In addition to doing a little writing (less than usual, I’ll admit), I thought I’d try a little experiment.
I recorded a little audio related to my Portal review while I had the room to myself this past Friday. I brought that audio into a program called Melodyne which, I understand, is the same software used by Valve for voice editing. Someone on YouTube had already played around with it to do the sort of editing required to make Ellen McLain sound like GLaDOS. Following those instructions yielded some interesting results.
Unwilling to post just another snippet of audio, and also wanting to make another attempt at doing something with AfterEffects, I started dropping in the results of Google Image searches for things like ‘Portal gun,’ ‘Chell’ and ‘Testchamber’. A few areas of text here, some interesting other images there, and suddenly I had a video presentation slightly more interesting than your typical corporate PowerPoint offering.
I added a little bit of Portal’s music as a last touch, but my hard-drive space failed me due to a bunch of old crap floating around the data section. So, while getting some Monday morning mundanity out of the way, I rendered the video from AfterEffects and then compressed it via Premiere.
Here’s the result. Let me know what you think.
As of 12:40, YouTube says it’s still rendering, so we’ll see how it looks once that process is complete.
Didn’t really feel like grabbing a new image since I’m feeling a bit lethargic, so have some Guardians of the Galaxy goodness instead.
So yeah. TONS of comics.
I remember the first couple of times I sort of swung by a comic book store on Free Comic Book Day, and picked up a Keenspot anthology or some other very cheap promotional offering. I didn’t expect the literal wall of titles available yesterday at Cyborg One in Doylestown. But I’ve slogged through most of them, and most of them fall on the less than memorable side of ‘average’.
Apart from the reprint of the first issue of Invincible Iron Man, the stand-outs for me were Atomic Robo (always a beacon of clever writing and a fun action-comedy to boot), Radical’s preview of Driver for the Dead (breathtaking art coupled with chilling mysticism and the most badass hearse I’ve ever soon), the Green Hornet (Kevin Smith writes a great pulp classic), Iron Man and Thor (Matt Fraction & JR JR give us not only a preview of what’s to come in their new Avengers title but also what it might be like to see these two together in a movie) and The Tick (I almost started whistling the theme from the animated TV show). The other Marvel titles were mostly re-caps and anthologies to get new readers up to speed on things like Siege and Spider-Man, War of the Supermen came off as somewhat boring to me, and G.I. Joe, while taking things amusingly from the perspective of Cobra, didn’t really get me back into the headspace I once occupied when I was interested in them whenever I couldn’t get my Transformers fix.
I’m sure some of this stuff has niche appeal. Fearless Dawn comes off a bit like a Tank Girl wannabe and I’m sure there’s an audience for that. Archie‘s formula hasn’t really changed at all in decades and I’m sure there’ll always be readers for that, too. Ron Marz, a great writer of comics in my opinion, seems to be either trying to keep Top Cow going with his Artifacts storyline, or plotting its doom. Doctor Solar felt like he was trying to be Dr. Manhattan, and Magnus Robot Fighter has the throwback feeling of Flash Gordon, with neither one really doing anything original or all that interesting.
It’s not all bad news. Bongo does a Simpsons story that isn’t too bad, Heckraiser has an old-fashioned adventure-comedy feel that reminds me of the heydays of Groo the Wanderer and Mark Waid’s one-two deconstructionist punches of Irredeemable and Incorruptible have a lot of promise if you want to see a super-hero go bad or a super-villain go straight.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad experience, and the price was right – all of this stuff was free.
If your local comic book store still has these titles, go pick some up if you’ve an interest. Comic books are great places to tell stories, but sometimes the desire to appeal to a small audience or the legacy of older comics can get in the way of new & original things. Free Comic Book day shows the best and worst. Go check it out.
Today’s Free Comic Book Day and holy crap are there a lot of free comics to be had. I’ve only managed to get through about ten of the thirty-odd offerings I plucked from the shelves of Cyborg One in Doylestown late this morning. Once I finish them all some time tomorrow I’ll be able to provide you all with an after-action report.
My better half and I are attending a friends’ game night over in Chesterbrook this evening. She was looking for a bit of a pick-me-up and said, “You know what I’d like? Bawls.” The usual jokes involving Bawls in one’s mouth ensued. I double-checked the drink’s website, and apparently Bawls is sold at 7-Eleven and Target.
Except in Horsham.
I went to 7-Eleven. No Bawls there.
I dropped by Acme. No Bawls to be had there, either.
Target didn’t have any Bawls.
Even Genuardi’s showed a complete lack of Bawls.
None of these stores have any Bawls.
…Okay, I’ve probably milked that joke enough. Point is, that’s where I’ve been all day. Still managed to bang out ~2k words on Citizen this morning, though.
So packing, comics and possibly more coming your way tomorrow. Same Blue time, same Blue channel.
Monster movies. People just love monster movies. Back in the 30s, the monsters were mostly human in appearance, with Dracula and The Mummy setting the stage for what came after. The 50s saw the type of monsters growing into the more surreal, with The Creature From The Black Lagoon, Them! and It Came From Beneath the Sea just to name a few. A lot of these films relied on models and rubber suits, and most of the memorable ones involved Ray Harryhausen. As special effects techniques progressed, the monsters became more complex, like Geiger’s xenomorph from 1979’s Alien. While the 80s were more concerned about action flicks with big manly stars, one film from the decade not only brought back the monster movie but had a bit of fun at other action flicks’ expense. It’s called Predator and is, among other things, a movie about a monster FROM SPACE!
Arnold Schwarzenegger, long before his ascent to governor of California, is ‘Dutch,’ the leader of an elite “rescue squad” sent into a South American jungle to rescue a cabinet minister. His team is accompanied by his former squadmate and current CIA operative Dillion, played by the equally manly Carl Weathers. Along the way to the enemy encampment they find a lost team of Dillion’s that had been brutally, almost ritualistically murdered and skinned. They find the enemy camp and blow it to smithereens, which to my mind makes it difficult to ensure a successful rescue, and find out the mission was a set-up. On their way back, though, the members of the team start dropping dead one at a time, and it turns out that these professional hunters are themselves being hunted by a single, alien being with advanced technology, a high level of cunning and an undying love for the hunt – the eponymous Predator.
One of the things Predator has going for it is relative simplicity. It moves from action movie to horror to science-fiction monster fight pretty smoothly, and doesn’t waste time with extraneous plot or elaborate character development. I’d be lying if I said the film was well-written, though. The lines were clichéd twenty years ago and are even more so now, and they’re delivered with such machismo-fueled ham-handedness that you can almost smell the bacon sizzling. Jesse Ventura (hey, another governor!) and Sonny Landham are particularly guilty of chewing the scenery in this flick. Some of the best moments in the movie come when nothing’s being said at all, and we read the characters’ expressions rather than hear them rattle off another self-congratulatory one-liner, which for Arnold is par for the course.
“Dillon, are you sure this vest doesn’t make me look fat?”
When Predator was being made, studio execs clearly were viewing the success of The Terminator, Platoon, and Aliens with envious eyes. They wanted another big loud macho gun-heavy action flick, and asked director John McTiernan for exactly that. His reaction is well-documented, as he crafted a five minute scene of the cast doing nothing but shooting guns at practically nothing. He got the impression that the producers’ and audience’s fascination with guns bordered on the pornographic, and so delivered this more than slightly sexualized depiction of large, well-toned men unloading their weapons in a swelteringly hot environment. The fact that they hit nothing at all underscores the impotence of such diversionary film-making, and about the only thing that survives the masculine ejaculatory fusillade is the lampshade McTiernan hung on the whole idea.
All of that talk of hot man-love segues me neatly into the next glaring thing I see about this film that had me laughing the whole time I was watching it. There’s a huge undercurrent of homo-eroticism that is pretty hilarious even if it’s unintentional. You have several large men in an intimate situation often shown slapping hands, shooting guns and showing an odd amount of concern for one another, with long looks exchanged between each other as sweat slides down their skin. Considering this is meant to be a manly movie, the sort of flick that would arm-wrestle 300 in the back room at a bar (which may or may not be lit by candles), and “perfectly straight” guys are meant to be whooping and hollering at the screen, it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of this film’s devoted fan-base either indulge in the sort of self-denying homophobic ‘humor’ that typifies most random Xbox Live people I’ve encountered, or want to protect the institution of marriage from those ‘insidious’ gays. And I also wouldn’t be surprised if they were too dumb to notice.
Looks to me like the Predator’s wondering what Dutch uses to exfoliate.
Despite the nits I’ve picked about this flick, it doesn’t detract from the fact that as a monster movie, Predator does the job. The creature, a towering and truly alien hunter, is effective and exists as another example of Stan Winston’s genius, may he rest in peace. The slow reveal of the predator’s methods and technology build tension and suspense, and the final confrontation between it and Arnold do make for some decent action. It’s a shame that the suspense is undercut by lousy line-reading, but the gradual and unhurried pace of the build-up towards the end still persists as an example of relatively good story-telling in a genre that usually looks at story as a vestigial growth meant to string the audience along from one gunfight to the next.
Predator isn’t a bad movie, by any stretch of the word. It’s just so unintentionally hilarious, especially in retrospect. As much as the special effects hold up despite its age, the writing and implications of certain scenes are just raucous in comparison. What’s telling to me is that McTiernan went on after this to direct Die Hard which is not only one of my favorite action films of all time but is also what I’d call a ‘thinking man’s’ action flick. Predator by comparison doesn’t require much thought at all, but it’s still diverting and plenty of fun. It’s good to have on your Netflix queue if you have a summer weekend coming up and are looking for something to watch on a lazy sunny afternoon. From a guy’s perspective, it’s definitely best enjoyed with other guys, preferably in a dark basement with a cool beer at hand while you watch large, well-toned men unload their hot barrels.
…I mean, while you watch muscle-bound action heroes in close, intimate shots of their bodies sweating and slowly removing their clothes…
…that is to say, while leaning back to enjoy the back-and-forth action between…
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
Aperture Science Forms FORM-27991563-888: Testchamber Facility After-Action Report
Per your instructions, I have begun to compile the observed and recorded data recovered following the successful completion of testing executed for and by test subject code-named “Chell.” While the repairs to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center may take some time, it is with the utmost confidence that I open this report by saying that that Aperture Science’s Pro-active Operational Realization Testing And Logistics – PORTAL – was, in your words, a huge success.
The operational and ultimate tactical functionality of the Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device was brought to a highly satisfactory conclusion by “Chell” after her re-activation from her designated relaxation vault. From there she was instructed to proceed through the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center by the administrative system. From the point of this observer, the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System at the heart of this facility – GLaDOS – issued clear and concise directions to this test subject just as with the others that came before. Aside: It may be advisable in future testing environments to monitor the overall output of the GLaDOS Sarcasm Sphere, as it seemed to generate 127.5% of the expected outright fabrication necessary to maintain a dynamic testing environment.
The successful implementation of the Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device cannot be overstated. The elements of success here are equal parts the brilliant design of the device itself and the instruction on its use through both the intuitive layout of the testchambers and the instruction of GLaDOS. With these elements, the test subject was able to navigate a variety of ever-escalating testchamber environments, from straightforward corridors with simple obstacles to complex platform series carrying penalties up to and including total body disintegration. No tools were provided to assist the test subject save for environmental objects such as storage cubes. The succesful navigation of a given testchamber ultimately came down to the intelligence of the test subject and their grasp of the device’s functionality. While this has been a risk in the past, as user error has contributed to more test subject terminations than any other factor, test subject “Chell” has proven a worthy investment for Aperture Science.
It should also be noted that the Weighted Companion Cube was incinerated in record time by the test subject. It seems that the test subject did not become quite as attached to the Weighted Companion Cube as previous test subjects, despite the Weighted Companion Cube’s endless patience and unwavering support. Aside: the test subject also did not react to the incineration as if the Weighted Companion Cube were screaming in agony while being burned alive as others have. Recommend more research.
Turret systems within the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center may bear notice as a potential flaw in security. Once the test subject was able to master some of the nuances of the Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device, the turrets were capable of being dispatched in a variety of ways. While it is the policy of Aperture Science to encourge the ingenuity of its test subjects, it is recommended to post more rocket turrets throughout the Enrichment Center, as a possible fail-safe deterrent from further catastrophic damage. Personal emphasis: It would be harder for a test subject to cause catastrophic damage when they’re a smear on the wall. Smears we can clean. Cascading ruptures in space-time are a bit messier.
Noteworthy is the upgraded personality systems of the turrets. Not once did a turret react with anger or frustration towards the test subject. Indeed, the programming of the system throughout the Enrichment Center further reinforced the idea of positive feedback and encouragement, prompting the test subject to continue the testing in the face of overwhelming odds, potential gross bodily harm and extreme pessimism. “Chell” in particular was able to persist in creative thinking and spontaneous bursts of quick reactions allowing for the ‘additional’ testing as mentioned in my previous report (see “Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center Damage Causes, Inventory and Projected Repair Time”).
[Conclusion:] Please attach to test subject “Chell”‘s Personnel File as further evidence to reinforce the note made by yourself – HUGE SUCCESS.
[After-Action Report Addendum:] ‘Stuff I Liked’ included the unique design of the testchambers, the requisite use of brain-power to overcome obstacles and the undercurrent of tragedy surrounding the empty rooms once occupied by (albeit unreliable and ultimately irresponsible) Aperture Science employees.
[After-Action Report Addendum Addendum:] ‘Stuff I Didn’t Like’ [[ERROR 601 FILE NOT FOUND]]
[After-Action Report Conclusion Addendum:] ‘Stuff I Loved’ ranges from the GLaDOS sense of humor to the length of the testing procedure, and includes the music used throughout the Enrichment Center. Recommend third-party contributor ‘Jonathan Coulton’ be honored in some way should he be among the people still alive.
[Final Thought:] It is a pleasure and honor to work within the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center despite having to do so within the confines of [[ERROR 187 FINAL THOUGHT REDACTED]]
[Final Thought PS:] If this were a video game I’d recommend everybody buy it.
[Final Thought PPS:] I further recommend cake be served immediately.
