working in unison? Making...machinimas even? Perhaps too futuristic for this piece, and too far fetched considering the outcome of the night's dire events. The land of Hard Drive-ville was split, literally. 40 gigabytes of land was inspected, cleaned, and squared off for the new Microsoft diplomats. The CD drive whirred and Kearney brought in the new arrivals, not sensing the Trojan Horse-like intent the otherwise benign-appearing politico-bytes had.
When the gates opened, the Microsoft programs entered cautiously, sensing danger, but found only open arms and fresh clean land to lay claim to. Never before has such a generous offer been made all in the name of electronic entertainment. But could it last?
NEXT: Part II - Border Breakouts, and Early Skirmishes.
So I guess I'm the only one who keeps up with the "weekly posting" thing. Whatever. I don't know what I have to say tonight, so bear with me if this post gets... a little... on the crazy side.
First off, I just bought the album "By the Way" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I love this band, but for some reason I never bought this album. Which was pretty retarded of me because it's amazing. Best album I have ever listened to (in my humble (well, not really that humble) opinion).
This next part is for those of you who have seen Fight Club (or read Chuck's book). If you haven't, go out and rent it and I'll see you back here in two hours and twenty minutes. Anyways, for the rest of you because I know there's only like 7 people who haven't seen that movie, and they're all under 17 and their parents won't let them watch violent movies, I have some things to say. First off, amazing right? Right, I'm sorry, it's a given. In fact, I only know of one person who didn't like that movie. And he couldn't give me a logical explanation. Whatever, semantics. Anyway, that movie always bugs me. It amazes me how two guys can take a group of people, and turn them into anarchists, and then become revered as heroes (okay, so it's not really two, but Edward Norton thought that it was, which is all that really matters). However, they're anarchists, but their tactics are very much strategical and they turn these people into machines, not unlike the military. Their followers are disciplined and hard working and follow orders, the complete antithesis of anarchy. That doesn't make sense....? Or just how deep their fellowship became. Cops, politicians, security guards, anyone (who has a y-chromosome) somehow could become associated. And they would die for it. Now, I have to remind myself this movie is fiction, and fiction at its grandest. None of this could happen, and if it could that still wouldn't be the point. The point? I don't even know. But it's one hell of a movie, directed by my personal favorite director, David Fincher. He's good. His first effort was Alien 3, which is the Alien movie everyone hates. I kind of like it because it's the darkest and the gloomiest of the bunch. And it's so much better than the awful fourth one. (In case you do watch it, check out the assembly cut--not perfect, but it's better than the original, and a lot of people like that one so much better). Next, he does Se7en, arguably the greatest serial killer movie of all time. That one sets him on the map, and Brad Pitt stars in it, setting up many future collaborations. Then, he does The Game. Not one of his best efforts, but it's still an awesome movie, and one of the most suspenseful I've ever seen. Then, Fight Club (Brad Pitt again). I've said enough about that. Then, he does Panic Room. Never seen it, and I don't recommend anyone to go see it. The consensus is it sucks. But, hell, even Spielberg has an off movie every once in a while. Then, finally, his most recent, and my most favorite one of all: Zodiac. Once again, serial killer territory, but what's so great about this movie to me is it's Fincher grown up. He uses less of the camera tricks and editing craziness that was prominent in his most famous films before this, and there's very little about the killer himself. Instead, this movie is about three people who's lives become consumed in doing everything they can to find the killer. They all become obsessed, and slowly it tears apart all of their lives. It's brilliant, frankly. And, next up is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt, and the trailer looks amazing. I can't wait.
Alright, enough about that... A list of movies I'm excited for: The Dark Knight Hellboy 2 Hancock Pineapple Express Tropic Thunder Righteous Kill Choke (Chuck again, baby!) RocknRolla Zach and Miri Make a Porno Quantum of Solace The Spirit
Be Kind, Rewind. I'm sure you heard of it. It's that one movie with Jack Black and Mos Def where Jack Black becomes magnetized and erases all the tapes. And then, to make money, they decide to remake each erased tape to satisfy their clientèle, which exponentially grows after some interesting versions of Ghostbusters ("What you gonna do about Ghooost-BUSSSterssss?!") and Rush Hour 2 (Jack Black is Jackie Chan, no facial make up required).
Well, I'm sure most people saw the trailer thinking, "Aw, must be some cute, feel good movie with some funny remakes of movies, maybe I'll check it out." But they probably didn't, maybe they were busy, or, when they were at the theaters, they went to the romantic comedy instead, I mean, it did come out in February. So, this movie probably got very little attention. I mean, I never watched it in theaters. I wanted to, I thought it would be great, but that's because I knew it's backstory. I'll get to that in a minute. But, I never watched it until this morning. And I'm ridiculously glad I did. More on that in a moment.
Michel Gondry was the writer and director of this film. He's only done four other pictures, of which I've seen two. He originally did Dave Chapelle's Block Party (which I have no intention of seeing) Human Nature, which I've never seen, but wasn't very popular. Most notably, that movie was written by Charlie Kaufman, who's most notable for Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Human Nature set up the beginnings of a future collaboration that would put Gondry on the map: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Good film, great camera techniques, well written, good acting. This is what Gondry is most remembered for, but I think a film he wrote (by himself) and directed two years later was so much better that ESotSM: The Science of Sleep, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, of The Motorcycle Diaries (eh, it was OK) and Babel (great). In this movie, Gael's character, Stephane Miroux, has a disassociation problem, in which he has trouble discerning the difference between his dream world and the real world. This is Gondry with no one pulling him back, completely on his own coming up with the most original movie I have ever seen. The basic plot is a girl, Stephanie, falls in love with Stephane, but he originally likes her friend. However, he ends up deciding that he likes Stephanie more, but by the time he realizes Stephanie has moved on and doesn't care for Stephane, so he spends the rest of the movie trying to get her back. But, the plot was not what made it good. It was a part of it, but it was mostly the visuals. However, I'm losing my original point here, so I will stop talking about Science of Sleep and tell you all to go out and watch it, right now.
Be Kind Rewind is Gondry being restrained, but even him restrained is good. He has at least two shots in which it is just the camera moving along as the main characters create their remakes, but as the camera movies along, we are shown different sets and movies. So, it starts with like a boxing movie, moves into 2001 then King Kong and it just keeps going. The camera never stops and neither do the actors. I'll stop here because I hate giving away movies, but I'll just say this: go out and see it. For newcomers to Gondry's style, I suggest starting out with this one. It's the least crazy, but it's still very good. I have a feeling Gondry was trying to reach out to a deeper audience with a more subdued idea, but he's still making good stuff.
Now, after all that, I bet all of you out there are thinking where the hell is he going with this? My ultimate point is coming up in this paragraph, so be patient, you'll see it, you'll go "Holy crap! He's absolutely right!" and be done with me. In the trailer of BKR, it says "The most important movies are the ones we make ourselves". I watched the trailer before I watched the movie (what can I say, it gets me more invested in the movie), and I saw that, and I realized they were giving away the theme of the movie before anyone had seen it. I had never noticed that line before, but it just struck me. And then I watched the movie, and that was the point they made. These two guys set out to make a bunch of movies because they needed money to save their business, but instead they created something that their whole community became invested in.
And that struck me. What are the most important videos to me? Sure, I'd probably put Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark because those are the movies that made me love film, but after this movie, I'm not so sure. I look back on the movies I've made growing up, the ones I've made for my film classes, and I remember what it was like the first time showing any of those. My stomach tightening, my fist tightening. I remember looking at people's reactions more than the movie itself. And I remember discussing it, saying what I was going for, what people got from it, their opinions, their criticisms, I would take whatever I could get. And I look back on it now and I realize those are the ones that are important. Why? Because it's my work, it's my effort, it's my thoughts poured out on film.
So, I pose the question to you all, what is more important to you? Say you love reading. What's more important to you, the books you've read or the ones you've tried to write yourself? Or your a football player. What's more important, the hits you've seen on TV, or the ones you've laid yourself? What's more important, what someone else has done, or what you've done yourself? In the end, what matters is what you've done, what you have worked for, and the effort you put into your work. Take pride in that work, because it is yours. That's what matters.
Wow, first post and I'm already getting preachy. I don't how future posts will turn out, so expect less life lessons. There will be no universal themes to my posts, so each time you'll be left with a new thought. Which is the way I like it.
Since I talked so much about the most important videos being the ones we made ourselves, I thought it would be fitting to leave you all with one I made myself. Or maybe I'm just way too into myself. Either way, enjoy this work of cinema in the classroom.
DLCrews is a member of the Two Tons crew, and will be contributing his rather cynical and usually technical perspective on things from time to time.
To be honest, I won't pay much attention to these movies until, at the least, I can actually go out and see them. Heck, even just a trailer maybe! But that's me and my rarely cracked cynical view on preview information. For now, what I can comment on whole heartedly is the Prince Of Persia games. The original had a special place in my heart, regardless of my royally suckage in it at the time. When I heard a new one was out I was intrigued, but had my doubts. Thankfully someone I knew bought it and after playing their copy I quickly fell in love. It had wild and free acrobatics, a variety of cool time effects which were sanity saving for a platformer, an epic and mysterious feel to the locations, characters, and events, and, well, even if the combat was repetitive and fairly boring, it didn't really matter. The game rocked. The Prince was a great character, unsure of how to prove his worth, both to his father and himself, but still determined to move ahead regardless. Sometimes it was in the small details where it really came to shine. It was ironic how many times I found myself unable to solve a puzzle just because other games had conditioned me to not try obvious solutions that should work! Want to get on the other side of that ladder? Tap to the side, he just flips around it. Sliding along an edge hanging with you hands and come to a corner? No problem, he just works his way around it. There were plenty of things like that to be found where it just worked.
Some time later I heard news of a sequel. And what's this? An interesting view of the Prince as a man on the run, hunted by a physically manifest force of fate it's self, to kill him to set right his his manipulations of time, as he grows more haggard and desperate to survive and evade the hoards that pursue him. Then, uh, you know, the game was delivered. Except not the one we were promised. Suddenly the Prince was no longer a believable a character, one who you could take part in and root for. Understand on the one level why he was so desperate and yet wonder on the other if perhaps he was being selfish and cowardly in evading his fate. He became an anti-hero, a bad man, who dropped one liners and lost all believability. Penny Arcade fittingly mocked this by giving him the line, “I smolder with generic rage.” Aw heck, who am I kidding. They've already said all that needs to be said about that debacle here http://www.penny-arcade.com/2004/12/03/pop2/
But the key point to take away is this. Some people loved it for the platformer it was and just worked through the combat. Others ignored the platformer and complained about how the combat was neither good nor prominent enough. Alas, when they made that second game, guess who they listened to? The combat may well have been slightly better, but it should have largely gone away, not been made the focus! At anyrate, I gave up on that game, and although the third one is supposed to be better, I've just not bothered to find the time to try it out. I'd love to see that first Prince take to the screen and continue his story telling (a theme of the games), but I have serious doubts as to what source they will choose to emulate for the movies.....
J.J. Abrams, the prolific TV producer and writer has unveiled his newest TV project, a series called Fringe. Abrams describes the work as being a mix of all things good about The X-Files, Altered States, and The Twilight Zone. The show's central story focuses on three characters, a female FBI agent, an institutionalized scientist, and his estranged son. This trio is called upon to halt increasingly unexplained phenomenon around the world, utilizing all their strengths to succeed at this daunting task.
The Fox Network has bought the idea after Abrams shopped it around a little, and has budgeted out a $10 million dollar budget to shoot the two hour pilot. Joshua Jackson from Dawson's Creek fame has been cast as Peter Bishop, the son of the raving mad Dr. Walter Bishop, who is played by John Noble. Noble more recently has played the role of Denethor in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The role of FBI Agent Olivia Warren has gone to Australian born actress Anna Torv.
The show is being executively produced by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci (the team that composed most of the upcoming Star Trek film) as well as Bryan Burk (one of the prominent producers on ABC's Lost). Abrams spoke to Variety magazine on the subject, and when discussing the style and feel of Fringe he made the following the comment: "It's definitely meant to scare the hell out of you, but it's also meant to make you laugh... It pushes all the buttons of things we loved from our childhood."
One of the main features of the show, according to Abrams, is ordinary people in extraordinary situations. He wants to exploit the relationships between the three leads as well, saying they're very relatable characters in and of themselves. Most of the show focuses on could-be-crazy Dr. Walter Bishop played by Noble, who begins the series in, of all things, a mental hospital. It is Torv's character of FBI Agent Warren who brings Dr. Bishop's estranged son to the stage and into the action of the narrative. As per many J.J. Abrams stories, there will be an overarching narrative mythology that will fill the essence of the plot, but unlike Lost most of the episodes will be self-contained phenomena.
The Pilot is currently in production in Toronto and the series will premiere on Fox Networks on September 9th, 2008, at 8pm EST.
It's true. The Prince of Persia game saga is going to be translated to the big screen, the first film set to be released in 2009 right now. Jake Gyllenhaal is slated to play the protagonist, Prince Dastan, and the film boasts other recognizable stars such as Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2, The Company) and Sir Ben Kingsley (Lucky Number Slevin, Ghandi). The story (as far as I understand) is being based upon the story in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and shares the same title. It's being directed by Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and was scribed by Carlo Bernard, who also penned The Great Raid in 2005.
But enough of the facts, now onto some thoughts. My biggest beef with this idea so far is that it's all ready slated to be a trilogy right out of the gate. Now this isn't new, and Indiana Jones did this, as well as Star Wars and several other extremely successful trilogies, that's not my problem with it. The reason I have a hard time accepting it is because it's a video game movie. And I love video game movies as much as the next guy (hell, I want to write some of their scripts myself) but the current trend in adaptations of games into cinematic films is that they suck. There is total and unprejudiced disregard for all the material that even made the game franchise successful in the first place. Pretty much all that survives this brutal cutting process is the character names. The Hitman movie (with Timothy Olyphant as Agent 47) shared only names with its digital counterpart. The Agency, Diana, and Agent 47 remained continuous but all things related to the plot, the structure, the mannerisms, even the back story was off, changed for the sake of the particular film they wanted to make. If they wanted to change so much they should've made it a different movie and saved Hitman for a movie worthy of that moniker.
I fear Prince of Persia (a game I haven't played too much of, admittedly) will fall into the same rut. The first movie will bank on the built-in demographic of gamers who all know it'll be horrible but will line up to pay their $8 tickets anyways, and it'll make what they spent and get a profit, but it'll ruin the potential for a good film. Especially reading the slightly worrying summary of the movie. The Prince teams up with a rival (note that, a rival) princess to stop an angry ruler from unleashing a sand storm to destroy the world. This sounds like it could've been inspired by the game's events, but I don't see mention of time-effects or anything of that nature, and that's a big enough deal to enter the subject of a summary and logline. Oh well, hopefully the stories in the sequential two games will be more well thought out.
And what happened to the good ol' days when you signed up for a trilogy but the second two movies were actually based on the merit of the first? Nowadays we just chug out three films with the same unlucky actor who got stuck in a shitty contract and there goes that, a good 6 hours and $24 of our lives. Assuming you don't buy popcorn or anything.
I pray that the excellent casting of this movie and director can overcome this challenge and create the first in a hopeful wave of game-to-movie adaptations that actually live up to the underrated medium they were born from. Videogames deserve so much more than cookie-cutter, money-hording cinematic executions. Give 'em a chance, please.
IMDb's site on Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is here.
Demos so bad you won't even want the free download...
Don't be fooled by the seemingly exciting moment captured in the screenshot above. It's as much misdirection as the mission where you take the rookie to the "crime scene" only to reveal it's a coffee shop (more on that later.) This demo is good at one thing, and it does this one thing marvelously. It reminds us Americans how God awful English sirens sound. Perhaps the sound of fear got a little lost on the way across the Atlantic, or maybe it was in fact too scared to attempt the journey, but the siren that your hero car emits is the most perfect rhythmic depiction of "annoying." An otherwise abstract feeling reserved for the most extreme cases of promiscuous roommates and/or mosquitos, now graciously has its meaning expanded, encompassing all of the English police force.
During my brief stint on the elite "Cobra 11" task force, I did such important police-like missions like taking the newbie to the local coffee shop, and taking down a speeder after causing at least a dozen fatalities thanks to the lack of physics in the whole of Great Britain's highways. Vans and sedans exploded without prejudice or logic as I spun them out with my seemingly indestructible cruiser. In a preview video, I saw what looked a lot like a Soviet BMP utterly demolishing what looked to be a similarly threatening minivan with a devestating T-bone strike. God Forbid the demo include that vehicle in my missions, otherwise I'd leave much more bodies in the hospital from my do-gooding than I would by letting the damn speeder go.
And this isn't even getting to the good part of the camera sliding in and out of reality while in the middle of a high speed chase. If you've ever been frustrated watching the news chopper try to futilely keep track of a car chase (that's actually fast) than imagine trying to track one when you're camera is underground in purgatory while you're actually in command of the vehicle, and with these physics no less. You can see why it's more dangerous for the police to even get involved in these things than let some pretentious bastard get away with driving 12mph over the speed limit...oh wait, make that kilmoters per hour. Whatever the case, it's madness...oh, right, but there's that one other thing: This is ENGLAND!
Save your hard drive space on your Xbox and instead download something that rewards you for crashing your precious car more often...like Burnout: Paradise. Catch ya later!
The author doesn't take responsibility for your enjoyment or utter disgust at the games mentioned here. Similarly we can't be held responsible if we say the demo sucks, you buy the game, and surprisingly you find it sucks as well. Play at your own risk.
Here is one of the videos that started it all, back in the High School era: "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!"
The quality is a little lacking, and there's a gem of a story as to why that is. The entire video was conceived, planned out, shot, and then edited in a roughly 5 hour period, on an incredibly crappy digital camera that just so happened to be able to film video as well. The footage passed around the paws of everybody involved, everyone wanting to take a stab at editing and tinkering with it, and while I made the ultimate video edit (or YouTube edit if you prefer) there seems to be a curse that follows it. My computer shot fire (no joke) at me shortly after finishing the video which prompted me to immediately replace the power supply of my computer. That fixed the immediate problem, that being the dragon-like fire breathing attributes it had taken on for a time, but it didn't stop the next calamity. All kinds of nasty-ass viruses began to eat their way through my computer like a bunch of freakin' carpenter ants in a 200 year old home. The computer was crippled, but thankfully I had sent the finished file to my friend DJ (who stars in the movie as "Freeman", our poorly executed parody of Gordon Freeman from "Half-Life" fame). My computer was scrubbed and reformatted and as a result, lost the files that made the video, and everybody else had given up on editing it and so they had deleted the rather large files to save on HD space. DJ sent the video to a friend named Matt Sachse ("Messiah" in the video) just before a virus crippled DJ's computer, as though some kind of conspiracy-like tale was unfolding, attempting to cover up any evidence of this video ever being filmed...maybe because of our rampant bible-throwing? Who knows. Regardless, it stayed safely on Matt's computer for years, and last year, in my second year of college I rediscovered it and threw that bad boy up on YouTube to get it out onto the interweb and safe from any more computer shattering diseases. Of course, is YouTube's HQ spontaneously combusts one day in the near future, don't come looking for me...this site will no longer exist and Two Tons Productions will have just been a figment of your over-productive imaginations. In the meantime, here's "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!" so enjoy!
So it's currently 5:00pm where I live and I've been up for a total of 56 hours or so now, with only about 3 hours total nap time in that window. It's ridiculous. Never before has such an insanely long bout of sleeplessness plagued me, and here for no reason whatsoever it decides to harass me. There was no logical reason as to why I should not be able to go to sleep right now. My work is finished, there is no immediate chore or job for me to accomplish, and for the love of all that is holy, I'm listening to Coldplay for crying out loud. Coldplay is supposed to calm you down and put you to sleep, not get you excited for the next 48 hours of open-eye entertainment.
Of course, the best part of this was I got to see the new Weezer music video of their latest single "Pork and Beans" from the Red Album which is just fucking fantastic, I'll be honest with you. I only listened to a select few Weezer songs up until this point, but this on particular gem is wonderful in its own right, and the music video just takes it all to a completely new level. You guys should definitely check it out on YouTube.com or something, because it's priceless. And of course, the more familiar you are with the YouTube community as a whole and what is popular, the more entertaining you'll find the video.
Beyond that, I've started a savings plan with regards to The Pilgrimage that ought to set some realistic goals on the amount of cash money I'll need to have in two years' time in order to successfully make the trip from the East side of the USA to the prestigious Los Angeles community. I'm a little concerned about my skill level as a writer, and I'm hoping to improve upon that in the two years prior to the move, so I'm going to set out a series of exercises and workshops for myself in order to achieve my goals of being a screenwriter. I'm posting a lot of my works on my Deviant Art page, so you can go there: http://foxtrotwarfare.deviantart.com/ to check it out. Some of the stuff (most namely screenplays and the like) won't appear there for obvious reasons. I need to register those with the WGAw before I can start to show them off. That and I'm still editing and tinkering with them.
So for the time being I have my work cut out for me, and hopefully I can get some freakin' sleep soon because my eyes are getting a little heavy.
Well a few days ago a pledge was made to under a "Pilgrimage" to the City of Angels, Los Angeles, California herself upon college graduation. So now myself and a close friend of mine are gathering our forces (money and talent) and saving as much as humanly possible to succeed in this endeavor. The trek will take 8 days, and we'll pass through several cities like Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Houston and San Antonio, Texas; Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona; and of course, finally, Los Angeles, California. We'll be met by several colleagues and friends with similar ambitions and set up shop with local contacts at which point we'll get some jobs, make some money, get ourselves situated and begin the arduous task of attempting to make something out of what could possibly be the most competitive market known to the United States. Along the way we'll be documenting our journey with a Sony Handycam video camcorder as well as filming several little vignettes of our journey to produce into one smashing video by the time we reach our destination. It's going to be a hoot. Savings accounts have been set up, money is being stockpiled, it's going to happen in two years from this post. This is going to a running journal of the task of preparing for this occasion as well as compiling some samples of work we're preparing and the script that will be used for the vignettes along the way. Wish us luck, this is going to be intense!
Artsy title considering I'm talking about a Pilot for a TV series I'm writing. It's nothing special and at the moment I'm not expecting it to go anywhere but I'm in dire need of practice with screenplay writing and style, much less editing my own work critically and productively so that's the reason why I undertook it. Plus I'm completely and hopelessly addicted to "Lost" now and "24" as always, so I'm trying to help cater some of my writing talents to spread to the arena of television. It's a different beast but I feel I could also fit well into this niche if I just exercise some of my creative muscles and get a feel for the world from this perspective. So I'll be sure to keep everyone (who cares) updated on how it goes!
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