Game: February 2007

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

My Vote for Late Night 2009? Patton Oswalt

While I am happy that Conan O'Brien is going to be behind the big desk of the Tonight Show starting in 2009, I am worried about what is going to happen over at Late Night.

You see, there are two names currently floating around for this empty slot: Carson Daly and Jimmy Fallon.

Carson Daly currently has a show following Late Night called Last Call... and much like a bar at Last Call, there is little mirth there left as all the entertainment has left the building. And there is the fact that he isn't a comedian and really, not much of a personality either.

And well Jimmy Fallon... you know, that guy who starred in Taxi with Queen Latifah and is rumored to star as Major Nelson in the remake of I Dream of Jeannie, the guy who couldn't keep a straight face during sketches on Saturday Night Live? Yeah, that guy. I'll admit that the fact that he played Carson Daly on SNL gives him an edge over the former host of TRL, but really, even I have an edge over him. I don't think he has the stuff to fill that chair particularly well either.

I know that when Letterman left that slot in 1993 and Conan O'Brien ascended to those relatively lofty heights, there were a lot of naysayers then claiming that he had no business helming a talk show, and this may seem like more of the same, but there is a big diffence in these situations. Conan was truly an untested commodity, while the limitations of Jimmy Fallon and Carson Daly are clear today.

But rather than merely kvetch about the people who are in line for that throne, I thought it would be better to suggest an alternative.

Patton Oswalt.

When you look back at the almost three decades of Late Night, you will notice something profound... the comics who hosted it were sort of geeky and that worked for them and Patton Oswalt with his pop cultural sensibilities would fit well with that aesthetic.

He is also willing to take a joke to its natural conclusion, even if it makes him look foolish to get the laugh. His delivery is very natural and conversational, and I think he would probably be very adept at the art of interviewing.

He has experience working within a writer's room from his stint at MadTV and managing a show from putting together the Comedians of Comedy tour. And because he was a featured player on The King of Queens, he has some additional face recognition with Middle America and experience working on a show week in and week out while at the same time, Oswalt also has quite a lot of cache because of the edgy nature of his comedy. He is the best of both worlds: an affable, genial personality with quite a lot to say.

Now I don't even know if he would consider such a position, but I think if he was interested, NBC should at least give him a shot, as he is far and away a much better choice than either of the personalities they are currently rumored to be after.

So, given the choices out there, who would you hire for that position?

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

That Game Show Bar keeps getting lower and lower

Fox television has always been a bastion for being a thinking person's network when it comes to reality and game shows, and this week they are continuing the fine tradition of Temptation Island and Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire with Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?

For the sake of humanity, I should hope that the vast majority of contestants on the show meet this humble criteria, but I fear that the answer is in reality a soul-crushing no.

Do you remember when you actually had to be, you know, smart to compete on a game show? At what point did that train come off the track. I mean, I remember when Wheel of Fortune was maligned by comedians for being too dumb(especially when it was paired with Jeopardy). What happened? Seriously, when did being fat, drunk and/or stupid become a virtue on televised game shows?

By the way, I am not attacking Deal or No Deal on this count, and there is a good reason for that. While it does seem like a very simplistic game, and Dennis Quaid once remarked, that it "requires no intellectual ability whatsoever and you really get to check out your psychic powers. You get to watch families destroyed.", in reality, the theoretical background of the show is rather cerebral so it is being spared my wrath today.

No, I am talking about shows that are based on knowledge alone, and for that, you should actually possess some of it. So when did it become acceptable to compete on a trivia show when you don't have the goods?

Maybe it was when those midnight game shows started. Or was it Street Smarts... or maybe this all goes back to the Battle of the Jay Walk All-Stars. Now Jaywalking/Man on the Street pieces are funny the first few times you see them, but it suddenly stops being funny when you realize that these are some of the same people who make decisions on your behalf, that these are some of the same people who are helping shape public policy. It is those moments that make me curl up in a ball and weep.

I know that a lot of editing takes place to make these pieces work, but it is still frightening. I am curious about how many people they have to interview to find the dumbass gold, but I am sure I would be shocked by whatever those numbers were.

And now, it has come to this... a game show that is in essence asking adults if they are as knowledgeable as 9 and 10 year olds, and because it is a game show, well, the contestants aren't meant to win it, just like players aren't supposed to win in a casino, so the producers must have a pretty good idea that their average contestant stands a decent chance of losing.

I know Jeff Foxworthy has made a career out of celebrating the glorious lack of sophistication of Rednecks, but at the time, I also know that he once worked at IBM. He made a career out of both lampooning and empathizing with the ignorance he encountered throughout his life.

But shouldn't we as viewers expect the bar to be set a little higher than the 5th grade?

It is a sad, sad day. Probably if I asked the Fox executives, they would tell me something like this:

Of course we could make things more challenging, Matt, but then the stupider contestants would be up here complaining, furrowing their brows in a vain attempt to understand the situation.

Sigh.

Addendum: After seeing the show, it is WORSE than I even imagined. 5 questions were asked, and the adults could only correctly answer ONE without aid. I am even more dismayed than I was before.

Requiem for the Big Lebowski/Walter

You all know that I love a good mashup and a good re-edit. I also love The Big Lebowski.

Someone has taken this venerable modern classic and given it a trailer that is more in fitting with a Coen Brothers drama, and it works well. It seems like the same movie, only less funny... like a real film noir.

Requiem for the Big Lebowski

----

Another group of individuals made a trailer if the Big Lebowski was centered on the life of Walter Sobchak, a man who is still trying to come to grips with his experiences in the Vietnam War. It is a thing of beauty.

Walter

Now that is a Grind House double bill I'd pay to see tonight.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Was there something major on last night? Hmmm

I didn't watch the Oscars. There I said it.

As someone who purports to be on the ball when it comes to pop culture, I just couldn't muster an interest in watching the telecast this year. Usually I at least make an effort to stop by and watch at least some of the proceedings but this year, I just had no interest whatsoever in the ceremony. It had nothing to do with Ellen or the movies involved, it was just something that just sort of happened.

Sure, I care about the results somewhat, but in the end, I think I did better things with my time. Mainly it involved my favorite Lombax and robot team and a couple of Mythbusters, but that is beside the point.

I was probably more entertained doing that than watching the pageantry that is the Oscar ceremony. I have a greater vested interest in the Emmys or Golden Globes as an award than I ever have in the Oscars. I am frankly apathetic at the moment about the ceremony.

And I mean, if anything really controversial had happened, well, I could always count on one of a wide variety of sites to repackage the footage for my own casual perusal. If I was into fashion, well, there are so many pictures online of the celebs on the red carpet, and even the commercials are likely available online somewhere.

I think SamuraiFrog put it best however:

Like I always say, the Oscars are a big industry party and circle jerk for people patting themselves on the back. So let's not treat them like they're important. They're just fun to watch and critique.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Ode to a Small Inflatable God, Jiffy Jesus: A Culture Kills Comic

Last week, I asked for my readers to give me titles for me to try to come up with a comic for. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that Strip Generator had a 38 character limit on titles(at least that's when the title seemed to flip to a blank page), and none of the titles could be used in their entirety.

As a compromise, I took a part of all 4 entries to make a strange composite title.

Yeah, I know I suck. Best I could do in the circumstances.

Ah, sweet blasphemy.

It is not whether you praise, but what for

This is a just a pointer to an excellent article in New York magazine on praising children. The bottom line: don't praise them for being smart, etc., but for hard work, diligence and effort.

[Update: more commentary in Slate.]

Friday, February 23, 2007

Week 41: Pageant of the Transmundane

The Academy Awards have taken all my award show thunder, so there is going to be little less fanfare this week.

This week's winner came down to where I saw a certain video first. I happened to stop in at Semaj's Blog you Blog on Tuesday evening and saw something rather funny. It seems that a certain basketball player said some stuff that wasn't nice about gay people. George Takei, who came out of the closet a few years ago and has really been having fun with it, addressed the player, Tim Hardaway in a most hilarious and mocking way. It is comedy gold. I looked into it and the video was made for the Jimmy Kimmel Show, so it did have some money behind it. However you slice it, it is a winner.

For being the first blog that I saw to seize on that particular television moment, I am happy to award you this week's Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award, one depicting Homer as a member of a Star Trek spinoffs crew.

Congrats James. You've earned it.

The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

You are the weakest link... goodbye

While it is usually difficult to decide whether to place someone's blog on your sidebar or in your blogroll, it is probably more difficult to remove someone. This afternoon I had to face that kind of decision-making.

Sometimes it is a personal decision based on something another blogger has done or said that has really upset you, but I think in most cases when you remove someone, it isn't really personal at all, and none of my removals were personal. Most of my pruning was aimed at blogs that haven't updated in a long time or ones which I no longer read, and so I can't really recommend anymore. It wasn't personal, it was just the feeling that on some of these blogs I didn't think that I could contribute to the conversation, and if I couldn't really participate, I felt weird reading about them, like I was a peeping tom or something, so I decided to cut my losses so to speak.

Now that I've started to think about my reasons, I am wondering what criteria do you use to make a decision about removing someone from your blogroll.

Of course, I may regret the title of this post, but since I am all about the pop culture, I thought it was fitting, if old.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Life on Mars is Brilliant British Television

Recently I've been watching a BBC drama that has been exported to Canadian airwaves, and I think it is available on BBC America as well.

Life on Mars is the tale of a modern Manchester detective named Sam Tyler(John Simm) who while chasing a serial killer was struck by a car, putting him in a coma. He awakes in 1973 and find himself a newly-transfer detective at the same precinct. Of course, police work has changed quite a bit in the past 23 years, and there is a definite clash of cultures, as his commanding officer Gene Hunt is the epitome of everything that is frowned upon in modern police work, a man who disregards suspects' rights and the chain of evidence. And because it was the early 1970's, women were just starting to get a chance to enter that profession as well.

But there are indications that the world that Tyler is trying to deal with may not be real... but instead a figment of his imagination that was the result of his present-day coma. Because he doesn't know and consequently, we don't know, if things are real, one would expect that things would become a little fanciful, but the show retains a very serious and grounded approach to the premise and the situations fit the characters.

I love time travel stories, and I like procedural police shows, so the two go together like chocolate and peanut butter. In many ways, it reminds me of the movie Frequency as there are cases which Tyler in 1973 sees that have connections to things he did in the present day. Only time will tell if there really is a connection or if it is all a hallucination.

Given the fact that the show is well-produced and only 8 episodes in its first series, the premise doesn't wear itself thin. The second and final series has started in Britain, and I look forward to seeing it as well, as there is probably going to be a resolution to the big questions surrounding the show.

There is also news that an American version of the show shaping up, and I am eager to see how David E. Kelley alters the show to fit the American sensibility. Hopefully it is more The Office than Men Behaving Badly in translation.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Note to Hillsborough County Animal Services: Relax

There is a huge hubbub about a promotion that a certain American fast food chain is employing.

It all started with a Checkers commercial featuring a character called Rap Cat, a puppet doing a little ditty, and people were so taken with the ad and character that the company received a lot of mail requesting that the chain release merchandise, which they have, but one particular item has made a lot of people hot under the collar.

When you get takeout from the Checkers, your paper bag is after a few strategic scissor cuts, a costume for your cat to make them Rap Cat. Hillsborough County Animal Services has claimed that putting the paper bag on your cat is cruel, and could set you up for charges of felony animal cruelty charges.

You've got to be kidding me.

I admit that yes, there are cats that would not be a fan of being dressed up in a paper bag jersey, that is a given. But people dress their pets up all the time, and they are not charged with felonies. I mean, when you go to dress a pet up, you generally have a good idea by that point if they will let you do it. I mean, there are dogs and cats out there that are so mellow and laidback that they'd be down with donning a paper bag costume. My sister has such a cat and I am sure that quite a few of my readers have pets with similar qualities.

To paraphrase the great scholar Garth Algar, the HCAS has to live in the now. Do they not have better things to investigate than this? It would be great if this was the most pressing matter that was facing animals, but sadly, I do not think that is the case.

This is all a matter of common sense and Rap Cat is not the end of the world.

--
Speaking of Rap Cat: The Best Phone Prank this week.

Burning Question: Worst/Best literary adaptation

We've all seen them: movies based on books we love that are far less glorious than they could have been. Whether it be Bonfire of the Vanities, Johnny Mnemonic, The Time Machine or Battlefield Earth(Ok, there wasn't really that much good to work with anyway on this one), there have been a lot of movie makers that done a lot of damage.... and I was curious as to which movie adaptations you were just repelled by.

And by the same token, there are movies that just get it right when it comes to their subject matter. Even if they aren't word for word representations of the story they are attached to, they still manage to capture what was essential about work to complement it.

I am reminded of a moment in time where I actually burned myself. I was looking up the movie version of Ulysses again recently and there was a user review of it, and reading the title, I thought what idiot wrote that it was the best they could have done with the material. I was that idiot 7 years earlier. That is a unique moment. But I digress.

Now personally in my worst category I have to say that The Postman was perhaps the greatest cinematic disappointment I've seen... but Kevin Costner was involved, so I shouldn't have had high expectations. It wasn't David Brin's best book(I think Glory Season holds that title), but it was a good yarn and a well-thought out tale. It saddens me to think that David Brin claimed to be happy with the bloated, overly produced results. Total Recall is another movie adaptation that really missed the point of the simple Philip K. Dick tale "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale".

On the flipside, I was impressed by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, even though it wasn't 100% accurate to the books, it did seem to really capture the spirit of Douglas Adams and his sense of whimsy and it is my hope that if they ever do make a Discworld novel into a movie, that they at least try to accomplish that. Gettysburg, an adaptation of Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels is also particularly noteworthy in my mind.

Now my burning question is: What are the best and worst literary adaptations you've seen?

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

'Studio 60' looks like it is done

After week after week of getting pummelled by the Nielsen numbers and critics alike, it seems likely that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip has met its end with the dreaded word Hiatus.

Yes, NBC says the show will return, but given the current television environment, I think the best we can hope for is that they burn the episodes out during the summer, but even that sounds far fetched.

Of course, given the sharp decline in the quality of the show over the past 5-6 episodes, I am not all that heartbroken by this decision. I think those of us who watched it knew that this was coming, and we had prepared ourselves for its demise.

I still have Ugly Betty and the Knights of Prosperity from the new crop, so all in all, it has still been a decent year for new shows.

Now we just have to wait for Aaron Sorkin to bitterly come out and attack the critics and the bloggers for pointing out flaws with the show and helping Studio 60 to fail. It should be any day now.

Neil Swaab makes me admit something

I love Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles, and there are just some weeks where Neil Swaab just hits me where it hurts and says exactly what needs to be said.

The weekend he is finally getting me to admit something:

TV is my abusive girlfriend.

The shame, the shame, but I feel cleansed for having admitted it.

Now, does this particular strip resonate with anyone else out there? Anyone?

Monday, February 19, 2007

Music Sampling: Paying for Past Transgressions?

Idolator linked to one of my old articles a few days ago, and in doing so, they brought an issue to my attention that I hadn't even thought of, but one which given the factors involved, seemed like something that would be naturally problematic.

There is music, particularly of the electronic, techno and hip hop varieties, which is now currently unavailable as digital downloads and is not available new on other formats because of the samples they contain. The example that Idolator brings up is De La Soul's 3 Feet and Rising, an album which is one of the most influencial hip hop records of all time and also one which was the focus of one of the major legal decisions when it comes to sampling.

It had never occurred to me that the direct repercussions of that case would be influencing the distribution of digital versions of the albums involved today. I had heard about many digital holdouts it's true, but I didn't really think the fact that a holdout artist had been sampled on another artist's album or that a song/album was so sample rich that reclearing the rights would take time and money could delay or prevent their release onto the digital market. But given what is going on in the realm of DVD's, it does seem to fit the pattern.

This development makes me very worried about how the estate of James Brown is going to use its power over his catalog now, as he is the most sampled artist ever (the-breaks.com lists it at 903 samples of Brown's work floating around in other people's music). And because hip hop/electronic music produced before the De La Soul case often incorporated uncleared samples, there are probably many other artists that are not available today because the cost/profit analysis of their rereleasing their work makes clearing all the samples for this new distribution model not worth the time or money. Also given the fact that many of the recordings made during the formative years of electronic/hip hop music were made at smaller recording companies, companies that were likely bought out by one of the majors during the 80's and 90's, there is very little incentive on the record companies' part to do this work to preserve a legacy by being reasonable with their competitors when they come to discuss the clearing of samples.

Of course there are other ways you can acquire these albums and songs legally, but really, these restrictions are hurting a generation of artists who could benefit from hearing how it all got started. I am sure that some of these issues will be dealt with as time goes on, but I have a feeling that there are some artists and songs that are on the verge of disappearing because of their past indiscretions with samples, and that is a real shame and a loss for us all in the end, even for those who do not find merit in the types of music I am discussing.

In the end, it may come down to music that was made underground returning underground and being distributed through illicit means. I am sure that at least some of the traffic generated through P2P music exchanges are songs and albums that are caught up in this growing legal quagmire and as more work becomes available for legal download, these tracks will probably start to make up a progressively higher percentage of the P2P downloads.

I think it is also interesting to note that the article which Idolator linked to mentioned the PBS' miniseries Rock and Roll, which itself discussed in one episode De La Soul and the legal problems they had with the Turtles, one of the factors leading to this current digital dilemma.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

The State of Kent: A Culture Kills Comic

Created with Strip Generator.

I am looking for a little bit of a challenge, and I was thinking that next week I would create a comic based on the weirdest title suggested in the comments here. So, anyone want to try to stump me?

Friday, February 16, 2007

Week 40: Pageant of the Transmundane

It is that same bat place, same bat channel, so you all know what that means. It is time to exalt the transmundane in a festival we call the Pageant of the Transmundane, and seeing we all recently went through the ides of February, well, naturally Valentine's Day is involved in the selection process. However it was not a piece of work that denigrated love but rather one that celebrated it in a unique way that won my heart and earned this particular entry a prize this week.

This week's winner was found on Man vs. Clown, a blog written by Peter Lynn that is part of the new Cracked magazine's online domain. Now, you know I had to be impressed, and well, he did indeed do something a little odd, but totally worth the effort.

You see, he did something a little unusual for Valentine's Day... he recreated Robert Burn's "A Red, Red Rose" using a candy heart generator and then posted it on his blog. It looks like it was a mammoth effort, and I applaud it. It is both romantic, which I respect, and obsessively quirky enough really grab my attention. It is stellar work indeed.

So in honor of wowing me this week Peter, I am pleased to award you the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award this week in the form of Homer romantically dancing with Marge.

And here is a badge to show off your win(though given the fact that it is a Cracked blog, I would wholly understand if you didn't want to display it).

Congratulations Peter!

The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

A Creepy Little Re-edit for the Weekend

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I love the fine artform of the mashup and the creative recut.

This particular one takes place in the sleepy little town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, location of a grisly murder three years ago. Now the three suspected murderers are back and working at a company called Dunder Mifflin.

It is The Office at it's most sinister.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Stuff the AV Club missed on their "Songs Owned by Movie Scenes" list

The Onion's AV Club recently compiled a list of the 15 Songs Owned By Movie Scenes which details moments in cinema where a previously recorded song becomes so enmeshed with the movie scene it is in that it almost ceases to exist as an independent entity so whenever you hear that song, you will think of that movie and that scene.

While it is a pretty good list, I felt they forgot a few great or notable song/scene matches.

Just Dropped In (to See What Condition my Condition Was In by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition from The Big Lebowski: This song, which I've heard in a few other places will always be attached to this movie. It is the centerpiece of a lavish dream sequence of The Dude, one featuring Saddam Hussein, Julianne Moore dressed as a valkyrie and a great bowling motif and it was a scene so attached to the film that a still from it was used for the cover of the soundtrack album but in much of the promotional material as well. It truly taps into the alchemy of song and scene fusion. Watch the Clip.

Nobody But Me by the Human Beinz in Kill Bill Vol. 1: When I first saw the movie, I thought this was the weirdest musical cue. I mean, how could this bouncy upbeat song fit in the middle of a scene where The Bride is surrounded by members of the Crazy 88... and then that moment of cinematic magic happened and it fit perfectly. A song about how no one can dance as well as you can while in the middle of a highly choreographed and bloody one-against-many battle... the two are fused in my mind now. Watch it in this clip, beginning at 4:12.

Everybody Wants Some by Van Halen in Better Off Dead: This scene is the meeting of live action, claymation and a great and highly appropriate song. John Cusack's Lane Meyer is toiling away at a fast food restaurant Pig Burger when he starts to daydream he is Dr. Frankenstein and his monster is a singing burger... suffice it to say, it does not end well for Lane Meyer. Watch the Clip

Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta by the Geto Boys from Office Space: The iconic scene from the movie. A fax/copier, three disgruntled employees and their revenge on the hated machine in a field, mob style. It is the perfect juxtaposition of Watch the Clip

Superstar by The Carpenters in Tommy Boy: It isn't a great movie, but it was a great use of this piece of music, a tacky middle ground between two characters that have very little in common in this buddy comedy. It is one of the more memorable scenes in the movie. Watch the Clip

Golden Years by David Bowie in A Knight's Tale: A Knight's Tale revelled in the loving use of rock music from almost the first frame, but one particular usage has always stood out in my mind. During a party scene, commoner William Thatcher who is passing himself off as Sir Ulric von Liectenstein from Geldreland is asked to show his fellow partygoers a dance from his native land and as he demonstrates, music begins playing with a recognizable tune. And here is what I like about the use of this music: it doesn't start out as Bowie's song. It begins as a more medieval instrumentation of the melody it slowly evolves from those roots, along with the dance as it proceeds until you end up with disco dancing and the real song. It just comes together so well. Watch the Clip

Do this make the list definitive? Absolutely not... and I am curious to hear what song/scenes you always associate together now, because I know I missed a lot of good choices.

So what did both me and the AV club miss?

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Valentine's Day should celebrate the self as well

Many years ago, me and one of my close net friends had decided to refer to it as "The Black Day" because we were both so unlucky at romance and even a decade later, that definition still held up pretty well.

But Hilly over at Snackie's World has come up with a novel concept for the day to make it more bearable for the rest of us. She put forward the idea that Valentine's Day is not just about love between two people, but should also be a day where you should love yourself as well (in a non-dirty way, though I am sure plenty of self-love is going on no matter what). And even though I am usually a wet blanket when it comes to this kind of stuff, well, this celebration of the self was right up my alley, so to speak.

So I am quite the willing participant in "SELF-LOVE DAY", and I even have one of her fetching graphics to prove it.

If you want to play too, here are the guidelines.

1.) Post one of the cute banners available here and declare today as the day you not only love your one and only, but the day that you love yourself!

2.) Post one nice thing about yourself......then ask others to post one thing that they really like about you.

3.) Enjoy yourself!

Because I generally don't talk about myself as an entity, this is forcing me a little out of my comfort zone, but I think that is a good thing. So what do I love about myself?

I would have to say that really, it would be my inner child. When I grew up, well, it didn't really go away, so even though externally I am all bitter, cynical and generally bitchy about a lot of things, I can still feel wonderment and take pleasure in the simplest of things. On some level, I am Calvin. I mean, making a snowman still seems like a lot of fun, and while I don't collect toys, I can understand why someone would. And being pleasantly and exuberantly surprised all the time isn't a bad thing either.

Now at this point, I am supposed to ask you all what you like about me, and that to me is a most uncomfortable question to ask.

---

In keeping with the spirit of the "holiday", one of my readers sent me a link to an article regarding idealized love in the movies and its root cause and simultaneous savior: John Cusack. It is a great read today... no, it is a great read any day. Thank you Chandy, and if you start blogging, I will certainly be there to lend you some support.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The R-rating for Smoking? It could happen.

I must preface this by saying that I don't smoke, and I've never smoked.

Mississippi State University and the American Medical Association have released the findings of a joint study they've done which claims that 81 percent of the adults surveyed believe that teens seeing smoking in movies will encourage them to start the habit.

And you know what.... I seriously doubt the findings. I mean, I want to know how that question was phrased. For all I know they could have asked it this way:

Do you think that there is any possibility, however slight, that seeing someone famous in a movie smoking could encourage a weakminded and misguided teen to consider smoking?

...or something similar.

Come to think of it, why should anyone really care what non-experts BELIEVE is a cause. Believing something is so does not a causal link make. I mean, I could say that I believe that every child should have a pet so they would be better parents, my belief doesn't make pet ownership = better parenting.

To me, it just seems that this whole thing is being used to push an certain agenda.

If this study was just the lone piece of news about the issue, then it wouldn't have warranted a mention from me. However, a second figure chills me to the bone.

That figure is that 70 percent of that same surveyed group thought that if a movie contains smoking in it, it should be rated R. I will say that again. If a movie has smoking in it, it should be only viewable by adults and accompanied minors.

So let me put this in perspective with a quote from the MPAA guidelines: "Any drug use content will initially require at least a PG-13 rating". So basically, casual smoking in the minds of these parents and groups like Smoke Free Movies is worse than casual drug use.

I understand SFM's aims as something that is aimed more at paid tobacco company product placement and that in some contexts(like a historical one, which is one of my major arguments against a hard and fast rating based on this criteria alone.) they are willing to give filmmakers a break, but I am still uncomfortable with the idea of smoking being something that would automatically raise a film's rating to make it for adult audiences only. I would be more comfortable with it being a factor yes, but as a legal substance, I don't think such a restriction should be imposed across the board.

I plan on starting a dialogue with members of SFM's in a respectful manner to settle a few things for myself, so I plan on continuing on this topic in the near future.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Childrens' rationality

Apparently, children are impatient and probably not rational according to Eric Bettinger and Robert Slonim in an article published in the Journal of Public Economics (Feb 2007). The abstract is below. The most interesting thing is the lack of a relationship between mathematical ability and discounting.

Recent policy initiatives offer cash payments to children (and often their families) to induce better health and educational choices. These policies implicitly assume that children are especially impatient (i.e., have high discount rates); however, little is known about the nature of children's patience, how it varies across children, and whether children can even make rational inter-temporal choices. This paper examines the inter-temporal choices of 5- to 16-year-old children in an artefactual field experiment. We examine their choices between varying levels of compensation received in 2 or 4 months in the future and in 0 or 2 months in the future. We find that children's choices are consistent with hyperbolic discounting, boys are less patient than girls, older children are more patient and that mathematical achievement test scores, private schooling and parent's patience are not correlated with children's patience. We also find that although more than 25% of children do not make rational inter-temporal choices within a single two-period time frame, we cannot find variables that explain this behavior other than age and standardized mathematical achievement test scores.

Does game reviewing need some reform?

There has been a little think that has irked me for a couple years now. It has to do with the way video games are rated at the time of review.

Basically, there are two problems with video game reviewing: 1) Ratings are rarely adjusted based on the innovations in later games and 2) Reviewers base their ratings in part on what the previous games in a series of genre were like.

Movies, for example, are usually given a second look after some time has passed and reassessed based on their qualities within a genre and period, but in gaming, that doesn't really happen, so that games that were released at the beginning of a console's lifespan will be given exceptionally high ratings that no title that comes along later can match. I mean, according to Gamespot, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 which was released in 2001 is the absolutely unscalable pinnacle of Playstation 2 gaming with a perfect score of 10 out of 10. Is it a great game? Yes... but in 2007, is it the greatest PS2 game ever made? Not by a long shot. I would be willing to bet money that at least 10 better games came out in the last year and feel confident in keeping my money. There are quite a few titles from a system's launch that will stand the test of time, but by keeping those original scores unrealistically high, they make judging future titles that much harder.

Because of this type of skewing, the numbers definitely lie, and anyone who has bought the sequel to a well-reviewed game and then went back and played an earlier game in the series would attest to that. I don't think reassessment is such a bad policy based on the entire breadth of a system's library.

This leads me to the second problem with video game reviews, one that is most clearly seen in the reviewing of sports games.

If you were looking at buying a sports game from a series that is released annually and you just looked at the reviews to try to figure out which version to buy, you'd be lost because even if a game improves many flaws in a previous version, the latest version is usually rated lower than the version that preceded it so you don't really have an objective way to compare two titles. What seems to be happening is the reviewer is assuming that you own the previous version so they are giving you a rating that reflects that when there are a lot of gamers out there(like myself) who only buy one iteration of a sports title.

So my solution for this particular problem is for reviewers to give two ratings to games... one for those who have played a previous version of a title and one for those who haven't with the assumption that people can't play games all day so they have to make some tough choices, and as a reviewer, it is your job to help us do that.

I think these two factors are hurting scholarly efforts to make gaming a more accepted field of study at a time when it could taking steps into a greater artistic community, and that is a shame.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Toilet Humor: A Culture Kills Comic

Created with Strip Generator

I'm a sick, sick person.

Movie ratings for kids

I came across an interesting website, "Kids-In-Mind" that provides movie ratings that might be useful. Like most countries Australia has a one dimensional ratings system designed to tell you which age groups should watch what. However, I have found it almost useless in really giving parents information in terms of what their children should see.

To see this, the first thing we have to note is that parental preferences are different. I do not feel the same way about profanity and some forms of violence than other parents do. I would prefer to avoid sex scenes if only to avoid questions that just do not need to come up yet (for 8 year olds or under). So I struggle in that there are some M movies that I am happy for my 8 year old to see (including Star Wars III, Superman Returns and any Harry Potter) but there are PG ones which I am not sure are suitable.

Kids-In-Mind cuts through that with a three dimensional rating system. Here is what they say:

Our ratings reflect objective categories of potentially objectionable material. Unlike the MPAA, we do not assign a single, age-specific rating. Instead we assign each film three distinct, category-specific ratings: one for SEX & NUDITY, one for VIOLENCE & GORE and one for PROFANITY. Each rating is on a scale of zero to ten, depending on quantity (more F-words, for instance, will mean a higher PROFANITY rating, and so on) as well as context (especially when it comes to the categories of sex, nudity, violence and gore, since they are not as easily quantifiable as profanity). Hence, two movies which have received the same rating -- let's say a 9 in VIOLENCE & GORE -- will not necessarily contain an equal amount of violence; they are only similar in the level of violence they contain. Plus, like most numerical rating systems, the numbers are inherently approximations (think of them as plus-or-minus-one). Only the detailed descriptions we provide with each review will give you the proper context.

So Star Wars Episode III gets a 2.7.0. Lots of violence, little sex (actually 2 seems alot) and no profanity. Superman Returns gets a 3.6.2 while Harry Potter 4 gets a 3.6.3. On those scores, that is fine by me. We were thinking of taking our eldest to Dreamgirls. It has a 4.3.5 so I am a little more uncertain but this suggests that it is probably OK but last year's the Da Vinci Code with 5.7.4 was probably good to miss. Although that one raises another issue -- historical and cultural knowledge required for the movie to be understood -- something that would make a good 4th dimension.

This system also allows us to tailor things to the child. Child No.2 gets scared and so anything above a 3 on the violence dimension is surely out. But Child No.1 loves it. I remember taking her to see the second Harry Potter movie (1.4.3) when she was only 4. Kids in that movie were balling their eyes out (with the spiders and such). My daughter's only concern was when a scary thing appeared her popcorn would go flying everywhere. That issue got resolved as the movie progressed. But suffice it to say, three dimensions of ratings (and accompanying reasons) is much more information than one letter.

Who is monitoring whom?

Apparently, Texas is considering making parent-teacher conferences mandatory. Parents who didn't show would be fined.

There are two reactions to this. First, what makes parent-teacher conferences so painful that you won't show up? Second, what use are they anyway? Emily Brazelon in Slate takes a crack at answering the latter. I'll come to that in a second. Let me start with the former.

Something that I didn't expect when becoming a parent is that I would dread parent-teacher conferences. Now, you are obviously assuming that the main reason for this is that we are greeted with a long list of problems with our children. That would make sense except it isn't true. Instead, from our perspective they are better characterised as a "love fest" (mostly). I actually don't think it is because our children are so special. It is just that there are no long standing problems that are not dealt with at other times. If there is a real issue, and we have not been free of those, the teacher does not wait until the parent-teacher conference to let us know. Usually an immediate phone call at work are straight after school is the ticket. So we go into these conferences expecting the love fest.

The issue is this. As a University lecturer, I symphathise with teachers and their dealings with students. As a lecturer to MBAs, I sympathise with teachers and their dealings with parents. For them, having to deal with parents is a route to criticism. They face all the issues I do. First and foremost, trying to work out who the student is and whether there have been any past issues. How can they expect to know this?

Actually, at pre- and early-school, teachers do pretty well remembering who students are. For specialist classes that drops off and I have sat in discussions with a music teacher and they are clearly winging it. That actually amuses me and so those are fine but ultimately useless.

So when we go to these meetings, both of us sit there mute. I feel like we are drooling and I definitely get the impression that the teacher is thinking, "are these really this child's parents?" I just do not know what to say. I don't want to be pushy. I happy to hear good things. And rarely do I have some sort of agenda.

The teacher doesn't know what to do with us. They look for a fight. They expect to have to write down some action list. But in the end there is nothing. We go away thinking how awkward that all was and wondering if we should have an agenda. Indeed, we come up with a list of at least trivial concerns. Things like: child no.1 is having trouble finishing her lunch on time, can you allocate a few more minutes to that? Child no. 2 thinks there is too much time for lunch and he bored sitting there. Then we can really achieve something.

So I can understand why parents might not like to turn up to these things at all. But that is a different thing from making them show up.

The question is: what is the purpose of this conference? With more continuous communication between parents and teachers throughout the semester, the real problems are addressed elsewhere. Brazelon gets interested in the "three way conference."

The parent-teacher conference can serve to reinforce the enmity, especially if it takes parents back to their own miserable school days. (Those little chairs are nothing if not infantilizing.) The conference can also cut through the adversarial posturing—especially, perhaps, if it takes the form of a three-way conversation: teacher, parent, and kid. Lawrence-Lightfoot thinks this should be the rule, not the exception. And not just for older students. She has seen 6-year-olds talk about themselves at a conference with "insight and discernment."
I ran this idea by my sister, a doctoral student in education at the University of Pennsylvania who taught for five years at a public school in the Bronx and at a charter school in Los Angeles. She liked it. From a teacher's perspective, conferences are useful because they push you to reflect on each kid and her schoolwork. To go through a child's portfolio with her, and talk together about her academic progress and behavior, would be all the more meaningful. And if the teacher needs the parents' help with an unruly child, "It's definitely better for the student to be there," my sister said. There's no confusion about who's saying what. Plus, the only people who know what the child is like both at school and at home are present, not absent.
One study of four schools with conferences that included students, by Diana Hiatt-Michael of Pepperdine University, found close to 100 percent parent participation.

Our school instituted this last year for our 5 year old in Prep. Suffice it to say, I couldn't make it (first time ever, so much for participation). Anyhow, by all accounts, it didn't really serve any function at that age. Everyone talked about what child No.2 needed to improve including child No.2 but there was no information really exchanged. Maybe it will be more useful for older children.

The key issue is: who is supposed to be learning what? The parent learns little about the children at these things (that is dealt with by other means). The parent learns a bit about the teacher but the bilateral nature of these conferences suggests that that is less efficient than a group session where a bunch of parents meet the teacher.

No, the only thing left is for the teacher to learn more about the parents. And there are good reasons for this to be important. Let's face it, the parents and perhaps siblings would be the best way for a teacher to understand the circumstances of the child; especially for younger children. However, our conferences are not ideal for that.

First, they take place in the teacher's domain -- the classroom. With the parents out of context, not much can be learned. From us, by the way, we give away nothing but the impression that little conversation goes on in our household except that we do lots of smiling and nodding.

Second, the teachers are not interrogating the parents. They are usually reporting to them. The flow of information is not in the right direction.

Finally, parents clearly would not expect an interrogation.

Let's face it: this isn't going to increase participation if we take these conferences for what they should be rather than what they are. However, they might prove more useful is the conferences take the form of home visits by the teacher. Then again, I am pretty sure we will have a new issue -- getting teachers to participate! It is like 'wack a mole' but then again so is much that comes with performance evaluation.

Friday, February 9, 2007

Week 39: Pageant of the Transmundane

I don't know how I ended up standing out in the countryside of Prince Edward Island, or why I suddenly smell like a french fry, but I do know that it is once again time to give out an award at the end of a long week.

So who is it going to be this week... will we be awarding a fourth Triple Crown winner this week...?

In a word? No.

Sinister Dan over at The Reasonable Ego, a blogger I will disclose I've had a previous working relationship with in an online gaming context, has allowed his acerbic wit to shine once again, dealing with some minor issue... I think it is called religion. Many people have shown skepticism at the tenets of belief, but very few have shown such humor while doing it. It is not for everyone I admit, but I still thought it was original writing worth an award.

Alas Homer being green and angry has already been award this year, so I had to make a substitute from the episode "Homer the Heretic", and it is not available in hat form, but it still is a Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award, and that is still something.

In addition to that finally crafted image above, you have also been furnished with a badge which you can use to publicize your major award.

Congrats Sinister Dan, if that is your real name(though I know it isn't you saucy one).

The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Anne Nicole Smith Dead?

If I was reading a book where in 3 chapters, the protagonist wins a Supreme Court case, had a baby and lost an adult child at the same time, married their lawyer, got involved in a paternity controversy over that very same newborn child, gets sued by a user of a product she endorsed then collapsed and die that very same day, I would say that such a plotline would stretch credibility.

Truth is stranger than fiction I guess. Nothing more I can say really.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

MadTV rips Studio 60... and how

In the past few episodes, the shine has really been coming off Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip for me. Because I am becoming increasingly disillusioned with the direction the show it going, I really got a kick out of the MadTV take on the show. The premise is what if Studio 60 wasn't about a comedy show but rather pay-per-view porn (I think the genesis of the porno angle was the intro from the first episode of Sorkin's show) and you end up with Studio 69 on Van Nuys Boulevard. If you like the show or if you hate it, you will find much to laugh about in this sketch.

It has it all... the self-indulgence, the needless references to politics and history, the obligatory walking and talking scenes, and all that rapid-fire dialogue full of quips you've probably come to expect from Studio 60.

Now that's how sketch comedy should be done.

Remembering The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)

Ah, The Legend of Billie Jean. Now that is a sweet, nostalgic memory for me, one of those movies that you see when you are a kid and it just stays with you, even though it wasn't the best movie out there.

Picture it: Corpus Christi, Texas in midsummer, and in those seasonably warm times, well, tempers flare and a simple incident between the Billie Jean and Binx Davy(Helen Slater and Christian Slater respectively, no relation) and a group of teens led by Hubie Pyatt leads to Binx getting beaten and his scooter wrecked.

In trying to find recompense for the 608 dollars in scooter damage from Hubie's father, storeowner Mr. Pyatt, what Billie Jean finds instead is a bad situation that nearly leads to her rape and an accidental shooting that forces the Davys become outlaws in an instant, despite the best efforts of detective Lt. Ringwald (Peter Coyote), who senses that there is far more to the story than Mr. Pyatt is letting on.

As the gang(which includes Billie Jean's best friend Ophelia and young neighbor Putter, played by Yeardley Smith) stays one step ahead of the law, their story resonates with the young people of Texas, who help them every step of the way and they become legends in their own time, getting credited(or blamed) for various crimes they had nothing to do with. And throughout it all, the only demand that Billie Jean makes is that she just wants Pyatt to pay for the repair and admit his own wrongdoing, because "Fair is Fair" while Ringwald tries to bring about a peaceful resolution to the situation.

Because of the themes and the soundtrack, the movie was expected to do very well at the box office, but when it all came down, The Legend of Billie Jean only managed to make about $3 million in theatres, which meant that it was largely marginalized after that. But over the years it has sort of developed a cult following, and that is why I am still talking about it today. I saw it on video after it first came out, and I saw it recently, and you know what, it still holds up pretty well.

It still hasn't found a place on the DVD shelves as of yet, again because of music licensing, but news that it was recently shown in a high definition format seems to indicate that it may be coming to DVD soon, and if it does, it may just be worth your time to check it out.

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Burning Question: Make one movie/series disappear

After yesterday's post, I began to think about what movies I would completely blot out from existence and make it so it had never been made. Quite a few naturally sprang to mind(Battlefield: Earth, Freddy Got Fingered), but one has so scarred not only me, but the entire world that I feel that someone should go back in time and destroy the prints before it is shown to another human being.

I am of course talking about 1978's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Now I could just wail on that movie for 2000 words, and bore you all to death, but I'd rather let the folks at Rotten Tomatoes do it for me. I will just say this- Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees are not the Beatles and George Burns should never ever sing.

And it was this line of self-inquiry that brought about the Burning question: If you could go back in time and destroy a movie or even a movie series so that it never existed, what would it be?

I mean, Disney made Song of the South disappear(Yikes!) from the face of the earth, so why shouldn't you be able to make a film or film series disappear too?

Monday, February 5, 2007

I think Uwe Boll has finally found his level

I have attacked Uwe Boll, the less than acclaimed director of numerous video game based movies like House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark and Bloodrayne, but I think his next project might end up being a watershed moment for him as a director.

Instead of trying to do a serious version of a video game as film which would ultimately end up as just another streaming pile of crap in his hands, he has taken the rather broad, disgusting and tasteless humor of the Postal series(NSFW) to the big screen as a real B-movie, Troma-style.

Trailer 1-Warning: Dave Foley + Near Nudity in this clip
Trailer 2

It still looks pretty bad mind you, but it is more because it is being filmed to be that way, in a so bad its good kind of way. Uwe Boll isn't Lloyd Kaufman, but at least he isn't taking himself so seriously now, and that is a step in the right direction. But the trailers do tell you the words that are going to be used in the reviews of the movie again and again-- offensive, disgusting, retarded/stupid.

Put it this way: I still wouldn't want to see it.

Sunday, February 4, 2007

The Dating Game: A Culture Kills Comic

Flickr was getting a massage when I wanted to post this comic originally last night.

Note to the two semi-spammy users when I post comics: You keep posting links to alternate Generators in my comment section and I am just telling you that I will continue to delete those very same comments. I am committed to Strip Generator, so please stop posting those links.