Slashdot Mirror

"Ain't that a shame, throwin' away a perfectly good white boy."

Looking for your Cherry 2000?

What was novel in its day is now dull

No, I can't say it.

Sorry, film snob, this is Slashdot. You want Rotten Tomatoes. Two doors down on the right. Thanks for calling. Now leave us fanboys alone.

was a very similar story, and someone involved in the project wrote a book about it, and it was made into a hilarious movie called The Pentagon Wars with Cary Elwes and Kelsey Grammar. Had me laughing out loud! Alas, I have been totally unable to find this movie on any p2p networks. :(

I'd just like to add that the Stallone/Snipes movie Demolition Man satirically posited a future just like that.

K, replying to my own post for lack of proper googling...

There is a 2003 release movie...

Mandrake the Magician

and a 1954 tv series

Fakezilla was a flop simply because it WASN'T Godzilla. They took TOO many liberties with their Godzilla design. I won't even get into how easy they made it to kill Godzilla or the whole breeding thing they came up with.

Of course Toho, the creator and only true maker of Godzilla films, has made some big mistakes as well(Godzilla 2000 for instance, one of if not the most boring of the Godzilla films)

I've always suspected it would've been recieved better if it'd been billed as the movie it was actually a remake of -- The Beast from 20000 Fathoms.

(Although it still wouldn't have lived up to their remake of War of the Worlds ;)

Hey-y-y...I bet someone could write a good story about mail fraud... It could be a thriller, maybe involving a larger crime so that the fraud doesn't seem important until the VERY END, where it becomes clear that committing mail fraud will get you in big trouble, buddy!

It was called The Untouchables ;)

Sorry, but my first thought was the solution pioneered by Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr in this 1983 documentary. Of course, it doesn't work as well without the unique preservative solution devised by evil genius Dr. Alfred Necessiter.

"You.. You cooked her nines!... OUT! Out of my HOUSE! Out of my LIFE!"
-- Steve Martin, "The Man With Two Brains"

call of duty.

This is exactly what you are looking for.

The game has amazing graphics and sound, it's fun, and overall i would say the average skill level you will find while playing online is low, when compared to bf1942 or cs.

But you don't have to take my word for it:
rottentomatoes.com 96%
gamerankings.com 92%
gamespy pc game of the year 2003
shacknews pc game of the year 2003
ign best pc action, best sound, best multiplayer game of the year, 2003
etc

Not to mention, killing russians never gets old ;)

The bottom line, as usual, is simple. Don't buy anything at Kroger, or watch anything on TiVo, that you wouldn't want [John Ashcroft | your wife's divorce lawyer] to find out about.

No where did I say that popularity wasn't a good metric. Just that to use it as the only one is foolish.

Take a look at IMDB's top 250 movies. This is the composed average of user ratings of all films in the database.

Now, by your logic, we should just be able to search down the list to find the top movie of 2003. According to the list it would be #4 RotK.

First, how does that seem. That this movie, less than two months in the theaters is now the 4th best movie of All-Time? Above Schindler's List, One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest, Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai?

Now although "best" is subjective, over a given period of time, there seems to be an exponential averaging effect that forces a piece of art's excepted quality to a pretty static point. Hindsight's 20/20. In time all things become clear.

Its when that initial excitement is gone and we can take this "thing" and put it into perspective.

And I think the best example is on that Top 250 list at #2, Shawshank Redemption. This movie spurted at the boxoffice (barely making back its small 25 million budget), even though it was loved by critics. In 1994, it wouldn't have even cracked the top 250.

So, by your logic, it shouldn't have been up for the Best Picture Academy Award (which it lost to Forrest Gump, along with Pulp Fiction).

But what happened? Well TBS and TNT playing the movie enough that it gained a cult following. In the following years word of mouth opened up this unsung movie to the point now that it is one of the most rented movies out there. Not only that but it means something to people. Esquire Magazine did a survey of their subscribers and they were shocked that Shawshank was the #4 movie among their "elitist" readership (a movie that they didn't even put on the list and was a written in ballot).

That is why I'm remiss to say "a lot of people liked it, so it must be good" because the operative part is "liked it then". What about in a decade (as with Shawshank) or 50 years from now (as with Seven Samurai?). I assume we agree that "Best Picture of 2003" means the Best, barnone. Not the one people liked most on the date December 31st, 2003.

It is the way we differentiate between fads and true phenomena of culture. Titanic was, at one point, the highest rated movie on IMDB. It was critically acclaimed, the king of the box office, and a big award winner. Now it isn't even in the top 250 just 7 years after its release.

Popularity is a tenuous thing. And although subjective, there are invariably standards in art that allow things like Mozart, Hemmingway, and da Vinci to inspire through the ages.

ya need to know the plot BEFORE you write the movie... and the plot should not suck.

Second case in point: Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, with its "everything you know about the origins of the force is wrong" plot. Magic or religion? Ah, young Jedi, it's just some little thingies floating around in your blood.

Revisionism sucks, even in the movies.

ya need to know the plot BEFORE you write the movie... and the plot should not suck.

Second case in point: Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, with its "everything you know about the origins of the force is wrong" plot. Magic or religion? Ah, young Jedi, it's just some little thingies floating around in your blood.

Revisionism sucks, even in the movies.

I'll admit that he's not the best philanthropist, but he does donate a lot of money to a lot of organizations. He could just swim in it all day like Scrooge McDuck, so he deserves some definite props for doing what he does.

From the Duck Tales movie, Treasure of the Lost Lamp , just after having discovered the treasure trove:

Scrooge: No boys, most of these artifacts will go to, oh, museums...
Huey (or Dewey, or Louie, who knows): That doesn't sound like uncle scrooge.
Scrooge: That way I can enjoy a hefty tax break!
Another nephew: That does!

This isn't a privacy issue. If you think you have one spec of anonymity or privacy in a casino, you're nuckin futs.

Excellent point that sums up the whole thing. After all, the entire point of a casino is to prey on peoples' willing suspension of disbelief.

How can anyone who walks in and puts their cash on the table think that the casino companies aren't going to fleece them from the moment they enter? That those ridiculously overdone venues with their flashing neon lights just built themselves out of the Nevada desert?

On the other side of the roulette wheel, you have people who *do* think they can beat the house... the people who buy lottery tickets at home in blissful ignorance of the laws of mathematics.

Neither of these groups is going to care about RFID. One group knows that they're entering a fantasy world, and the other wouldn't believe you if you told them.

I mean, seriously, haven't you seen Mission to Mars?

Basically, you'll find Indian English movies to be less of a culture shock than hardcore Bollywood masala stuff. Be warned though that most Indian English movies aren't completely 'English'; they feature a fair amount of dialogue in Indian langauges as well, mostly with subtitles, but often without.

Nightcaster.

Yech.

On Rottentomatoes it is rated 84%. I guess you are not qualified to comment on what is a good or bad film.

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King
• Oseam - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions
• Bulletproof Monk
• Teknolust - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King
• Oseam - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions
• Bulletproof Monk
• Teknolust - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King
• Oseam - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions
• Bulletproof Monk
• Teknolust - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King
• Oseam - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions
• Bulletproof Monk
• Teknolust - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King
• Oseam - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions
• Bulletproof Monk
• Teknolust - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King
• Oseam - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions
• Bulletproof Monk
• Teknolust - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King
• Oseam - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions
• Bulletproof Monk
• Teknolust - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King
• Oseam - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions
• Bulletproof Monk
• Teknolust - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King
• Oseam - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions
• Bulletproof Monk
• Teknolust - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King
• Oseam - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions
• Bulletproof Monk
• Teknolust - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King
• Oseam - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions
• Bulletproof Monk
• Teknolust - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

I have to admit, I enjoyed the cowboy beebop movie quite a bit. While some critics panned it, I tought it was engorssing and beautiful. Definately my animated pick for 2003.

Kangaroo Jack

Best movie? Pirates of the Carabian was good, I haven't watched Seabiscuit yet (I've got it on DVD near me right now), I liked X-2, and I thought that The Matrix: Reloaded was entertaining, Nemo was fantastic, I loved A Mighty Wind, and those are the only 2k3 movies that I've seen (that I can think of) as I only watch DVDs.

Does Chicago count? It came out Dec 25th of last year, so that's within the last year (not last calender year though).

the game was maximum carnage , a spider-man sidescrolling beatemup.. i actually had a copy of this that i never finished (i was anal about finishing games at the time)

One of the things I remember most about it -- besides that people are still despicable apes at the core -- is that he had an underling dodge and burn one his prints over and over and over and over until it looked just right. He wanted the subjects bald head to stand out, and the clouds above him to look more ominous.

Anyhoo... one more thing:

Anyone who claims that photography is about objectively and accurately portraying the real scene knows very little about the nonlinear properties of human vision, film, and image reproduction systems and they know even less about art.

No reason to be a pretentious twat (unless that's your particular superiority complex). Some people want realism. Some people want fantastic exageration.

--

Movies: RottenTomatoes, imdb, and MetaCritic have saved me dozens of hours of time I might have wasted on crap (like Matrix Revolutions, or TimeLine).

Books: Amazon, despite its evils (patents/privacy), is a very nice filter (with a few shills and idiot-reviewers). I [ab]use amazon as a filter, and then buy them cheaper new or used.

News: Popular Daily News Tidbits, Blogdex, Daypop, and slashdot.

Music: iRATE radio, and word of mouth. Need more Collaborative Filtering in this area to root out the Clearchannels/RIAAs function as a giant pusher of "cool"

Ads (aka: mental engineering): I use PopFile to filter SPAM, and Privoxy to filter out slow-loading, privacy-invading, all-around-annoying ADS. I'm still missing a proxy for my eyeballs in the real world. Soooon. :)

Cheap Products: Not a quality filter exactly, but a quantity filter: PriceWatch, PriceGrabber, Froogle, Anand's Hot Deals ...

Phew, that's a lot of linkage. Anyway, I couldn't function without these and other filters; I'd really be info overloaded.

Collaborative filtering in general has a very bright future IMO.

--

Movies: RottenTomatoes, imdb, and MetaCritic have saved me dozens of hours of time I might have wasted on crap (like Matrix Revolutions, or TimeLine).

Books: Amazon, despite its evils (patents/privacy), is a very nice filter (with a few shills and idiot-reviewers). I [ab]use amazon as a filter, and then buy them cheaper new or used.

News: Popular Daily News Tidbits, Blogdex, Daypop, and slashdot.

Music: iRATE radio, and word of mouth. Need more Collaborative Filtering in this area to root out the Clearchannels/RIAAs function as a giant pusher of "cool"

Ads (aka: mental engineering): I use PopFile to filter SPAM, and Privoxy to filter out slow-loading, privacy-invading, all-around-annoying ADS. I'm still missing a proxy for my eyeballs in the real world. Soooon. :)

Cheap Products: Not a quality filter exactly, but a quantity filter: PriceWatch, PriceGrabber, Froogle, Anand's Hot Deals ...

Phew, that's a lot of linkage. Anyway, I couldn't function without these and other filters; I'd really be info overloaded.

Collaborative filtering in general has a very bright future IMO.

--

Movies: RottenTomatoes, imdb, and MetaCritic have saved me dozens of hours of time I might have wasted on crap (like Matrix Revolutions, or TimeLine).

Books: Amazon, despite its evils (patents/privacy), is a very nice filter (with a few shills and idiot-reviewers). I [ab]use amazon as a filter, and then buy them cheaper new or used.

News: Popular Daily News Tidbits, Blogdex, Daypop, and slashdot.

Music: iRATE radio, and word of mouth. Need more Collaborative Filtering in this area to root out the Clearchannels/RIAAs function as a giant pusher of "cool"

Ads (aka: mental engineering): I use PopFile to filter SPAM, and Privoxy to filter out slow-loading, privacy-invading, all-around-annoying ADS. I'm still missing a proxy for my eyeballs in the real world. Soooon. :)

Cheap Products: Not a quality filter exactly, but a quantity filter: PriceWatch, PriceGrabber, Froogle, Anand's Hot Deals ...

Phew, that's a lot of linkage. Anyway, I couldn't function without these and other filters; I'd really be info overloaded.

Collaborative filtering in general has a very bright future IMO.

--

Gee, isn't that a bit like "Most Enjoyable Fingernail Peeling"? Or "Best Screen Door Submarine"?

"Not only is [Halo] easily the best of the Xbox launch games, but it's easily one of the best shooters ever, on any platform."
-- Joe Fielder, GAMESPOT"

Rotten Tomatoes Games ranking of 100% (best possible score)

I just hope someone does a parady of this shitfest soon.

It's been done, kind of: Wizards by Ralph Bakshi.

-kgj

i find it amazing how all these next gen games are rendering such detailed and complex scenes in realtime nowadays, given that you're running em on an appropriately endowed machine. but quite frankly, after much consideration i think i'm just gonna stick with my dusty 486 which purrs along with ms-dos and a few gems called wolfenstein, day of the tentacle, star control 2, etc etc etc. not to sound like a bitter old man or anything.. just that i seem to prefer the pc games of the late 80s up til about '98 to almost anything new these days..

"word to your mother" - vanilla ice

try this

Fog of War.

Maybe so, but the "many people" you speak about must be a tiny minority compared to the vast crowds that think it's a great film. Note the 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as the #4 position on IMDB's Top 250 list.

Deal.

Have you actually seen all of these? Sure, there's some dreck (isn't there always?), but some of them have been quite well received (ratings from Rotten Tomatoes):

Elf: 83%
Master and Commander: 86%
Tupac: Resurrection: 82%
Mystic River: 87%

Methinks you paint with too broad a brush.

Ohhhh... I see. It's because UNESCO isn't giving them the money to help that this is happening.

Wrong, though since the npr.org link is to audio and not a transcript, I can't fault you for not RTFA.

The issue isn't UNESCO funding, it's about countries' subsidies of their homegrown arts programs. Amelie , for example, wouldn't have been possible without the French government's funding the project.

UNESCO wants to codify into international law (whatever the heck that means) a protection to allow countries to subsidize their national film industries. The US, which only just now re-joined UNESCO, wants film to be just like any other industry, subject to WTO trade regulations. WTO could then say that film industry subsidies pose an unfair competitive advantage.

Of course, the US is talking out both sides of its mouth (again), since the WTO is in the process of saying our own steel industry subsidies are illegal.

The issues are hideously complex, and I recommend listening to the NPR report. [asbestos_suit status=on] As far as the WTO, I'm with Dennis Kucinich -- withdraw from WTO, repeal NAFTA, and don't even *think* about FTAA. [/asbestos_suit]

Possible source: rottentomates.com

Search that page, and you'll likely see all of those one liners there. As well as many more.

"When was the last time you decided to see a movie based on a movie review? Film critics write to each other."

I use film reviews all the time. Unless I'm already heavily predisposed to see in the movie (eg, Bubba Ho-Tep), if a movie comes out where the reviews are real stinkers, I won't go see it.

(Notice that that's reviews, plural. Rotten Tomatoes is your friend.)

Granted, word of mouth is more important than reviews, but that doesn't make reviews useless.

Back on the subject of game reviews, though: I certainly want reviewers to tell me about the game, not about their interpretation of the game. The worst offendor I think I've ever read is here. Allow me to quote:

Sigmund Freud argues that all living things are governed by two basic instincts: the life instinct called Eros or the death instinct called Thanatos. Eros is the energy that tries to build social ties, fueled by the body, which floods the mind. Thanatos destroys ties and is the wish for destruction and death. All social activity can be reduced to complex forms and interaction of these two instincts. However, when civilization and socialization disrupt the normal ebb and flow of instinctual living, the mind breaks up under the demands. The threefold self is the id, the collective genetic inheritance of the species; the ego, which acts to meet the demands of the id; and the super-ego, which represents the internalization of the demands of society. Humans struggle to find an outlet to meet the demands of their instincts, but in ways that are socially acceptable. War is a perfect justification when Eros fails to tame Thanatos. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is another.

And that's just the beginning, folks.