February 14, 2006
Videogames=Bilingual
Finally some justification for all those hours and hours spent playing video games. It turns out that heavy videogame players are as adept at difficult mental puzzles as those that speak two languages. Both groups are able to adeptly surpress distractions and switch rapidly between mutlitple tasks. This may help keep them more mentally active and alert as they age. Take that mom!
Posted by Ripley at 01:36 PM | Comments (611) | TrackBack
February 07, 2006
The making of a not quite lexicon entry
I know that many of our loyal readers probably wonder where all the great ideas for Lexicon entries come from. Below is a sample of the genius in action.
[12:45] Hey you're alive.
[12:45] DJDuk: this aint livin'
[12:45] Ripley: But yet you choose to keep doing it.
[12:46] DJDuk: chose nothing. I'm an addict. If I don't get my money fix I get all jittery and homeless
[12:46] Ripley: That's not true. I am sure that your parents would take pity on you and just assign you some slave labor in exchange for your room and board.
[12:47] DJDuk: clearly you don't kow my parents
[12:47] DJDuk: damn typos
[12:47] DJDuk: please don't kow my parents, they deserve to live
[12:47] Ripley: I think I could kow your parents.
[12:49] DJDuk: kow: n, to strike repeatedly from a distance with overcooked meat. typically resulting in death. In the bible many things were punished by stoning, but the most unrepentant perps faced death by kow
[12:49] DJDuk: or maybe not
[12:49] Ripley: Lexicon entry.
[12:49] DJDuk: that needs some editing before it'll work
Posted by Ripley at 04:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 06, 2006
"Doom"
I saw the movie Doom this weekend. Before I saw the movie my mother accidentally referred to it as "Boom" and its star the Rock as "The Block." Though factually incorrect, I find this to be quite perceptive. It was almost exactly as I expected it would be, which leaves me feeling a bit ashamed that I walked out disappointed. I had hoped, since they were going to make a cheesy action film anyway that they might at least stay true to the videogame. Instead, we got something much closer to Silent Hill on Mars. The thing that really caught me about this movie was what wasn't in it. No color-coded doors, no demons or hellish invasion, no endless stream of inventive monsters, no plasma rifle. Most keenly, no Shotgun. That right there should make all good Doom players sad.
Also no plot, really, so I don't feel bad about giving it away. It starts with The Rock in the caring surrogate father role for a bunch of marines to which he is the commanding officer, their Sarge. Their leave has been cancelled and they are being sent to Mars to deal with some unspecified crisis. Clearly, they're doomed, pun intended. Their route to Mars is via the Ark, an ancient teleporter left on Earth by aliens some time ago. Got to give these marines credit for extreme paranoia. Even entering a friendly facility, in the United States, with no indication of danger, and simply to attend a debriefing, they move in tactical formation and make certain to point loaded firearms at every civilian they come across. Even before the plot calls for it, you can see that endangering civilians is a major part of being a marine. The Rock begins at this point to play a second role, bearing no relation to the first, in which he is the tough as nails, no guts no glory, Patton was a pussy, shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out marine. Also, look around the hallways they travel through here. If you don't like these hallways leave the theatre. From here to the end of the movie, this is the set. This same pair of two hallways and one room shot in different light and with varying amounts of blood splashed about. The marines teleport to Mars and begin the not quite fast enough process of whittling away supporting cast members. The process is extended by the large number of throwaway characters introduced just so not all the people with names have to die right away. It’s a predictable pattern for a while, info dump some plot point, have a tension scene, somebody dies. The plot is laughable but the tension scenes manage to be quite intense. They have some good jumps and there's enough misdirection that it manages to be exciting. They run in that vein until they discover that the monsters are diseased people and that one of them has already teleported to Earth. They decide to abandon Mars, teleport to Earth and kill everyone. I rather started rooting for the monsters at this point. The Rock assumes the role of evil military guy and starts spouting low grade "in order to save the bridge it was necessary to destroy the bridge" type dialogue and begins to slaughter all of the civilians because they might carry the "become and evil monster" disease. One of the marines and his sister reveal that they don't have to slaughter the innocent but Rocky is in full evil mode and just starts killing his own team. After a timely zombie interruption, good marine and sister run off. Eventually Good marine fights Evil Zombie infected Rock to rescue his sister. The fight wasn't that impressive and I spend most of the time wondering how they keep going from the top of the complex to the bottom in 15 steps and why they didn't use that route when the place was filled with Zombies and they were in a hurry.
Despite some decent horror movie jumps the movie Doom ultimately is less fun than just shouting the word "Doom!" Makes a bit less sense too. Given a plot that makes no sense, schizophrenic characters with multiple abrasive personalities, and the severe lack of a shotgun Doom comes up short of even the modest expectation I hold for a video game movie starring the Rock. My recommendation, it'll be worth your time to see it if you didn't pay anything.
Posted by DjDuk at 12:43 AM | Comments (597) | TrackBack