GoldbergBlog

So do we have to keep calling her "Dr." Rice?

Keith Olbermann goes to town on a history-butchering comment made by Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kmhJMp2vi8]

Don’t Tell Me What To Do, Silver Surfer!

So the first poster for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer has been released and it’s pretty dull:
Thankfully, it doesn’t feature The Junk of the Herald of Galactus like the teaser trailer did (click for growth):

Sony’s Phil Harrison Provides Amusement

GameDaily recently interviewed Sony Computer Entertainment President Phil Harrison about the PlayStation 3. He provided choice line after choice line that I couldn’t help but mock.

GameDaily BIZ: Are you bothered by all the negative press about Sony and the PS3 lately? Even certain mainstream press publications have labeled the console biggest disappointment, etc…

Phil Harrison: No, not a bit. I think, first of all, the so called negativity is in a fairly narrow section of the media.

Yes, in such niche mags as Time and Newsweek.

Harrison (cont.) The most important thing, however, is that the people who buy the system love it,

Is there really an alternative emotion after dropping $600 on a videogame system?

Harrison (cont.) I don’t really care about the negativity in the press; if it was true, if they were talking about real big issues that were genuine criticisms, then of course we’ll address them, but there’s nothing that bothers me

Really? So the price, the lack of games, the lack of a rumble feature would all be small issues that are just nitpicking your genuinely great system? I understand the guy has a product to sell, but his bullshit could use some work.

Harrison (cont.) I think the fact that we are able to have a very well organized, very well managed supply channel, which allows us to keep the stores restocked, is a really positive thing. You would be sitting here saying, “Why the hell are you out of stock? Why the hell can’t you manage the supply chain and why can’t people buy PS3s?” So we’re actually doing in succeeding in managing to keep the demand satisfied, so I think that’s a positive.

He’s right. It is a positive that you can keep a system no one wants in stock. I know what he’s trying to say is that people are buying them and that no one is noticing because they’re keeping suppliers so well stocked. So remember, the next time you see a lot of one product sitting on the shelf, it’s selling like gangbusters and they have a very well managed supply channel.

BIZ: But don’t you feel pressure from the realities of the market and people who maybe don’t want to spend $600? Do you feel there is pressure to drop the price this year?

PH: Absolutely no pressure at all. I think that the reality of the market is that there’s a great deal of software people want to buy, there’s a great deal of software coming that will stimulate further activity in the market. We’re very comfortable with the plan.

There IS a great deal of softwar people want to buy like…Resistance? And, um…yep, maybe Resistance if they don’t have an XBox 360 and Gears of War. That’s about it. Sit around and wait for Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Final Fantasy XIII.

PH: We have no plans to do so in the standard controller that ships with PlayStation 3. I believe that the Sixaxis controller offers game designers and developers far more opportunity for future innovation than rumble ever did. Now, rumble I think was the last generation feature; it’s not the next-generation feature. I think motion sensitivity is. And we don’t see the need to do that.

Rumble was a last generation feature. And not-rumbling was the generation before that. PlayStation 3: Kickin’ it reeeal old school. Also, why is it an either/or argument? Why does the Wii-mote have both and you don’t? But hey, enjoy your half-assed motion sensativity.

Harrison (cont.) Having said that, there will be specific game function controllers, potentially like steering wheels that do include vibration or feedback function—not from us but from third parties.

Because those guys make real reliable products.

I’m not inherently anti-Sony or anti-PlayStation 3. I’m just anti-bullshit and if I had a nickel for the amount spewed in this article, I could afford a PlayStation 3.

The 79th Oscars: Post Circle-Jerk

It’s been said that the Oscars are the closest thing Hollywood has to a religious ceremony. The black gospel choir at the beginning of the show helped to accentuate this point. But without Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, or Billy Crystal to provide a buffer to the grandiose amount of self-love the show usually contains, the proceedings went from soft to pudgy to bloated to festering. The show would move from commercial break to commercial break without announcing a single award. No, apparently we had to hear the full renditions of every nominated song, present a tribute to screenwriters, ape major commercials (the opening honoring the nominees was a Mac and then the sound effects as well as the totally random/”wouldn’t that be cool” stylings of dance troupe Palabolus) were from car TV ads), celebrate fifty years of acknowledging foreign films, and finally, a short montage showing that while they also dedicate time to fellating Al Gore (and he was the night’s biggest winner, don’t let anyone tell you different) they also love America and always have.

But the night started decently enough. After the cute montage of the nominees, Ellen came on and did a fairly good job. While she at first seemed a little dwarfed by her surroundings, she soon hit a good rhythm and began the night’s theme of being totally inoffensive. Barely any joke was political, both in terms of national politics and Hollywood politics. And celebrities should have their night (because the rest of the year is absolutely terrible for them) but the host has to remember the people at home and how we need someone on our side. Someone to join us in our mockery. While I’m sure she was popular with the people inside the Kodak Theatre, for those of us watching at home, she was just too cuddly.

As for the awards, my predictions were rubbish. I usually hit at least .500 but this year I only got 10 out of 24 categories correct. I couldn’t get a single short film and what really threw me was the awards for sound editing (awarded to Letters From Iwo Jima because it takes a lot of effort to figure out the sound effects for a World War II battle; why not Pirates 2? It takes a lot more effort and imagination to figure out what a Kraken sounds like) and sound mixing. Usually those categories fall in line with the Visual Effects winner which was going to be, without a doubt, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. And then there were the upsets, Alan Arkin proving that Best Supporting Actor is still and almost always will be The Old Man Award; and the one that basically ruined the night for me: The Lives of Others beating Pan’s Labyrinth for Best Foreign Language Film.

How did that happen? First, let me say that The Lives of Others IS a good film. But Pan’s already had THREE Oscar wins by that point in the night for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Make-Up. Doesn’t logic dictate that if you’re good enough for three Oscars and every other film in the category doesn’t even have any other nominations, you should win?

Everything else went according to plan. While the upsets in Best Supporting Actor and Foreign Film had me on edge about other “shoe-ins” like Best Actor (would Peter O’Toole win?) and Best Director (would they fuck Marty yet again?), those went off without a hitch. Even the long and richly-deserved win for Scorsese felt right on cue with a standing ovation. Although I will say I enjoyed George Lucas, whining to his co-presenters Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg, that he didn’t have an Oscar. And God-willing George, you never will. Now go rape some more childhoods.

But if the defeat of Pan’s was the worst shock of the night, the victory for The Departed for Best Picture was the best surprise of the grueling four hour service. I was waiting for a kick in the teeth by either Babel or Little Miss Sunshine (the latter is a good film but not Best Picture material) but the only nominee of the bunch that I think deserved to win got the award.

By the end of the show, I was grateful for the wins of The Departed and even more grateful that I wouldn’t have to sit through this group masturbation until next year.

Ten Reviews

As promised (much, much later than originally promised, but I delivered and that’s what’s important), ten new reviews (well, not so much new as much as they are new to the site). Enjoy ‘em.

Catch and Release
Children of Men
Curse of the Golden Flower
Eragon
The Good Shepherd
The Host
Notes on a Scandal
The Painted Veil
Reno 911!: Miami
Smokin’ Aces

The Oscars: Will Win/Should Win

While I already voiced my opinions about the nominees when they were first announced, I’m putting down a final word now that all the ballots are in and we’re less than 24 hours away from finding out who goes home with a statue and who goes home wishing Edward Norton hadn’t deprived them of their precious gift basket.

BEST PICTURE
Babel
Letters From Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine - WILL WIN
The Departed - SHOULD WIN
The Queen

This is the only tough category. Then again, last year should have been an easy prediction about Crash made a huge upset over Brokeback Mountain and when I say “upset”, I mean I cursed at my television in disgust for about the next week. I missed meals and everything.

Now while conventional wisdom is on Babel because it’s got the ensemble (the majority of the Academy is made up of actors) and it’s got a “message” (don’t let your Hispanic maid take your kids to Mexico for a wedding), I’m voting on Little Miss Sunshine because it too has a message (a good family comes together when it counts) and the SAG voters already showed it some love by giving it Best Ensemble (their equivalent of Best Picture).

While a win for LMS would only continue the backlash towards a film which is good but certainly isn’t the year’s “Best Picture” (but those rarely live in the same neighborhood anyway), it’s a far better film than the embarrassingly terrible Babel. While The Departed could win, I don’t think it will because…

BEST DIRECTOR
Clint Eastwood - Letters From Iwo Jima
Stephen Frears - The Queen
Paul Greengrass - United 93
Alejandro González Iñárritu - Babel
Martin Scorsese - The Departed - WILL WIN & SHOULD WIN

This is Scorsese’s year. To not give him the award would be a personal insult as it would set a new record for a director with the most nominations without a win. They’re going to give him an Oscar not only so they don’t have to give The Departed the Best Picture statue (which, if that happened, would make Brad Pitt an Oscar winner as he was one of the film’s producers). For a while, I thought they might give it to Clint, but they already gave him one two years ago for Million Dollar Baby and Scorsese has won every critical and guild award possible. There’s really just no clear alternative and you should expect to see him get a standing ovation when he finally gets that award recognition he so richly deserves.

BEST ACTOR
Leonardo DiCaprio - Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling - Half Nelson
Peter O’Toole - Venus
Will Smith - The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland - WILL WIN & SHOULD WIN

This is where the categories get boring. The acting categories usually feature a close competition but not this year. These are pretty much even odds. While a few are betting on O’Toole for an upset, he got his Lifetime Achievement Award last year. Whitaker will be taking it this year.

BEST ACTRESS
Penélope Cruz - Volver
Judi Dench - Notes on a Scandal - SHOULD WIN
Helen Mirren - The Queen - WILL WIN
Meryl Streep - The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet - Little Children

Again, Mirren is a lock for this award. I personally think Dench gave a more fascinating performance, but the Academy seems to love actors who play real people, especially those of recent history (the only way Mirren could win this award even more is if Queen Elizabeth II died within the last year; but you can’t win ‘em all).

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Arkin - Little Miss Sunshine
Jackie Earle Haley Little Children - SHOULD WIN
Djimon Hounsou - Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy - Dreamgirls - WILL WIN
Mark Wahlberg - The Departed

This category is the only one with even the faintest hint of a question mark. Some say that Murphy jeopardized his chances with the obnoxious Norbit campaign. Having huge billboards plastered around L.A. with Eddie Murphy mounting himself as a fat woman with the tagline “Have you ever made a huge mistake?” probably isn’t the best thing when trying to win over Oscar voters. And Oscar voters have a clear alternative by giving the award to the Hollywood Veteran(TM) with Alan Arkin (who has never won an Oscar). Still, the Oscars are also about star power and Murphy’s had it for about twenty years. An award for him is honoring his high profile career and his decision to try a dramatic role. I think Haley should win because I think you should give awards to guys that make you feel compassion towards sexual predators.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Adriana Barraza - Babel
Cate Blanchett - Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin - Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls - WILL WIN
Rinko Kikuchi - Babel - SHOULD WIN

A lot of people were blown away by Hudson, especially during her rendition of “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going”. I was not one of those people. It’s a good performance but then again, my entire reaction towards Dreamgirls was “good, not great”. Nevertheless, it’s almost a total certainty she’s going to win tonight (I say almost because I though Brokeback winning Best Picture was a total certainty). I think Rinko Kikuchi gave a mind-blowing performance in a film that doesn’t need her. It’s like she’s in a completely different movie; a movie that’s interesting and not a complete piece of crap.

———-

So those are your major categories. Check back for more bitching and moaning after the ceremony, which takes places at 8 PM Est on ABC.

Note to WordPress: Burn in Hell

I will no longer feel guilty about not using WordPress. I made an honest to God attempt to try and switch. I read the documentation, I went through the help forums, and I even moved each post one-by-one. But when it came time to design my own WordPress theme, it was yet another hurdle and I was tired of setting up a blog instead of just doing what I wanted to do which was blogging.

Champions of WordPress can sing about its ease of use from now till the end of the Internet, but it’s not easy. I support open-source but I don’t support things that make my life more difficult. Blogger may not be perfect but it serves its purpose.

Also, a giant screw you to Firezilla. It’s a fickle, pain-in-the-ass FTP client with poor navigation (it’s called a back-button; implement it). I’m sticking with SmartFTP.

And I don’t feel bad about going back to Blogger/SmartFTP because I gave both of those other programs an honest shot and that’s all that anyone can ask of anything.

But now that the nightmare is over, prepare for the big articles. I’m halfway done with my recent batch of reviews, the Top 10 of 2006 WILL go up before tomorrow night’s Oscars as well as my WILL WIN, SHOULD WIN on the major categories.

Blog Eat Blog

So what’s with this crazy Matt fellow? He blows for a couple weeks, comes back with a splooge of posts (yeah, I just used that word…”posts”), and then he’s gone again. And where’s that Top 10 he promised us? And where are new reviews? Does he just sit around and diddle himself all day and that’s why he can’t be bother to bring us the blog we deserve?

If this is what you’re thinking, you think a lot like me and we probably have a lot in common. Let’s be friends.

I’ve been having a blog identity crisis as of late. I partly wanted to change the name because it’s hard giving out my web address when I speak it “w-a-n-t-o-n-distraction.com” not “wantindistraction” or “what the hell does ‘wanton’ mean?” Also, this blog is a little, well scatter-shot. Yes, I know how to make money with blogging. Focus on a niche and write to it constantly and build your following. Use ads, so on, so forth. But I don’t want to constrain myself. If I just write about movies, then I can’t write about TV, videogames, politcs, tech, religion, or Robert Goulet (this year’s best Superbowl commercial).

Then there’s the matter of ads. On the one hand, I like money. And the more people I can get to this site to see ads they’ll never click on, the more money I get. On the other hand, I don’t want to make this a shitty place to visit. So as you can see, I have the conflict.

But as for this blog, it needs a revamp. Blogger isn’t giving me what I need and I want to switch to WordPress. Unfortunately, the Blogger-to-WordPress importer isn’t doing what needs to be done ever since Blogger upgraded to 2.0.

So what now? I’ll tell you what now: I’m going to upload TEN new reviews. I’m also going to upload my Top 10 of 2006 (it’s all finished, just needs to be published). But first, I have to go through the super-duper fun process of re-posting each of my SIXTY posts through WordPress, one-by-one.

All I ask is a little bit of patience and I will shower my wordy goodness down upon you.

It’s nicer than it sounds.

Review - Phoenix Wright: Justice For All

I would like to begin this review by describing this game with possibly one of the worst analogies ever.

Ahem.

You know when you have a girlfriend and you part ways for the summer but as you correspond you build each other up in your minds and then when you see each other at the beginning of the new school year, she’s totally not as attractive as you remember? (Keep in mind, this was before MySpace and widely-available webcams and camera phones and all that noise. I’m talkin’ back in the day….like 1999-2000)

Yeah, Phoenix Wright: Justice For All is that less attractive girlfriend. She hasn’t changed, but everything that used to slightly get on your nerves now makes you want to contemplate murder. Also, her stories are suddenly less interesting, her jokes less funny, and her entire demeanor more annoying.

Did that explanation seem tedious and irritating? Then I’ve just given you a taste of Phoenix Wright: Justice For All (I dislike this game a little more because I want to put an “and” in front of that “Justice”).

Something just doesn’t work this time around. Some of the novelty has worn off, but the faults are clearer and the characters are wearing thin. The game almost seems to hate Phoenix this time around as it gives him a lame case of amnesia as a means of tutorial and then proceeds to make him out as nothing more than a hack who presses witnesses not because it’s his job, but because he doesn’t have a clue.

The flaws of the first game become even more apparent this time around. The first game’s biggest weakness was the Game Over and being forced to struggle your way back through all the dialogue you’ve already read. And you’ll probably do this more times with this game due to the change from five-strikes-and-you’re-out to a life-meter which bends to the designers’ whim. They want to raise the tension? Getting the next answer wrong will cost you your entire life bar!

This pain-in-the-ass system carries on outside the courtroom with the new psych-lock system. Want to get the big secret and get a half-lifebar’s worth of health? Break the psych-locks. Thankfully, you can’t get a game over but if your health drops to zero, the Psychic Lock Breaking ends and you’re now at zero health. Your health, which, also stays the same throughout the entire chapter. Then, every time you break a Psych Lock with zero health, then it’s just one strike and you’re out. Have fun going through the same lines of a dialogue as you make a fresh leap of logic that will baffle you apart once you come to the correct answer (assuming, of course, that you have all the evidence necessary to break the lock in the first place).

The sad thing is that these are both easy fixes. Why not give life for correct answers and deduct it for wrong ones? Why not always allow for fast forward like the game does when you’re re-reading testimony? Granted, you bypass the re-reading by doing a suspend-save, but then you’re taken back to the title screen. Now do that every time you’re risking an objection, especially if you have a low life bar. Guess how much fun that it is.

(The answer is “Zero Fun”)

And re-reading the dialogue won’t give you any new insights because this is where the game’s second biggest flaw become apparent: the logic leaps. Sometimes it’s just impossible to know what the game wants from you. Other times, the game is painfully ignorant.

BEGIN SPOILER:

For example, in your first case, you’re solving the murder of a man who died from a broken neck. In the sand, he’s apparently scribbled his girlfriend’s name, “Maggey”. Now, anyone that has any basic knowledge of science knows that you probably won’t be scribbling anything with a broken neck. So how do you object? With the autopsy report. But you’d be wrong. You actually need to object with the Maggey’s profile because the man with the broken neck, spelled her name as “Maggey” and not as “Maggie” as it’s actually spelled.

While this explanation does become important seeing as the killer heard Maggie’s name but didn’t know the strange spelling, the designers shouldn’t have failed Human Anatomy 101, Chapter 1: People With Broken Necks Don’t Write Shit.

END SPOILER.

The biggest positive this game has is its charm, but even that wears a little thin at times. The game is clever and weaves in some fun pop culture jokes, but when you have to keep questioning a character you’d rather punch into the ether, like Moe the Clown or the second appearances of Lotta Hart and Wendy Oldbag, then trudging through the cases becomes even more difficult. Thankfully, the charm of characters like Pearl, Detective Gumshoe, and a few others always provide a bit of relief.

Although both Phoenix Wright games are ports of GBA games that were originally only available in Japan, the sequel feels lazier and it needs to be stronger now that the novelty of the first game has passed. With only four cases and no new case to take advantage of the DS’ touch and microphone capabilities beyond shouting “Objection!” and searching rooms ends up hurting the series more than it helps.

Fans of the first game will pick this up to get their Phoenix fix but will be left wanting the next game to truly take advantage of the DS’ capabilities and fix the aspects of the game that make it more than…

Wait for it.

TRIAL AND ERROR.

I just got aroused.

Humor Kicks Fear-mongering in the Nuts

Here’s the story: in an effort to promote the upcoming Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres, the following magnetic light display was put up around Boston and nine other major cities:

This guerrilla marketing campaign led to a bomb scare where the devices where mistaken as part of a terrorist plot. Because when I see this:

I think “Terrorism.”

Frankly, I don’t blame the officers or the municipal government. They’re just trying to do their jobs and keep people safe and while I would say it’s pretty obvious that this isn’t terrorism-on-the-march (although I look forward to Bush’s next State of the Union where he claims this as a victory), they’re trying to be safe than sorry and it’s really only the detriment of promoting a movie as opposed to civil liberties.

No, the blame here lies squarely with the media as they inadvertently exposed the truth…about the media. Slow news is better than no news and if you can scare the crap out of people, fill your airtime, and get those coveted ratings, then it really does pay off to say that a harmless film promotion could be a terrorist attack. Because terrorists are known for their humor. Well, actually, they’re known more for their terror, but after that, very much the humor.

Here are the two guys who were arrested for this supposed terrorist attack. Rather than play the media’s game, they talk about an equally important topic: 70s Hairstyles. You can check out the video here.

In a country where our government and our media would like us to be in a constant state of shitting our pants, I applaud anyone who strikes down such blatant fear-mongering with a healthy dose of humor.