Ben X

I recommend Some Like It Hot and Glengarry Glen Ross (spelling?).

Man, I want to swap sides now, just to disagree with those Home Theater pricks.

No, it's just how it came across to me when I first ever saw it. Having watched it again (I didn't actually rewatch it via your YouTube vid before posting), it still seems to me like they're just doing a take 'as Cheech and Chong' or whatever. Granted, I don't even live in America and don't know the wider context in which to take this, but I also have no context for their actions apart from a 10 second clip of an outtake. It just seems to me less like a sign of cultural racism, and more Fox doing an off-the-cuff funny character. But then perhaps that's because of the racism engrained in me by society, and I'm being an inexcusable apologist. This reminds me of a topic I brought up on the bttf.com forums. I asked if anyone found a scene in BTTF2, where in the 'bad' 1985, Marty finds a black family in his house, racist. The family can be seen as pretty caricatured and just one in a series of indicators that things are worse in this version of 1985: biker gangs, stray dogs, Nixon still president and black folks living in the McFly house. Some people said it did make them feel uncomfortable, some black people saw it as a positive portrayal of African-Americans (the father protecting his kids). Unfortunately, there were a couple of people who posted responses along the lines of "you black people always think everything's racist" (apparently assuming I was black). That, along with the owner being a Christian fundamentalist dick who censored the word 'gay' on there, is what prompted me to leave those forums. So, I'd hate to be similarly dismissive, although in this case I don't think I am being... Anyway, in case this is all heavy bullshit, and people want to get back to the film discussion: I saw Four Lions at the Prince Charles. Lots of interesting, funny and scary stuff, but it's really let down by the weak comedy and paper-thin main characters. Such a shame, because when it gets going in the last half hour, it's phenomenal.

Yeah, lobotomy's pitch sounds more like a damning critique! The Spaced comparison is apt, though - a funny, surrealistic and geek-culture minded look at young life - friends, relationships, jobs etc. I recommend trying the first volume to anyone who hasn't yet. It won't take long - they're very easy reads - and will explain its appeal better than we ever could.

I always took it to be him playing a movie cliche, rather than saying 'this is what spanish people are like'.

Yeah, I was just quoting The Simpsons! Pretty lame of people to actually pass it off as their own joke IRL. (Doesn't count on internet forums, where 90% of people know every Simpsons line ever.)

That's not how I remember it.

http://www.princecharlescinema.com/events/index.php#doublebills 5th July. Also note that as I type, John Travolta is taking Nicolas Cage's FACE.... OFF.

My girlfriend just bought me lifetime membership at the PCC, so if anyone fancies seeing any of these films, like say THE LOST BOYS or WRATH OF KHAN, let me know. (You'll have to pay, obv, but it's cheap, you can drink beer during the movie and I'll be there!)

I'll help by tempering your expectations, Groucho, by telling you that I found it enjoyable but not as rollicking as Rodi did. I can't remember why not, now, though. I used to be able to offer a 1 000 word critique of any film I'd ever seen. Now my old brain can only remember , or

I somehow knew that Hermie would be first to reply! That Kings Of Power video is ace, I prefer this one though: T5zpNfTfGZU Mgm1o5TzLUc

Like I say, cost issues. I doubt it'll happen too, but I can imagine the actors not turning it down automatically. Chris Lloyd played Doc in a series of adverts selling Tivo or something recently, after he asked the Bobs if they were cool with it. (Oh, and he did some horrible Microsoft conference VTs.) Not saying the Bobs would be involved, but that if they give their approval then that would make it more likely for Fox and Lloyd to be up for it. And Gale is still very involved with the fan community, disc transfers, extras, that sort of thing, so I wouldn't be surprised if he made himself available to TT to some extent. Anyway, as massive a fan of BTTF as I am, I really won't mind different voice actors being used as long as they're good. I just hope the games reflect and enhance the franchise well. Having said that, I would be saddened if Biff was in the games but not played by Tom Wilson. That's the one role I'd find it difficult to accept another actor in, for some reason.

Man, and they say 3D is gimmicky.

I'm wondering whether Telltale might step away from pure adventure for these games. After all, at least half of the stuff you remember from the films is cool action sequences. I reckon Fox and Lloyd would be interested in doing the voices (or FMV zomg!) If Bobs Gale and Zemeckis give it their seal of approval. Then again, neither of them did the cartoon (except for Lloyd's live-action education book-ends), and there are cost and availability issues. Maybe they'll go for Dan Castelleneta!

Finally, after 4 years, Telltale will be the ones to answer my question!

No, Old Biff returns to the future and it changes around him, Marty and the other time-travellers. You/they don't really notice, as they're far out in the suburbs. The bttf.com forums used to have a load of interviews with Bob Gale where he explains all this, but they just got hit by a virus. Why the fuck do hackers attack harmless sites like these? Aren't they supposed to be fighting evil mega-corporations or Fisher Stevens or something?

Marty can't remember the "new" past, hence being surprised at his new successful family. The Doc at the end of the film has lived through the "new" past; the only Doc that would remember the "old" past got shot to death.

Oops, missed this! Sorry, my new job doesn't allow for much surfing (is that still a viable term?). Thanks everyone! I am now an old man!

The fact that it doesn't quite make sense is exactly the gag, GrouchoClub. It's the kind of mind-fucking paradox/time-loop that makes time-travel fiction fun! After the first movie, the timeline stops making any sense and, as Basil Exposition would say, "I suggest you don't worry about this sort of thing, and just enjoy yourself." For anyone in London, the Prince Charles Cinema is playing a Robocop/Terminator double bill on the 2nd June. They're playing it in that order, which is a shame because it's hard for the audience to come down from the wild comedy and action of Robocop to the more serious Terminator (Ryan from Hello Games and I went last time they did it). I very much enjoyed Iron Man 2. It was a very similar experience to the first one, if not as surprising - fun, cool, character-driven, but let down by a rubbish climactic fight.

Um, XBIG, the article says. I don't know that much about it, I'm just looking forward to playing it as a gamer!

Well, Microsoft haven't even looked at the game yet, it's just journalists jumping to conclusions/wilfully misinterpreting and exaggerating.

Hello! I'm just going to copy and paste a (probably drunken) rant I had on the Zombie Cow forums a long time ago: Basically, I only did a hint-through for Ben There, Dan That! because I thought of a funny idea for it, and because I wanted people to have that option before giving into a walkthrough (an unofficial one had been posted online). If you do the right search, you can probably see this thought process happening in a thread on here somewhere! The trouble with Time Gentlemen, Please! was that it's not as linear, so writing a hint-through in the same style wouldn't have worked so well. When it was close to going gold, we talked through a few different ideas of how to do one in an interesting and useful way: it would have to be a more UHS style set-up, where you could scan for the bit you were stuck on, without ruining the puzzles running concurrently. One interesting but unworkable idea was to have a couple of googlemail accounts set up, one for each character. The player could then 'hack in' and listen in their conversations about how they solved the puzzles, using the subject lines as guides for which thread to go to. But yeah, nothing presented itself and it's nicer having the communal thread. Also, we already had the Talk To Dan option within the game. I really like the way that turned out, because the Dan character is analogous to the role of someone who's already finished the game and is trying to give you hints without just spelling it out. He tries to get you thinking in the right direction, saying "maybe you should think about distracting him" rather than "hey, I bet he'd hate a loud, carnival-based noise!" Frankly, I personally hate the idea of hint modes within a game, and it's one of the concessions a concession [EDIT - I phrased this incorrectly at the time of original rant] to modern gamers that I'm really sad Telltale has made [i wrote this having only played the Bone demo at the time]. The way I see it, if something is in the game itself, and not a bug, the developers are saying it's fine for the player to use it. (For example, bunny-hopping: id never took it out of Quake 3 because it's part of the system's rules; it's a quirk, but it's not cheating, and it doesn't destroy the balance of the game.) So, if you've got a hint system, you're telling the player that it's a valid method of playing to just click through every hint and finish the game like an automaton without ever having a thought of your own. Like you're leveling up by killing rats in an MMORPG or something. Furthermore, if an adventure game has been written properly, and is being played properly, hint-guides should not be necessary. All the hints should be in the surrounding dialogue, and the player should be looking for them. The thing that this generation of players either don't realise or have simply migrated away from, is that when playing an adventure you're supposed to get stuck. It's not a failing on your part. You're supposed to wander around locations to see what you've missed, read 'examine' dialogue again and think about it from a different angle, turn the game off and ponder the puzzles in the shower. I stepped away from Day Of the Tentacle for a month because I couldn't get Dr Fred to sign the contract. When I came back, I did it in five minutes and I was ectastic. Of course, the other factor, that the game should be written properly, is equally as important. I see in-built hint-systems as a sign of no confidence in the product or in the audience. Why does Secret Of Monkey Island need one now, but not 20 years ago? Are people more stupid? More lazy? Does Lucasarts think that, actually, despite being a classic it's just not a fair game? Dan and I really sweated over getting the balance of clues right so that we didn't need a hint system. We debated over every puzzle about whether the player could be expected to understand certain details, the rules of the universe, if we were giving away too much or too little. And not just in the dialogue: it was a lot of effort to make it possible for the player to , but it was necessary to show the player that this was possible but not the complete solution. We could have just got that across in dialogue, but it wouldn't have been helpful enough to the player. This is all personal opinion, and I don't know exactly where Dan stands on it. I do know that during development, I leant more towards giving the player the bare minimum of need-to-know, while Dan wanted to make sure it was fun for the player, even if that meant a little hand-holding. I think the two extremes worked out at a very happy medium in the end, without the need for an extra-diegetic spoiler-machine.

Sorry to bump this, just wanted to clarify that I'm not involved in this one. It is brilliant, though, and it'll be free on PC so I hope everyone here will play it! Some stuff here: http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/206530.asp http://bit.ly/aOvZ3g A lot of people on the internet get very pissy when you release a tongue-in-cheek press release, btw.

I won't be around from the 14th to the 21st, and am having birthday drinks on the 22nd, so it looks like I won't be able to make it. Have fun!

Savage Lovecast is still awesome. I also love the Collings and Herrin podcast, with film critic Andrew Collins and comedian Rich Herring. As It Occurs To Me by Rich Herring was a similarly brilliant short run of live audio sketch show/stand-up podcasts. And I enjoy Rum Doings with RPS' John Walker, although it takes a couple to acquire a taste for his co-caster. I enjoy A Life Well Wasted, but I do wish he'd stop putting on that irritating voice.