Kevin Smith’s new enemies: movie critics

Annoyed by the bad reaction to the film’s he’s directed, COP OUT, Kevin Smith decided to shit on movie critics via his Twitter.

(1/5) @coked_up_jesus “I gotta say that every day I hate film theory & film students & critics more & more. Where is the fun in movies?” Sir

(2/5) sometimes, it’s important to turn off the chatter. Film fandom’s become a nasty bloodsport where cartoonishly rooting for failure gets
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(3/5)the hit count up on the ol’ brand-new blog. And if a schmuck like me pays you some attention, score! MORE EYES, MEANS MORE ADVERT $.
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(4/5) But when you pull your eye away from the microscope, you can see that shit you’re studying so closely is, in reality, tiny as fuck.
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(5/5) You wanna enjoy movies again? Stop reading about them & just go to the movies. It’s improved film/movie appreciation immensely for me.
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Seriously: so many critics lined-up to pull a sad & embarrassing train on #CopOut like it was JenniferJasonLeigh in LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN.
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Watching them beat the shit out of it was sad. Like, it’s called #CopOut ; that sound like a very ambitious title to you? You REALLY wanna
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shit in the mouth of a flick that so OBVIOUSLY strived for nothing more than laughs. Was it called “Schindler’s Cop Out”? Writing a nasty
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review for #CopOut is akin to bullying a retarded kid who was getting a couple chuckles from the normies by singing AFTERNOON DELIGHT.
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Suddenly, bully-dudes are doing the bad impression of him, using the “retart” voice. The crowd shifts uncomfortably. #IfOnlyDaltonWasHere
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And you may impress a couple of low IQ-ers who’re like “Yeah, man! Way to destroy that singing retart!” But, really? All you’ve done is make
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fun of something that wasn’t doing you any harm and wanted only to give some cats a some fun laughs. #YesIcomparedMyFlickToARetardedKid
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It was just ridiculous to watch. That was it for me. Realized whole system’s upside down: so we let a bunch of people see it for free & they
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shit all over it? Meanwhile, people who’d REALLY like to see the flick for free are made to pay? Bullshit: from now on, any flick I’m ever
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involved with, I conduct critics screenings thusly: you wanna see it early to review it? Fine: pay like you would if you saw it next week.
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Like, why am I giving an arbitrary 500 people power over what I do at all, let alone for free? Next flick, I’d rather pick 500 randoms from
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Twitter feed & let THEM see it for free in advance, then post THEIR opinions, good AND bad. Same difference. Why’s their opinion more valid?
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It’s a backwards system. People are free to talk shit about ANY of my flicks, so long as they paid to see it. Fuck this AnimalFarm bullshit.
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I would like to simply say “what an ignorant fucking dipshit” and move on, but I like exposing my opinion on something as detailedly as I can right off the bat.

Let me start by compiling a list:

CLERKS: Rotten Tomatoes 87% (47 reviews) – Metacritic 70% (17 reviews)

MALLRATS: Rotten Tomatoes 50% (out of 38 reviews) – Metacritic 41% (out of 18 reviews)

CHASING AMY: Rotten Tomatoes 91% (out of 66 reviews) – Metacritic 71% (out of 28 reviews)

DOGMA: Rotten Tomatoes 67% (out of 122 reviews) – Metacritic 62% (out of 36 reviews)

JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK: Rotten Tomatoes 53% (out of 148 reviews) – Metacritic 51% (out of 31 reviews)

JERSEY GIRL: Rotten Tomatoes 41% (out of 167 reviews) – Metacritic 43% (out of 35 reviews)

CLERKS II: Rotten Tomatoes 62% (out of 156 reviews) – Metacritic 65% (out of 29 reviews)

ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO: Rotten Tomatoes 65% (out of 176 reviews) – Metacritic 56% (out of 33 reviews)

COP OUT: Rotten Tomatoes 19% (out of 127 reviews) – Metacritic 31% (out of 34 reviews)

All of the above are from reviews by movie critics, compiled on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. While the former’s main score is based on whether or not the critic has given the movie a positive review (fresh tomato) or negative review (rotten tomato), Metacritic is an average of scores (although RT also has an average rating, but it’s not considered very important by the own site).

So taking a good look at the list, doesn’t really look like the critics are out to get Kevin Smith, does it. In fact, response to Smith’s movies tend to be positive. His only films below 50% on RT are JERSEY GIRL and COP OUT, and on MC, those two plus MALLRATS. All six of his other movies had mostly positive reception, some times barely, some times definitely, with CHASING AMY being the clear winner.

This, of course, puts a huge question mark on why Smith is downplaying an entire profession and depicting critics as a crowd of haters who are no different from “the people” (because apparently critics are from another planet as well).

My point: if I’m gonna show it to 500 arbitrary people for free, I’d rather show it to 500 arbitrary people off Twitter. What’s the diff?
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Because among the 500 arbitrary people off Twitter, one of them will certainly be a regular Roger Ebert, right? Apparently being a critic takes no effort, it’s just a matter of watching movies and writing about them. Surely you don’t have to learn about cinematography, filmmaking jargon and filmmaking history in order to be a critic, all you have to do is watch a movie and say whether or not it’s cool. No need to explain why.

It was just ridiculous to watch. That was it for me. Realized whole system’s upside down: so we let a bunch of people see it for free & they
about 13 hours ago via web

shit all over it? Meanwhile, people who’d REALLY like to see the flick for free are made to pay? Bullshit: from now on, any flick I’m ever
about 13 hours ago via web

involved with, I conduct critics screenings thusly: you wanna see it early to review it? Fine: pay like you would if you saw it next week.
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Oh, right — so because the critics saw it for free, they were supposed to love it. If they wanted to do their jobs like they are supposed to, it’s only fair they pay to do their job of giving their honest opinion on a film. If they see it for free, though, they must spit a bunch of positive adjectives with exclamation marks to be featured on the poster.

(4/5) But when you pull your eye away from the microscope, you can see that shit you’re studying so closely is, in reality, tiny as fuck.
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The art of filmmaking: tiny as fuck. Jesus, not even the analogy works. Just because it’s seen through a microscope it doesn’t mean it’s simple, or learning about the inner workings of a cell wouldn’t take more than a single high school class.

Critics have never been Kevin Smith’s enemies in any way you look at it. Of course, not all critics are good, as absolute imbeciles such as Fiore Mastracci exemplify. The list above shows that, according to the critics, Smith has had an excellent start and an irregular but mostly positive career which was enough to establish him in the movie business and give him a lot of creative freedom, and critics were NEVER in the way of that — in fact, if anything, they helped. Or did CLERKS receive the International Critics’ Week prize on Cannes by mistake?

One of Smith’s most pitiful arguments is this:

Watching them beat the shit out of it was sad. Like, it’s called #CopOut ; that sound like a very ambitious title to you? You REALLY wanna
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shit in the mouth of a flick that so OBVIOUSLY strived for nothing more than laughs. Was it called “Schindler’s Cop Out”? Writing a nasty
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review for #CopOut is akin to bullying a retarded kid who was getting a couple chuckles from the normies by singing AFTERNOON DELIGHT.
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I’ll try to ignore that Smith called his own movie a retarded child, since nothing I say can make the stupidity of this any more obvious, and focus on the “expectations vs. reaction” thing he’s putting forward — that critics apparently treated COP OUT as though it wanted to be much more than it actually ended up being, hence the bad reviews. Indeed, movies should be judged based on their premise, their ambition, what they promise and what they deliver.

Critics happen to know that. After all, CRANK, its sequel and SHOOT ‘EM UP were liked by, respectively, 61%, 62% and 67% of critics on RT. And if you criticize these movies while comparing them to THE GODFATHER, you’ll consider them crimes against filmmaking. When criticized with their premise in mind, though, they’re good films (well, I don’t like CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE, but still, I’m talking statistics here).

Yes, critics are perfectly aware of all this; and I haven’t yet watched COP OUT, but it’s a comedy, correct? It wants to make people laugh, right? Well, just read some of the reviews and you’ll notice a lot of critics labeled the film unfunny. And when a comedy fails to be funny, it’s a pretty valid argument against its quality.

Critics are not perfect: lots of them act like they know whether or not you’ll like a film based on their opinion; others just try to be controversial to call attention to themselves. But a lot of them are doing their job of watching a film, dissecting it, giving their detailed opinion and explaining why they think this worked and that didn’t. This is vital and difficult work, and not rewarding, as people — mostly idiots — tend to be offended at opinions different from their own.

I like Kevin Smith’s films, and I like Kevin Smith. It hugely disappoints me to see him dismiss a crowd that was never his enemy because they didn’t like his latest film, and to treat films as something you’re supposed to simply go and watch, but not read about.

Reading critics’ reviews made me learn a lot on writing, narrative structure and made me more selective about the films I like. I enjoy less movies than I used to, but it’s much more wonderful when I do, and even better to be able to explain why.

I’ve got longevity on my side now. I’ve been doing this since 93: so 17 years. I’m a veteran of the film biz. And as a veteran – not just a
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just some spectator with an opinion – I think I know what’s better for me & my career than total strangers whose Google-able history proves
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they’ve NEVER had my best interests at heart. So I’m gonna listen to THOSE people? Nyet. Listening to me, not them, has gotten me THIS far.
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Yes, you’re a veteran now, Kevin. You’re THIS far, so now you can shit all over a profession and depict all movie critics as a hater mob because they didn’t like your latest film.

I guess I’ve said enough to justify calling you an ignorant fucking dipshit. And I hope I’m wrong and you’re actually the nice guy you seem to be, but this is just too much.

The Australian Classification Board Vs. Golden Showers And Women Who “Appear To Be” Younger Than 18

According to the internet — always a reluctant source that requires some beating before it spits out the truth along with some teeth — the Australian Classification Board (ACB) did very stupid things recently. Initially, it seemed they had banned women with A-cup breasts from appearing on adult publications, because regardless of the person’s actual age, they think small breasts encourage child pornography, and they have also banned depictions of female orgasms if there is visible ejaculation involved — i.e. squirting.

The thought process behind such a decision is to utterly retarded that even Australia — a country that refuses to allow any videogames rated above 15+ into its borders — deserved the benefit of the doubt. The Tumblr post that pointed me to all this, via cjwhite reblogging sneak046 via Templesmith (at least I think that’s the correct order), pointed to this article.

A little Internet searching allowed me to see where it all stemmed from and how the Internet reacted to it:

- Fiona Patten, member of the Australian Sex Party, publishes this press release.

- Michael Meloni of “Somebody Think Of The Children” picked up on this by writing an article with the title “Australia Bans Small Breasts”.

- Ruth Brown of Crikey.com.au tried to see through the internet uproar this caused with this article. Check the comments section of it — both Michael Meloni and Fiona Patten add to the discussion.

- ACB finally responds to the small breasts/female ejaculation bans on Michael Meloni’s site, “Somebody Think Of The Children”.

The latter article confirms that:

1) APPEARING TO BE under eighteen is enough to ban any image or video of your nude body, regardless of age. The ACB says the breast size is not specified on this guideline. But it’s pretty obvious small breasts can be associated with young age.

2) The fetish known as “golden showers” is banned, not orgasmic squirting. Of course, the ACB seems to be a little lost on the difference.

So I think it’s fair to say that, yes, the members of the ACB who contributed to this are utter fucking morons.

Newsflash to these idiots: women under the age of eighteen can, and often have, perfectly big breasts. I found this out on high school. It was a particularly pleasant discovery. If there is indeed a “small breasts” criteria on a guideline that is already staggeringly stupid, then you all should be kicked in the balls.

To prevent people from seeing women — age-checked by the FBI — modeling or performing on adult publications or films due to them APPEARING TO BE younger than their actual, confirmed age because it might “encourage pedophilia” also shows the ACB’s stupidity. You know what could encourage pedophilia?

Yeah, I’d say actual children could very much be more attractive to a pedophile than a young-looking 25-year-old with pigtails. So I guess the next step is to ban all pictures of children. After all, pictures of children could encourage pedophilia, like pictures of corpses could encourage necrophilia, and violent games could encourage violence, and the ACB’s retarded behaviour could encourage the suicide of every person with a shred of common sense.

So let’s ban everything! That’s the solution. Let’s measure the amount of urine in every woman’s squirt to ensure it is indeed urine-free before it’s made public, because GOD FORBID people started pissing on one another! Imagine how quickly society would collapse!

Apparently the ACB has become a worse problem for Australia than their fauna.

AVATAR and DISTRICT 9

THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS OF BOTH FILMS

While DISTRICT 9 has been hailed as one of 2009′s best films (which to me makes 2009 sound like a really bad year for Cinema), AVATAR has suffered a predictable backlash. I’ve read people complaining about the message being too obvious, about the characters being cliched, about the dialogue being badly-written. Now there’s even a box office comparison trying to prove that, if you adjust for inflation, AVATAR isn’t, by far, the highest-grossing film of all time — a position still retained by GONE WITH THE WIND. Let’s ignore for a moment that inflation isn’t the only thing that should be adjusted here; we’re talking about a whole other time period with no Internet, video cassetes, and when TV was at its very birth. Let’s just ask: what does this say about the film’s quality, or any film’s quality? Absolutely fucking nothing.

It seems to me that a lot of people have gone over to the trendy hate, rather than the genuine hate, when it comes to AVATAR. Especially since DISTRICT 9 shares many things with the film, but is apparently an untouchable holy grail.

Let’s break down the similarities:

Both films have obvious messages – Against discrimination and predatory corporations.

Both films have obvious parallels – The Na’vi in AVATAR represent indigenous people, and the Prawns in DISTRICT 9 represent the victims of Apartheid, mostly the black majority of South Africa, where the film itself takes place.

Both films have a protagonist that initially doesn’t care and even believes on the human cause, but eventually turns over to the other side – AVATAR’s Jake Sully is seduced by the Na’vi culture, DISTRICT 9′s Wikus Van De Merwe is turning into a Prawn and has no choice but seek their help, eventually defending them.

Both films have a protagonist with a deficiency – Jake is paraplegic, Wikus is a complete fucking retard.

Both films have stereotypes – AVATAR has the tough military villain, the corporate little shit, the Na’vi who initially doesn’t like the protagonist, etc. DISTRICT 9 has the tough military villain, the corporate little shit, the Prawn who initially doesn’t like the protagonist, etc.

Both films have a mecha-suit battle – Which is of course a good thing. Still, in AVATAR the mecha-suit is made by humans, while in DISTRICT 9 it’s a Prawn invention. This is important for later.

Both films portray corporate greed and inhumanity – The villains in AVATAR don’t see the Na’vi as worth respecting. The villains in DISTRICT 9 try to do a surgical procedure on Wikus with no anaesthetics, and while he’s counscious.

Now, let’s compare:

AVATAR has better direction than DISTRICT 9 – Say what you want about James Cameron’s ability (or lack of) as screenwriter; it’s hard to argue the man knows what he’s doing when it comes to directing a film. AVATAR is beautifully-photographed, with good camera movements and angles, and edited with precision. DISTRICT 9′s Neill Blomkamp, on the other hand, seems unable to hold a camera still, and to pull off the CLOVERFIELD-esque documental style (remember the horrendous gun-mounted camera?).

The stereotypes in AVATAR work better – The military tough guy in AVATAR has a clear motivation: defeating the Na’vi in favor of the human species, and also getting his little revenge for the scar a Na’vi gave him. The military tough guy in DISTRICT 9 is just an irritable fuckhead who doesn’t like Wikus (and who can blame him for that). The corporate little shit in AVATAR finds it easy to do terrible things sitting behind his comfortable desk, but he does show a hint of remorse upon seeing the result of his actions. The corporate little shit in DISTRICT 9 coldly lies to Wikus’ wife — his own daughter –and is actively involved in the cruelty against Wikus. And in neither film does the character-who-initially-doesn’t-like-the-protagonist stereotype work very well.

The dialogue in AVATAR is miles better – And it still isn’t great dialogue, but still, AVATAR has some quotable lines, like the speech the military tough guy gives to his soldiers (“I will not succeed”) or Neytiri explaining to Jake how to get himself an Ikran (“It will try to kill you”). DISTRICT 9, on the other hand, is full of expositional and repetitive dialogue, and has such gems as the moment Wikus expresses he’s not like the Prawns by saying “I’m not fucking like them”, or the moment a character explains the Prawns are called Prawns because “they look like Prawns”.

The mecha-battle in AVATAR kicks DISTRICT 9′s ass – I did mention Cameron is a better director, yes?

The plot in AVATAR has no inconsistencies, DISTRICT 9′s does – Regardless of its quality, the plot in AVATAR makes sense in its own context. Even the deux ex machina in the third act of the film (or, as Brazilian critic Pablo Villaça calls it, eywa ex machina) works due to the way the Na’vi’s deity, Eywa, is portrayed: as a living being that stores information. With DISTRICT 9, I don’t even know where to start, so here’s three paragraphs from my review of this film (here is my AVATAR review as well), the first of which starts with a point I already mentioned:

(…) when the protagonist is captured and becomes a test subject, the scientists are incredibly cruel to him, even though they need his cooperation. And for the love of sheer common sense, how did they expect to perform complicated surgery on him without an anaesthetic? Did they think he’d stay still while they opened his chest? And why didn’t they restrain him properly, knowing he is going through a change that makes him significantly stronger? And for fuck’s sake, why is it that after the protagonist is contaminated, the other characters act like this was always the plan? And why don’t they go visit the place where he was contaminated, if they’re so interested in it? There were witnesses who saw him being contaminated and where that happened, there’s even footage of it. And if the protagonist is such an idiot, why was he promoted? Because his boss is his father-in-law? The same father-in-law who, later in the movie, wants him dead?

Even the mecha-armor introduced in the film has been seen before in better sci-fi movies, like “Aliens”. And again, they only make the film’s paradox even bigger: the Prawns have advanced technology but are not above acting like trailer park rednecks. And even though the huge spaceship floats above Johannesburg for twenty years, literally rotting up there with no way of returning to its home planet, then I fail to understand how the movie’s ending is coherent. Do you expect me to believe that McGuffin (the little tube of fluid) is the solution to everything? The ending, by the way, after portraying all its characters as cunts, expects us to feel emotional at the way the film’s conflicts are resolved.

(…) But once again, the film sabotages itself with preposterousness, like the painfully stupid moment an alien uses a thin sheet of metal that barely covers half his body to shield himself from a constant stream of bullets — and it works for him. In fact, Blomkamp thinks that showing bullets hitting the metal all the time makes it more believable, when all it does is to prove the people shooting have a good aim and could easily shoot the alien’s unprotected legs from under him. And even more hilariously, when the alien drops the sheet of metal and makes a run for it — suddenly everyone forgets how to shoot properly! This same alien, in a certain moment of the film, says “I have an idea”, channels McGyver and assembles a bomb in under two seconds.

Jake Sully is more likeable than Wikus Van De Merwe, although Sam Worthington’s performance is inferior to Sharlto Copley’s – It wouldn’t bother me to see Sharlto Copley getting an academy award for his impressive performance as Wikus, considering he was working with a character who is not only dull-witted (to say the least), but also a prick; the only reasons one can find to care about him is the desperate situation he finds himself in, the fact he’s too stupid to know any better, and Copley’s convincing and intense work. One of DISTRICT 9′s virtues is to embrace such a character, and one of its flaws is not to develop him as much as he deserved; the script will constantly force Copley to make absurd moments sound acceptable, like the scene where Wikus, frustrated, tries to cut his own arm off. Worthington had a safer character to work with in AVATAR, because he’s far more likeable — Jake is flawed, but ultimately good-hearted, interesting in his grunt-like mentality and obsession with recovering the use of his legs. Still, Worthington also delivers, although the best performance in the film is Zoe Saldana’s as Neytiri.

The protagonist’s transition from one side to the other is far more interesting in AVATAR – In DISTRICT 9, Wikus seeks the Prawns’ help out of necessity, and goes over to their side because humans are hunting him anyway. In AVATAR, an entire planet was created by James Cameron and his crew, along with a culture, in order to awe both the protagonist and the audience, justifying his decision to defend the Na’vi from the humans.

The art direction in AVATAR is infinitely better – Come on, is there even a debate here? A planet, an ecosystem and a culture invented in AVATAR versus DISTRICT 9′s “They look like prawns”.

The real-life parallels in AVATAR are way more suited than DISTRICT 9′s – In AVATAR, the indigenous people are represented by another planet’s indigenous people, while still retaining their own identity and uniqueness; the story happening in another planet allows for more fictional elements, like the Na’vi’s extraordinary connection to nature. In DISTRICT 9, the apartheid is criticized while being applied to a completely different situation: an accidental alien invasion on Earth. Black people were treated as, but are obviously not, aliens. That was a particularly shocking aspect of the apartheid: it was a division between human beings, a racial segregation. DISTRICT 9′s prawns, however, are an alien race that, being alien, are obviously very different from human beings, and also an unknown quantity; they haven’t lived in the same planet for thousands of years. Worse, the prawns are actually violent toward humans; in a certain moment of DISTRICT 9, a human acts aggressively toward a prawn (but doesn’t hurt him) and the prawn actually rips the guy’s arm off. Even worse, despite being an intergalactic species that managed to get to Earth, despite inventing a damn mecha-suit, the prawns act like trailer park rednecks. In a certain moment Wikus says the prawns don’t understand the concept of ownership of property, something a few other characters seem to back — yet the prawns are pretty protective of their homes. Which means they do understand the concept, they’re just assholes. A character does say the aliens seen in the film are the “worker” class of the species, who just took orders from their superiors — but this makes no sense, since the prawns seem to be very proud of themselves and completely uncomfortable with being ordered around, among other inconsistencies. In summary: the Na’vi manage to have a parallel with real-life indigenous people while still being consistent and believable in their own, fictional culture. And the prawns, well, “look like prawns”.

You can probably tell by now that in my opinion, AVATAR is a much better film than DISTRICT 9. It’s not that I consider AVATAR a great film — I consider it a flawed gem, and it isn’t one of the year’s best films. I do, however, consider DISTRICT 9 a mindless action flick.

And a bad one at that.

Updates On Daily Life 03 – Censorship Problems

Trying not to panic at how many comic reviews I have to write this week, I realized “Inglourious Basterds” has finally been released in Brazilian cinemas. Yeah, this has happened just yesterday. Welcome to third-world country. I called a friend of mine and we agreed to meet at 20:00 for the 20:40 session. As I usually do, I went to buy the tickets way before that.

At the queue, I notice a potential problem: the poster for “Inglourious Basterds” has a sticker on it that reads “Not Recommended For People Below The Age Of 18″. My friend is 17, but his birthday is tomorrow. Also, it said “Not RECOMMENDED” instead of “Forbidden”. Still, a potential problem. I did not remember having ever watched a 18+ film on the movie theather with someone younger than me, so I couldn’t be sure how things stood now.

Next to it, a potential solution: “District 9″ — which is still on pre-release here, seriously — was for people above 14. There was a session at 21:10, only thirty minutes after “Inglourious Basterds”.

My turn arrived. In the process of buying the tickets for “Inglourious”, the woman made the kind of face you make when you’re about to ask a potentially awkward question and I braced myself. She said:

“Is your friend above 18?”

“No, but his birthday’s tomorrow and I’m above 18.”

“I’m afraid this doesn’t matter, sir. He cannot go in with you,” roughly translated to English, it might sound like she was rude, but she wasn’t.

I said I’d be right back. She kindly told me I could go straight back to her instead of going in the queue again, but I politely refused because I didn’t want to risk causing trouble, plus I’m a patient person (seriously). I tried calling my friend, but some times, it’s easier to get a hold of someone in the International Space Station, so after several tries I gave up, thought for a while, and went back to the queue.

There was no point in arguing, obviously. I wasn’t talking to the rulemakers here. They were just doing their job. But I wanted some doubts cleared up (as quickly as possible to prevent people behind me from waiting longer in queue).

My turn arrives again:

“Hi, I was just here and was told my friend, who is under 18, cannot watch ‘Inglourious Basterds’ with me. I am 19 — that really doesn’t help?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“But here’s what I don’t get — the sticker says it is not recommended, not that it is forbidden.”

Their supervisor heard that and looked at the sticker like he was seeing it for the first time. He joined the discussion, a bit confused.

“Well, er, he can’t go in regardless, sir.”

“So it IS forbidden, correct?”

“Theoretically, you’re right. But we get the stickers straight from the Ministry Of Justice, they’re already like that.”

This baffled me. The people we pay our taxes to either do not have the necessary brainpower or don’t give enough of a shit to do their job properly. Not that this is anything new, but I had hoped it wouldn’t stretch to something as casual as watching a fucking film. Especially because when it’s available in DVD and blu-ray, no-one gives a flying fuck what your age is when you rent it.

But as I said, as far as I knew, I wasn’t talking to the rulemakers, plus I had spent enough of everyone’s time.

“I couldn’t get hold of my friend, so if I buy two tickets for ‘District 9′ and he decides not to watch it, can I give one ticket back and have my money returned?”

They said yes, as long as I did it twenty minutes before the session. Fair enough. I bought the tickets and left the movie theather, thinking about the sheer stupidity of all this all the way home.

I still couldn’t get a hold of my friend, by the way.

UPDATE: He told me he watched “District 9″ YESTERDAY.

Things That Piss Me Off 02 – Silent Protagonists In Games

I find the Half-Life series to be slightly overrated, but for the most part deserving of the praise it gets — despite a lot of that praise bordering on fellation. Let’s be honest: the second game and its episodes follow a very strict formula of go-from-A-to-B-and-get-delayed-by-an-obstacle-or-a-physics-based-puzzle-every-two-minutes-on-the-way-there. Not to mention some of the enemies are annoying, like those fucking manhacks. But it IS a very good series, and the first Half-Life was indeed revolutionary in every aspect, but one of the things it helped popularize (although it isn’t the first case, only the most famous one) is one of the worst gaming trends today: protagonists that don’t speak at all.

I am not sure why anyone thought this was a good idea, but I have some theories:

1) The game’s developers were complete fucking morons.

2) The game’s writers were complete fucking morons.

3) The entire team was comprised of chimps cuffed to computers.

4) The developers thought having the protagonist speak would be a problem because maybe it wouldn’t be what the player controlling him wanted him to say, or even the exact opposite of what the player wanted him to say.

To elaborate on theory 4, let’s try to imagine the development team meeting, with producer Gabe Newell, writer and director Randall Pichford and writer Brain Hess.

PICHFORD: Okay, so it’s decided, we’ll start the game with a cinematic introduction. The player will be relatively free to explore Black Mesa, interact with things and people before the accident.

HESS: Sounds good.

NEWELL: Yeah, but what about the protagonist? What will be his lines? What’s he like?

PICHFORD: …

HESS: We’re still working on that.

NEWELL: We need to start production, guys.

PICHFORD: We’ll think of something. We…

SOME IDIOT: I have an idea!

NEWELL: Let’s hear it.

SOME IDIOT: What if the character says nothing at all throughout the entire game?

NEWELL: …

PICHFORD: …

HESS: …

ENTIRE DEVELOPMENT TEAM: …

NEWELL: Who are you and how did you get in my development team?

SOME IDIOT: No, hear me out! Let’s be honest here: we’re talking about a guy who is a total nerd but can master any weapon as soon as he picks it up and single-handedly defeats an alien invasion AND government troops. How the hell do we turn that into something believable?

HESS: That’s what me and Randall are working on.

SOME IDIOT: With a lot of progress so far, I see.

PICHFORD: Ha fucking ha. So what’s your solution?

SOME IDIOT: I told you already.

PICHFORD: What?! I thought that was a joke!

SOME IDIOT: Nope. Let’s make the protagonist a mute. Only the other characters will speak, like he’s part of the conversation, but leaving the protagonist’s dialogue for the player to imagine.

NEWELL: That isn’t a solution at all. That is absolutely…

A heavy piece of the ceiling breaks off and drops on Newell’s head, briefly making him stagger.

NEWELL: … BRILLIANT! What a genius idea! Innovative and narratively perfect!

HESS: Gabe? Are you okay? You should sit down…

NEWELL: FUCK THAT! We have a game to make! Let’s make copies of the script for the team to…

PICHFORD: The script isn’t finished, the protagonist has no lines –

NEWELL: PERFECT! I want the first 3D models ready TODAY, crew! La la la!

Newell walks toward the door, hits the wall instead and passes out.

PICHFORD: You have no idea what you have done.

SOME IDIOT: What? It’s not like EVERY game will start doing the same thing!

Anyway. Theories 1 and 3 do not seem likely, since Half-Life was very well-developed and got a staggering number of things right, not to mention all the innovations it brought.

2 is not as far-fetched, but the Half-Life series is far from being badly written. Not to mention it’s the same writing team responsible for the magnificent “Portal”.

So, let’s work on theory 4. I understand the intention behind this. Developers want to offer you total control of your character, they don’t want him to say things you don’t mean him to say. What these developers missed is that some people, me included, want their character to say SOMETHING. In “Half-Life 2″, everyone who sees you — the nerd one-man-army Gordon Freeman — makes some kind of comment. Rebels are praising you, Combine are hunting you, Alyx is totally in love with your nerdy ass and you don’t say ANYTHING at all about any of that.

Here’s a list of things Gordon Freeman could say, in no particular chronologic order:

“Guys? No need to talk about me, talk TO ME. I’m right here.”

“HELP! GET ME OUT OF THIS CHAMBER!”

“No. No, I won’t let you wait here while I solve yet another physics-based puzzle. If I have to cross a lake of radioactive chemicals, the least you could do is to help me pick up the wooden crates.”

“What are you talking about? Resistance? Nobody asked me if I want to participate on any rebel movem — HEY, what is this?! I don’t want this goddamn rocket launcher. STOP PUSHING ME TOWARDS THE STRIDER, YOU CUNT!”

“Hey, could you help me? I just defeated an alien invasion on Black Mesa, blinked and now I’m in a Orwellian nightmare. What the fuck happened?”

“G-Man, sorry if it’s a personal question but… do you have throat cancer?”

“No, I never had any advanced weapons training. I’ve always been a nerd. Why do you ask?” *looks at room of Combine soldiers he’s just murdered practically by himself* “Oh. Well, maybe something in my genes…”

“Where did I learn to drive makeshift jeeps perplexingly well? Bah, it’s like riding a bycicle.”

“Er, no offense, Dr. Kleiner, but NO WAY I’m getting into a teleporter machine that looks like a gigantic blender.”

“Alyx, could you please vault over that railing again? Let me just get a better angle. It’s for science, darling, really. Okay. On three. One, two, three.” *whispering to himself* “Goddamn what a great ass…”

“No, I said ‘goddamn what a great mass’. Of iron. On the railing.”

See? It isn’t that hard. Even if, unlike me, you’re trying to be serious about it.

Really, you CAN’T have full control of your character. That doesn’t happen, and even if one day it does happen I’m not particularly interested — because if full control means waggling a Wiimote around and mimicking movements, count me out. Interactivity, for now, only goes a certain way, and having mute protagonists does not disguise that.

Recently, I finished “Mass Effect”, and considered it one of the greatest games I’ve ever played, with a rich universe and a very good plot (I should make clear I’m biased, since I love sci-fi and astronomy). Part of why it is so compelling, is that your character doesn’t say ANYTHING — without your permission. There are multiple lines of dialogue to choose from (not to mention important decisions regarding the game’s events), and the ones I chose on my first play-through did not cause any problems to the game’s exceptional story. My second play-through, with a different character and therefore choosing other dialogue options, is still underway and going fine so far.

I’m not saying EVERY game needs multiple dialogue choices, but if you want to give the player more control over his character, go for THAT, not removing the character’s fucking mouth. I’m perfectly fine with no dialogue choices, but I’d like dialogue — it might make me like the protagonist, it might make me dislike him, it’s a risk every other narrative medium takes and a risk that is the writer’s responsability to be careful with.

And if the protagonist must be mute — for fuck’s sake ACKNOWLEDGE IT. Don’t have the other characters behave like he’s partipating in the conversation. It makes them all sound like they hear voices in their heads.

But I must be fair — there was one game where the protagonist being mute did not bother me. The game’s atmosphere and story were still great. Surprisingly, no, that game isn’t “Call Of Duty 4 – Modern Warfare”. In fact, that is the ONLY aspect of that game I did not love, otherwise it’s fantastic. But anyway, here’s the game I mean:

“Dead Space”.

Why is that, I wonder? Maybe because I can see the protagonist, this being a third-person game. His body language said a lot, and even his breathing had some personality to it. I guess that helped. I still think him saying something would have improved him, but “Dead Space” is one of the few — maybe the only game — where I could easily overlook this.

I can promise you this, games industry: if the character I control in a game says something I do not agree with, that’s perfectly fine as long as it’s coherent with HIS personality. I did not agree with Niko Bellic’s methods in GTA 4. I still had a lot of fun running over pedestrians and shooting people. That’s the great thing about games: immersing yourself in a new, different world and having fun with the possibilities.

And if my character says something stupid, unreasonable, incoherent with his personality and other negative adjectives, I will not accuse you of trying to take away my interactivity and freedom.

What I will accuse you of is having some really bad writers.

Things That Piss Me Off 01 – Public Bathroom Stuff

I love these kinds of posts.

(What a great way to start “Things That Piss Me Off”, with the words “I love”)

Public bathrooms, then.

Let’s start with hand dryers, those high-tech motion-sensor-activated machines someone thought would be more effective than ripping two pieces of paper out a small plastic box. I try to remember a day when I had trouble using paper to wipe my hands. All I got was the day I ripped two and it wasn’t enough, so I ignored the writing on the plastic box (“Two is enough to dry your hands”, fuck you) and ripped a third one.

But apparently someone didn’t think paper was the final solution for hand-drying in public bathrooms. Perhaps said someone actually had trouble with the paper, maybe he had obsessive-compulsive disorder and ripped fifteen of them, and decided everyone else would also fall victim to such urge, causing the world to run out of paper or something. Or maybe he was just one of those rich smug cunts who think their hands are too valuable to be wiped by, erk, PAPER.

And the hand dryer was born. The ones I hate the most are the motion sensor ones, since its designers clearly think BUTTONS are for thumbless homo erectus. However, being thumbless homo erectus themselves, the designers couldn’t get the motion sensor to, you know, sense motion, so invariably you end up passing your hands below the thing until eventually you’re almost uppercutting it to get it to spew hot wind –

– which often is TOO HOT. It’s a bit complicated to dry your hand when the machine is actually trying to burn the skin off of it. This usually happens on the ones activated by buttons, since the designers had to get SOMETHING wrong after they got one thing right.

(although “right” would have consisted of using the hand dryer to bludgeon its creator to near death, then dry the blood off of him just for a really specific revenge, then kill him)

Another delightful way to dry your hands is, of course, what I call the we-swear-it’s-clean-towel-machine. That hugely hygienic towel that you roll and roll like unrippable paper until you get a bit of it that seems unused (emphasis on “seems”) and wipe your hands (and/or face) on it, trying to ignore the stench of the roughly seven hundred and fifty people who used it before you. I am completely sure that is a small towel that rolls into a very tight mechanism that straightens it out and makes it look unwrinkled and fresh.

And people look at me funny when I dry my hands by flailing them around.

Let’s not forget the public bathroom PEOPLE, too. Oh yes. Starting with those who, as soon as they set foot in the bathroom, before the door has even closed behind them, already unzip their pants, pull their dong out and walk to the still-ten-feet-away urinal while holding the lot on their hands. I can only conclude these people are badly incontinent and also jerks, since they prefer to risk pissing all over other people’s shoes rather than their own velvet pants.

Not to mention the ones who completely ignore the several empty urinals and go take a piss on the toilets, probably missing the target and spilling some on the seats several unlucky arses will sit on. All because they don’t want us – the strange, ruthless race who pisses where we’re supposed to – to find out that they have cocks. So they are suspecting I’d check their stuff out, which implies they’re calling me gay or at the very least curious, which CAN be kind of an insult if you get your tone of voice mean enough.

(okay, so I used to be part of those piss-on-toilets people, when I was an insecure teenager — although I also hate insecure teenagers, so call me a fucking hypocrite)

I also hate janitors, because of the Janitor Mystery: I’ve never seen a janitor USE a bathroom. That’s infuriating. So I hate them too.

I’m going to the movies tomorrow, so I’m already ranting at public bathrooms in advance, you see. Thanks for enduring this.