Just want to draw attention to this genius series of trailers for Hobo with a Shotgun. Disturbing images ahead.
I realize I'm bumping this old thread. Well I've started watching this series a few weeks ago and decided to stop recently a few episodes into season 3. The series, in my opinion, is simply not well done. The sets are painfully plain and the series tries to get away with as little detail in the background as possible. The camera preferring close-ups of actors to accommodate. After seeing aesthetically beautiful sets from other science-fiction works such as Alien, Prometheus, Firefly, or Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica is downright disgraceful. The science fiction is a gimmick. Only there to push the story forward whenever needed to provide the series with a lot of moral dilemmas that pass for drama. Do the Cylons want to kill off all humans or don't they? If they do they're really incompetent. It's hard to follow a series where agendas are unclear for so long, even the Cylons don't really seem to know where they're going with this. To make the series "mysterious," we're bogged down with so much repeated mythology from both humans and Cylons that I stopped caring whose gods were real and why it matters. The only thing that seemed to improve as the series went on was the CGI. I'm sorry for panning Battlestar Galactica, but I don't really have anything nice to say about it.
I think a certain sexual orientation is laid out for us from before we're born. I don't believe it has anything to do directly with genes (How many are born from same-sex parents? Why does sexual diversity continue to be so prominent considering natural selection?), but rather early fetal development within the womb. If I'm wrong, then it's definitely shaped by something in early childhood development. Identical twins can grow up to reveal to have different personalities, handedness or sexual orientations. (I think the reasons why differences in sexual orientation exists and how it occurs is as mysterious as the reasons behind the differences in personalities and handedness.) If it's something you choose, then it should also be something you can change. You can simply ask yourself if you can change your own sexual orientation. If not, then it's not a choice. Why choose your sexual orientation (or lack of one)? It's a quality imbued onto us unknowingly without our will.
Bought the Humble Bundle I see? I wasn't listening to a song right now, but I'll post the last thing I've seen that contained music. "My Tears Are Becoming a Sea" by M83. And this is my avatar and signature now.
Well I won't have anyone (I like) to talk to tonight, and if I have my computer off I'll probably be reading a book, which requires a lamp. Convincing my parents not necessary as we already did it last year. I'll try to invite people over, which might be easy as they're participating in Earth Hour. The stars idea is cool, might do just that. I already get looks from people as soon as they discover what I exclude from my diet in the name of the environment. I never bring up that subject myself. They try to convince me it's not worth it, doesn't make a difference, etc. But the little, easy things that they can do for the environment they're big on.
Restricting myself to trailers for movies that were released in 2012 in this post, as trying to list the best trailers of all-time would be endless, This thread is essentially my excuse to talk about movies, and try to get more people interested in movies and find new movies. The following are some trailers that I thought were the best, along with my thoughts on each one. Will add more if I find any trailers that I missed. T H E B E S T T R A I L E R S O F - 2 0 1 2 - - 6 - R E S I D E N T E V I L : R E T R I B U T I O N I love the Resident Evil series' bait-and-switch trailers. Listening to the annoying slogan repeated over and over again, I went from "Oh my god, not another commercial about 'the best new thing,' " to "Oh my god, not another Resident Evil movie." - 5 - P I R A N H A 3 D D Sometimes trailers don't show you enough of the movie to tell whether or not it appeals to you. Piranha 3DD's trailer tells you exactly what you'll get out of it. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the theater... from the horror tradition of teenagers-looking-to-get-lucky-in-peril, comes the real sequel to Jaws 3-D. - 4 - T H E M A S T E R Seemingly about something of much importance yet refuses to have meaning. Intimate and compelling yet wrapped in mystery. The Master's trailers capture the feel of the movie. Isn't that what we want most from a preview? - 3 - R U S T A N D B O N E Without telling you much of anything (giving anything away without the context of the entire movie might make it seem gimmicky), Rust and Bone's trailer gives you the feeling that the movie is something special, about something more than it can encompass; ambiguously powerful. It invites you to come and watch, only asking if you're ready to let the movie take you on an emotional journey. - 2 - P R O M E T H E U S One of the most anticipated films of the year. The letter forming and continuous siren sound gives us an audio and visual clue to the movie's relevance to Alien. Like the original Alien trailer, it only gives away little glimpses and sound bites into what horrors you should expect, leaving us wanting to see more. Then the guys in charge of marketing gave us our wish and released the Prometheus 3-minute extended trailer that gave away much too much. Bonus: Alien trailer - 1 - C L O U D A T L A S Whereas Rust and Bone's trailer essentially gives you nothing to what the movie's about, Cloud Atlas' trailer can give away anything and still be a mystery. Watching the trailer is a cinematic experience within itself, trying to encompass the broad range of human emotions and experiences in a single 5-minute clip. Breathtaking. It's the best trailer of 2012. It's just a coincidence that two of the trailers I list feature songs by M83. That or I'm biased. Or the songs single-handedly are what make the trailers. - 2 0 1 1 - - 5 - T H E G I R L W I T H T H E D R A G O N T A T T O O The quick cuts hold much significance to those who have read the novels or seen original movies. The locations, characters, and events are so apparent, that one might realize what the movie is before the title letters show up. And it has quite the attitude with how it teases us. A trailer clearly made for fans. - 4 - S H A M E Shame trailer # 2 Shame's trailer doesn't offer much of anything in terms of plot, it's clearly not a plot-driven movie. It boldly contains a lot of sex, yet it's never erotic. We feel the grief and pain of the characters instead. - 3 - W E N E E D T O T A L K A B O U T K E V I N It's all happy sails until you give birth to a devil child. - 2 - H O B O W I T H A S H O T G U N Hobo with a Shotgun rated trailer Hobo with a Shotgun trailer 2 This movie was originally just a concept for a fake trailer at Grindhouse then adapted to a feature film. Oh, and what a great trailer the movie makes. An adamant hobo delivers an astounding monologue while we bare witness to the most horrific events imaginable that made him so. We can only watch with glee as the hobo, always dead-on serious, brings a certain intensity to this cereal, depressing, and depraved place. Bonus: Hobo with a Shotgun fake trailer - 1 - T H E T R E E O F L I F E The Tree of Life trailer with dialogue It's certain that there's so much more to behold than just what we see in The Tree of Life's trailer. A trailer attempting to encompass a film attempting to encompass all of existence. It makes no use of titles to tell us what it's about or show off laurels of praise or awards, no use of dialogue or voice-overs, only relying on imagery and music alone to evoke from us our emotions. - 2 0 1 0 - - 5 - F I L M S O C I A L I S M E Most likely the only trailer out there that actually dares to show us its entire movie. - 4 - B L U E V A L E N T I N E A lighthearted start with a couple that we see seems to be meeting for the fist time. Their meeting continues on as it's intercut with snippets of scenes of their future. We certainly don't envy them by the end. - 3 - H E A R T B E A T S A trailer earnestly unafraid to linger on what it thinks is beautiful. With its use of artful colors and slow-motion shots, it's something you'd wish would go on forever. - 2 - S H A R K T O P U S A half-shark, half-octopus creature terrorizes beach-goers. - 1 - T H E S O C I A L N E T W O R K "Creep" not only applies to the movie, but turns our online social experience over on us in a new light. Is our need to be heard or noticed really so primitive? Degrading ourselves for that small high when you share how rotten your day has been, or how much weight you lost. When we post about ourselves is really to let others know, or to stroke our ego? The Social Network trailer lets us realize that sharing is selfish. - 2 0 0 9 - - 3 - A S I N G L E M A N A beautifully edited and gorgeous-looking trailer. Considering the fantastic source footage and music, it's really hard to see how someone can go wrong with making a trailer for A Single Man. - 2 - W A T C H M E N Includes everything a great music video trailer ought to. Visibly recognizable and iconic characters, striking poses and doing epic things in slow-motion, great looking visuals, and epic one-liner narrations, all wrapped up and perfectly timed with an epic song. - 1 - W H E R E T H E W I L D T H I N G S A R E Where the Wild Things Are trailer 2 What a sight it was to see this trailer for the first time. I saw it in a theater. To remember something from so long ago, something I haven't thought about in years, and maybe would have forgotten about all together, was an experience. To be able to recognize these ethereal, gigantic, terrifying-looking monsters, and crowned wolf-boy king after so long almost moved me to tears. I thought it was funny to see that I still found the monsters scary, and magical. And the boy was like seeing a childhood friend again that hadn't changed a bit. What a gift of nostalgia this trailer had brought me. If you're like me, you expect to have a film's trailers included with the special features on Blu-ray. Unfortunately for Where the Wild Things Are, they are absent. I could only assume this had something to do with getting the licencing for the music. But I did my searching and found links for the trailers to download in high-definition. Direct links: Where the Wild Things Are trailer 1 | Where the Wild Things Are trailer 2
And I'm curious to hear what your thoughts on the ending is. Even though I've never played any of the games -- and I definitely plan too -- I think I've heard enough of the highly emphasized "player choices matter" to have a guess at the ending that left many players dumbfounded. I can't wait to experience the game and see for myself, I just need to get a next-gen console. :X Games I'm currently playing: Zynga Poker SpaceChem
I've never played The Sims 3, it came out at a time when I was tight on time and money. Besides, I didn't and still don't have a fast enough computer. And with all the expansion packs now, it's more likely that I'll wait for The Sims 4 before I buy 3. The original Sims was like a godsend for me. So easily customizable, with a great modding community. I've mentioned more than once on these forums that creating The Sims objects was my first experience with computer programming, and what a way to learn. I must have been 9 years old then. Here's a link to an old document I read that helped me, and apparently was used in a college course: http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/papers/files/programming_objects_in_the_sims.pdf
just some text for space Don't know how many people still play the original The Sims. Just felt like posting this since I've never posted it anywhere before and right now I'm using a picture of this with Bella eating cake as an avatar. I created this object a few years ago when I was really into Portal. (I still am.) The object has some custom functions like being able to use it as a table and also being able to stack it on top of surfaces (including itself). Originally I had planned it so you can continue stacking objects on top of it if it was already stacked on top of another object, so you can stack it up to infinity, but that lead to a weird bug where Sims would eat off the highest most cube when it was placed much higher than they were. Here's the object file, enjoy: Download
Unless you live in Hawaii, Arizona with exceptions, Midway Islands, Wake Island, or a small region of Alaska, and many other places around the globe.
I wouldn't call the first one a good movie, which I like much more than Revelation. Poor effects I don't mind if they're effective, which in this case they weren't. But I did like the set designs as they were moody just like the games. Also, I was able to identify Carrie-Anne Moss -- who I didn't know was in this movie -- through her horrible makeup from the way she moves her lips when she speaks.
Okay now that I've seen Revelation, I can say it definitely looks like a SH game, sounds like a SH game, but it wasn't scary like a SH game. The movie prefers pop out [Pop-Tarts] and shock moments instead of being eerily creepy. The scene from the first movie where Rose has to stick her fingers in a "corpse's" mouth was more scary and felt more true to SH than all of Revelation's scenes combined. One thing I did appreciate from Revelation was the short moment in the mannequins scene where one of the mannequins breathes in the air inside the plastic over their heads (I know of the mannequin room in SH3, and I think that short moment was just as creepy).
I have no images, but I agree with what Patman said about the city's nature. I rewatched the Another Side, Another Story secret movie from the original Kingdom Hearts, and found it ends on a beach, a sort of nostalgia, much like the film. A beach represents home for the characters, and the sunny, open exterior serves as a huge contrast with the dark, dense cityscape of the rest of the clip/film. Edit: Also, in the scenes when the characters attempt to take a train to the beach (in the characters' minds, a beach exists beyond the town/city's edge), they're ultimately unable to go because in Kingdom Hearts II the party's money is stolen, and in Dark City the train to the beach never stops at the station. They're isolated from exploring their simulation's boundaries to keep the them in the dark. Edit 2: Now I learn that the creators of Dark City first went to Disney to produce their movie. Maybe Square Enix came across Dark City when looking for Disney material to use for Kingdom Hearts. On another note, Inception, directed by Christopher Nolan, also shares similarities to Dark City: The use of trains to take you out of a dream, and beaches reminiscent of a home. Reading the Wikipedia entry on Inception confirms Dark City as an influence.
I always did think that bit of the fight was a bit silly, but now I know the reason behind it.
Dark City is a 1998 neo-noir science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas. I suggest you watch the film if you haven't already before reading on. Major plot details ahead. There will be a showing of Dark City on Starz Cinema on March 13th. From Memory's Skyscraper in the distinctive wet and neon-lit Dark City, to Roxas' implanted memories of a life in the inescapable town controlled by mysterious overseers, and to the eternally unattainable but much desired visit to a beach; I believe that much of Roxas' story in Kingdom Hearts II has been inspired by the film Dark City. Just something I noticed during my second time watching Dark City. The multiple mentions that characters from both the film and Kingdom Hearts II make of a remembered long-ago-visited beach made me realize the connection. It became obvious that the place called "Dark City" in The World That Never Was is purely in homage to Dark City. It feels good to discover something new about a game that I've already played multiple times over the years. I greatly appreciate Square Enix's homage to a film that I now consider one of my favorites.
Out of those that I've seen, of course: Oslo, August 31st [available on Netflix] Cloud Atlas (my thoughts) The Kid with a Bike [available on Netflix] The Master Prometheus The Impossible Flight Skyfall Last Ride [available on Netflix] Keep the Lights On Here are some films that I felt weren't "best of the year" but enjoyed all the same: The Grey, Looper, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Safety Not Guaranteed, Seven Psychopaths, and Silver Lining's Playbook. Silver's both an exceptional film and accessible to a wide audience, I found this to be the 2012 film I most recommended to friends and family. Just to note, my I enjoyed my second viewings of Fligt and The Master much more than my first.
Well that pretty much covers everything that happens in SH2 event wise. Haven't played any SH game past 3. I will be watching Revelations tonight, heard it was terrible, but that will not stop me.
Darwinism is not an ideology. Evolution happens whether or not we are aware of it, or try to change it, or control it. Social Darwinism is the ideology that motivated the ideas of Nazism. Don't believe that morals are outside the realm of evolution: Humans are social creatures that survive better as a group. The need to tend to the needs of other individuals may be a survival trait to better the chances of the population as a whole. "Survival of the fittest" does not accurately convey the meaning of natural selection, and I believe it should instead be called "survival of the fittest genes." Wonderful.
Download speed was cut in half since this post for several months, but now I've upgraded a couple of weeks ago. Now I can stream HD Netflix and use the Internet for something else at the same time. Uninterrupted HD Netflix is the only thing I really want out of a high speed connection.
I guess this is why they call it being "politically correct." Some of the comments in that article and in this thread towards Mr. Brewer are just as hateful as the comment Mr. Brewer himself made towards disabled children. I believe it's clear Mr. Brewer didn't mean what he said, and he would be some kind of maniac if he did, but he was a fool for trying to "provoke a reaction" on something that obviously many people would feel strongly on.
