- I love animated images like these, and the way they bring 'depth' to photographs. Rating: 2 sneezes
- In response to this video (posted on SexyMama's blog), a co-worker showed me this. Rating: 2 sneezes.
- Here is one of those random phenomena which can really only exist on the internet. Apparently this book was written with the spelling and grammar of a 3rd-grader. My favorite review is the 2-star review by 'NAS'. Take the time to read through the comments. You'll enjoy it. Rating: 3 cheezes.
- Also, while we're on the topic of bad products on Amazon, here is a similarly amazing product. Buy one today! Rating: 3 cheezes.
Showing posts with label 3 Cheezes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3 Cheezes. Show all posts
2009-11-06
Lynx!
2008-12-25
Gaaaaaaaaaay
Okay, fair warning. I have a disclaimer up on this blog that I might utter the occasional vulgarity, and I've never taken advantage of it yet, but I just got done watching Prince Caspian (I know, I know, it's only been out since May or something) and I am officially shitting on this movie.
*ahem*
shit shit shitty shit shit!
Okay, I understand artistic license. I understand rewriting, adding and deleting things that make the movie move fast enough to fit enough of the story into the time alotted. I understand cutting out and/or rewriting most of Trumpkin's flashback and the back story with Caspian. I understand that visual effects can be tweaked at the microscopic level until the director is perfectly satisfied, whereas dialogue relies on the ability of the actors to deliver it and (more importantly) the director to direct it. But COME ON!!1!
This is how I imagine the discussions went when they were putting this movie together:
"Okay, so we have this book that's pretty popular, and we already did the first one as a movie and it did pretty well, so we're going to do this one now too, I guess. The setting is okay, we'll keep that. And there are some really good moments in the plot. We'll keep those, and pad them out with a bunch of good CG and stuff, yeah. The characters are okay, but they're not angsty enough. Emo is all the rage now, so lets emo them up, but maybe with a touch of rage and teenage angst. Yeah, angst! That's what this book needs! Ooh, and angst goes really well with fighting, so we'll throw in a bunch of that. Oh, I guess there's already a bunch of that. Oh well, that fighting is crap. We'll and add a bunch more, so that we can make the characters more angsty!"
Note that the following points contain spoilers for those of you who have read the book but not seen the movie and still care.
GRRRRRRR.
- The kids discovering Caire Paravel (sp?) - Compressed
- The scene with the white witch, the hag and the werewolf - Altered
- The 'harrowing of the shire' - as it were at the end of the book. (You know, with the schoolkids turning into pigs, &c.) - Cut
- Susan: "I didn't really want to come to Narnia anyway! Waah!"
- The Narnian council on the dancing lawn - Mangled
- Lucy not saying "I told you so," or more appropriately, Peter congratulating Lucy on not saying "I told you so": CUT
- Lucy's vision of Aslan and the trees: Destroyed
- Lucy telling the others that she had to go with Aslan whether they followed or not: CUT
- Trumpkin's first encounter with Aslan: Mashed
- Peter acting like a high-king, and not some angry, testosterone high pissant, anxious to get into a pissing contest at every opportunity: TOTALLY DESTROYED
- The end of the duel between Peter and Miraz - Mangled = "His life is not mine to take. But it is Caspian's! Here ya go buddy! Derm-dee-derm-derm."
- Xena - I mean "Susan" - The Warrior Princess - WTF!!!?
- Um, yeah, the whole middle third of the movie with them attacking Miraz' castle - WTF x 2!
- No, seriously, I couldn't stop wanting to slam my forehead into a brick wall throughout the entirity of that 'act'. I mean, C'MON!! - WTF again.
- And REALLY? Miraz' wife SHOOTS Caspian? REALLY!?!>!
- "I know, let's give the Narnians FIGHTER JETS! Yeah! We can have DWARVES, hanging from GRYPHONS, shooting their BOWS and ARROWS! It'll be KICK-ASS! And then- and THEN, we can give the Telmarines ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS! YEAH! DOUBLE KICK-ASS!!!"
- "OOH! OOH! And we'll have the fawns doing PARKOUR!!@!" - {writer wets himself}
- "And let's have the NARNIANS destroy Aslan's How, as part of this grand strategy, even though all of the angstiness of this miserably rewritten plot revolves around how they have NO STRATEGY! YEAH!!"
- "WE HAVE TO GO FIND ASLAN!!!" - WTFingF!
- Susan and Caspian - The star crossed lovers. I guess it's forgivable, but still...
- "Yeah, that little door they walk through in the book is SOOO CG-poor. Let's make it a TREE!!" - Boooo
- And WTF was up with that MUSIC? Singing? SINGING!? What is this, a DISNEY MOV- Oooooh, riiiight.
- Remember in Fellowship of the Ring, when they made it to Lothlorien, and everything is supposed to be golden and bright, and instead Peter Jackson did the whole thing like it was in moonlight? Think of that, and you have the exact opposite of what happened with the scene with Lusy and the trees.I really REALLY wish they had had the balls to just do the scene, with Lucy, and the dancing trees, and Aslan, and the moonlight, and everything not quite solid enough to be sure, but so so close.
- The River King or whatever he is asking Aslan to loose his bonds, at which point the bridge is destoyed. I was waiting for that line. What ev.
- No Bacchus? Forgiveable, I suppose, but disappointing that they left out the whole 'fun' part. And besides, as an uncle I feel bad for JP's namesake being left out.
- The TREES! The trees are supposed to sweep across the landscape like a sea, not like a scraggly little mob!
- Oh Reepicheep. Oh poor, poor Reepicheep. You were such a cool character. And then this movie happened. And Lucy summed it up all to well: You were very cute. With your little, big, manly voice that sounded nothing like the way it was described in the book. *sigh*
It's like they spent the whole time rewriting the script to build up to this great scene, but the scene never came.
And finally, let's take out any insinuation at all that Aslan knows what he's doing and is in control of things. You know, we have to prove ourselves to him, and it's up to us, even though we're not enough. Let's take out any touch of good theology that that crazy old Christian guy who wrote the book migh have put into it, and instead let's make it about self esteem and feeling good!
Okay, I'll stop now. But let me just say this one last thing: If you haven't already seen the movie, just....just don't. Wait until Dawn Treader comes out. Maybe - apparently Disney isn't going to be involved in this one - just maybe it won't suck. Which would be nice, because it isn't my least favorite of the Narnia books like PC is.
*ahem*
shit shit shitty shit shit!
Okay, I understand artistic license. I understand rewriting, adding and deleting things that make the movie move fast enough to fit enough of the story into the time alotted. I understand cutting out and/or rewriting most of Trumpkin's flashback and the back story with Caspian. I understand that visual effects can be tweaked at the microscopic level until the director is perfectly satisfied, whereas dialogue relies on the ability of the actors to deliver it and (more importantly) the director to direct it. But COME ON!!1!
This is how I imagine the discussions went when they were putting this movie together:
"Okay, so we have this book that's pretty popular, and we already did the first one as a movie and it did pretty well, so we're going to do this one now too, I guess. The setting is okay, we'll keep that. And there are some really good moments in the plot. We'll keep those, and pad them out with a bunch of good CG and stuff, yeah. The characters are okay, but they're not angsty enough. Emo is all the rage now, so lets emo them up, but maybe with a touch of rage and teenage angst. Yeah, angst! That's what this book needs! Ooh, and angst goes really well with fighting, so we'll throw in a bunch of that. Oh, I guess there's already a bunch of that. Oh well, that fighting is crap. We'll and add a bunch more, so that we can make the characters more angsty!"
Note that the following points contain spoilers for those of you who have read the book but not seen the movie and still care.
GRRRRRRR.
Forgivable edits:
- The kids discovering Caire Paravel (sp?) - Compressed
- The scene with the white witch, the hag and the werewolf - Altered
- The 'harrowing of the shire' - as it were at the end of the book. (You know, with the schoolkids turning into pigs, &c.) - Cut
Key scenes/dialogue points that they should have just left intact:
- Susan: "I didn't really want to come to Narnia anyway! Waah!"
- The Narnian council on the dancing lawn - Mangled
- Lucy not saying "I told you so," or more appropriately, Peter congratulating Lucy on not saying "I told you so": CUT
- Lucy's vision of Aslan and the trees: Destroyed
- Lucy telling the others that she had to go with Aslan whether they followed or not: CUT
- Trumpkin's first encounter with Aslan: Mashed
- Peter acting like a high-king, and not some angry, testosterone high pissant, anxious to get into a pissing contest at every opportunity: TOTALLY DESTROYED
- The end of the duel between Peter and Miraz - Mangled = "His life is not mine to take. But it is Caspian's! Here ya go buddy! Derm-dee-derm-derm."
Stupid additions:
- Xena - I mean "Susan" - The Warrior Princess - WTF!!!?
- Um, yeah, the whole middle third of the movie with them attacking Miraz' castle - WTF x 2!
- No, seriously, I couldn't stop wanting to slam my forehead into a brick wall throughout the entirity of that 'act'. I mean, C'MON!! - WTF again.
- And REALLY? Miraz' wife SHOOTS Caspian? REALLY!?!>!
- "I know, let's give the Narnians FIGHTER JETS! Yeah! We can have DWARVES, hanging from GRYPHONS, shooting their BOWS and ARROWS! It'll be KICK-ASS! And then- and THEN, we can give the Telmarines ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS! YEAH! DOUBLE KICK-ASS!!!"
- "OOH! OOH! And we'll have the fawns doing PARKOUR!!@!" - {writer wets himself}
- "And let's have the NARNIANS destroy Aslan's How, as part of this grand strategy, even though all of the angstiness of this miserably rewritten plot revolves around how they have NO STRATEGY! YEAH!!"
- "WE HAVE TO GO FIND ASLAN!!!" - WTFingF!
- Susan and Caspian - The star crossed lovers. I guess it's forgivable, but still...
- "Yeah, that little door they walk through in the book is SOOO CG-poor. Let's make it a TREE!!" - Boooo
- And WTF was up with that MUSIC? Singing? SINGING!? What is this, a DISNEY MOV- Oooooh, riiiight.
Scenes/lines I really wanted to see done well and was left with blue (eye) balls:
- Remember in Fellowship of the Ring, when they made it to Lothlorien, and everything is supposed to be golden and bright, and instead Peter Jackson did the whole thing like it was in moonlight? Think of that, and you have the exact opposite of what happened with the scene with Lusy and the trees.I really REALLY wish they had had the balls to just do the scene, with Lucy, and the dancing trees, and Aslan, and the moonlight, and everything not quite solid enough to be sure, but so so close.
- The River King or whatever he is asking Aslan to loose his bonds, at which point the bridge is destoyed. I was waiting for that line. What ev.
- No Bacchus? Forgiveable, I suppose, but disappointing that they left out the whole 'fun' part. And besides, as an uncle I feel bad for JP's namesake being left out.
- The TREES! The trees are supposed to sweep across the landscape like a sea, not like a scraggly little mob!
- Oh Reepicheep. Oh poor, poor Reepicheep. You were such a cool character. And then this movie happened. And Lucy summed it up all to well: You were very cute. With your little, big, manly voice that sounded nothing like the way it was described in the book. *sigh*
It's like they spent the whole time rewriting the script to build up to this great scene, but the scene never came.
And finally, let's take out any insinuation at all that Aslan knows what he's doing and is in control of things. You know, we have to prove ourselves to him, and it's up to us, even though we're not enough. Let's take out any touch of good theology that that crazy old Christian guy who wrote the book migh have put into it, and instead let's make it about self esteem and feeling good!
Okay, I'll stop now. But let me just say this one last thing: If you haven't already seen the movie, just....just don't. Wait until Dawn Treader comes out. Maybe - apparently Disney isn't going to be involved in this one - just maybe it won't suck. Which would be nice, because it isn't my least favorite of the Narnia books like PC is.
2008-04-30
A brief Wizard Wednesday, and a preview
Over the past couple of years, I have been on a constant search for a music player. In my experience of music players since 1998, I have sampled the gamut, everything from the Linux-only Amarok, past Apple's inescaple iTunes, and into the obscure open source programs such as MusikCube.
Without a doubt, my favorite music player has been the previously mentioned Amarok, but the Linux-onliness of it interferes with the fact that I am thus far required to run Windows on my work PC.
iTunes has its upsides, but there are just a few too many maladjusted features which stem from the fact that it is the proprietary spawn of sata- err... where was I? Oh, right. Here are the criteria I have come up with for a media player to suit my needs:
- Must support the full gamut of audio codecs: Mp3 (duh), Ogg Vorbis, FLAC (I haven't used it yet, but I may want to some day) &c.
- Must allow for the maintenance and convenience of a media library. I remember the day when the standard mp3 collection was small enough that you just had a music folder you dumped everything in to, and when you wanted to listen to something you would drag and drop from Explorer into the playlist window. No more!
- A slew of features is nice, but more importantly, I want to be able to remove features I don't want to use. In otherwords, it should be basically an mp3 player, with a bunch of plug-in support for everything else.
- Customizable layout - I want to be able to arrange things so that the player window/pane goes here, the playlist pane goes here, the equlizer sits here, the media library is there, etc.
- It must be free. Now, there is free as in beer, and there is free as in Braveheart. In this case, I care more about the beerish 'freeness' than about Braveheartian 'freedom'. In other words, it needs to not cost anything to me, and that's more important than it being open source.
- It needs to run on Windows. If I had the liberty to run Linux, no doubt I would be running Amarok, since it truly is the best media player I have sampled.
After having sampled - as I said - a whole slew of players, I have settled once again on Winamp. Ah, Winamp! You won my love back in the 90s, lost it toward the early 'aughts', and I have once again returned to you!
Winamp combines the best of all of the above. It comes with more features than you can (or would want to) shake a stick at, but it also comes with the ability to uninstall pretty much everything that is attached to it. I recently downloaded and installed the latest version (5.something.something) and was dismayed with all the clutter in the media library. But I opened the preferences, and went to the plugins section, and low and behold, there they all were, and within 5 minutes I had it stripped back down to a nice, tight, slim little player.
The layout customization of Winamp is wonderful. Every section has its own window, which can be completely and independently moved around. If you want to, you can lock the windows together to create one big glom of media stuff, or you can detach them and organize them all seperately.
The default set of plugins supports all the codecs I care about (primarily mp3 and ogg) with additional plugins available for anything you might be missing.
And, Winamp basic (which is anything BUT) is free as in Beer! Yes, if you really want to, you can upgrade to Winamp Pro, but I'm at a loss for what features it might incorporate that aren't available either by default or as plugins.
It even incorporates global hotkeys, which allow me to start, stop, fast forward, rewind, and do just about anything else I want to from any application or window in Windows.
So congratulations, Winamp. I hereby award you a 3 Sneeze rating in the category of media players! You can pickup your plaque at the back of the auditorium.
COMING SOON:
I've been having ideas for a series of posts about the Fruits of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22) rattling around in my head for the past week or so. Hopefully, if I put something here about how I'm going to post them, it'll actually get done ("He intoned the magic words 'Ala Kazaam!' and waved his arms in a big circle, and the spell was complete").
Without a doubt, my favorite music player has been the previously mentioned Amarok, but the Linux-onliness of it interferes with the fact that I am thus far required to run Windows on my work PC.
iTunes has its upsides, but there are just a few too many maladjusted features which stem from the fact that it is the proprietary spawn of sata- err... where was I? Oh, right. Here are the criteria I have come up with for a media player to suit my needs:
- Must support the full gamut of audio codecs: Mp3 (duh), Ogg Vorbis, FLAC (I haven't used it yet, but I may want to some day) &c.
- Must allow for the maintenance and convenience of a media library. I remember the day when the standard mp3 collection was small enough that you just had a music folder you dumped everything in to, and when you wanted to listen to something you would drag and drop from Explorer into the playlist window. No more!
- A slew of features is nice, but more importantly, I want to be able to remove features I don't want to use. In otherwords, it should be basically an mp3 player, with a bunch of plug-in support for everything else.
- Customizable layout - I want to be able to arrange things so that the player window/pane goes here, the playlist pane goes here, the equlizer sits here, the media library is there, etc.
- It must be free. Now, there is free as in beer, and there is free as in Braveheart. In this case, I care more about the beerish 'freeness' than about Braveheartian 'freedom'. In other words, it needs to not cost anything to me, and that's more important than it being open source.
- It needs to run on Windows. If I had the liberty to run Linux, no doubt I would be running Amarok, since it truly is the best media player I have sampled.
After having sampled - as I said - a whole slew of players, I have settled once again on Winamp. Ah, Winamp! You won my love back in the 90s, lost it toward the early 'aughts', and I have once again returned to you!
Winamp combines the best of all of the above. It comes with more features than you can (or would want to) shake a stick at, but it also comes with the ability to uninstall pretty much everything that is attached to it. I recently downloaded and installed the latest version (5.something.something) and was dismayed with all the clutter in the media library. But I opened the preferences, and went to the plugins section, and low and behold, there they all were, and within 5 minutes I had it stripped back down to a nice, tight, slim little player.
The layout customization of Winamp is wonderful. Every section has its own window, which can be completely and independently moved around. If you want to, you can lock the windows together to create one big glom of media stuff, or you can detach them and organize them all seperately.
The default set of plugins supports all the codecs I care about (primarily mp3 and ogg) with additional plugins available for anything you might be missing.
And, Winamp basic (which is anything BUT) is free as in Beer! Yes, if you really want to, you can upgrade to Winamp Pro, but I'm at a loss for what features it might incorporate that aren't available either by default or as plugins.
It even incorporates global hotkeys, which allow me to start, stop, fast forward, rewind, and do just about anything else I want to from any application or window in Windows.
So congratulations, Winamp. I hereby award you a 3 Sneeze rating in the category of media players! You can pickup your plaque at the back of the auditorium.
COMING SOON:
I've been having ideas for a series of posts about the Fruits of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22) rattling around in my head for the past week or so. Hopefully, if I put something here about how I'm going to post them, it'll actually get done ("He intoned the magic words 'Ala Kazaam!' and waved his arms in a big circle, and the spell was complete").
2007-12-06
Movie Review: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Last night we watched the first Tomb Raider movie (yes, they apparently made a sequel), and I have to say that it is almost everything I expected. The almost lies in the fact that they didn't pay nearly as much attention to Angelina Jolie's breasts as one might have expected them to. But I get ahead of myself.
Some time in the mid 90's, Core Design created a brilliant game starring Lara Croft, the female version of Indiana Jones, sans whip, and plus guns. As I noted, the first game was brilliant (at least what I played of it) with great (for the time) visuals, fun game play, clever puzzles, and the occasional pistol-whipping of random animals like killer bears and wolves and stuff.
The following games - as my impression lies - became less and less about puzzles and more and more about shooting things and, yes, Lara's breasts. Hence the eventual nickname adopted for the series: Boob Raider.
Apon hearing about the original Tomb Raider movie several years ago, my friends and I never questioned that there would be two stars: Angelina's right and left breasts. And as such, attempting to at least give the impression of not being wholly driven by sexual urges, we never went to see it.
So when my wife checked it out of the library last night, I figured it might actually be fun to watch. I mean, Angelina Jolie isn't actually a bad actress, for all that she tends to get cast for her looks.
I have to say that the movie has everything that such a movie should have: reasonably bad acting, cheesy dialog, obviously fake stunts, excessive special effects, crazy gadgets, magical talismans (talismen?), a sappy attempt to make the main character 'deep', and lots of stuff getting destroyed. In fact, I would say that rather than the stars being various anatomical tidbits, the real star of the show was Angelina Jolie's ability to keep a straight face. You could probably make a drinking game out of it: Any time Lara smirks when someone destroys something, take a drink; no, that would be excessive...
This movie has nothing to recommend it unless you are looking for a good kampy romp co-starring Daniel Craig (the most recent James Bond) with a really bad American accent. Also, bear in mind that it may promote destructive tendencies, since Lara apparently has a hard time not destroying anything she touches.
I give this movie 3 Cheeses, since it really can't qualify for a Sneeze rating, either positive or negative.
Oh, and in case you're wondering: Yes, the shorts + holsters do look as dorky in real life as they did in the game.
Some time in the mid 90's, Core Design created a brilliant game starring Lara Croft, the female version of Indiana Jones, sans whip, and plus guns. As I noted, the first game was brilliant (at least what I played of it) with great (for the time) visuals, fun game play, clever puzzles, and the occasional pistol-whipping of random animals like killer bears and wolves and stuff.
The following games - as my impression lies - became less and less about puzzles and more and more about shooting things and, yes, Lara's breasts. Hence the eventual nickname adopted for the series: Boob Raider.
Apon hearing about the original Tomb Raider movie several years ago, my friends and I never questioned that there would be two stars: Angelina's right and left breasts. And as such, attempting to at least give the impression of not being wholly driven by sexual urges, we never went to see it.
So when my wife checked it out of the library last night, I figured it might actually be fun to watch. I mean, Angelina Jolie isn't actually a bad actress, for all that she tends to get cast for her looks.
I have to say that the movie has everything that such a movie should have: reasonably bad acting, cheesy dialog, obviously fake stunts, excessive special effects, crazy gadgets, magical talismans (talismen?), a sappy attempt to make the main character 'deep', and lots of stuff getting destroyed. In fact, I would say that rather than the stars being various anatomical tidbits, the real star of the show was Angelina Jolie's ability to keep a straight face. You could probably make a drinking game out of it: Any time Lara smirks when someone destroys something, take a drink; no, that would be excessive...
This movie has nothing to recommend it unless you are looking for a good kampy romp co-starring Daniel Craig (the most recent James Bond) with a really bad American accent. Also, bear in mind that it may promote destructive tendencies, since Lara apparently has a hard time not destroying anything she touches.
I give this movie 3 Cheeses, since it really can't qualify for a Sneeze rating, either positive or negative.
Oh, and in case you're wondering: Yes, the shorts + holsters do look as dorky in real life as they did in the game.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)