Metacritic Taunts Me.

Something Ebert said miffed me. In his review of The Dark Knight, he said this:

"Batman" isn't a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy.It creates characters we come to care about. That's because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production.
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

You're wrong Ebert! "Comic books" have been like The Dark Knight for a long time now. How can Nolan's film "leap beyond its origins" when The Dark Knight is the best comic book movie to emulate its source material, it's mythos, on screen?

As much as I hate to admit it, it seems that despite movies like The Dark Knight, people still think that comic books "can't be that good."

Of course, the existence of superdickery.com proves me wrong. But that's like using Homo Erectus to point out the faults of Homo Sapiens.

All in all, I can't blame Ebert. It's his opinion after all - half the world knows Adam Wests's Batman, and the Superfriends, and the other half knows The Dark Knight Returns, The Long Halloween, and The Killing Joke.

The Avatar Weekend.

The torrents have been fruitful. Only a few more hours, and two more episodes to go. I had to choose between the Avatar: The Legend of Aang Finale (and an afternoon with the family) or an afternoon screening of afternoon screening of The Dark Knight.

Sorry Ledger, baby saliva always win.

Moriarty does it again.

Unlike Harry Knowles, Moriarty generally tries to stay away from hyperbole or any other reference to orgasms or release of reproductive bodily fluids.

He's a great reviewer -- I know that -- his latest one however, still managed to catch me off guard.

I am now more than eager to watch Hellboy 2, and The Dark Knight. Sad that Mr. Ledger is dead and all that. Oh well, such is life.

On a tangent, yes, before watching some movies, I let others think for me. I like going to something with preconceptions and prejudices. That way, if I'm proven wrong, it's always a pleasant surprise. (Why is tricking one's self such a round-a-bout process sometimes?)

Having said that, will the two comic book movies manage to surprise me? I hope. I wish.

Watch the Watchmen

The first watchmen production video journal can be observed here. Or here...

Hellboy II gets a better trailer...

You're talking about storytelling? Rewatch War of the Worlds.

I was surfing around gametrailers.com today for entertainment and general intertubes lulz, and for some reason, the several-months-old Final Fantasy Retrospective feature caught my attention.

I clicked the link, watched several of the shorts, and one particular line that was said in the short about Final Fantasy VII caught my attention. The narrator quoted Stephen Spielberg who apparently, said this:

"I think the real indicator will be when somebody confesses that they cried at level 17."

So, what's so so special about the line? Well it turns out, that at the time -- around 2004 -- Spielberg said that to a class of film students. His stand was that games weren't quite there yet as medium to tell stories.

This got me a bit miffed. So I did what I could to track down that quote of Spielberg on Google. Eventually, it lead me to an article defending storytelling in videogames and that specific videogame CG cutscene, where, it's safe to say for certain that a whole lot of us gamers cried: the Death of Aeris.

I think from the pundits -- and Spielberg's point of view -- a lot of the storytelling moments in videogames fail to stand on their own. The acting always seems off, the lines seem forced, and the camera angles all feel off, but I think the author of the article I linked to hit the nail on the head with these lines:

What has been missed here is the context for the scene that comes from playing the game itself.

The whole base of the discussion on that slide is ludicrous. His contrasting point was the opening section of Kingdom Hearts II. Who would try to compare the two to five hour mix of gameplay and scenes that make up the opening sequence of Kingdom Hearts II and a one minute clip long clip that is shown 40 hours into the 10-year-old FFVII? We don't do this when discussing traditional film. You're not going to find an article out there decrying the state of current film making by taking the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene out of "Apocalypse Now" and trying to deconstruct it without taking the rest of the film into account. And we're not going to start trying to compare the special effects with the first half of "Black Hawk Down" or "Saving Private Ryan". But the essential silliness of this exercise only scratches the surface.

Cutscenes in a game have more to do than an equivalent piece of traditional film. They don't just tell story. They have to support the game, and the game is an integral part of experiencing them.

Yep, context is pretty much paramount if you're going to squeeze any amount of emotion out of videogames.

For example, a 10 minute "History of the Legend of Zelda" audio-video piece from Video Games Live is saw on YouTube once got me to cry. Also, whenever I hear the opening theme of Final Fantasy VII or the smooth piano notes of Kingdom Heart's "Dearly Beloved," I get chills down my spine. I bet that a person completely unfamiliar with Link, Aeris, or Sora wouldn't have a similar experience.

I think that like any other medium, you get out of it what you put in. Games just tend ask for a whole lot more involvement from its audience than movies or books.