Film Review #17: Old Gregg (short)

    I don't know what to say.

    OK, maybe I do.  This is better than anything we've made recently by a longshot.  It's got a nutty everything, great characters, an actual plot, a custom soundtrack, a stage-performed musical section, hilarious if somewhat perplexing or disturbing dialogue...  Yeah.
    While Old Gregg is ostensibly incredibly stupid and drives its viewers to immediately become ashamed of even being aware of its existence, it's entertaining.  Merry christmas, enjoy (haha, it's funny cuz it's actually christmas).

Now, given this, I'd like to talk about shame associated with films.  Or watching them, or whatever.  Old Gregg inspires shame because it is simply so fucked up, and is pretty good at making people uncomfortable.  Now, why does that make people ashamed?  Relatively taboo subjects-- love, homosexuality, man-fishes living in lakes, balls of space-tits-- are things people are trained to reject, just based on social "standards", generally instated by religion and tradition.  Thing is, most people actually don't have any disposition with these subjects, and often fail to really believe in any of the given reasons the powers that be have taught.  However, when someone is associated with these taboos, they are isolated and identified by their brethren, who do so (mostly) simply because others do, or they think they should.  So, when people watch Old Gregg sing about Love Games and a ball of space-tits, they feel as if they are becoming associated with these things by watching them willingly, and thus by instinct express or feel shame in the face of the possibility of social isolation or judgement (which, in earnest, is but a hollow shell).

BE AFRAID: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIInySnQe4I

P.S. Sorry it's up a day late; I was struck by severe occupation/illness yesterday and couldn't get it up, but I HAD IT DONE BY WEDNESDAY.  For the record.

Look, I did it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3SYPwe8EEM
Sorry I couldn't get it up earlier; been frightfully sick/occupied.  It's pretty lousy

Film Review #16: American Horror Story (TV show) - season 1

American Horror Story is simply great.  It's got a brilliant, expansive cast, great, thoughtful writing, and an absolutely astounding sound job, among just about everything else that's terrific.  Every season is a new story, with some recycled actors.  It's dark, unrelenting, unsuspected, and gratingly ugly, in a terrific way.
Now, Season 1.  Awesome schtick about a family living in a haunted house, and the ghosts they live with.  Plays a lot with a modern social commentary and multitudes of perspectives, humanizing and dehumanizing left and right.  My one quibble is that one particular character didn't die (that's just because she was a total fucking self-absorbed pretentious supremacist bitch, excuse my French).  Also, it could be a tad cliche at times, but the ... well... rest of it makes that little bit completely irrelevant.
Watch it.  Hell, just watch the intro.  God, amazing.  THE SOUNDTRACK...

*this is a horror show, so this ain't pretty.*

Intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c3VVJb562Y
(The intro's more intense audio-wise; youtube seems to have tuned it down a bit)

Film Review #15: Event Horizon

PRELUDE:  For the record, it seems there is no trace of anything anywhere pertaining to a "film review #14"-- hence, one has not been written.  The blog is void of any such notes, and I've had a damn-long week, so if you want a #14, post the assignment and THEN I will write it.  Until such a time, 15 will be the extent of my trial.

Ok.  Anyway.

Event Horizon is a crazy late '90s Sci-Fi horror flick about a spaceship that travels to another dimension whilst attempting to test a new method of travel.  Then, a crew goes to rescue/salvage it after it shows up after a couple years...  This crew is who the movie follows.

All in all it was very... '90s.  The standard tense camera work, overdone foreshadowing, cacophonous plot/character development...  Yeah.  Nothing special.  A somewhat interesting but broken (and hence, dis-interesting) concept as to how everything went to *excuse my French* shit, and why it does so for the rescue crew as well.  Basically, everyone just goes bat-shit crazy and starts seeing things; then, they go and murder one another.

Don't see it.  A lot of built-up suspense for disengaging anomalies and whatnot.  You want something good in this category, go watch 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Or, better yet (maybe.  I need to watch 2001 again) go play Dead Space.  That shit is   FUCKED   UP.

K, I'm done.  Enough swearing.  Sleep.

Text thing

I wrote a massive rant, but that eventually digressed to this crap.  Do NOT put it in ANYTHING.  It's trite, pretentious and cliche, but I'm done.

Human rights are not a declaration.  They're not some badge you wear to say, "hey, I'm a liberal."  They aren't some set of goals, either.  They are the base of humanity… of innocence.  So cluttered, this world we live in, with the convictions of ages past and minds long turned to dust…  Clean slates are hard to come by, but such is the only way to transform humanity for good.  Perhaps, just perhaps, that begins with art.  Language is identifying and isolating; imagery is universal.

What's Good: final photos

I had a ton of photos, but trouble is my sight is bad, so I couldn't tell that quite a few were a tad out of focus, blurred, etc.  My apologies.  Anyway, these were the best of the clean.  Sorry, most of 'em seem to be of plants and buildings... I dunno.  Street art.  A lot of more metaphorical stuff in there...  People seem to dislike having their photos taken.  These street musicians were cool enough to let me shoot 'em, but unfortunately I really had to head out so I didn't grab very clean shots.  There's also some half-burned trees in there and other stuff...  Just think about it.  I did, believe it or not, have an intent for the meaning of every one.  ...

Film Review #13: Fargo

Brilliant.  Absolutely brilliant.
-
Great soundtrack, great acting, great story, great style...  Great absolutely everything, in an honest, unique, humble-but-nonetheless-astounding fashion.

Soundtrack goes between mellow to epic, maintaining an austere, somewhat sorrowful feel throughout (much like the film).

Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare.  C'mon.  Acting's just great.  Unique, helplessly human characters, full of pent-up rage, desperation, ego, and madness.

Story's (apparently) entirely based on a true tale, apart from character names.  Unique, sad, funny in an "oh dear god that went to shit fast" kind of way.  It's about a desperately broke car salesman who attempts to make some cash by having his wife kidnapped and then taking most of the ransom from her father.  Of course, things don't play out that way, and in a bloody swirl lives fall apart and innocents all around drop like flies, obliterated by revolver rounds.  Bad ideas lead nowhere good, basically.  Just like Breaking Bad, but without as much badassery and more humanity (or lack thereof, rather).

The thing's listed under Comedy.  While the Minnesota accents are inexorably amusing (I'm sorry, it's true) and the dialogue is written in such a way that one finds oneself cracking up constantly, the entire film is thoroughly (excuse my French) fucked up.  There's nothing funny about it but irony.  You will laugh during this film, and then you will feel horrible about yourself, but deep down, guiltily, you value those laughs more than the moral integrity of not giggling at the downfall and end of numerous lies.

Anyway, watch it.  I love this movie.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116282/

What's Good project-- collage

Yep.  A couple of photos I've kept over the last while.

Film Review #12: Apollo 18

Paranormal Activity, but in space with a bigger budget, lousier writing, and an overkill attempt at making it look like it's filmed on '60s utility/security cameras...  Framerate drops.  Discoloration.  Pixelation.  Resolution switching.  Just bad.  Really bad.  In that sense.
Occasionally (excuse my French) shit got fucked up, and it could take you by surprise (it's a horror movie.  Epiphany).  The aliens were done pretty well, all things considered, though there's a lot of plotholes, unanswered questions, and inconsistencies which can be bothersome.
Another thing-- most of the time, moon gravity is absent (problematic, given that 99% of the film is based on the Lunar surface).  I mean, filming in a plummeting plane ain't easy, so it's acceptable not to go that far, but they should've done SOMETHING.  Within the lunar lander, the astronauts are noticeably operating under terrestrial gravity.  C'mon.  At least some dust floating around, or objects falling just a tad slower than usual...  But NO.  Not even stiffened clothing to emulate the lack of slagging of cloth that occurs on Earth.  C'mon now.
It was still somewhat entertaining, but not even remotely immersive, and literally painful at times to watch, due to all the framerate drops and camera distortion.

It's on Netflix, so hey, if you're looking for a crappy Paranormal Activity-esque movie in space and you can stand having your eyes gouged out with a rusty fork, there ya go.

Film Review #11: Mission Impossible- Ghost Protocol

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1229238/
This movie just sucks.  It's entertaining, though.  I'll explain both sides.
It sucks because it's poorly written, all over the place, and very big-budget-y.  The story starts and unravels way too fast.  I.E., in the beginning, someone got shot by some lady who then proceeded to take the dead dude's briefcase.  Then, they were like, OH NO, NUCLEAR LAUNCH CODES HAVE BEEN STOLEN!  It ain't bad, but they play it up to be something very different, and thus it's just thrown in your face.  The entire thing was easy enough to follow, but there were plenty of holes and one could only kinda put together the storyline at any one time.  It was always OH, TOM CRUISE IS GETTING BEAT UP (I'll get to that in a moment).  And that's another thing.  Tom Cruise's mug was everywhere, mostly because someone (him) thought it would be a good idea to use him as a protagonist.  He's just got the kind of actor's face that is so self-righteous and uppity that it fails to be a character so much as an actor off-handedly pretending to be the character...  If that makes any sense.  You just kinda want to slap him...  Which actually works well for the film.

So, why is it entertaining?  Plenty of little comedic bits, and it's... well... entertaining.  Not brilliant, but lots of action and interesting circumstances.  However, the thing that tops it off is the absolute abuse Tom Cruise suffers.  Basically, the idea is he's supposed to be a ninja, but that doesn't quite work, so he just falls and hits his head a lot.  Honestly, it's probably a stunt double taking the hits, but the idea that Tom Cruise is getting dragged around, clothes-lined by window frames, and blown up is amusing.  He also tends to walk around in a tight-fitting hoodie and some odd pair of pants, which are supposed to make him look sly, smooth, and ninja-like in a ramshackle kind of way, but he just looks outlandishly feminine.  I'm not sexist; I'm just saying, it's somewhat odd and thus funny in an off-kilter way, if a little creepy in some respects.  Silly film makers are trying WAY to hard to make him fancy.

I seem to have a disposition against Mr. Cruise at this moment.  Anyway, don't watch it, unless you enjoy watching Tom Cruise get thrown around.

Film Review #10: Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (web series)

http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/
So, basically, this is a little show where Seinfeld chooses a comedian, arranges to get coffee with them, selects a car he finds fitting to said comedian, and then, well, goes and gets coffee with them in the car.  They just have conversations, and a cam crew films it.  Supposedly, it's not set up, but that's (at least in part) bullshit because at one point Seinfeld decided he'd take a detour onto another road to swing by some place for sightseeing or something, and they had a camera on the corner to show them turning the corner, armed by a cameraman.  I'm still willing to believe the conversations are improvised, however.  All around, it's mellow, laid back, entertaining, and pleasantly funny (yeh, it better be).  All together entertaining.  A good look at people in the business when they ain't workin' (other than Seinfeld) and aren't busy attacking the paparazzi trying to get the very shots we're looking at.  Swing by, take a look.  It can get almost a tad droll at times, but only if you're impatient like me and no outlandishly brilliant line has hit your ears in the last six-and-a-half seconds.

Close-up, Mid, Wide, 2-shot

All from Dynamo ep.1, by Karma Pirates: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb6AqhT9quA
(Everyone should watch this (particularly the first sequence, and the last episode) several hundred times)

So.
Close-up (1:42):

Mid (7:12): 

Wide (1:47): 

Wider (couldn't resist) (9:07): 

 

And, finally, 2-shot (12:21):

Film Review #9: Goats (feature film)

Dunno if I've reviewed this yet, but hey, new year.  Haven't seen it in a while, but that might make this more interesting...  Time boils memories down to the essentials, the memorables, and the general assumptions/gist.
K, so Goats is about this super-stoner kid who grew up in a little house with the hippie version of Fox Mulder and the kid's hippie mom, and Mulder's got all these goats, and as a family they've got a bunch of goats.  Then the super-stoner kid goes off to some normal-ass school, and he gets judged and whatnot for being such a country super-stoner, and there's all this stuff with family issues and tension and school and keeping your shit together, ya know, life.
All in all, I remember liking it, though I'm pretty sure Fox was running around as a naked old man for a bit, which was a bit unnerving.  The X Files ...  it just doesn't mix well with my mind.  Good film, though, and funny.  Goats are terrific.  Fact is (I think) it's relatable to most people, in some odd, twisted, metaphorical way.  So there, there's my short-ass review.  You know what?  It seems like I don't have to do more than this.  So the rest of this will probably be...  A brief rant/tangent about Occupy.  Yeah, that sounds nice.
I wanted to go to the after-school movie showing thing.  That's why I brought the damn guitar; I thought I'd be sitting around for three hours so I needed to kill some time.  But NO, Occupy has to go and (pardon my French, but goddamnit, this is MY REVIEW) fuck everything up by coming around and protesting n' whatnot.  Honestly, I thought Occupy had died off.  C'mon, we all know it, we've all debated it.  They had a purpose and then all the stoners, anarchists and party people showed up, shit went to hell, and then everyone started hating Occupy because they just became burdensome to society and kept squatting on people's gardens, crushing flowers and leaving a slight marijuana miasma in their wake.  Then they all puttered out and disbanded, and for the past... What?  A year?  Two?  All I've seen of 'em were a couple of old guys down on Solano sitting outside Bank of America or something for weeks on end with signs.  Maybe the only ones holding true to the original purpose...  And now "Occupy"'s back?  What the hell's going on?  No, goddamnit, I wanna watch a damn horror movie.  Instead I got stuck at home with family watching About Schmidt from the library until it got too boring/depressing for us (I'm sorry, I've had a long damn week, I don't need old Jack's problems plaguing my mind too).  Then there's the fact that everyone effectively yelled "DUCK AND COVER" when they heard the word "Occupy".  That's a sign, people.  Everyone's afraid of Occupy.  Clearly, they're a bit lost, at this point.

What I worked on today

Basically, I'm making a short animated film about a naked guy with a beard who fights for dimensional freedom from an intergalactic space-time bone dragon by pole-vaulting on its back and making it eat itself, hence creating a dimensional loop and overload that ultimately obliterates it.
...
Yeah, that's about it.  So today, I worked on a couple storyboard frames (not much, thus not going to show) and some CG stuff (I've been scoping this out for a while, so I already know how it's really gonna look).  No dialogue, really basic, stylized color scheme (mostly B/W, maybe some water-color-y shit thrown in there).  So, CG stuff.  First, created the basic model for the Dragon's head...  It's basically a giant empty-eyed skull, roughly avian, with multiple sets of beaks, the bottom-most of which has three hinges.  Its mouth is a dimensional portal (spatially speaking.  Like 1D, 2D, 3D).  So:

And here's our guy.  Really polygonal, naked with a beerbelly and maybe some flappin' junk.  Eh, we'll see about that.  He's gonna be more skinny than this.  A bit like Fox Moulder in Goats (2012), but skinnier, more austere, etc.  It's gonna be kinda insane.

I'm bringing in stuff tomorrow to work out soundtrack (all gonna be recorded with an electric guitar and some pans, most likely).  I'm thinking gritty, Western-esque music...  Lots of noise and distortion.  Some real Dead Weather kind o' hard, mean riffs.

Shutter Speed/aperture proj

Yep.

Vocal Rush concepts

Yep.  I was goin' for a groovy, slick 80's look (note "80's"; hence, difficult to pull off).  Then disco balls.  Then Marilyn Monroe.  I perpetuated that whole face thing two more times, with... other faces.  Then another slick one with a fancy hand, half-spread, like someone was doing a spread-eagle standing up on stage with their face up, mouth open singing, and eyes closed.  Yeah, and that dude's hands would look just like the one in the design.

Film Review #8: Pacific Rim

Yes, an actual FEATURE FILM.

So, I could go in depth about what makes this movie good and bad, but really, depth would just mean perpetuating the same sentence or two over and over.  What's good?  Stringer Bell, cool CG, giant monsters, awesome fights, good plot initiation (mostly), body (mostly), and ending (mostly).  What's bad?  Thinks too highly of itself and thus slurs everything in an overdone virtuous epic-music soundtrack (which can be really great, but not in every damn scene from beginning to end.  IE, Flyboys.  Awful movie.  Someone should burn for that.)  Plus lots of predictable, cliche plot elements.  Not very well-thought-out, depth-wise.  Everything's made overly clear to the viewer, like he/she's a 4-year-old with severe ADHD and deafness in one ear (IE Inception.  Great, until you realize how much it's attempted to appeal to idiots by blatantly explaining every even remotely implied thought/gesture/meaning).
Now, what's my real problem with this?  It's a classic half-decent big-budget film.  The fact that it's big-budget means it's made by a company with a ton of money, with a massive fanbase.  Unfortunately, these fanbases tend to consist most generally of hipsters and obsessive movie-goers who go less for the movie so much as for the vanity of seeing a movie, along with plenty of normal people.  All of these groups consist widely of people who simply don't appreciate films that require thought, and thus won't attempt to understand (if they're even capable).  This effectively means that while they sit in their seats monologuing about some awkward dinner with a friend two nights ago to the people in their general vicinity (not necessarily even acquaintances, just random people) they'll subconsciously perceive the general amount of loud classical music and explosions and the occasionally uttered statement thrown in that explains the past ten minutes of the film that they've managed to completely ignore, but nothing more.  Then, when they walk out of the theater chewing on over-"buttered" popcorn and sipping their Fanta soda, they'll reflect: was the film good?  What will hence come to mind is a sensation of bewilderment determined in intensity by the amount of loud classical ("epic") music their sugar-jacked minds have picked up on within the past two hours...  And this bewilderment and awe is what they will use to determine what they thought of the movie.  The louder the music, the more subtly deaf they will be, and they will sink into the delusion that they've been drawn into themselves by the deepness of the film, and somewhat closed off from reality in awe (though, of course, they're really just a little deaf).  Hence, big movie companies, to maintain these fanbases of noise-crazed, garrulous cretins and thus money flow, must make their films very loud, very "epic", and very obvious in meaning/plot.  Pacific Rim was one of the better ones of these.  All around, they didn't painfully draw out the movie dialogue by throwing in little summaries of what had just happened, and though the epic music/happenings were maintained throughout the film, there were breaks, and the epic music actually corresponded to a plot that worked.

So, yeah.  It was a decent film.  Not amazing, not mind-blowing, not deep, but cool.  Very cool.  Not necessarily genius...  Just...  Just entertaining.  Yeah.

Film Review #7: Grand Theft Auto V (videogame)

Ok, ready?  Ready?  READY?  GTA V is the single greatest game ever created, and here's why.

The entire thing is brilliantly designed.  I'm not going to go through every single wonderful thing about the game, because that would take hours, and hundreds of pages.  Bottom line is, it's ridiculously fun...  If you've played GTA IV, GTA V is like that, but bigger, prettier, more immersive, more intuitive, more insane, more expansive, more diverse...  I could go on.  Basically, they took the world simulation and blew it out of the water, turning the world into a massive clot of different biomes and weather systems (all dynamic), populated by numerous AI people going about numerous activities, with different attitudes, situations, and possibilities of response to the player, and driven over by numerous planes, helis, trucks, cars, ATVs, bikes, boats, and submarines.  Vehicles take finely detailed dynamic damage that can affect aesthetics as well as handling and physical ability (banging a wheel will deform that wheel on its axle based on the angle and velocity of impact, and then this wheel will operate differently based on this change, which means jamming in some situations, slower RPM sometimes, changed turning radii, etc.)
People are just as fun to mess with as before, what with the Euphoria dynamic muscle/balance/self-preservation ragdoll simulation engine running to the max.  Plus, when airborn, you can hit a button (B on the Xbox) to enter flop mode.  Effective for sending your character through windows and windshields, into people and vehicular cockpits, off ledges, onto distant, normally unjumpable locations, etc.  It's absolutely terrific.  Shooting mechanics have been tuned for greater intuition and fluidity, and hand-to-hand combat has been massively expanded (dodging, low/high attacks, etc.).  Driving's still a bit arcade-y, but nonetheless very fun, especially with the new hood cam.
The game has a massive set of primary and side missions, along with little events you can tie into if you want (impromptu getaway driver for two robbers, per say, or maybe vigilante and returner of stolen wallets).  Heists can go any number of ways, just based off what the player designs for in the plans.  I could go on.  I really could.  For ever.
Multiplayer is absolutely insane fun, plain and simple.  A stupid number of diverse, interesting game-modes, from traditional deathmatches to heists to Jets-vs-Bikes (look it up, it's wonderful).

Now, complaining.

1.  Multiplayer is buggy.  Expected, given it just launched and the servers are handling millions of players.  They're actually solving it quite quickly, which is awesome.
2.  Lag.  Can sometimes get below 20 FPS, but that's because I'm running on a goddamn pathetic excuse for a gaming platform christened the Xbox 360.  Doesn't take away from gameplay.
3.  ... I forgot.

Well, there you go.  It's the greatest game ever made, and you should play it.  I'm serious.  This isn't one of those games you play for two months and then begin to forget about.  This is Just Cause 2 level.  Hell, above that.  This is legitimately probably the greatest game I have ever played, on a big-budget scale.

I might post another review of this when I've had more time to complain and build grudges against the game, but...

Monday: Auguste and Louis Lumiere's Cinematographe (and other stuff)

K, guys.  Sorry, didn't know this was due at 1 until it was too late (my mistake), but if it means anything I was busy recoding an entire game to work in a newer engine, and pulled it off too.  Excuses, excuses...  Well, there's mine.

So, Auguste and Louis Lumiere, they're, like, bros, ya know?  'N their dad was making dough by makin' photography stuff, you know, for development and stuff, 'cuz it was really expensive and time-consuming and stuff back then.  So then, they see Edison, and his, like, Kinetoscope, which was like a little peephole TV, ya know, but, like, more like a projector-flipbook thing, right?  And Edison was making some real stacks sellin' em, ya know, but the Lumieres were like, but, it's, like, so lame, cuz it's so big and heavy and inconvenient, and you can only, like, watch it one person at a time, which really blows for, like, family occasions and stuff, or, like, anything with more than just you, ya know?  So they built their own little movie machine, right, called the cinematographe, and had it all finished n' stuff by early 1895, and it was, like, a camera, printer, and projector all totally fused into one mega-movie machine, right?  Because, at the time, right, such a thing was, like, crazy to most people, and they were all like, "WHOAH BROS!  HELLA CRAY-CRAY!"  But they were, like, smart, because they went and kept it all on the down-low until they had, like, a patent for it, so no one could steal it.  But they weren't done inventing, right?  So they, like, had made a lot of really cool, revolutionary stuff, and would make more.  Like, in 1907, they showcased Autochrome coloring, which, like, used transparent colored grains to filter color, so it was, like, a colored transparency.
    William Friese-Greene was another inventor of the same era and field as the above-noted Lumiere brothers.  He ran multitudes of experiments and experimental designs, seeking progress in the photographic field... but without much success.  He had made a relatively high-framerate camera before the Lumieres perfected their cinematographe, using a rotator pulling film in front of an exposure port via little pegs, but it only managed a measly 5 frames per second, making it rather ineffective and thus unpopular, whilst the Lumieres employed machinery somewhat similar to that within a sewing machine to alternate frames, creating a much faster framespeed.  He did, however, develop methods of stereoscopic imaging (early 3D) and coloring (Biocolour) which would ultimately bring fame and outshine the Lumieres in these particular fields.  He's disputed as "the father of cinematography," though this debate has proven precarious and heated.

Sources:
    http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/118046/Cinematographe#ref260592
    http://www.earlycinema.com/pioneers/lumiere_bio.html
    http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/457919/history-of-photography/252871/Colour-photography#ref416536
    http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/220320/William-Friese-Greene
    http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/508948/

Film Review #6: PARKOUR!demo.blend (my old game thing)

Yes, I'm reviewing my own crap.  It's just about as alien to me as a new film, just because of how long ago I created it, so you know what?  I think it's fine.

Anyway.  The PARKOUR!demo.blend file is a Blender v.2.49b file, made way back in the day.  It's an experimental parkour simulator in which one runs about, jumps on and off walls, slides along floors, throws knives, and punches or drop-kicks things.  It's entirely physics-based, with no pre-set responses to any circumstance other than standing upright on a surface given the opportunity.  To play, one uses WASD to lean, SPACE to jump, SHIFT to run, and E to teleport to a surface.

All in all, it's extraordinarily clunky, difficult, inconvenient, and horribly scripted... By which I mean haphazardly, inefficiently, and buggily.  It's a monstrosity of game design, really.  And you wanna know what the worst part is?  I was obscenely proud of it, to the degree of outright bragging and insult to the reader in the "Notes" section.  Along with that, I threatened anyone who dared to use any of the code, meshes, or anything else without my permission (weird, given most of the scripts weren't mine, those that were were obscenely primitive and terribly written, and the meshes were just cubes).

Thing is, it's not all that bad a game.  It's ridiculously fun, in a terrible, imbecilic, suicidal way.  Bugs, lag, and just general negligence in the composition make it absolutely horrid in an assemblage critique, but just running around is fun, and it works.

It has no value as an actual finished game-- the only way to restart is to exit and re-engage, there are no real goals in any of the levels, there's no menu of any sort, etc.  Just a physics experiment, really.

Anyway, I'm trying to redo and revamp the entire thing in the new version of Blender (incompatible code, etc), to hopefully make it somewhat decent.  I'm not gonna give you a link to it because A) it'll probably offend you on so many levels, and B) nobody who knows what they're doing has 2.49 anymore anyway.  I'm not even sure you can still get it.  Well, you probably can at the Blender site, but hey.

Now, some demo videos...  You might be able to find a download somewhere there.  I apologize, they're horrible.  The whole having-been-about-14-or-something-and-way-too-proud really shows.  Anyway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkz4OtbFGI4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogtjwt8CaJg

Story notes

As requested.
-
Protagonist- main character- has to want SOMETHING
Antagonist- "villain"/opposition
    *There must be a barrier between Protagonist and SOMETHING.

~Complexity~
    -Character's needs do not equal wants
    -Protagonist changes the most
  -EMPATHY-

Now, ACTS in a PLOTLINE.
Act 1: Status Quo state of circumstance
    *Thus, when change occurs, audience recognizes it
  -Inciting Incident: the thing that happens to character or the thing that character does that forces them out of the status quo.

Act 2: Majority of story ("why we came")
    Journey of character (figuratively or literally) towards the goal/breaking point

Act 3: Resolution
    "Brings the dark night back to day (most of time)"

Film Review #5: Mud (feature film)

Yes, an actual film.  Crazy, I know.

So, basically, Mud is about an Arkansas kid named Ellis who goes with his friend Neckbone (good old Arkansas) to a little island in some big river where there's a boat in a tree.  They figure out a guy called "Mud" lives in the tree, and they basically run errands for him and help him build up the boat to floating status while he hides from some extraordinarily pissed people with shotguns and talks about how his girlfriend Juniper is gonna come and join him in the boat.  Really, that's the gist of it; in itself that doesn't sound all that bad.  However, it goes a bit deeper; lots of less-than-subtle metaphors, philosophy, and relationship psychology, plus a gunfight and some snakes.  I don't make it out to sound terrific, but honestly, it's simply a good movie.  Clean cinematography and lighting, respectable acting, great soundtrack (except for the occasional dissonant country song, but hey, that's just me), awesome settings.  Really long, but it's fine.  Not the greatest film ever made, but hey, 98% on Rotten Tomatoes ain't lyin'.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv30J05U2nI

Poster correction sheet thing

Yep.

Film Review #4: SUPER HOT (game)

I know, it's not a film.  Tough luck, deal with it.  I'm more a game dev than a film maker.  Anyway, SUPER HOT.

This is the single greatest sci-fi time-bending Matrix-esque game of all time.  Quite a few games have been made by massive studios with massive budgets, and they all turn out clunky, over-complicated, repetitive, and altogether lousy and at least remotely unplayable.  This indie game pulls off time-bending FPSing better than anything before with one simple mechanic: time moves when you do.  In other words, the speed of time increases from a certain low point depending on the angular and linear velocity of the player.  When standing perfectly still, everything moves incredibly slowly.  Bullets drift like dust motes through the air while the rest of the scene is ostensibly frozen.  As a bullet passes by one might turn to look at it-- and time would suddenly move just a tad faster.  The bullet drifts somewhat more swiftly, and everything around begins to move nearly imperceptibly.  Should one begin to strafe, time will move about 75% normal speed.  At the fastest forward motion of the player, time moves at 100% speed.  Firing a gun slightly drags on the speed of time due to the recoil moving your hand.  All around, it's incredible.  Just running around, jumping, clicking, and hitting R to throw guns.  That's it.  No weird key combos for special moves.  Just the basics...  Which work brilliantly.
Now, technical reviews.  The graphics are stylized, but they look really nice.  Easily readable, unique, dynamic, not overbearing.  Movement is primitive, but it works fine, given how one spends most of one's time in slow-motion.  The lack of an ADS (Aiming-Down-the-Sights) action is noticeable, but really doesn't matter (a crosshair makes it more or less obsolete, or, perhaps, something that would clog up the game or maybe make it too easy).  The number of levels is really low (4, 5?  Something like that), but hey, it was made in 7 days (I'll get to that in a moment).  Model detail/quality is fine except perhaps the glock (has some somewhat visibly repetitive textures, but I'm nitpicking, it's totes fine).  There's not really a HUD (which means no ammo indicator), but really, I think it makes it better.  Not knowing the ammo in your mag makes it just that much more fun.
Now, about the 7-day thing:  This was made for the 7DFPS (7-Day-First-Person-Shooter) Challenge (http://7dfps.com/).  Competitors have 7 days to build some sort of game, generally FPS, though I've seen others.  That's right.  Made by (as far as I can tell) one person in 7 days, with the wonderful Unity 3D.  Amazing.  Kick-ass.  It's still being developed for more content, but you can:
Play it here (on any platform.  It's online)- http://superhotgame.com/
And keep up on updates here- https://twitter.com/SUPERHOTTHEGAME

Play it, now.  NOW.  It runs incredibly fast (even on mah mac), and is definitely worth the playthrough, and the possible hundreds more to follow.

Film Review #3: The Go-Getter

K, guys.  Let's go.

The Go-Getter.  One of my favorite films.  Kinda a classic decent-but-really-great movie, ya know?  Anyway.  It's about a guy whose mother has died, and so, in something like a pre-mid-life-crisis, steals a car in search of his long-disconnected brother, in something between seeking to tell him the news, reunite with him, and change his life a bit.  It's just kinda about the adventure on the way, and the final outcome.  All in all, it's interesting, fun, and relatable.  Lots of deepness and whatnot, but these things are best left to seeing the film, not reading a crappy review.

Now, specifics.  Cinematography is pretty nice.  Shiny-glowing, like a sunset mixed with Moonrise Kingdom (in mood.  Not Wes cinematography).  Soundtrack is amazing: Black Keys, M. Ward, more amazing artists.  No complaint there, even in the songs I might not listen to on a daily basis…  In context to the film, they work brilliantly.  Acting's great (Zoe Deschanel, c'mon.  Don't know if I spelled that correctly, no internet, don't really care.  Lots of other actors in their earlier roots.  So great).

Not much else I can really say about it.  Be warned, it's (probably) rated R for a reason.  Just see it, it'll give you that nice just-slightly-unsettled-but-in-a-good-sunny-kinda-happy-way feeling.  A bit like Moonrise Kingdom, in that respect.  Watch it.

Trailer doesn't do it justice, nor portrays it quite in the right light.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6u3Xn3ZfsA

What I did today

Somehow I got the impression we have to put up what we did today.  I made a couple concepts for the Human Rights #17 poster:

and also began making a CG toaster, as toasters are, of course, crucial to symbolizing universal morals.

Merry Christmas, have a good day.*

*No, it's not really Christmas.  Sorry to shatter your dreams.

Symbolism assignment-- concepts

K, guys.  Let's go.  Symbols:

(I think I lost the paper)
-hand with index and middle fingers up, others in fist (peace)
*-hand with thumb and pinkie extended; others in a fist (hang loose)
*-nuclear disarmament sign (peace)
-Tim the Enchanter
-Anderson family crest elements
*-goats
*-Bella the dog
-dead trees
-semi-hollow-body red electric guitar
*-boss hats with feathers
-fire axe
-skull

There's some other stuff, but I've forgotten it.  It'll come to me; else-wise, best hope I find that paper.

If I were to use any of these, it'd probably be Bella, some goats, and the nuclear disarmament symbol…  Bella because Bella's my awesome lunatic dog, goats because they're bosses, and the peace sign because it's part of my creed.  With that in mind, I'd probably also throw in the hang-loose hand.

How am I gonna organize these?  Well, frankly, I don't want this poster to look cool.  In fact, I'd prefer it if it were a bit unsettlingly insane.  Thus, I've made a sketch of what I want it to look like.  This is gonna be fun.

They kinda speak for themselves.  Lots of anatomical horrors and such.  Obviously these might be a bit overdone, what with the time frame, but hey, shoot for the moon, even if that means lodging tiny bovine and canine heads in your eyes.  Via photoshop, that is.  Yeah, definitely photoshop.
So yeah.  Unless anyone has any objectives, I'm doing one of these.  Merry Christmas, good day.

Film Review #2: Breakfast Club (film)

Yes, we all know Breakfast Club.  Well, you know what?  It took me until last week to watch it.  Shame, I know.

So, first the initial stuff.  Style all-around is super-80s/70s.  Silly, straightforward camera work, somewhat cheesy acting, an absolutely ridiculous number of sexual innuendos.  All expected.

What I didn't expect were the characters.  Well, I did.  After a while these things become pretty predictable for the most part when you see the early archetypes.  Nonetheless, they were mostly likeable, in a way that reflected how you should have thought of them had you met them as real people.  All well and good, really.

The film doesn't really have any deep meaning nowadays (let's face it, for about 15 years all that came out were dramas about embracing life, who you are, and other people, and that the STRUGGLE IS REAL), but nonetheless, it's enjoyable.  Not much more to say about it...  Just watch it, would you?  Thank you, good day.

Human Rights ideas

Let's see.  If I were to do one of these, it would be 12 (right to privacy and such), 17 (right to property and such), or 19 (freedom of expression and such).  I'm on the fence about which to do right now...  Were I to do 19, it would certainly maintain a sort of 60s-comic aesthetic...

Something looking more like that one super-hero with the laser eyes, though.  I dunno.  Really retro.

12 and 17 would follow a similar style (posterized, dilated, ect.), though more digital, with sharp, black shadows.  They'd be roughly semblant of meme stylizations when taken from films.  12 would have a guy making the hands-up "step off!" gesture, with a furious facial expression.  17 would be a guy tenderly hugging and caressing a toaster.

No, I can't just decide on 2.  GOSH.  Ok, if I were to, it would be 17 and 19, or 19 and 21, or 17 and 21.  One of those.   Heh...

Film Review #1: I Am Legend

Big budget, apocalypse, Will Smith.  'Nough said.

No, not 'nough said.

Thing is, nearly every recent big-budget film (in my eyes) has been poorly written, composed, etc.  It's depressing.  Thus, I Am Legend cannot simply be summed up as an apocalyptic big-budget blockbuster.  No.  Thing is, I loved the movie.  I may be alone in that view, but it was beautiful.  First off, aesthetics: every shot was fluid and well-composed, tuning in intensity to the action of the moment, the mind of the character of focus, and the scenario that had just played/would immediately play out.  Lighting was altogether quite dynamic, with a coherently decrepit style ranging directly from gold-orange-brown to a grey-blue.  Different hues meant different tones, and towards the end it could get you on edge without your realizing it.  The scenery was brilliant.  I gotta know how they got that location to shoot at at all (center of NYC, c'mon) or if they used CG for it...  Either way, beautiful.  Convincing, unique take on the abandonment of humankind's ventures.  Of course, then, there's Will Smith.  What a boss.  Great choice for that role.  His temperament and internal struggle with delusions to (ironically) keep himself sane amidst a near hell is explored through his gait, perception of the world, voice, and action/living.  The movie in all was suspenseful and, emotionally speaking, fairly dramatic, but more than everything else intriguing.  Great score, too.

Now, if I were to rant about anything in the film, it would be the plot toward the end.  It wasn't in any way bad or poorly written...  But they failed to delve more into other characters.  The mother and son who show up are never quite set up to be relatable, and thus the viewer fails to quite connect as well with them as would be optimal.  Of course, the film wasn't about them, but Will Smith; in my mind, they were an event in his life, and no more.  The film's more about the protagonist's struggle for hope and progress than about them...  And thus, they are simply lost souls he must guard and guide.  He embraces this, obviously, and thus the relationship between the viewer and the mother and son is less so much direct as a loose bind through Will Smith.  There is another little plot inconsistency toward the end, but it isn't really an inconsistency so long as you accept that there was more to the protagonist's setup than met the eye, in the form of escape.  Anyway.  I Am Legend.  A good film, you should watch it.

A not-very-good trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFNPNT_4Qww

Film Review #0: Dead Man (1995)

Ok, guys.  Off to hell we go...

Dead Man (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112817/), of the wonderful year 1995, is a wonderful film.  It's dark, austere, and Western, and keeps a solid cast with Johnny Depp as the lead and a brilliant, steel-blue, gritty Western-esque soundtrack by Neil Young.
    It's focused in the later 1800's around a man christened William Blake who heads from the city of Cleveland to the distant "pioneer" town Machine, seeking a job as an accountant.  He's refused on the grounds of being late by the owner of the business at which he sought said employment, and heads to the local saloon.  He meets a girl he proceeds to take to bed, only to soon after have this girl's ex bust through the door, gun in hand, inebriated on loneliness.  This man shoots the girl and wounds Will, after which Will shoots him (the girl kept a revolver under a pillow).  Later it turns out this now dead man was the son of the business owner who had refused Will, apparently a locally powerful man.  THIS man puts a price on Will's head and sends three bounty hunters after him.  Will steals a horse and flees before falling asleep, after which he wakes up with a Native-American Indian named Nobody tending his wounds.  Basically, they team up (Nobody is convinced Will is the famous writer by the same name, who he is, in fact, not) and run from the ravenous killers.  Eventually, after a helluva bloody journey, Will is fatally wounded and sent on his way to die on a canoe by Nobody as a sort of respectful death rite, after which the last remaining bounty hunter shows up to shoot him (Will).  I believe Nobody shoots the hunter, though my memory is failing me.  That's it.

I love this film, and I'll write a real review of it in the near future when I've seen it again to refresh it in my mind, but as to this assignment:

-I loved it because, first of all, it has a great style.  Aesthetic.  The soundtrack is cold and steely...  Amazing, really.  All steel-string guitar, sometimes electric...  Then there's the black-and-white...  Not always a good thing, but it was a must for this, somehow.  It's got its own intrinsic feel with this color scheme.  Of course, Johnny Depp is also awesome.
-How do I connect with it?  The more I watched it, the more I familiarized with the protagonist, in a mental sense.  At least in the beginning.  The sense of confusion, alienation and disorientation is one I'm no stranger to.  Then, as things went to hell in the film, the protagonist acted just as I would have...  It wasn't predictable, but familiar.  Then there's just the plot all-in-all...  It seemed a deal like a film I might make.  Not very happy, with a morose, inexorable conclusion and plenty of somewhat manic, morbid, hostile characters along the way.  So, all in all, it felt like a film I would make.  Like, REALLY.  It was somewhat frightening, actually.
-I only watched it this last summer...  Its real meaning hasn't changed much for me.

This trailer pretty much sums the thing up: