Roderick

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I swear that sounded more like Jack Nicholson's Joker at times. Creepy!

Interesting reads, Kroms. Days after seeing it, the Merchant of Venice still doesn't let me go. The legal trickery is clever in a legal sense, but horrible in a storytelling sense. It is indeed what it is: a trick. In the story, it heralds up the unfortunate negation of all that is really at stake (the discrimination of the jews, the hypocrisy of the upper class christians). It diminishes all the characters from that point on: Shylock becomes a one-dimensional wretch, all the so-called protagonists become spiteful, airheaded dicks (where first they pleaded for mercy).

It also just occurred to me that 'comedy' in this case might be meant in the Greek sense, which would have little to do with any farcical qualities that we seek in out modern comedies. Any story ending marginally positively for the protagonists (i.e. not death) would be labelled a comedy. I still would've loved a tragic version of the Merchant of Venice. It might have had the same incredible power Romeo & Juliet has. Imagine THAT story ending with both lovers alive...! It irks me to no end that Antonio's life was spared after all that build up, and by such nonsensical means.

Ahhh, the classic 'I'll demand a pound of your living flesh' routine! I did read it was a comedy, and that sort of places the weird Mrs. Doubtfire bit. Perhaps later generations emphasized the drama of the situation instead of reading the lines with a trifle of irony, as they were perhaps intended? I can see Shylock being quite funny actually, if he's played as a stubborn little wretch. The grotesqueness of his claim would become quite a sharp mockery of the real world.

After writing this I read a bit more about the play and the shifting ways in which actors portrayed Shylock. Apparently in the play, Shylock was always designed as a one-dimensional bastard ('the extreame crueltie of Shylock'), with later actors from the 19th century and beyond starting to infuse the character with some motivation and pathos. This does explain the weird dissonance in the movie, its attempt to humanize him but for the end opting to stay true to the story. All this is not the crux of my hesitance on The Merchant of Venice. Whatever the feelings on Jews the play might have, the story on itself is deflated by its strange structure and comedy overtures during the climax. I would have cut off the proverbial pound of my own flesh to have a satisfying, well-rounded movie based around Shylock and Antonio and their very gripping conflict. It's still worthwhile to see, if only for the beautiful language. In Belmont is a lady richly left, and she is fair.

I lost consciousness at 'dick hole black hole'

I saw The Merchant of Venice, the recent one with Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes. I wasn't familiar with the story, but the two-hour plot is quite interesting. Though it's very messy and confusingly laid out, the tension builds dramatically as the story gets closer to the usurer Shylock demanding his pound of flesh, stricken by grief. The Shakespearian language didn't take long to get used to, but then I always do like a little theatricality. HOWEVER. In the final half hour, things get weird, and then bad.

Wouldn't happen to have Sanitarium, would you?

Knows your cruelty no bounds! To give us this bombshell of a conf grenade, and then leave us writhing in scarcity once more. 'T will not do, sirs! 'T will not! (Giant Vin Diesel level smile at the recurrence of Far Cry 2 as a topic of conversation.)

Two superficially opposing thoughts entered my mind when I read your post, Murdoc. First: Hasn't Nico had enough time on GTA? It's a huge game, and there's a lot of Nico in it. I tend to always err on the side of wanting something new, rather than wanting something that I've already had. Second: Was Nico really that great a character? OK, yes he was. But his story arc in GTAIV is not at all that great. So much stuff is just happening to him without actually saying something about him, or changing him. He's pretty much the same guy at the end as he was when he first stepped off the boat. He's a great archetype to play with, but his character has zero development. That's how it seemed to me, anyway.

I never got far when I played it about a year ago after the Idle Cast about it. I guess 20 meters tops? A few paces, and then I'd buckle up and hit the floor spastically.

Unless they bought it second hand

I'm not schooled enough in law to know the difference between an illegal act and a criminal act. Is it in the intent? If I made a mistake, I hope you read through it and arrive at the actual message as it was intended to be. What you say are all good considerations, and exactly these considerations will help us arrive at a point where we can define where we stand on piracy as a society (hypothetically of course. Practically there will never be a consensus, but it's definitely possible with a strong view and an appealling message to shift our culture towards taking some stance on the topic).

I think there's a fundamental flaw in the thinking of a lot of people. Whales are scarier than dragons. Gigantic, goddamn whales that you can't see and can't track except by extreme cunning, that can destroy your ship at a whim, are infinitely more terrifying than a firebreathing reptile that you see coming, and you have the whole world to hide from. Also:

Dragging theft into this unnecessarily muddles the discussion. What we're dealing with here is a new form of what might be criminal behaviour. It's more than just 'copyright infringement' when you pirate a game or CD, but what is it exactly? The discussion we're having right now is to determine what this actually is and how we will fit this piracy thing into our moral framework. Where does it stand legally? Morally? It's important, it's a little paradigm shift and it's not benefiting from being forced into the 'theft' bracket just because that's convenient. We'll need to do better than that.

I take back what I said, movies are fucked. Excuse me, Ishmael is going to stop Ahab? Moby Dick like I've never seen it before, indeed

What a completely idiotic thing to do, sequelizing that world/story. The Westwood game took the right approach, offering a parallel story. More is wholly unnecessary. I don't look at things being quite as bad as that article purported. Sure, a lot of drivel is being made, but history is being seen through rose-colored glasses. There have always been shitty movies (I almost automatically wrote 'games' there, just so you know) and Hollywood has never been particularly reckless with its money. It might be a little worse nowadays, but look at the end product: there's still a lot of interesting and awesome movies coming out. Isn't that ultimately what's the most important?

Wow, that's pretty high praise. Pity I burned out on Assassin's Creed after the second one. I hope I get the itch in a while again.

Returned from Rango. I had some hopes for this movie not to be just another vapid 3D animation, and it somewhat delivered! A nagging feeling of weirdness pervades after seeing it though, as Rango consists of two opposites. Western on the one side (an almost purely character-driven genre following mostly bastard leads with unfriendly thoughts on the mind) and 3D animated film on the other (usually very plot-driven, with sympathetic leads going through a pauper-to-prince narrative). Their marriage is a little strange. I loved every scene that focused on desert imagery and Western stereotypes, and was a little bored and distracted whenever the simplistic plot took to the fore. Ultimately the movie is quite enjoyable because it has great design, a fun protagonist and generally good jokes.

That's crazy! Speaking of crazy, there's this insane bit in the adventure in the third chapter after you've dealt with the three sorcerors in the circle. What comes next is some sort of all-out brawl against a huge number of enemies. Around basically the third wave I get completely destroyed every time. Does anybody have any cool strategies to deal with this?

Don't let a critique detract you from the enjoyment of a piece. I am incredibly fond of many, many horrible movies It reminds me that I find the standard hero's journey ending generally kind of a bummer. After going through their magical quest, they must always return to the world whence they came, and find that it's now horribly stuffy and degenerate. I understand why that is, it's the transformation and everything, but part of me always cherishes the juvenile wish for the character to stay in the magic realm and have his rule there.

I guess the biggest complaint about it is when you make the wholly justified comparison to the original Alice in Wonderland story. What was timeless and charming and hallucinatory and perennially fabulistic there, in Tim Burton's version becomes a rather run-of-the-mill, trite fantasy epic completely missing the point of the tale. If you regard it as a stand-alone thing, it might be slightly more forgiveable, though it still doesn't have an ounce of the charm that, say, a Stardust had. Even in this case, though, you must admit that the ending, when

The breakdancing was your only complaint about this piece of... not-so-good film?

I haven't played King's Bounty, but might I inject that in most games, magic using is often the more interesting course than straight up fighting.