A couple of months ago I told you all about Joss Whedon’s during the strike created web show called Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Well, now it’s almost about to be launched!
Dr Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) is a super villain, just not that good a one. His arch nemesis Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion) keeps beating him up and he’s too shy to talk to the cute girl from the laundromat (Felicia Day). It’s a comedy and it’s a musical, so it’s going to be silly, funny and oh so sing-alongable.
I loved Buffy’s musical episode Once More With Feeling (I’m not ashamed to admit I know all the lyrics of those songs), so I have high hopes for Dr Horrible. The casting of Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion to me is just a great added bonus. Even if they weren’t in it I would have adored this, but with both of them it just makes it a bit more special. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, check it out:
The idea is to have three acts (episodes) of about 15 minutes debut online on DrHorrible.com in the next couple of days. Act 1 will be launched tomorrow (Tuesday July 15th), Act 2 on Thursday (July 17th) and Act 3 on Saturday (July 19th). All three acts will be available for free online till Sunday midnight (July 20th). After that they’ll be downloadable for a small fee and eventually also released on DVD.
There’s also a mini comic book story that serves as a preview called Captain Hammer: Be Like Me!. It’s not that important to the story, but it’s a great little extra marketing. I so hope this whole setup is going to work, but if there’s one guy out there who can make it happen it’s Joss Whedon.
So don’t forgot! Tomorrow is the first installment of Dr Horrible. Will you come along to see evil take over the world?
I hate trailers that give too much away and if possible, would rather forgo them completely. That’s why I love these type of promotional videos for movies; they show the spirit of the movie without spoiling anything (the Wall-E and the vacuum cleaner/magnet/etc set is another good example). The video shows Hellboy (the titular character of the upcoming movie) and Chuck (from the tv show Chuck) together playing a video game:
I love how they combine these two worlds! There’s also a second one:
Do you ever play that game where you just sit somewhere, watch people and try to create their back stories? This photo somehow catches that type of game for me. I can keep staring at it, wondering what each person in it was wondering at the time.
About a week ago Sizemore twittered he was organizing another bloggers screening, this time for the Brazilian movie City of Men. I was interested, but I hadn’t actually seen the critically acclaimed sort-of-prequel to it, City of God. Although I had heard a lot of good things about it, I didn’t feel it was my type of movie and had avoided watching it. Now with this screening of it’s sequel coming up, I finally sat down and took some time to give it a go. And I am so glad I did.
City of God is a Brazilian drama directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund. It’s an adaption of the novel of the same name (by Paulo Lins), which in turn is based on a true story. The Cidade de Deus is a slummy lower class neighbourhood, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, teeming with drug dealers and gang members. Rocket is a teenager who lives in Cidade de Deus in the seventies and the movie opens with him caught in the middle between a gang and police shoot-out. It then jumps back to ten years earlier (the sixties) and Rocket tells us how he got into that situation, which includes tales about his family, friends and neighbours.
I hadn’t expected to like this movie; I thought it would be all dramatic and serious because it’s about the slums and drugdealing. I’m not saying it isn’t (cause it is), but Meirelles and Lund manage to embed an unexpected lightheartedness in how the movie is told. There’s a weird light black comedy vibe going on, making you laugh one moment and shiver in shock the next.
The movie is about the slums and drugdealing, but most of all it’s about kids growing up. Yes, they have to deal with guns and drugs and death, but they also have to deal with the standard stuff: figuring out what to do with their lives, overcoming their insecurities and how to get that first crush to finally kiss them. But they’re doing this all while trying to survive in this gang ruled world, full of both ruthlessness and humanity.
The look and feel of this movie is superb. Initially, the story flashes back in one big jump of ten years, but after that Rocket gives little glimpses of stories he will tell. For instance, at one point he introduces a character briefly, who’s not that relevant to that scene, only to say he’ll came back to that story later. It gives a great dynamic to the film, eluding to future events and giving the viewer something to wonder about. The cinematography is beautiful; it’s gritty and harsh, but that all contributes to the bleak realism of the movie. There are a couple of wonderful camera pans and freezes, highlighting key moments.
City of God is a film you have to have seen. Not everybody may think this film will be for them, but even then I recommend giving it a try, you may be surprised. There’s a very good reason why this film is so high in a lot of “Best-Of” lists and I imagine it’s going to stay in those lists for a very long time.
Square brings tactical RPG to the iPod – Damn, it’s things like these that make me wish I had a newer iPod nano (the video one). Song Summoner is an RPG where you create and level your character up by listening to different types of songs. Brilliant!
VOTD: Hellboy vs. Chuck | /Film – Funny marketing vids promoting Hellboy, featuring Hellboy playing a videogame with Chuck (from the series Chuck). Nice little crossover.
I’ve been meaning to do this for some time, but I just haven’t come around to do it. First off, the recurring A Video A Day post is being relabeled to Video of The Day. The why of this should be apparent; the idea initially was to post a video every day, but I soon discovered I was posting videos just for the sake of having to post a video. Not because I necessarily liked it or wanted other people to see that video, but just because I needed a video for that day. So it’s now renamed Video of The Day.
Next to that I also wanted to start the recurring post of Photo of The Day. Unlike the videos though, most of these will be my own photos that I want to highlight. I’ve lately been playing around with Cristiano’s Nikon D40 (although if you ask him it’s “our” camera) and would really like some feedback of what people think of some of my photos. That’s not to say though that all featured photos will be my own; I will post cool pics of other people when I come across them.
Besides that, I’m introducing two other new recurring topics: Geek Girl and Geek Crush. In Geek Girl I’ll feature a geeky girl from a movie, tv show, video game or real life. There are enough geeky woman out there to make this a regular thing and if you have any suggestions, let me know (geek@missgeeky.com). Geek Crush is inspired by a recent conversation I had where I said I had a geek crush on David Tennant. With geek crush I mean a crush on a star from something reasonably geeky, be it a movie, tv show or anything else. Again, if you have any suggestions, email me at the above emailaddress.
That’s it for the inhouse announcements for now. Nothing major changing, just some little new things. Hope you continue to enjoy this blog!
Much to my amazement when I wanted to step on my balcony this afternoon, I discovered this:
Yes, that’s a squirrel. A freaking cute small squirrel asleep in my beanbag. A squirrel. Asleep. In my beanbag. How cute is that?! I’ve never seen a sleeping squirrel before, let alone one in a beanbag! By accident I then woke the little thing up and it jumped away, but a few minutes later it was back. Eyes shut and sleeping peacefully:
These pictures (and a couple more photos up on Flickr) don’t do it justice; you can actually see it breathing heavily as if it was snoring. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had gotten closer that it was doing just that (cats snore, so why not squirrels?). I didn’t want to open the door and step out, cause I’m sure it would have ran away then. It’s dark now outside, but it’s still there.
With the pigeon nest (I’ll come around to that in another blog post) in the other corner, this balcony is turning out to be quite the wildlife shelter. What’s next, I wonder?
Episode 66: “Their intelligence is an intrinsic reason as to why you’re supposed to find them interesting”
Back in May I linked to a write-up of a talk from Neal Stephenson called “The Fork: Science Fiction versus Mundane Culture”. What I didn’t know then was that the whole talk was actually filmed and is available to watch online. The whole talk is about 40 minutes, but it’s definitely worth listening to:
I love playing games and wish I had the time to play more. Video games, board games, running-around-blindfolded games (I’ll come to that later), I’m a sucker for it all. Suffice to say, the Hide & Seek Festival last weekend was right up my alley.
The Hide and Seek festival is an annual event in London, where people come together to play and talk about games. It celebrates the creative and social aspects of gaming and they invite artists and professionals from all disciplines to experiment with game design. Hosted at the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank, the festival is a couple of days of pure social gaming pleasure, harking back to the unfettered fun of childhoods past.
I couldn’t find the time to spend the whole weekend at the festival, so I had to decide between the Saturday and the Sunday. I chose Sunday, cause the games seems somewhat funner and less spots were taken for them. I would have loved to have gone both days, but this year that just wasn’t possible. I did however go to the Werewolf gathering on Friday night, which was a lot of fun.
I didn’t get to play as much games as I’d like, but the games I did play were great. I’ll try to write a bit about each of them (and also one I didn’t get to play, but is unique enough to talk about).
Werewolf
Ever since my first Werewolf night (got dragged to it by Cristiano, I had no idea what I was getting myself into), I’ve been a huge fan and with all the BarCamps I’ve been going to, I’m proud to say I’m a pretty good player. If you don’t know the rules, check out the Werewolf wiki. In short: group of Villagers with a couple (2-3) hidden Werewolves (and maybe extra characters, like the Healer or the Seer). At night everybody has their eyes closed, the Werewolves kill someone. During the day the Villagers have to figure out who the Werewolves are and lynch someone. Game is over if all the Werewolves or all the Villagers are dead. The game revolves around talking; if nobody talks the game just doesn’t work. For me, it really helped to become (a little bit) more outspoken, cause you do have to be a bit blunt if you want to get your point through.
I played three games at the H&S; the first one being the most fun (and stressfull!). During that game there were 12 Villagers, 2 Werewolves and one Seer. And I was a Werewolf… Before the game had even really started, one newbie already had a question: “What exactly does the Seer do?” Okay, so she’s the Seer. Now my stroke of genius was not to kill her straightaway. Later on in the game it gave me the edge towards other experience players (like Sheila and Glynn) that of course I wasn’t a Werewolf, cause otherwise I would have killed her at the start. Anyhow, my fellow Werewolf got lynched in the very first round, but I managed to survive right to the last round, where two of the final three Villagers nominated and (with my help) lynched the final other Villager. The Werewolves were victorious!
Now that was a great game, but of course after that nobody trusted me anymore. So in the two following games even though I was a simple harmless Villager, nobody believed me and I got lynched both times. I’m trying to find a venue (separate room, no hire charge) so that we can organize a couple more Werewolf nights, cause I want to play this more often than only at BarCamps!
And I Saw
I went to the Southbank and I saw… remember that kids game? That was the basis for And I Saw. Throughout the Southbank “game area” they had hidden big blue stickers with a 5-digit number on them, like the one in the photo below. Idea was that you had to find as many of those stickers as possible and text the number when you found one. Every player also had a sticker, so the more players you met (or sneakily shadowed) the more points you collected. At the end of the day the scores were tallied on their website and you could see what you had seen that day. Results: I was seen 10 times and I saw 28 things.
The Lost Sport of Olympia
“Discovered” by Jane McGonigal while doing research for The Lost Ring ARG (for the 2008 Beijing Olympics), the Lost Sport of Olympia is a mysterious game the ancient Greeks used to play that was eventually banned from the Olympics. If you haven’t played it yourself, I’m guessing it will sound just plain weird, but (like Werewolf) I really enjoyed myself, albeit in a different manner.
With The Lost Game one person is the Runner who is blindfolded and put in the center of the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth is drawn out on the ground with chalk; it’s not really a labyrinth, cause there’s only one path, but it winds a couple of times around. The other players have to create the walls of the labyrinth, standing on the drawn-out outline. With his arms folded across his chest (grabbing his shoulders) the Runner has to go navigate through the labyrinth, but is not allowed to talk to the walls. The only communication comes from the Walls humming. How they hum or when they hum is part of the tactic of the game, but you can imagine that only Walls infront of the Runner should hum, highlighting in which direction he should go. Now what (to me) makes it even more interesting is that the Labyrinth isn’t built completely from the start. There aren’t enough players for that, so the Walls have to keep moving around making up the parts of the labyrinth only moments before the Runner goes through them. Here’s a video of one of the groups at Hide & Seek:
It’s not your most conventional game, but I love how it combines tactics, co-operation and skill. I started out with a group in a small labyrinth of 3 circles, playing a Wall, and after a couple of tries one Runner managed to get 30 seconds. Most other groups at the time were still stuck at 1 minute plus (the world record is 13 seconds!!), so we graduated to the bigger 8-circuit labyrinth. Turns out it was a lot trickier, but still a lot of fun. When one of the other groups wanted a go at the big labyrinth, a couple of us returned to the smaller one and I attempted my first blindfolded go as Runner. I did it in 36 seconds! Not bad for a newbie apparently. I’ve even joined the London Olympic Team, who are training for (you guessed it) the Olympics.
Cruel 2 Be Kind
Now this game I didn’t play, cause I was too late with registering for it, but I saw people playing and it just looked crazy. With Cruel 2 Be Kind you register a team and with your team you go out and kill other teams. You “kill” by being kind. This means serenading them, complementing their eyes or mistaking them for a famous person. Problem is you don’t know who are players and who are normal people enjoying a day out on the Southbank. So you could be is singing to a complete stranger! Besides that once you kill a team, they become part of your team and as the game continues you get bigger and bigger groups. Because all members of a team have to be participate in a kill, you get these large groups of about 20 people running towards another group singing some love song. It was hilarious to watch!
All in all, it was a great festival and next year I’m definitely keeping that weekend free to enjoy the full two days. If you want more information, check out the Hide & Seek website.
I haven’t been watching Doctor Who for that long; I only jumped in at the end of season 2, but since then it only seems to be getting better. Last week I decided to watch all the episodes I hadn’t seen and watched the first two seasons, so now I’m kind of on a Doctor Who high. I loved last Saturday’s Doctor Who episode, the penultimate episosde of this season (The Stolen Earth) and just had to take some time to theorize about the finale. I don’t want to spoil anything, so: beware, spoilers after the pic!
Beware: Here be spoilers!
If you’re reading this I assume you’ve seen the episode I’m talking about and the major cliffhanger at the end: the Doctor starts regenerating! Seriously, was anyone expecting that? The moment he got shot, I of course had the feeling that would happen, but before that? No way. And now what? How will this be resolved? Reports are that David Tennant has signed on for the three specials of next year and has even started filming some of it. But can we actually trust these sources?
I think there are 5 possible situations that could happen:
1. The Doctor regenerates into a new actor and stays that way.
If this is the case, I have to applaud the makers for keeping this secret. In this darn age it seems an impossible mission and if they actually managed not to reveal this major spoiler… freaking amazing. I don’t think I’d be that happy though with this option, cause that means no more David Tennant! I’m sure whoever they’ll get to replace Tennant will be great and we’ll warm up to him, but still let us keep Tennant a few more seasons.
2. The Doctor regenerates into a new actor, but turns back into Tennant.
In this scenario there are two things that could happen. First one is that this new form the Doctor turns into is a one time appearance. He changes back into Tennant and this form is never seen again (with some mumbo-jumbo that time has changed so the next time he regenerates it won’t be into that form). Second thing that could happen is that this is a preview of the next Doctor. Whenever Tennant leaves the show, this is the actor who will take over.
3. The Doctor “degenerates” into a previous incarnation and stays that way.
Ehm, well, it is a possibility, right? But, yeah, highly unlikely.
4. The Doctor “degenerates” into a previous incarnation, but turns back into Tennant.
I could see this happening. I wouldn’t put it pass Davies to bring Christopher Ecclestone or an earlier Doctor back for a moment, only to “fix” it and continue with Tennant. It also wouldn’t be too difficult to have kept secret; a couple of scenes with the previous Doctor on a closed set, pretty easy to keep quiet.
5. The Doctor tries to regenerate, but is stuck in his current form.
I think this would be the most boring option; something goes wrong, so the regeneration can’t be completed and they have to find some other way to heal the Doctor or something like that. After all the big fuss, it would kind of feel like the easy way out and I would really be disappointed if they do this. It has to be something “grander” than this, don’t you think?
The first situation would be the most shocking and sure to go down in TV history, but I don’t think it will happen. With what we’ve heard about Tennant, I truly think he’ll be back for future episodes. I’m hoping it won’t be the 5th option, but from the others I’m not sure which I’d rather prefer.
So do you think I’ve covered every possibility? Or will Davies do something even more ridiculous? Any other possible scenarios you can come up with?
