Amazingly useful list of links on how to use Textmate properly, courtesy of Jeffrey Zeldman.
For example, did you know you can write a blog post in Textmate, drag-and-drop an image into the textmate window and it will automatically upload and insert the image into your blog post? I didn’t. Mind = blown.
I recently listening to an old edition of the Slashfilm podcast where they interviewed Armond White. I sort of recognised that name, but couldn’t place it. No matter. Anyway, in the interview, White said a few things that I found interesting. He hasn’t got many kind words for Roger Ebert, complaining that he’s more like a professional fan than a genuine film critic and that he is single-handedly responsible for the death of film criticism.
I do think it is fair to say that Roger Ebert destroyed film criticism. Because of the wide and far reach of television, he became an example of what a film critic does for too many people. And what he did simply was not criticism. It was simply blather. And it was a kind of purposefully dishonest enthusiasm for product, not real criticism at all
White also complains that, since everyone has a blog now, they all think that makes them a legitimate criticI keep using qualifiers like “genuine” and “legitimate” because White is convinced that he is the only “pedigreed film critic” around, that the internet promotes “free-for-all of enthusiasm rather than criticism”. As someone with a blog who tries to write critically, I think he’s a little harsh here. Maybe feeling threatened by the democratisation of opinion?
But then you stumble across something like “Lights, Camera, Jackson”, this faux-charming little bollocks of a stage-school drop-outI’m calling it now, ‘Lights, Camera, Jackson’ is the next James Harries, complete with future gender-reassignment surgery. Mark my words. and you think - hey, maybe Armond White has a point
This got me thinking a bit more about him, trying to remember where I’d heard his name before. Armond White… Armond White… Oh shit… Armond White!. He’s the fearlessly outspokenhilariously contrarian film critic who seems to be on a one-man mission to fuck with the metrics that make sites like Rottentomatoes useful. Out of 235 reviews, his is the first of three negative reviews that prevented Toy Story 3 from getting a perfect score, complaining that it wasn’t as good as Transformers 2.
In other words, he is to film criticism what Glen Beck or Joe Duffy are to political opinion.
Other amazing quotes from Armond White:
Talking about There Will be Blood, he said “Plainview is the most remarkable movie performance since Eddie Murphy’s Norbit trifecta”
In the Loop is “for smart arses, not smart enough to appreciate the cultural satire of Hot Fuzz”
“Forget the Oscar bait, Transporter 3 is the only movie you need to see this season”
It’s a shame. Having read a few of his reviews, he does genuinely seem to be a smart, well-educated fellow. It’s just a shame that the rise of online film criticism has led him to chase page-views through controversial statements.
It’s annoying because it comes so close to being a genuinely good game. I mean, on paper, it’s exactly the kind of game I would love. All the things I like are there: monsters, guns, post-apocalyptic RussiaNo idea why, but a post-apocalyptic Russia always grabbed my interest more than a post-apocalyptic USA.. It’s based on an award-winning Russian science fiction story, so its story should be at least halfway decent, if previous experience with Russian science fiction stories are anything to go by. The game just lets itself down somehow. There’s something missing.
Okay, the game is missing a lot of things. Like actual, honest-to-goodness character development. And a facial modelling system that actually conveys emotion instead of looking like some first-year animation student tinkering with 3D Studio Max. Most importantly though, it’s missing a decent control mechanic. It’s no great surprise to say that games work best when there’s a 1:1 relationship between what you input on the controller and what happens in the game. In Metro 2033, there’s a noticeable lag between the two, so the whole game feels “off”. You get the vague sense of controlling a floaty gun wandering through a 3D space, but not much more than that.
A wonky control scheme by itself isn’t won’t kill a game. Plenty of games have managed to make their games work just fine regardless of how good their controls are. For example, Singularity - another game set in a (sorta) post-apocalyptic Russia - also has “floaty” controls (another in a long list of things it copied wholesale from Bioshock). But, to its credit, it acknowledges this and works around this apparent limitation. It says “we understand our control scheme isn’t the greatest, so we won’t really ask too much of you except to shoot monsters.” It works well because of that.
The developers of Metro 2033, God bless them, tried hard to make their game more than just a straight shooter. Some levels include “stealth” sections, where you have to sneak around guards/monsters and avoid traps that draw attention to your character. Except their controls don’t really allow you to accomplish this. Your character moves sluggishly, like the entire world is made of toffee. It’s hard to judge lateral distance, so you’ll inadvertently set off traps that you were trying to avoid. This is irritating at the best of times, but during the stealth sequences, it’s especially annoying. I got about halfway through the game before I hit one particular stealth sequence. I kept triggering traps despite doing everything I could to avoid them. It frustrated me so much, I turned off the game out of spite. I doubt I’ll go back to it again.
It’s a shame because, like I said, I enjoyed the idea of Metro 2033, the monsters, guns and post-apocalyptic Russia. It’s a shame when the game gets in the way of the game. It’s the superficial things that stop you from fully enjoying it. Imagine a horror writer decided his stories should be printed in a novelty “horror” typeface.
Although it may be a cute novelty, it doesn’t enhance the story at all. It just frustrates the reader. It doesn’t matter how good the story is if the reader gives up halfway through because of some mechanical problem. It’s the same for games. How many games have you just given up on because you figured no story is worth battling with crappy mechanics?
On the whole, I don’t really care about spoilers. If your enjoyment of a movie is based entirely around not knowing a particular plot point, then the movie hasn’t really done its job. Inception, like most of Christopher Nolan’s films, is so dense and complex as to be pretty much spoiler-proof. I know there’s this stuff about a dream, and then a dream-within-a-dream, and then, later on, a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream (I think). Apart from that, it’s all a little fuzzy.
Even still, there’s been an almost universal, unwritten agreement among critics that it’s best to not reveal too much about the film. I guess it’s so people can go in completely fresh. Even Mark Kermode, who had previously spoiled Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (which he now refers to as “the unfortunate incident after being hit with nerd-rage”) has said very little about the plot of the film.
What people are talking about, because they figure it’s not spoiling anything, is the last shot of the film. “What did you think of the last shot?” they ask. “What noise did you make? I made a sort of a “whoah” combined with a “huh?”” And they’re right to talk. Inception has one of those bravura endings that, if you were feeling particularly cynical, could easily be interpreted as the director showing off. It’s right up there with Brad Pitt channelling Quentin Tarantino at the end of Inglourious Basterds: “You know somethin’, Utivich? I think this just might be my masterpiece.”
And, to be honest, just knowing there was this great final shot kind of spoiled the ending for me. I was sitting in the cinema trying to predict what the final shot would be, what I thought would be worth talking about. Like being told there’s a twist in the movie, but not told what the twist is - you spend the entire movie thinking “She’s a he! It’s all a dream! The butler did it!” Technically the movie isn’t spoiled, but at the same time, it is.
Random Thoughts
Christopher Nolan may be getting better with each film, but he still can’t manage even simple walk-and-talk exposition. There was a lot of explaining in this movie, and he handled it by showing a lot of people sitting around saying “What?”
Coming out of the screening I went to (UCI Coolock in Dublin), I overheard someone saying “Nah, I didn’t like that at all. You had to concentrate too hard”. Except with a thick, Coolock accent.
Did no-one else think the film’s depiction of the dream-world was a little boring? A little unimaginative? For all its cleverness - “You always wind up right in the middle of what’s going on” - it completely ignored the fundamentally weird nature of dreams: running at full speed, but not getting anywhere; the feeling of the ground suddenly disappearing beneath you. Paprika did a much better job of conveying the feeling of being inside a dream, with all its twisted logic.
Jesus Christ, it’s time that Hans Zimmer and Christopher Nolan parted ways. I know Inception is getting a lot of praise for its score, but holy shit, it sounded the exact same as every other score they’ve done together, except this time it was mixed by a demented monkey with a demented-monkey-boner for pulsing violins. Make it stop!
My uncle - the conspiracy nut - is so convinced that the end-times are coming that he’s spent €200 on non-perishable, tinned foods. He’s storing them at different, strategic points around the house.
My 18-year old niece - who ran away to Egypt to get married - has left her husband and is now on the run from him. She won’t tell anyone where she is. She let the husband know she’d left him by changing her Facebook status to “single”.
I know I’m repeating myself here, but I thought that Red Dead Redemption had a pretty good score, but its use of Jamie Lidell’s “Compass”, was the second-best musical cue of any game this year (the first being DJ Shadow’s “Building Steam from a Grain of Salt” in Splinter Cell: Conviction).
it’s time to stop DVR-ing the series and start watching it live. You’ll be happy you did, and you’ll be happy to return to the cultural conversation. Let’s bring a return of watercooler culture to the offices, chat rooms, and entertainment blogs of America. We’re not arguing for spoilers; we’re arguing against letting yourself get spoiled. Suck it up, America. Watch the damn shows.
johnke.me
