Cap Week: Things to Come

It's CapWeek, the week I celebrate having witnessed the third live action movie about a guy who wears more stars than a kindergarten production of "The Solar System,"and punches more Nazis than is the standard by which punching Nazis is measured.

Yesterday—you know what happened yesterday. Read it again if you forgot.

When I left off yesterday, I had just settled in to watch the Captain America: The First Avenger…previews.

The Immortals is nice and shiny, but it somehow come across as over-produced. Between the sexy, hairless twentysomething cast, shouts for “freedom” in a setting where I can't imagine it being a really popular concept, and obvious wartime setting, it just seemed like a polished, formulaic film pushed in front of a populace hungry to eat up its sexuality, bloodshed, and toothless, affirmative ideology without reflection. That line didn’t start out to be insulting; while The Immortals looks like it will be very good at what it is, what it is is slightly more blatant about feeding a sickened, navel-gazing populace more cultural dessert through an NG tube instead of a good, goddamned nutritional meal you can taste, chew, and swallow.

Cap Week: Prelude

If there's one good thing I can say about Louisiana, it's that we sell booze in movie theaters. I don't know if other states do it, but by god, they should. At the very least, it's great for someone who sees movies and drinks at nine in the morning, and by that I mean someone who's actively attempting to live at a destructive frequency with civilization, and by that, I mean me.

Sadly, we suck at everything else, including how we serve liquor. The corner of the theater that serves liquor was presciently half-lit. This place was to be the most depressing alcoholery I’ve ever been to (well second; there was that time I went to a gay bar for middle-aged dudes).

Weekend Music: "Cigarettes and Coffee" by Otis Redding

I know two things about this band:
1) I like them.
2) How to link their website.

It's the Magic: Tests, pt II

A few months ago, the guys at Magic did a reality show/recruitment drive--this is all in Part I, so I'm going to bullet-point here: 

• Six Cards
• All five colors
• At least one Land, Artifact, Creature, Enchantment, Instant, & Sorcery
• Converted mana costs 1 through 5 (the land costs 0)
• 2 Commons, 2 Uncommons, 2 Rare

Last week, I put up three of my designs with some commentary. This week’s move is pretty predictable:

The Game's The Thing: Why We Play Rehash

The basic question for this thing is: “What do players get out of this?”

I’ve gone over this before, but I’ve both given it additional thought and read over a number of quality essays on the subject.

Players, to varying degrees, like Interacting with a setting and other players, participating in a Story (either of a character or a larger setting), and Accomplishing something.

Story is a player’s interest in playing a part in an epic story or a role. A character wants to participate in a fantastic setting and become immersed in it. It includes both simple escapism and a more complicated desire to be something instead of just being something else. Players who want to roleplay something very different from themselves, see where the storyteller’s narrative is progressing, and interact with the environment as a real person might, irrationally or no.

The Prisoner: The Girl Who Was Death

I recently purchased--at the unspoken behest of the geek hive mind--the classic BBC series The Prisoner. I'm watching it offshore to pass the time and sharing spoiler-free responses/reviews with the internet without provocation, cause, or request because that's what the internet is for. Enjoy.

We all remember things differently. There was once an episode of Batman: the Animated Series where The Mad Hatter puts Batman into a dream machine where everything is perfect except Bruce Wayne isn’t Batman so nothing is perfect at all. Inevitably, he gets out[1] and the first thing on his mind--and that of the viewer--is how much The Mad Hatter knows about his secret identity. Secret identities are a big deal when you’re 10; they are urgent business. Luckily, the writers and The Mad Hatter write it off with the fridge logic of “Nothing can be learned from a dream.”

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 34

Every Tuesday I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.   

Luthor thinks he’s doing humanity a favor--like a sloppier Adrian Veidt--but in reality he’s in it for himself. In fact, he pictures himself as a leader of humanity--asserting his ownership of it--but how much does he ever even get out of the US? I’d be interested in comparing Lex and Clark Kent (the conservative business man versus liberal reporter angle is obvious and I’m skipping it); world-owning homebody versus world-traveling learner. 

Batman’s motivation is more difficult to pin down. Yes, he’s fighting crime. Yes, his parents were killed in front of him. Yes, he would like a world where no child will ever have to watch his parents die in front of him. However, I’m not sure what Batman’s end goal is. I’m sure he has one; he’s The Goddamn Batman. He’s not The Punisher; venturing out into the night simply to act out against the evils that men do, content to know that he will not eliminate crime or improve the world, only that he has punished wrongdoing, and punished it again and will go on punishing it until there is no longer a Punisher. Then…nothing.