Spend Some Quick Quality Time with "The Dude"

Guy With the Glasses has put together quite a few "5 Second Movies," including one of my favorite comic riffs on noir The Big Lebowski. Without further ado, here's the dude's tale in 5 seconds. Okay, it's really around 20 seconds, but the title claims 5. Sadly, the abridged version lacks the nihilists.

You can watch more of Guy With the Glasses' 5 second mania over at his site on You Tube.

An Edgy Argument for Aesthetics

After reading Hal Duncan's recent apology for aesthetics I am reminded that two of the major writers in the field were moral philosophers as well. Both Kant and Hegel wrote about and discussed aesthetics, Kant made deep connections between aesthetics and the moral imperative. One might even notice that Edmund Burke was a dabbler in this particular field.

Conservatism and Anna Nicole Smith

When one thinks of how conservatives might react to the recent death of pop culture figure Anna Nicole Smith, one imagines many different reactions. The first that jumps to mind is a Thomas Hibbs-ian commentary on how Anna Nicole's life was a perfect example of how nihilism manifests in popular culture and how any obsession with Anna Nicole is an obsession with the void. One might also imagine what Rod Dreher of National Review might write given the less than kind things he has had to say about her in the past.

What one might not expect is that they might find a heart-felt eulogy in the pages of the Weekly Standard. This is especially true given the way that the media writ large has been treating her recent death. It is an odd thing to see what is often private sorrow, turned into public spectacle.

My favorite line from the piece, written by comedian Larry Miller, "We all have a lot to be forgiven, because, you see, like it or not, we're all part of the mob. No: We are the mob."

His description reminds me of other portrayals of the media consuming mob. One can only wonder where Homer Simpson and his large hands are. That's not a cartoon reference for those wondering.

Movie Lists for Geeks

The Houston Star Chronicle has a list of 15 "geek movies to see before you die." I can't really disagree with any of his choices. I'm a geek, I've seen all the movies listed, and some multiple times. It has some of the true geek classics, and even has two Shatner films (both Star Trek), so kudos for that.

He also links to another list called "81 movies for geeks that do not suck," which has the added bonus of being cataloged by the particular geekdom to which the film would most appeal. I've seen all of those as well, but I wouldn't agree that they all don't suck. Swordfish is pretty bad. It features both "fast typing" as a substitute for activating algorithms when hacking and has an over the top John Travolta. Top Secret and Real Genius are also stinkers. I might like them, but there is no way I think that Real Genius doesn't suck. It just sucks in a lovable 80s comedy kind of way.

I thought I'd add to the mix by including some films that every "Gamer Geek" should watch. Beware, some of these are really bad.

• Beastmaster: This movie used to be on the TV so much at my house that we started calling HBO "Hey Beastmaster's On."


• Cloak and Dagger: You knew this would be on the list, it has to be. Come on. A kid stops an evil spy ring with the help of his Super Spy roleplaying game character? How much more gamer geek can you get?


• Hawk the Slayer: The Lord of the Rings books might have inspired the creators of roleplaying games, but this film is an accurate portrayal of what the "shared experience" of any gaming session would look like if it were a movie.


• E.T. the Extra Terrestrial: They are playing D&D in the opening sequence, no more reason needed


• TAG: The Assassination Game: Linda Hamilton stars in this film where a first generation live action rpg game based on Steve Jackson Games' Killer goes wrong. One of the players goes crazy and stars really killing all the other players. Good stuff.


• Gotcha: It's TAG: The Assassination Game meets Cloak and Dagger. It's fun, funny, and Anthony Edwards has a big yellow pencil.


• The 300 Spartans: Classic sword and sandals film, with ample quotes from Herodotus.


• Jason and the Argonauts: Remember when your high level PCs almost suffered a TPK fighting a small group of skeletons? Me either, but this movie makes me believe it could happen. One of the best parts of the film is the gathering of the Argonauts. A Harryhausen classic.


• The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad: Kerwin Matthews proves that Sinbad doesn't need to be "beefy" to be a compelling hero. The movie features both "Dungeons" and "Dragons."


• The Golden Voyage of Sinbad: A great "quest" movie starring Tom Baker of Dr. Who and Dungeons and Dragons fame.


• Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger: It's all about Minoton.



• The Valley of Gwangi: This film has almost everything. Gypsies? Check. Dinosaurs? Check. Cowboys? Check. What more could you want? An rpg based on this movie, that's what. Well, you could just buy Deadlands, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, or Broncosaurus Rex

Have any more gamer geek movies? Other than The Gamers that is.

Steven Barnes on "Honesty in Writing"

I have begun frequenting Steven Barnes blog of late. Partly because he's as local author and partly because he was one of the authors of a book I keep rereading every year called Dream Park. I always thought that I kept coming back to the book because I am a huge rpg geek and I wanted to read about an idealized roleplaying experience. After reading Barnes' comments on honesty in writing, I have to add that it might just be the humanity and plausibility of this wild piece of fiction that keeps drawing me in.

Here's a clip of what Barnes has to say, if you want more you'll have to head over to his blog:

do you really believe what you just wrote? Would a real human being, in this situation, really do or say what you just wrote? Even if it’s a fantasy story, would a real being, evolved within a universe of fantastic potential, behave in this fashion?

The post is worth reading for any of you potential authors/screenwriters out there. Let me add that one of the writers recently added to my "it is imperative that I read every book by this author list", John Crowley, has said "I think that if a novel has no whiff at all of the impossible, the fabulous, the inexplicable, the metaphysical as the Romantics meant the word, then it isn't very realistic, because the real (this, our shared physical and biological) world does have those intimations in it. (When the intimations become certainties, you have fantasy.)"

Southern California Hates Baseball History

In April of 2003, The Sporting News published a little book titled Roadside Baseball. Given my love for America's pastime, I noticed the book when it first appeared in the baseball section of my local Borders. I am given to browsing that section just as the void ends and baseball season begins, so it was natural that I would find this book just as it was released. I read the book discovering lots of little tidbits of baseball lore, when I came across a particular gem which highlights the one thing I find most frustrating about Los Angeles.

I really like LA but it is a city that seems to be continually trying to forget its past, maybe even destroy it. If America is a country which has no past, then LA is a city that doesn't seem to want one. One constantly reads stories about classic eateries, like the Brown Derby, being demolished. There is some wonderful deco architecture in town, but sometimes you have to really dig to find it.

Case in point -- On October 31, 1924, the one and only Babe Ruth came to the Brea Bowl where he played an exhibition game against Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson. The field where they played this historic game is now the Gateway Shopping Center. So if I want to visit the place where Babe Ruth hit the, arguably, longest homerun ever, I can go eat a Fatburger while looking at a mall. Ironically, the Original Fatburger location might be demolished.

The other day I found this nice YouTube video by Chris Epting, author of Roadside Baseball commemorating the event.

Joss Whedon Polite as He Leaves Wonder Woman Project

I was one of those who was beyond excited at the thought of Joss Whedon directing an adaptation of DC Comics' Wonder Woman character. Whedon has directed, and created, wonderful superheroic female characters in the past, and I can think of almost no one better to tell the story of one of DC's "big three" (the other two are Batman and Superman). Alas, it was not to be and Joss Whedon has stepped away from the project.

After reading the brief ICV2 blurb, which sited "script differences" as the culprit and left thoughts of narrowminded suits dangling in my mind, I was relieved to read the Hollywood Reporter article on the subject. The article describes in much greater detail the causes, and includes comments by Whedon himself. Whedon's comments are extremely gracious, which one can attribute to two things (among others). The first thought that might come to mind is that Whedon is being polite because he wants to be able to work on future Time-Warner projects, including scripting comics, in other words self interest. The second is that Whedon is doing good press because he is a nice guy. Given how nice he is to people who randomly stalk him at comic conventions this is not unimaginable.

What people won't probably think of is that Whedon might be making the comments because they are true, this is especially true of the fanboy types who still blame "suits" who wanted giant spiders for the demise of Kevin Smith's Superman screenplay. If you believe that, I have some prime real estate in New York I'd like to sell you.

Before you all begin anti-corporate screeds, let me give you a little of what Whedon said. I'll give you gust enough to see what I'm talking about without violating Borys Kit's copyright on the article.

According to the Hollywood Reporter Whedon stated, "Everybody knows how long I was taking, what a struggle that script was, and though I felt good about what I was coming up with, it was never gonna be a simple slam-dunk" and "The worst thing that can happen in this scenario is that the studio just keeps hammering out changes and the writer falls into a horrible limbo of development."

In other words, Whedon was taking a long time to write a screenplay for which Warner had set a large amount of money aside. And, as anyone who has read Rob Long's book Conversations with My Agent knows, "development hell" is a bad thing for both product and creators. Does any real fan of comic books want a screenplay that has been "patched" together through a long and difficult process which includes 6 or more screenwriters? Does anyone remember Catwoman? That was exactly what happened with that film and we ended up with one of the worst comic movies of all time.

Seems to me that contrary to what the most skeptical might imagine, the reasons for Whedon leaving the project aren't solely due to corporate mindset. It seems they are do to a combination of corporate mindset and a genuine desire for a quality product.

Maybe they can talk Doug Liman into doing the project, that would be awesome.