Movie Night

I have a terrible record when it comes to picking movies. The biggest problem is that my family at large has such diverse tastes, none of which seem to intersect with mine. One might like murder mysteries, the other wants a silent film, still others might want artsy French films. But you can bet most of them won't want to see old cyberpunk movies or anything too post-modern.

Ordinarily I chock this up to no one having the patience for ambiguous narratives or stories that explore really weird subjects in detail (like cybernetic police officers). But sometimes I find a movie even I'm embarrassed to admit I like. Movies like these...

The Fifth Element

In retrospect, I don't think it's fair to include The Fifth Element on this list, because no one in their right mind would be ashamed to say they like this movie. But it certainly sets the tone for the other two: it's silly and it's futuristic. If anything, it's helpful to see The Fifth Element as a standard of measurement.

Basically, your movie needs to have as few degrees of separation from The Fifth Element as possible. Like, as a matter of principle.

Cube 2: Hypercube

Make no mistake, the original Cube was great. It was suspenseful, terrifying and mystifying. No explanation is given for what's happening, people just wake up in the cube, die horribly and are presumably forgotten. It's frightening because it's so inexplicable, the characters are victims of some unseen, abstract bureaucracy, almost as if there is no outside world, just the cube. The traps, the kidnapping, the whole structure is so mind-boggling in it's pointlessness. Yet there it is, at once impossible, huge and disquieting in it's technical feasibility. It's like one of it's own occupants said, "Either you use it, or you admit it's pointless." It's the closest Franz Kafka has ever come to film.

The sequel tried to retain this mystery, while offering some explanation for who's responsible for the cubes. While I think their intentions were good and it generally works well, the acting is a little...stiff and there are certain characters which will wear on your patience just a teensy bit. Depending on who you ask, the fact that practically the whole movie takes place in a featureless white void isn't helping.

See that picture up there? Good. I just saved you ninety-five minutes of watching more or less the exact same scene.

But on the other hand, this movie throws around all the buzzwords I like: hypercube, tesseract, four-dimensional, variable time. Let's face it, this movie is downright abstract. How could I not be in love with it? In any case, I think it's clean, white aesthetic is better than the first cube. It certainly feels more otherworldly.

Sure, the CGI hasn't aged well at all. In fact, I suspect that it wasn't even all that good when it came out. But that's why I love it's effects so much; I sincerely love that old, 1990's style of computer graphics where everything's big, shiny, unconvincing geometrical objects. It looks like something out of a Mind's Eye movie.

But even if you don't like it for any of these reasons, there's one thing no one can deny: This movie had the best theme song in the series:

Ultraviolet

I'm pretty sure this was the movie that started the trend of casting Milla Jovovich as some kind of genetically engineered super-being that can't be killed by anything else in the script. The story, such as it is, is that evil weapons researchers found a fatal virus and started to breed more and more deadly strains until it escaped from their labs and spread, becoming a global pandemic. Those infected were forced to wear arm-bands, and rounded up in camps to be exterminated. But there's a twist.

The infected? They mutated into vampires.

Vampires with super-human reflexes and kung-fu skills apparently, although they're called hemophages. Understandably upset, they try to bring down the oppressive medical establishment, resulting in lots of explosions and ludicrous action scenes. There's also something about a young boy who's been engineered to be a perfect weapon against the disease, but it's not all that important really.

The funny thing is how the whole vampire plot is completely downplayed to the point of irrelevance. In fact, if no one bothered to tell you about it, it'd be exceedingly easy to miss any subtext indicating that Jovovich is supposed to be some blood-sucking creature of the night. This is because so many other vampire movies had come out at the same time; Underworld, Blade and Thirty Days of Night that they wanted to set themselves apart a bit. Despite this, characters will still appear partway though with silly looking buck teeth and no explanation offered for why, besides that they're the victim of some vague, unexplained plague symptoms.

In practice, none of this has anything to do with the actual movie. You'll be too distracted by the bright oversaturated colors and the jittery, clumsy choreography to notice any of that. But if the plot really means that much to you, I suggest you go watch Equilibrium instead. It's practically the exact same movie, by the exact same director with the added benefit of being marginally less stupid.

But I think what I hate the most about Ultraviolet is that seeing it was like seeing a check-list of every awful cliche I was obsessed with when I was fourteen years old. You have the big evil government, a deadly plague, and absolutely everyone seems to be wearing a gas mask. Even the dialog sounds like the kind of thing I would put in my stapled-together comic books. To a normal person this is just a cheesy, silly movie. But to me it's a painful reminder of all the terrible ideas I had when I was younger and how irritating I must have been.

...Which is precisely why I love this movie. Because deep down, even though I refuse to admit it, I still think stupid things like gun-swords and anti-gravity motorcycles are cool. So many gadgets are introduced and never explained, that the viewer is forced to give up and accept a world of flamethrower pistols and car chases up the side of buildings. Why? Because, like, they zoomed in on her belt once and had some kind of funky electricity coming out so it must be doing something.

---

Now keep in mind this isn't a comprehensive list of enjoyably bad movies. This isn't even a complete list of bad movies I enjoy. Who knows, maybe next week I'll have one about Starship Troopers or Army of Darkness. You'll just have to stay tuned.

MEGADAMAGE: 80's Edition

Is it a coincidence that just a few days after I write a post about Tripods, the spacecraft carrying the Curiosity Rover is making it's final maneuver over the planet Mars? Could it be that maybe, just maybe I'm an agent from the future here to warn the Human race about an impending Martian invasion using vague codewords in blog-form?

If I am I'm not doing a good job if it because I've been reading reviews about movies for most of the day, so sorry about that people of the future.

Speaking of movies, the 80's certainly was an crazy time for movie monsters. It seemed like everywhere you looked, there was a hyper-aggressive killing machine right around the corner, just waiting to tear you to ribbons or lay eggs in your stomach. I've been contemplating 80's movie monsters for a while now. For some reason, everything from this era seems so blood-thirsty, so implacable. Why? Was it all the cocaine and voting for Reagan? Maybe the acid used to wash everyone's jeans drove them all mad.

In any case, it makes one wonder what would happen if you got all these 80's movie monsters together in one room. When they all inevitably fight to the death, who will be left standing? For today's simulation I have gathered what I consider to be the best examples of 80's movie monsters and pitted them in mortal combat. Before we start however, in order for this simulation to work we have to assume the Alien Versus Predator movies never happened, mainly because they were horrible.

With that, we start our voyage into the mist of time.

The year is 1986, the place: Los Angeles, California. The air is thick with smog. Men in white coats strut around without any socks. Jheri curls threaten to eat everyone's head and everything smells of hair spray. Suddenly, a bright blue light appears in a darkened alleyway. Huge bolts of lightning shoot out as a sphere of reflective energy forms in midair. A large Austrian man jumps out, the look of death boring it's way out of his steely, faintly glowing eyes.

Completely by coincidence, a spaceship flies overhead and drops a tall, dark figure on a nearby rooftop. With neither Daniel Glover nor Gary Busey anywhere to be found, this interstellar entity, this...Predator quietly makes it's assessment of the city and spots it's prey: the strange naked man babbling about some "Sarah Connor".

ROUND ONE!



At first, it looks like the Predator has the clear upper hand; there's no end to the silly weapons he has at his disposal. He has a razor sharp frisbee, ninja stars, those crazy wrist blades and if that picture is anything to go by some kind of...blow dryer on his shoulder?

Okay, it actually shoots molten hot plasma, but I'm sure there's a lower setting. He has to take care of that tentacle-hair somehow. Meanwhile, the Terminator has...nothing. One of the stipulations of Terminator-style time travel is that you can't bring anything back in time unless it's covered in meat. Why inorganic matter can't go back in time, I'm not really sure why. But in any case this leaves our potential Governator defenseless until he finds a bumbling gun store owner to hand over all his weapons.

So it leaves the question, can our robot from the future find some clothes, some boots and a motorcycle before his head is sliced off by an alien in fishnets? We're going to assume it can, so now we have a heavily armed Terminator with all kinds of shotguns and sub-machine guns hidden in it's coat and some very suspicious LA citizens wondering what's going on.

Suddenly, the Predator leaps down from a nearby rooftop and pins Arnold to the ground. There's a loud metallic clang as his long, serrated wrist blades shoot outward and are plunged into the Terminator's chest. Blood starts oozing out. As far as the Predator's concerned, it's real. Everything about this poor sap looks like a real person. Our interstellar hunter, thinking himself victorious, starts thinking of a handsome place on it's space-mantlepiece for it's skull.

But something's not right, this is generating too much heat to be a normal person and in spite of having two huge hunks of metal sticking out of it's chest it isn't dead.

Suddenly a strange noise, like heavy-duty hydraulics muffled by layers of synthetic flesh fills the air as the Predator is grabbed by the neck and hoisted into a nearby shop window. Struggling to get up after falling on a store mannequin, it feels the strong grip of robotic hands pull it up again, trying to crush it's neck.

It meets the cold, impassive gaze of the Terminator. A faint red glow spills out from it's eyes, so intent on killing it. The Predator uses it's blow dryer gun to get free from the mechanical death grip. Still in the store it was hurtled through, it opens fire. Beams of hot plasma burst through the air, setting the entire building on fire. In the confusion, the Predator leaps outside and starts doing a little victory dance.

The smell of burning nylon is oppressive, and shrapnel from exploding hairspray cans fly though the air. But it seems that this mysterious serial killer from the future is finally dead.



But then this happens.

The Predator is stunned, it's mandibles hang wide open as it sees this robot skeleton-thing walk out of the fire, virtually unscathed.

"You're terminated." It says at it lifts it's gun to fire.

The Predator escapes using it's cloaking device, but it's still hit in the hail of gunfire, leaving a trail of luminous green blood as it flees into the streets of LA. It's already too late. It's the first rule of combat: if it bleeds, you can kill it. The chase is long and bloody, hundreds of innocent civilians die as these two otherworldly titans of war grind each other down, but at the end of the day, there lies the Predator: dying, gasping for breath. It's weapons lie smashed by it's side. Over it looms the impassive shape of the dented and scorched death-robot. As it raises it's metal leg to smash in it's skull it tries to dial in the code for it's self-destruct device. But it's too little too late.

The point goes to the Terminator!

ROUND TWO!!

Los Angeles lies in ruin. As day turns to night, huge fires burn on the horizon. Riots start to break out. Just when things couldn't get any worse, Micheal Douglas appears and starts a vindictive rampage across the city, taking his revenge on lunch hour cheeseburgers everywhere. Worse yet, the Terminator is still out there and it wants everyone's blood. It cuts a swath of destruction across the city, it seems like nothing can stop it's death march.

But suddenly the killbot stops in it's tracks. Still holding a baby in it's cold, unfeeling robot hands it stares off into space. Little does the world know that something is interfering with it's transmissions from the future, something sinister, a machine intelligence that rivals Skynet for sheer depravity and malevolence.

"H-h-h-h-hey th-th-th-there Mr. Coffee." The voice says after it hacks into the Terminator's brain.



With no warning, Max Headroom assumes direct control of the Terminator and starts his own war against Humanity.

"C-c-catch the wave!" He says as he unleashes a barrage of missiles, destroying a Pepsi truck. It seems all is lost. Without any space-Jamaicans to defend them, the nations of the world are powerless against the machine armies of the future. It seems like the only thing that could destroy this silvery war machine is another machine, equal in destructive power, but still able to feel Human emotion. What they need is something with, dare we say, a soul.



RoboCop might stretch your definition of a monster, but the details of his creation are gruesome enough so I'll allow it. In any case, he confronted the smashed, barely functioning Terminator. Recognizing similarities in their technology, Max Headroom offered an alliance. But RoboCop wasn't having any of it. He broke the law, killing innocent civilians, thus he needed to be brought to justice.

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me." He said.

The Headroominator lunged forward and tried to claw at RoboCop's face. But he punched it with his Robofist, sending the already damaged machine falling backwards into the street.

"You have the right to remain silent." He said as he picked up the crumpled remains of the death machine. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." With the combined force of all his actuators, he threw the robot through a brick wall.

"You have the right to an attorney." RoboCop picked the Terminator up again and started crushing it in his palms.

"If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you." He said as he threw the robot through another wall. The remains were in a crumbled heap outside, completely devoid of life.

"Do you understand these rights I have just read to you?"

ROUND THREE!!!

RoboCop is left standing in the middle of the street, his job basically done. But suddenly his sensors detect something. There's a rustling behind some old trash cans. Then he realizes it: a set of teeth, sparkling under the street lights. With a hiss, they separate into a big, toothy grin, only to reveal even more teeth.

A huge black shape lunge out from the darkness. A black, smooth body with a long sinewy tail ending in a long blade. He throws the creature to the side and draws his gun to fire. He stands his ground, trying to read some expression on it's eyeless face.



But the only thing it registers is an otherworldly hunger.

"Your move, creep." He says.

The alien lunges at him and starts tearing at his metallic armor. RoboCop fires into it's elongated head, spraying it's sickly yellow blood all over the alley. As he struggles with the angry creature he realizes with horror that small streams of smoke are erupting from his chest. He's melting.

His leg joints give way and he falls to the ground. The alien is standing over him, thick saliva drips from it's mouths. It's tail is poised to run through his head. RoboCop's vision starts to fade, the last thing he sees are teeth. Dozens of teeth rushing towards his face.

ROUND FOUR!!!!

Los Angeles is going up in flames as the night drags on. More and more Terminators pour in through the gap in space time. Dreadlock bedecked space aliens drop from the skies in ever greater numbers, turning the city in their own personal game preserve. Now, slavering, inhuman monsters are on the loose, looking to turn unsuspecting Humans into an incubator for their disgusting larvae. It seems no one can saved the Earth from it's inevitable destruction.

But one angsty teenager challenges this fate. She wants revenge, because in the midst of this horrible crisis a crime has been committed. These aliens and enemies from the future are guilty of forgetting her sixteenth birthday.



Molly Ringwald: Alien Slayer. With the M41A Pulse Rifle she plundered from the future, she guns down the alien that killed RoboCop. Then, she goes to the prom, but only because there's more aliens to kill.

ROUND FIVE!!!!!

Molly arrives at the prom. "Big surprise." She thinks. Everyone here is already dead, even Brad the linebacker. In life, he was the most gorgeous boy on the team. She never had the courage to speak to him, even when she saw him staring at her from his locker. Now, he was laying on the ground, cold and lifeless. The sparkle in his eyes had left, replaced with a dead, uncanny stare. His rip cage was torn open from the inside out. A trail of blood drew from his body to the front exit. Whatever tore itself from his chest, some kind of chestburster, was running through the streets, looking for more victims.

The only sound came from the skipping record on the turn table, playing the same chorus over and over.

Forever young, I want to be, forever young...

The banners are all torn. The punch bowl has been shattered, glass shards lying on the basketball court. Everyone was dead, except for a single figure. Silently hunched over, looking forlornly at the desolation. Cautiously, Molly approached the figure. As she got closer, she could here a faint chirping coming from it's fleshy mandibles. Up close, she could see the slimy texture of it's sickly, pale skin.

"Youth is a precious thing." It said in a rasping voice. It was grasping a girls arm in it's long talons. Molly had no idea where the rest of the girl was. "I'm sorry this happened."

"This is your fault?" She said.

"No, but I was working on a technology similar to what Skynet is using. I made a teleporter...it turned me into this..."



The creature motioned to it's hairy, misshapen body. She looked into it's black inhuman eyes, watching her own reflection as it stared at her.

"My name is Seth Brundle." It said. "I was once a man."

"What...what happened to you?"

"It was an accident. But when I tested my teleportation pod for the first time a fly was in the test chamber. When I preformed the experiment, our genes were spliced. Over time I turned into...this." The BrundleFly sighed. "That's chaos theory..."

Molly's head was spinning. In just a single day her whole world had turned upside down. So many thoughts were racing through her head. Skynet. Teleportation. Even, time travel? That wasn't possible, was it? To think, just this morning the worst thing she thought could happen was her parents forgetting her birthday. Now here she was, maybe the last girl in the continental United States and she was talking to a mutant fly.

This really is the worst day of my life, She thought.

"I don't get it, why all this? Why now?"

"This world has been chosen as a battleground." The BrundleFly said. "See, we're not the only Universe out there. There's infinitely many alternate realities, where every choice has been made. For every choice you make in your life, reality splits. The Universe is constantly splitting into more and more convergent realities. Infinitely many!"

The BrundleFly motioned to a glass of punch with it's long talons.

"See how the liquid drips down the side of the glass? Because of microscopic imperfections in the glass, the droplets will never follow the same path twice. In our Universe, it drips to the left, but in another, it drips to the right."

"That's chaos theory?" Molly said. The BrundleFly shook it's head.

For a while, they both sat in the gym, watching the glass. The two last sane beings on a dying Earth.

"It's only fair to warn you," The Fly said after a long silence. "This isn't the worst to come."

"What could be worse than, like, robot skeletons?"

"There are things from even worse planes of existence. They're converging on this Universe. When they come, these...things, then that's it. Checkmate."

ROUND SIX

Los Angeles was in ruins. All the buildings were burnt to the ground, roving bands of Terminators weave their way through the streets.

A saucer loomed over over the city, scanning the destruction below. A cruel intellect sits at the helm. A mind so utterly alien and without compassion it defies Human conventions. It is an entity completely without sense of pity. It lives to assimilate all life, turning the Universe into more of itself. Worse yet, there is no way to stop it. Every single cell of it's being is totally devoted to complete intergalactic conquest. As long as a single particle of it survives, we are all at jeopardy. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are it. It is an entity of such manifold depravity that words fail to describe it. There is no name that it can answer to.



We can only call it The Thing.

As it descends to Earth, everyone lowers their weapons. They know the war is over; some flee, others choose to self-destruct. The Triffid legions wither and die at the sight of it. The Terminators shut down, seeing any further resistance to be illogical. Those that still fight are slowly picked off, one by one, and absorbed. No one knows who to fight, because the Thing hides in perfect imitations. It seems life, after so much blood shed and so much war, has finally come to an end.

But suddenly, there's a flash of light in the distance. The Things disregard it as an errant bolt of plasma.

Then another.

With a thunderous crash, a bright, silvery vehicle appears out of the time vortex. A car; tires sputtering as they land on solid ground, trailing huge streams of fire as they screech to a halt. A series of loud beeps signal it's arrival: the time machine.

With steely conviction, the Things across the world prepare themselves for whatever is inside. As the gull wing doors open a cloud of steam pours out. Millions of teeth, tentacles, claws and plasma guns all wait, poised to rip and tear. As the smoke clears the time traveler is revealed and the Thing recoils in horror.

With a single word, the time traveler announces it's arrival...



"EXTERMINATE!" "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

"ALL-IN-FER-I-OR-LIFE-FORMS-MUST-BE-EX-TER-MIN-AT-ED!!!"



"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!!! EXTERMINATE!!!"

EXTERMINAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE!!!

Well Actually You Forgot the Rest of the World

Looking back, the last post was...well depressing. So to make up for letting all you good people take a look into the deep unhappiness in the innermost recesses of my subconscious I will share with you something near and dear to me: movie posters.

Movie posters from Poland to be exact.

You see, not to long ago it was pretty hard for people in Eastern Europe to get a hold of good old American movies and even when they could get their hands on the films they usually came without any promotional material...such as posters.

So, or so they say, the people of Poland had only one option, make their own posters. I love Polish movie posters like I love album covers; the stranger the better. Here's ten of my favorites:

The Big Lebowski


This is only the beginning. What's strange about this poster is not the colors or the blocky shape of John Goodman there but that a scene from the movie is actually depicted on the poster. What does that mean? Well, in Poland, posters don't usually reflect the movie their advertising except for in a very abstract sense.

Such as...

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Remember when the crew of the Enterprise went back in time to bring some Humpback Whales to the future so they can save Earth from an alien probe that communicated with a giant disco ball? Remember the part when they got lost in an Escher painting that was colored with melting crayons? No? Then you weren't paying attention.

Airplane

This actually looks like something Rene Magritte might make. You know, if he was insane.

Kabarat

NO.

The Shining

This...is easily more terrifying than anything Kubrick could put on screen. I'd like to imagine this hanging in a baby's bedroom.

Eyes Wide Shut

More Kubrick, and more giant mouths. I'm starting to see a pattern.

Jaws 2

Just look at it.

That is a shark, with two mouths.

Say what you will about the tenets of Communism but they invented sharks with two mouths.

Well that's all I've got for now, just remember, even something as ugly as the Cold War can make something truly weird.

Inception

Ho boy. I saw Inception two days ago (and just now getting around to telling you about it). Jeez, I don't know how to explain this.

Well.

When I first saw the trailer I was like:



And when it came out I was like:


And when I was watching it I was like:


And then when it was over I was all:


I desperately think you should all watch it, it's like The Matrix but Art Deco. Ask my Nana, she'll agree. Everything about it was wonderful, which is surprising because anyone who knows me (Ou812) will know I usually have violently hateful reactions to movies. But no, I love this movie. All the characters were great, there were no annoying comic relief. The action sequences were wonderful and it all just looked so sleek and sophisticated.

But therein lies the problem.

Without revealing anything I would like to say that if you absolutely had to be a nitpicker (Me) then the one problem this movie has is that it is not weird enough. The whole point is that these people go into other's dreams. Now, if you were in someone's subconscious I think it would be a bit stranger than just a city folding up like a pancake (which was awesome either way). In fact, the movie should have looked more like a Salvador Dali painting.

Despite this, I loved every second of it and am now considering all other movies obsolete. So M. Night Shammyloin, you can just go away.

Cube

You know, it's not all surrealism here in Grimgrvy Land, sometimes we do other things. For example, a couple days ago me and some friends decided to try out the Cube gamemode for Garry's Mod. Now, if you know me, and I'm sure my two or three readers certainly do not, I think the movie Cube was the most perfect ontological mystery distilled to film form and the fact that very skilled Lua programmers and mappers enjoy it to is even better.

Anywho, me and Idontknow wanted to play something because I was tired of fooling around with SDK and he was bored with I don't care what he was doing. We both downloaded the gamemode and after a lot of trial and error a server was made.

As I joined and downloaded all his useless text files from the server I was gloating to myself because, since I've seen the movie twice, I was obviously going to be far superior at getting out of the Cube. Plus, I can factor prime powers so that's good too.

We tried to stay together in a little group and take turns testing rooms to see if they were trapped. However, the rooms would constantly shift and we would be separated, often without any way to test a room for traps. Both of us died, a lot.

The moment I remember most fondly is when I fell into a trap, it wasn't like the other traps. You see, all the doors in the room lock and a gun falls from the ceiling.

You're expected to shoot yourself.

Being the prideful genius that I am I decided to simply not pick up the gun. So I sat in the corner of the room for five minutes just staring at it. By strange coincidence Idontknow somehow glitched into the room when some other rooms shifted and as he fell from the ceiling and landed right on top the of the gun. I laughed at him, from the chat, and demanded that he shoot himself. We argued, names were thrown around but he wouldn't budge. His only option was to shoot himself but he just wouldn't do it. So we stayed in that room for about two minutes before he finally shot himself. Apparently, it's because he couldn't stand looking at me anymore. 'Whatever' I thought, 'The doors will open any second now'.

They didn't.

So I sat in that room until the round ended.

The Deal

After some quick Google'ing I have a pretty good idea of what people think of Paranoia.

What?

No, I am NOT done talking about this. It's my magnus opus.

First of all, some of the biggest complaints it's gotten is that there isn't enough combat. On the other hand, some people have said that the brief few-and-far-between fights were a good thing. Other's have said that it wasn't really memorable, that while it was all weird and nonsensical Paranoia doesn't stand out enough. The implications of this are startling; there are people out there who want my maps to be weirder.

Also, apparently a lot of people have been having trouble with the puzzles. The biggest offenders seem to be the lever that turns on the power for the first elevator, the breakable floorboards in the swamp and resisting the compulsion to shoot the medic (I named him Leon) near the end.

I really don't know how to go about that last one. I could make the solutions more obvious but that might displease some of the more puzzle-affluent players. As for the other problems; make sparse fighting scenes that stand out for being over-the-top awesome and not even messing around with normal architecture next time around. Surrealism is now the rule, not the exception.

What makes a good abstract map? This does:

• Exploration. The player cannot be punished for poking around a bit.
• Juxtaposition. Some of the best Surrealism came from putting familiar objects in strange places. Rene Magritte was really one of the best at this.
• Confusion of Perspective. Make the player question where they are; Up? Down? On a Train? Riding a Moose? M.C. Escher is one of the best references for this kind of thing.
• Trains. I have a feeling trains will be synonymous the the Paranoia series.

What? Oh right, I've made a slew of videos this past couple of days. Nothing special. This one was actually co-created by Idontknow.

I can always tell that it'll be a huge mess when we make videos together. This one for example: Yes, these clips were very easy to make and took no time at all. How long did we spend making this video? At least three hours. You see, the evening started when I sent him a link to a video of Gary Busey. We both decided that it would be hilarious to remake that scene in Garry's Mod (First person to guess which movie it's from wins.). We planned the scene, made the server, and the got to work. However, we decided to review the original footage with the In-game Youtube Player Addon and that's when all our efforts crumbled around us. Gary's insanity must have reached out to us because in no time at all the entire map was engulfed in fire. We went around breaking every window in the level and then put mattresses in the hole. Why? To keep Gary Busey out of the house, that's why. Almost every NPC was dead by the time we started filming again.

And then we went back to breaking windows.

I regret nothing.

I almost forgot to mention, Paranoia was mentioned on the TVTropes page for Garry's Mod. So that's something to think about.

Notoriety

I've been talking about maps a lot recently so why stop now?

As I'm sure quite a few of you remember, a little less than a year ago Abstract Hallways was released to the unsuspecting public. It has the distinction of being the first abstract map I ever made and therefore awful. But apparently not awful enough to not use as the set of several videos on Youtube. That's right, searching "abstract hallways" on Youtube brings up these dandies:

This first one is some dude walking around the map for what he wants us to believe to be the first time. Naturally I don't believe a word of it. If that was his first time in Paranoia's embarrassing relative then why did he so conspicuously avoid the "Vaporization Room" and never look up at the ceiling? Think about that.


This next one sets itself up as a horror movie-style horror movie, I'll just leave it at that.


This one is of course my favorite. Really, the Demoman can make anything scary.

I really am flattered that people have used Abstract Hallways in their videos, it makes me wonder what they might do with Paranoia or...no I've said too much already.

Movie Review

I saw Julie & Julia the other day. At first it was just a way of getting out of the house which I had not left in several days at that point so I wasn't expecting much. It was obviously a lady movie that would be about food and how horrible men are or some such like that. Thankfully my presumptions were wrong and I enjoyed it very much. For the first time in a while I can say I enjoyed every character, which was nice. I did notice however a shift in tone whenever the movie switched from Julia Child's perspective to Julie's, which makes sense. The world of Julia Child seemed so jovial while Julie's was just a little cynical. Over all, just an enjoyable movie to end the summer, four and a half Polands.

Some Movie

So, I just watched Donnie Darko last night. Finally I got to find out what TvTropes was talking about this whole time and I must say I enjoyed it. To me, there is nothing not to like about nightmare hallucination rabbits and time-travel plots. The general weirdness of it all overshadowed the teen drama which some people might find distracting of contrived. Also, I really did not expect the ending but I'll just leave that to you readers, all two of you, to see. Over all, I give Donnie Darko four and a half Polands.