A Scanner Darkly was the only film on your list that I went to see in theaters. None of the theaters around here were showing it either, so I had to see it about one hundred miles away while visiting family. I'm selective about what I go to see in the theater, which usually amounts to one movie every year or two. And not just because of the outrageous prices, but the atmosphere as well. It bothers me to no end to hear people laugh at things that aren't funny or to gasp at things that aren't shocking. Let's not even get into the uncomfortable seating and murmurs that you can hear throughout. The only disappointment that strategy has brought me so far was The Village, which definitely was not worth paying to see. That said...
Thank You for Smoking was alright, though devolved into the same cliche crap as you'd expect by the end.
The Last King of Scotland was also alright, though proved yet again that not much happens in bio flicks. The acting was good though.
The Departed was boring. You wouldn't even know about it had it not had a "big name" director" tied to it.
The Bourne Identify was a big enough heap of garbage. No need to dive further into the series.
Hotel Rwanda was boring and annoying. It's real hard to feel sorry for people that ignore problems and hope it'll go away, then try to bride and/or cower their way out of it later.
A Scanner Darkly, however, was pretty good. Surprisingly the only accurate Philip K. Dick adaptation yet. I mean, Blade Runner is good, but hardly sticks close to the source. It did lack the sense of paranoia that the novel had however, opting to replace it with more of a druggie sense of humor throughout. The only big problem I had with it was that they found it necessary to beat the audience over the head with the ending, instead of going with something more subtle and thus more poignant. But, I guess they had to make sure every movie going moron out there "got" the not-quite twist. Oh, and I think that they could have used the rotoscoping to better effect, as the director had done in Waking Life.
I remember learning that trick from seeing a few Megablock sets. Let me tell you, that's the only good to have ever come out of Megablocks. Even their own pieces didn't fit together correctly, let alone when mixed with LEGOs. Furthermore, they were cheap and broke easily. Eventually my brother and I went through our entire block collection (about ten of those big plastic storage tubs you'd get at Wal-Mart) and purged it of Megablocks. That era was henceforth known as the Block Inquisition throughout our bedroom-sized LEGO city.
I would tend to agree. However, all of the basic pieces are still there and being used, many sets simply see a once-used custom piece to increase the visual flair and/or recognizability. The chance to be creative is still there, perhaps even more so if you don't use these over-specialized pieces for their intended purpose. I think what is hurting LEGO more than anything is their newfound reliance on iffy movie licenses. Star Wars was interesting enough, but Harry Potter, Spider-Man, and Batman don't even hold a candle to the classic Pirates and Knights. I did always like the tone of the Western sets however, even if Native American LEGOs were the only ones with noses.:\
Well, I can assure you that without a solid method of piracy I won't be switching over from DVD films any time soon. NetFlix, a spindle of blank discs, and a few mouse clicks per film has increased my collection exponentially.:P
What's the right age for a kid to start playing games? Do you see games as more or less acceptable than traditional kid pastimes like TV or reading? Does it matter if the parents are gaming-savvy? I sure as heck find them a lot more acceptable than TV! Never would I have considered that a "traditional kid pastime".
mean hell, web comics are turning a profit! That's astounding. And when you're independent and not beholden to a big stupid parent company, it doesn't take nearly as much revenue to remain in business. Pff! Web comics don't actually exist. Wikipedia said so.
Can't we wage war on bigger, longer-lasting threats? You know, like Christianity. As far as I can see, Scientologists just want to blatantly make money off of stupid celebrities. There's nothing wrong with that. Hell, I've been thinking of starting a cult myself. It'd be great supplemental income. As far as "destroying" free speech goes, I think the government is the one to fight on that front, not the group taking advantage of it.
After all, what if the file was called "Tool - Loud Noises.mp3" and it is his attempt to make music from his power tools... not from Tool the band. Always fun stuff! I'm particularly fond of my nailgun. Few things shout "industrial metal" like a depressurizing nailgun going along to the beat. That said, I was disappointed that my chainsaw just sounds like a dirt bike later when listening to the recordings. It's a pretty big chainsaw even.:\
Personally, I find people that are disconnected from TV an absolute bore as they have very little to talk about in the ways of popular culture that allows them to have something in common with the majority of Americans around them. That sounds like a good thing. The majority of Americans just want to know which celebrity is pregnant and/or in rehab this week. That isn't something worth talking about, that's mind-pollution. People that do follow that kind of thing and talk about it as if it matters are the boring ones (to put it nicely, at least). It shows a grave lack of ones own individuality and personal life, that they are reduced to vicariously living out "wild times" through some overblown pseudo celebrity.
That said, there are some genuinely good shows out there. Most don't last long however and you're almost always likely to walk away having benefited more from reading a good book than from watching a good television show.
I don't know about you, but I checked out the tracklist for Guitar Hero III before buying it. If it didn't have a good portion of enjoyable songs, I wasn't going to buy it. I think Rock Band probably has a better line-up overall, but they don't seem to care about us Wii users. Yet they can push out a gimped PS2 port.:(
There has been no word at all about DLC being enabled in the replacement discs. In all likelihood, it will JUST fix the mono-only sound. It won't add in the Boss Battle Songs to Quick Play or anything. That said, Activision is now accepting orders for the replacement discs (both telephone and internet forms are available). When the discs are ready, they will send you a pre-paid envelope. You send them your disc and after several business days they'll send you a new one. So not only do you have to trust the United States Postal Service twice, but you'll be completely without a game for what will probably be about one month. A crappy way of going about it, for sure, but perhaps the only solution without asking for credit card information to ensure that you will send you original disc in after the fact.
I'm more worried about the utter lack of separate guitars at retail. Really though, there are only about six songs for download that would even be worth the price.
It's pretty obvious that the game was simply pushed out for the holidays. Consider that they keep telling us that downloadable content "is coming" even when they're doing a piss-poor job of delivering on the system that do have it (especially when compared to Rock Band). Furthermore, you have glitches all over the place and stereo sound completely missing (that's right, the Wii only has mono!). Oh, and they didn't even bother to put the boss songs into the game (outside of the boss battles) until after the fact.
Maybe Nintendo is holding up downloads, or maybe not, but that is an excuse that should soon be eliminated with WiiWare fast approaching.
What they really mean by "America's Army saved a life" is that someone played the game and, based on that experience, realized how dumb it would be to enlist in the U.S. Army just to die for some greedy politicians' personal crusade.
Do you also stand by this argument regarding fire services and police forces protecting your house and neighbourhood? Do you prefer private fire protection to publicly taxed fire departments, and private law enforcement over public police? Just curious as perplexed as it seems to me as an outsider that "socialized" fire and police protection seem acceptable but "socialized medicine" appear to be less acceptable in the USA. Wondering where the difference between these services is seen by the American public? Socialized healthcare is something that only a Commie/Witch/Terrorist would be for because it helps improve the life of the general populace. Privatized law enforcement however would severely limit the government's ability to directly oppress said populace. Thus, one is right and the other is wrong. Some people have been brainwashed so thoroughly illusions of capitalism and the so-called "free market" that they would gladly forsake their own well being, and that of the whole, to protect their oppressors and their selfish goals.
Satellite internet is hardly a solution for those of us who don't want to live in overcrowded, noisy, polluted areas of the world. Even the best satellite internet has poor upload speeds, annoying lag (it does have to travel to and from space, after all), bandwidth limits, and flaky service during rain and snow (and sunspots). Besides, if you live in a valley or on the wrong side of a ridge, your line of sight could be less than desirable and ruin any chance of having even that kind of connection. If you're one of those people that like to watch television however, I'd always recommend satellites over cable, despite some usability issues during bad weather.:P
Companies won't run the extra bit of line because they are lazy and don't want to put out what amounts to relatively insignificant amounts of money for eventual profits. That is exactly why we need laws passed to force cable and telephone companies to remedy the problem, instead of avoiding it altogether. Saying that "hicks don't want internet" is ridiculous. We have electricity and telephone access, which were thought to be relatively unimportant outside of urban areas not too long ago. Heck, most of us even have county water nowadays (though I still prefer my well for safety purposes)! Yet some places don't even have cable television, let alone any sort of broadband.
Wii Play was well worth the $10. Billiards and Laser Hockey do spring to mind. It is little more than a tech demo in the grand scheme of things however. Wii Sports on the other hand is no such thing, good sir! The bowling alone has seen more play from me than many of my regular games. While it may not be the grand pack-in that Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt was, it's still more entertaining than a heck of a lot of more traditional games.
Set top DVD recorders are everywhere. If they were doing so poorly, every store wouldn't carry them. My folks have one with a built-in VCR at that. They initially got it to transfer all of their tapes over to DVD (which didn't work on a few, due to copyright mechanisms), but have since moved onto recording films off of their satellite signal. Those commercial free channels are of good quality (not like ANY cable channel), and the little logo down in the corner isn't too big of a distraction. Really, if you wanted to, you could run the satellite through your computer instead and capture it there. Afterwards, you could simply erase the logo from the film since they never leave the black letterbox area. It'd be a snap! Simply convert and burn to a DVD afterwards without the ugly timed menu that those set top records add.
Myself? I'm fine with copying six films from NetFlix a week. You'd be surprised how efficient that "three out at a time" plan can be if you send them back the very same day that they arrive.:P
I wouldn't worry too much about it. Do you have any idea how incompetent Time Warner is? I've been waiting for Time Warner to finish hooking up the cable in my area for the last two years. They owned the area to one side and Adelphia owned the area to the other side, with me in a "no man's land" between where only Time Warner television is available. They bought out Adelphia and must have decided that sticking their thumbs up their asses was a better idea than combining the networks, because they manage to have a new excuse for a delay every two or three months.
Hell, the only reason I even care is because I'm using a satellite connection right now and it has a ridiculous bandwidth limit! The few second delay is no peach either, but is at least tolerable. I personally wish that the telephone companies would increase the distance on DSL. I had Verizon's internet service a few years ago and it was great once you went through the hassle of setting it up. Then again, anything that involves Verizon seems to be a hassle.
I don't think MKA was necessarily overkill. If you're a fan of the series, it was quite gratifying. I don't like many of the new characters from Deception personally, but even they weren't a bad addition in the grand scheme of having everyone. I just wish we could have seen a return of all of the stages as well, instead of some half-baked "Kart Kombat" mode. Oh, and Tremor from the Special Forces spin-off would have been cool.:P
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Thank You for Smoking was alright, though devolved into the same cliche crap as you'd expect by the end.
The Last King of Scotland was also alright, though proved yet again that not much happens in bio flicks. The acting was good though.
The Departed was boring. You wouldn't even know about it had it not had a "big name" director" tied to it.
The Bourne Identify was a big enough heap of garbage. No need to dive further into the series.
Hotel Rwanda was boring and annoying. It's real hard to feel sorry for people that ignore problems and hope it'll go away, then try to bride and/or cower their way out of it later.
A Scanner Darkly, however, was pretty good. Surprisingly the only accurate Philip K. Dick adaptation yet. I mean, Blade Runner is good, but hardly sticks close to the source. It did lack the sense of paranoia that the novel had however, opting to replace it with more of a druggie sense of humor throughout. The only big problem I had with it was that they found it necessary to beat the audience over the head with the ending, instead of going with something more subtle and thus more poignant. But, I guess they had to make sure every movie going moron out there "got" the not-quite twist. Oh, and I think that they could have used the rotoscoping to better effect, as the director had done in Waking Life.
BFG whores beware!
I remember learning that trick from seeing a few Megablock sets. Let me tell you, that's the only good to have ever come out of Megablocks. Even their own pieces didn't fit together correctly, let alone when mixed with LEGOs. Furthermore, they were cheap and broke easily. Eventually my brother and I went through our entire block collection (about ten of those big plastic storage tubs you'd get at Wal-Mart) and purged it of Megablocks. That era was henceforth known as the Block Inquisition throughout our bedroom-sized LEGO city.
I would tend to agree. However, all of the basic pieces are still there and being used, many sets simply see a once-used custom piece to increase the visual flair and/or recognizability. The chance to be creative is still there, perhaps even more so if you don't use these over-specialized pieces for their intended purpose. I think what is hurting LEGO more than anything is their newfound reliance on iffy movie licenses. Star Wars was interesting enough, but Harry Potter, Spider-Man, and Batman don't even hold a candle to the classic Pirates and Knights. I did always like the tone of the Western sets however, even if Native American LEGOs were the only ones with noses. :\
Well, I can assure you that without a solid method of piracy I won't be switching over from DVD films any time soon. NetFlix, a spindle of blank discs, and a few mouse clicks per film has increased my collection exponentially. :P
Can't we wage war on bigger, longer-lasting threats? You know, like Christianity. As far as I can see, Scientologists just want to blatantly make money off of stupid celebrities. There's nothing wrong with that. Hell, I've been thinking of starting a cult myself. It'd be great supplemental income. As far as "destroying" free speech goes, I think the government is the one to fight on that front, not the group taking advantage of it.
That said, there are some genuinely good shows out there. Most don't last long however and you're almost always likely to walk away having benefited more from reading a good book than from watching a good television show.
Hehe. Mega Hurtz. :)
I wish I had the money to buy political clout.
I don't know about you, but I checked out the tracklist for Guitar Hero III before buying it. If it didn't have a good portion of enjoyable songs, I wasn't going to buy it. I think Rock Band probably has a better line-up overall, but they don't seem to care about us Wii users. Yet they can push out a gimped PS2 port. :(
There has been no word at all about DLC being enabled in the replacement discs. In all likelihood, it will JUST fix the mono-only sound. It won't add in the Boss Battle Songs to Quick Play or anything. That said, Activision is now accepting orders for the replacement discs (both telephone and internet forms are available). When the discs are ready, they will send you a pre-paid envelope. You send them your disc and after several business days they'll send you a new one. So not only do you have to trust the United States Postal Service twice, but you'll be completely without a game for what will probably be about one month. A crappy way of going about it, for sure, but perhaps the only solution without asking for credit card information to ensure that you will send you original disc in after the fact.
It's pretty obvious that the game was simply pushed out for the holidays. Consider that they keep telling us that downloadable content "is coming" even when they're doing a piss-poor job of delivering on the system that do have it (especially when compared to Rock Band). Furthermore, you have glitches all over the place and stereo sound completely missing (that's right, the Wii only has mono!). Oh, and they didn't even bother to put the boss songs into the game (outside of the boss battles) until after the fact.
Maybe Nintendo is holding up downloads, or maybe not, but that is an excuse that should soon be eliminated with WiiWare fast approaching.
What they really mean by "America's Army saved a life" is that someone played the game and, based on that experience, realized how dumb it would be to enlist in the U.S. Army just to die for some greedy politicians' personal crusade.
And by the way, Star Trek is fucked. Abrams is a hack, despite being the industry golden boy right now.
Companies won't run the extra bit of line because they are lazy and don't want to put out what amounts to relatively insignificant amounts of money for eventual profits. That is exactly why we need laws passed to force cable and telephone companies to remedy the problem, instead of avoiding it altogether. Saying that "hicks don't want internet" is ridiculous. We have electricity and telephone access, which were thought to be relatively unimportant outside of urban areas not too long ago. Heck, most of us even have county water nowadays (though I still prefer my well for safety purposes)! Yet some places don't even have cable television, let alone any sort of broadband.
Wii Play was well worth the $10. Billiards and Laser Hockey do spring to mind. It is little more than a tech demo in the grand scheme of things however. Wii Sports on the other hand is no such thing, good sir! The bowling alone has seen more play from me than many of my regular games. While it may not be the grand pack-in that Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt was, it's still more entertaining than a heck of a lot of more traditional games.
Myself? I'm fine with copying six films from NetFlix a week. You'd be surprised how efficient that "three out at a time" plan can be if you send them back the very same day that they arrive. :P
Hell, the only reason I even care is because I'm using a satellite connection right now and it has a ridiculous bandwidth limit! The few second delay is no peach either, but is at least tolerable. I personally wish that the telephone companies would increase the distance on DSL. I had Verizon's internet service a few years ago and it was great once you went through the hassle of setting it up. Then again, anything that involves Verizon seems to be a hassle.
I don't think MKA was necessarily overkill. If you're a fan of the series, it was quite gratifying. I don't like many of the new characters from Deception personally, but even they weren't a bad addition in the grand scheme of having everyone. I just wish we could have seen a return of all of the stages as well, instead of some half-baked "Kart Kombat" mode. Oh, and Tremor from the Special Forces spin-off would have been cool. :P
Mortal Kombat Armageddon had somewhere around sixty or seventy characters. All of those ninja aren't just pallet swaps nowadays either!
That's why you place exploding collars on them instead. It worked fairly well in X-Men and Running Man!