Tag Archives: geekery

The New Oz Movie

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Well, after 28 years they’ve finally come out with a new Oz movie, and the critics already seem to be jumping all over it with hobnailed boots.

Fair enough. I haven’t seen it yet, so I have no idea whether it’s any good.

What I do question is the critics’ seeming universal claim that the original movie was an unparalleled classic of American movie-making, and the unspoken premise that it should be enshrined forever because it’s awesome, period.

I like “Wizard of Oz,” don’t get me wrong. It is a classic. It has some neat images (the colorchanging horse! The Art Deco Emerald City!) and a couple of good songs. It’s a fairytale quest flick, which I always appreciate, too.

… but.

But Judy Garland was in her late teens when she filmed this movie, and her dialogue would be better suited to an eight-year-old. But the Dorothy character doesn’t actually do a whole lot during the movie–she reacts to situations, sure, but mostly things seem to happen to her. And the characterizations are mostly paper-thin.

It’s a good movie, sure, but I’d argue that its strongest point is its setting, or perhaps the music– certainly not the characters, the plot or the script. Think about it: The yellow brick road. The Emerald City. The color-shifting horse, the angry trees, the flying monkeys, the dark forest and the field of poppies. All that is part of the setting.

And if the setting is great, why not revisit it and expand it?

I’m not saying the new movie is any good–I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know. I am saying that if you do see it, it’s probably best to view it as a standalone movie, or at least try not to remember the first flick through the rose-colored glasses of childhood.

Unless you’re seeing the new movie while you’re still a child as well, you’re not going to be making a fair comparison that way.

Worst Movies Ever?

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I watched the infamous “Birdemic” over the weekend. Yes, I did this on purpose. No, I’m not a glutton for punishment.

The movie was probably one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, even though I’ve seen “Gor” and “Battlefield Earth.” So let’s take a look at some bad movies.

Birdemic

“Birdemic” is pretty much Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” but with all the interesting parts, good writing, excellent acting, suspense and characterization removed.

Instead, the movie features animated clip art birds flapping mechanically in a sad attempt to be menacing, and some dialogue from actors approaching the woodenness of Kristen Stewart in “Snow White & the Huntsman.” It’s not quite as wooden, I admit, but it’s very close. Fortunately, none of the actors attempt to express emotion through twitching like Stewart does. They don’t attempt to express emotion at all.

And like most truly horrible movies, “Birdemic” contains both a cringeworthy dance scene and a heavy-handed moral slammed over the audience’s head at every possible opportunity.

Then there are all the driving scenes. Driving, driving, driving. Not car chases, just ordinary driving. Seriously, Days of Thunder had fewer driving scenes.

Gor and Outlaw of Gor

There were things to like about “Gor” and its equally dreadful sequel, “Outlaw of Gor.”

There weren’t a lot of them, I admit, but there were some: one, Jack Palance was clearly hammered out of his mind when he agreed to do this movie, and also while he was filming this movie. Two, rather than putting on a serious face, the movie amps up its owncampiness. Three, while it is hideously exploitative of women, and features more butt-or-boob shots than any movie I’ve ever seen before, the men Yet Another Butt from Gorwear equally stupid outfits and there are nearly as many butt shots of them. They are cringeworthy, but at least the Gor flicks made an effort, right? There are no women in chainmail bikinis and men in full suits of armor. Everybody gets loincloths and armor diapers, no exceptions!

And there are black people in Gor–some slaves, some slavers, some just wandering around wondering how the heck they got into this wretched movie, just like everybody else.

I could also mention the hilariously plastic, fake-looking props as a plus, because they are funny, and if you made a drinking game and took a shot every time you saw a silly hat while watching these films you would probably die of alcohol poisoning in five minutes.

Battlefield Purple Filter, I Mean Earth

Battlefield Dutch Angle, I Mean Earth

Battlefield Dutch Angle, Er, Earth

I think Battlefield Earth has a worse reputation than it deserves, possibly due to its connection with Scientology.

Mind you, it is a terrible movie. I just don’t think it’s much worse than most other crummy scifi flicks intended to be action blockbusters.

The writing is mediocre. The acting is so-so (which is ten steps above Birdemic). The plot is ludicrous and requires so much suspension of disbelief that your belief will probably need a vacation afterward, possibly somewhere that offers massages and mud baths.

But the movie suffers the most from directorial and filming choices, I think. One: there are weird color palettes used throughout the flick, so much so that the friend I was watching it with got queasy. It didn’t bother me, but only because I was preoccupied with… Two: Dutch angles! All Dutch angles, all the time! Has there been some terrible catastrophe causing Earth to tilt at a weird angle? No, it’s just bad directing.

Another major problem with the movie is that none of the human characters are the least bit interesting or sympathetic. They act like apes a lot of the time, maybe because you were supposed to be seeing things from the evil aliens’ point of view. Protip: We don’t need to see things from the evil aliens’ point of view.

The only part of the movie that was in the least bit watchable was John Travolta’s evil alien character. This is despite the fact that the character totally fails to be menacing in any way whatsoever. He is not the stuff of Darth Vader. He’s more like Darth Vader’s secretary’s receptionist who wants to be Darth Vader but isn’t smart or competent enough to pull it off.

Instead of having a real villain to hate and fear, the audience is treated to the antics of an Less Evil, More Corrupt Cubicle-Antincompetent, controlling, abusive middle-manager fixated on profits and his own pathetic ambitions. The fact that he’s wearing dreadlocks and platform shoes doesn’t really signify–everyone has met people like this and many people have had the misfortune to have a boss like this. But the movie presents Travolta’s character as doomed to failure, so it’s kind of fun to watch him dig his own grave, hoist himself up on his own petard and spit into the wind, so to speak.

If you have less than an iron stomach this movie is not for you. The constant color filters and the apparently-randomly-tilting camera will probably make you sick, if the “plot” and the dialogue don’t. And I haven’t even mentioned the excessive use of slow-motion yet, or the blanket assumption in the movie that all females exist only to serve or in relation to males, alien or human. Yikes.

In Short

In terms of watchability, Gor and Outlaw of Gor provide the most fun bad-movie experience. Battlefield Earth is probably second to the Gor flicks, followed by Birdemic, which has far too many sections in which nothing happens at all. It’s hard to make fun of nothing, and that makes a bad movie merely bad, rather than entertainingly bad.

Real Klingons Wear Pink in Star Trek: The Animated Series

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Star Trek: The Animated Series

Star Trek: The Animated Series

Giant pink tribbles. Spock casting magic spells. The crew turning into babies, growing gills, or shrinking. Is there no weirdness that failed to occur on Star Trek: The Animated Series?

No. No, there isn’t. And that’s why the show, which ran from 1973-74, is pure, unadulterated awesome.

Though it occupies a dubious position in Trekkie canon, The Animated Series is a must-see for fans, who will be treated to a succession of wacky events involving the almost the entire cast of The Original Series.

Inexplicably, Chekov is gone. Equally inexplicably, every single alien being sounds suspiciPink Tribbles?ously like Scotty, Nurse Chapel or Uhura. Actually, the explanation was saving money by not hiring extra voice actors or Chekov’s actor, Walter Koenig.

But this enabled them to do something the Original Series could never do, by crewing the Enterprise with more aliens. Foremost among them are the six-limbed Arex, who occupies Chekov’s seat most of the time, and M’Ress, a cat-woman communications officer.

At the time of the Original Series, I don’t think it would have been possible to have shown a guy with an extra arm and leg, like Arex had, and M’Ress would have had a somewhat wooden expression if she’d been a real person with a face covered with fur.

And then there’s the fact that one of the people working on the show was colorblind.

As a result, Klingons wear pink and purple, and Klingons in Orchid?the Kzinti, who are supposed to be terrifying telepathic cat-wolverine-people, do too.

Plus there are pink tribbles. Giant pink tribbles. If there were a way to market these to 12-year-old girls Earth would be drowned in tribbles in a matter of hours. Talk about weapons of mass destruction!

Then there’s the elevator-music theme song, which definitely is worse than the theme song from Star Trek: Enterprise, no matter what anybody says, although the animated Enterprise is so darn cute it’s easy to forgive the tune.

If you have Netflix and loved Original Series Star Trek, or just want to kill a few hours watching pure, undiluted insanity in the form of the loopiest plots ever seen in any flavor of Star Trek, check out Star Trek: The Animated Series.

For more information, check out Memory Alpha, the go-to place for online information on Star Trek, and also the source of every picture above.

Seven Benefits of Roleplaying Games

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A student at the University of Minnesota Duluth has written a column for the Duluth News Tribune implying that video games, or perhaps roleplaying games, or perhaps first-person shooters, or perhaps tabletop games, or people who dress up in costumes to portray characters, are bad.

I’m honestly not sure which of these elements Jo Cooley objects to, because she (or he) seems to conflate them all together.

Overall, I believe the point of her column is that Duluth does not need a gaming convention. She cites one study purporting to link video games and violence, but seems to believe that video games are the focus of Indiana’s Gen Con. They are not. Gen Con focuses on other types of games–tabletop games such as Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering and maybe even Risk and Settlers of Cataan.

Gaming (and I don’t mean gambling) is a huge umbrella term that covers a wide, wide variety of hobbies, from the strategy-wargaming to the roleplaying dice games to LARPing to the many types of videogaming.

Each gaming community is different. It’s just like football fans, who have their own communities dedicated to glorifying the Packers or the Vikings. Just like baseball fans, people get involved at different levels, some just watching a game now and then and others memorizing reams of stats and participating in a fantasy league (which is a form of roleplaying, by the way).

Videogames cover a wide range of topics and the larger, ongoing games have their own individualized communities. Star Wars: Knights of the Republic attracts a different type of gamer than EVE Online does.

Painting every gamer with the same brush is just like making a comment about “the media.” Almost nothing can be said about “the media,” which includes the head honchos of Disney and the small-town reporter who covers high school football games, as well as people who make TV shows, movies and books. The term is so wide it’s useless.

The same is true of “gamers.” I’m a gamer. I do not often play first-person shooters. I do not like strategy games or games with extreme gore. I don’t even usually play more than one video game at a time–I dedicate myself to just one, until I leave that behind for another one.

Currently I’m playing Guild Wars 2, and by the way, the plotline involves saving the world from evil, not being evil. In fact, most videogames I’ve played have been like that. There are a few out there in which you’re the bad guy, and a few more in which you’re allowed to make moral choices yourself, yes, but generally people seem to prefer being the good guy.

This brings me to the benefits of roleplaying–pretending to be a character in a story, either in a video game or in a tabletop game–and yes, I do believe there are some.

  • Roleplayers learn about how story works in an interactive way. I’ve learned arguably more about storytelling from participating in Dungeons & Dragons and games like it than I ever learned in school. You learn the nuts and bolts of character and plot, but you also learn about pacing and theme. All of it’s hands-on, where you’re helping make it, so you get a much better grasp than you would by simply reading the definition of “plot.”
  • Roleplaying gives you a safe place to explore moral decision-making without hurting anyone. Characters I play tend to be theologically-inclined and concerned about ethics, but like people in the real world sometimes they have to make difficult choices. Do you allow a princess to be sacrificed to save her kingdom? Do you allow her to sacrifice herself to do it? Do you save her regardless of consequences, or do you offer to change places with her? In a good game you will be faced with difficult situations and difficult choices over and over again, and it will prepare you to think about ethical choices in the real world, where there will be real consequences.
  • Roleplaying gives you a chance to be in somebody else’s shoes for a little while. If done well, this should lead you to think about what other people’s lives are truly like, and should lead you to empathize with other people’s problems. You can try roleplaying as the opposite gender, or as someone from a totally different race or economic class from your own. What are the consequences of living in a different type of society? What would it mean to live in a society of machines, or people who do not die for hundreds of years?
  • Roleplaying often spurs learning. I once roleplayed as a pirate character, and while our pirates were much nicer people than the real thing (real pirates were generally horrible), I did a lot of research on the Age of Sail and pre-anaesthesia medical practices. Roleplaying has also led to research on early stringed instruments and folk music, the law, folklore, floriography and religion. I have learned all sorts of things from roleplaying.
  • Roleplaying forces you to work together as a group. In most cases, your character will not last long if he or she goes around stabbing random passersby. He or she certainly won’t do well if he or she stabs other party members. It’s like being a member of a rock band–you have to get along with these people, and that’s both in-character and out-of-character. It’s a social hobby, and you can’t do it alone, so you better leave at least part of your ego at the door.
  • Roleplaying can be about forming good values. I’ve been involved in a lot of games over the years, and the most prominent themes have been good conquering evil, family, love, justice and what it means to be human.
  • Roleplaying spurs your imagination. In a movie, you know what the protagonist looks like and sounds like and acts like and wears. When you’re playing a tabletop game, you’re not going to know any of that and you’re just going to have to imagine that red dragon bearing down on you, too. Even if you’re roleplaying through a videogame, most games don’t allow a lot of nuance in body shape or voices, so you’re still going to need to adjust the picture in your head according to what’s said.

Beware the Dread Gazebo, Slayer of Multitudes

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I bought a teapot shaped like one of the most terrible, frightening monsters in the entire Dungeons & Dragons monster list. Yes, it is a frightening object, far more terrifying than the most evil, fiery dragon than you can imagine. It probably is even more fearsome than the tarrasque, although I wouldn’t want to meet one of those in a dark alley either. Or a light alley. Or anywhere, ever.

But my new teapot is way scarier than that. Check it out.

The Dread Gazebo

The Dread Gazebo in Teapot Form

That’s right, my friends. I am now the lucky owner of a teapot shaped like a Dread Gazebo.

The story of the Dread Gazebo hearkens back to the early days of Dungeons & Dragons, and tells about a player who encounters a gazebo and, well. Let’s just say the results are pretty funny.

Now the question is, how do I keep my other teapots safe from the Dread Gazebo Teapot?

A Wicked Bad Poisonous Brew

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Coffee?

Coffee?

It’s probably for the best that I’m not married. If I were, my hypothetical husband might be a little worried about all the poison-related articles that I’ve been accruing. Then I probably wouldn’t be allowed to make the coffee anymore.

On the other hand, then I wouldn’t have to make the coffee anymore.

  • If I married an opossum it would be all right, because apparently it is impossible to poison an opossum. Of course, I would not marry an opossum. I do not even allow opossums to hang out in my garage.
  • If you suspect someone is attempting to poison you, here is a list of things to watch out for. Things that taste too bitter. Things that taste too sweet. Spouses. And exes.
  • Of course, not all poisons are deliberately administered. Sometimes they’re a result of a toxic spill.
  • And then there’s the poisoning that results from the use of lead bullets, which have conservationists and environmentalists worried about the condor again.
  • For other birds, it’s lead paint that causes problems.
  • Plus, we were stupid enough to use ethyl lead to stop the “knock” in our gasoline for years. Yes, that “Ethyl” is tetraethyl lead, and it caused factory workers to go insane and die due to exposure. Apparently levels of lead are still up…
  • And then there’s the dead themselves, who may be poisonous, even if they weren’t poisoned.

But if you want to get really exotic, you could poison someone with polonium. You’d really have to be an overachiever for that, though.

If I were you, I’d sit down and relax instead.

Have some coffee.

Review: The Dark Knight Rises

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Every generation gets its own Batman, and perhaps each generation gets the Batman it deserves.

When movies are part of a set, like this one is, it’s hard to judge each one on its own merits, and there were a lot of high expectations from “The Dark Knight Rises,” the third movie in the most recent Batman trilogy.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why. “The Dark Knight” was indeed a great movie, with a virtuoso performance from the late Heath Ledger, but it lagged a bit in portions and featured an indifferent-to-just-bad performance from Maggie Gyllenhaal. Its aspirations toward an intellectual understanding of Batman and the nature of good and evil were worthy, though, and for the most part they were successful.

That’s not easy to do, and I’m not sure why anyone would think it could easily happen twice in a row. A great movie, yes. But not OMG AWESOME THE BEST MOVIE EVAR.

“The Dark Knight Rises” doesn’t quite ascend to that level, partly because it gets bogged down rather quickly with an enjoyably complex plot involving a full-scale war led by Bane, an intelligent, politically-astute warlord with great leadership skills.

It was an inspired choice to make Bane (Tom Hardy) the villain, but the film made one critical, critical mistake it only partially recovered from partway through the movie. That mistake was the design of Bane’s mask.

Poor Tom Hardy. Not only did he have to live up to the inevitable comparisons with Heath Ledger’s Joker from Dark Knight, but they expected him to do it with nearly the entire bottom half of his face covered up. That’s a pretty significant handicap for an actor.

And Bane is no Joker. He’s meant to be a more serious character. Saddling him with a still-slightly-cartoonish mask made it hard for the audience to find him even slightly credible. Hardy’s bizarre accent (which reminded me of Sean Connery’s in “The Untouchables”) did not help, although it might’ve been all right if it hadn’t been filtered through that stupid mask.

Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman fared a bit better, though I wished there had been more for her to do in the film. I kept getting the feeling there was more there, but the plot called for focus to stay on Bane, so we didn’t get to see it.

To be fair, the movie was extremely long, and like its predecessor it did drag a bit sometimes. Director Christopher Nolan seems to have become a victim of his own success in some measure–people seem to have been over-reluctant to cut away some of the fluff. Writers must sometimes edit out their favorite sentences and kill their darlings; filmmakers must do the same, and not enough of it was done in “Dark Knight Rises.”

There was much to like about the movie, however. The film’s ties to “A Tale of Two Cities” were interesting, and the depiction of a full-scale war of sorts in Gotham City was fascinating.

The supporting cast was stellar, as it was in “The Dark Knight.”

Gary Oldman is the best of all as Commissioner Gordon, who has to make tough choices throughout the movie, and bears the consequences as an adult conscious of the moral weight of his actions.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays a thoughtful young cop, willing to take risks to do what’s right. He has a great character arc.

Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, Batman’s Q.We don’t get to see a lot of him in this movie, and perhaps that’s because we don’t need to. When he’s there, he’s key, of course.

Michael Caine’s Cockney-accented Alfred classes up the whole dang movie. This is no Jeeves, ladies and gentlemen. This is a man who takes his obligations seriously, and tries to give the best advice he can, given his awkward position as father figure and servant.

Marion Cotillard was totally wasted on this film, but really, when you had so many other characters who were marvellous, that seems like a minor quibble.

Oh, and Christian Bale turned in another credible performance as Batman and the ever-tortured Bruce Wayne, who has become a sort of mini-Howard Hughes in between the two movies. Dark, yes, but still sarcastic and happily for the audience, surprisingly non-angsty.

It was well-written and well-acted. The action scenes popped, and while the editing job was somewhat indulgent, arguably that indulgence was earned over the course of three very good Batman movies.

It was not OMG THE BEST MOVIE EVAR!!11!!!!11! Poor Tom Hardy’s mask and permissive editing didn’t allow for that.

But it was a good one, maybe a great one, and definitely worth seeing.

Adorable Cat Journalists, Silly Olympics Links and a Tornado Map

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A few totally frivolous links, plus a few more thought-provoking ones for you folks today:

These 40 things will make you feel old, apparently. Many kids today have never seen a floppy disk, nor have they heard the sound of the wild modem, howling in the night for the blood of your MIDI sound files. Or whatever it is modems howl for; I never did figure that one out.

When I Am A Parent…

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I’m not expecting a child anytime in the near future, but my colleague and his wife are. I suggested he write a list of things of things he will or will not do when he is a parent, but then I thought: Hey, I could do that too!

So.

When I am a parent…

1. I will not use my child as a hood ornament.
a. Even if he or she likes it.
b. Especially if he or she likes it.

2. I will not enroll my child in a baby-fighting tournament, with cutthroat, winner-take-all competitions in events such as Smelliest Diaper, Shrillest Scream and Fastest Creeping, or even High-Volume Drooling.
a. Baby beauty pageants are also out.

3. I will not use my child as a basketball.
a. I will also not paint my pregnant belly like a basketball and attempt to dribble myself. It’s just awkward.

4. I will not tell my child I bartered away six radishes in exchange for him or her at an open-air market in Bangladesh and then tried to return him or her because he or she was only worth five radishes. That is what siblings are for.

5. I will not embarrass my child by suddenly becoming a nerd when he or she hits the teenage years. I will be pre-nerdy for my child’s convenience, so nothing will change whatsoever.

6. I will sing to my child, but only if he or she turns out to be as tone-deaf as I am. Otherwise singing would fall under cruelty to children statutes and would not be permissible.

7. I will not steal my child’s toys and play with them myself. Instead I will share my child’s toys with my child. Sometimes. If my child asks nicely (or offers bribes).

8. I will most certainly not feed my child to a dragon.
a. Unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

9. I will not allow my child to attempt to sled down the steps in a cardboard box. It never works. Instead, I will instill in my child a more adequate understanding of physics such that he or she knows a toboggan or, failing that, a sibling, would work better.

10. I will attempt to teach my child science. I will, however, discourage mad science, as it tends to be hard on the Tesla coils.

Not Getting Away With Murder

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Swimming Platypus (Photographer Peter Scheunis)

Swimming Platypus (Photographer Peter Scheunis)

Nicotine is well-known for being the addictive ingredient in cigarettes, which will kill you, but it’s also a very potent poison on its own, with a long and lethal history.

Wired magazine’s Elemental blog tells the tale of the 1850 high-society murder that prompted an enterprising chemist to learn how to detect the signs of nicotine poisoning in a murdered victim.

Lest you think the notes on nicotine are a mere historical footnote, this is not the case. There have been a few recent incidents.

Elemental’s nicotine post is part of a series in which bloggers write about their favorite toxic chemicals. Here’s BoingBoing’s list of them, in case they drop off the front page of ScienceGeist, the blog that lists them.

Yes, some people have favorite toxic chemicals. My personal favorite happens to be whatever’s in the moth-murdering homicidal death spray that’s keeping the moths from taking over my house.

Incidentally, people are complaining about the way people use the word “poisonous” again, and are pointing out that they usually mean venomous.

I’m a little on the fence about this. Although allowing the words to continue to have two separate meanings might be useful–for greater specificity and clarity of meaning–do we really want to give preference to dictionaries to determine a word’s meaning over the word’s actual common usage? When does misuse become legitimate use?

There are still people complaining that “ain’t” isn’t a legitimate word, when it’s been around for more than two hundred years.

And does anyone really think “Well I’d better not eat that platypus, then” when they hear the critters are “poisonous” rather than being correctly described as “venomous”?