I know I’ve been lax on the old blog lately. I claim a combination of schoolwork, socializing, nearing-graduation stress, returning television shows, and generally not much interesting going on. Oh, and also the part where I’ve gotten in Twitter a lot more and am post one-off thoughts there instead of collecting them together into a blog-sized post. That gets most everything I want to say out of my system so it doesn’t end up here, which can be good or bad, I guess, depending on how you look at it. The socializing has been largely responsible for my not being around and live-blogging American Idol. Various people have wondered what’s going on with me, though, so here’s a bulleted update.

• American Idol - I’ve been ragging on Carly a lot, but honestly, I was pretty shocked when she went home instead of Jason. I’ve also supported Jason mostly throughout the show, but that was a trainwreck of a performance on his part, and I think he’s pretty well proven that, much to my disappointment, he’s a one-trick pony. So America got that one way wrong. For me, though, David Cook has it locked. Which means he’ll probably get voted off next. Just my luck.
• School - In case you didn’t catch the edit to my post about the oral exam, I did pass it. Which is a major yay. Actually, it was sort of enjoyable - a conversation about books and film with really smart people. :) Except one professor kept asking me about Faulkner even though I admitted to never reading any Faulkner. Guess I know what’s next on my reading list! And a friend and I gave a joint presentation in Literary Criticism yesterday which went surprisingly well. And now I just have two seminar papers left, and I’m fairly comfortable with them, so stress-level has fallen exponentially in the last two days.
• Post-Grad Plans - My current plans are to take a couple of weeks after graduation, maybe spend a week here hanging out with friends minus finals week stress and a week at home, then move to Los Angeles. I’m looking for jobs at USC or UCLA (not teaching; administrative), or pretty much anywhere out there that will pay me to do something I can do. ;) I mostly just want to live in a big city for a while, at least, and LA won out over New York due to climate.
• Television - Most of the TV shows are back from the writer’s strike now, which caught me by surprise, a bit - I had gotten used to my DVR NOT filling up every week. ;) The fact that I found the writer’s strike a bit of a relief probably means I’m following too many shows, but I can’t figure out which ones to give up. And the down side is that I ended up picking up a bunch of Bravo reality shows during the strike, and now I don’t want to give those up either. Good thing most of them are short. Anyway, the big television news around here is that Battlestar Galactica is back! After marathoning S3 on DVD, my friends and I jumped straight into the fourth and final season, and it is frakking amazing. If you’re not watching this show, get the DVDs and start. Don’t start in the middle.
• Gaming - GTA IV came out last night at midnight, and I went and got it. At midnight. Only time I’ve ever done that for a game, though I’ve been to midnight movie premieres. One. Harry Potter. Anyway. I wasn’t able to stay awake for more than a couple of hours gaming once I got home (I’m getting old, what can I say?), but it’s pretty sweet. Graphics are beautiful, Liberty City is HUGE. I was afraid that it’d seem small after the three-city-plus-desert of San Andreas, but no. It’s ginormous, and with so much stuff going on that I’ve repromised myself never, ever to drive in New York City (on which Liberty City is based). It’s craziness. I also used Amazon.com gift certificates to upgrade to Gold on Xbox Live, so I’m set for multiplayer, once I can tear myself away from the single-player campaign.
• Socializing - It’s starting to hit me that I’m leaving here in like a month, and though I feel confident in the strength of the friendships I’ve made over the past two years (and the power of Facebook) that I’ll keep in contact with most of my friends, I have been trying to spend as much time as possible with them all before I leave. And I’m at that place where I’m glad to be almost done with school, and I’m very glad to be leaving Waco, but I’m not at all glad about leaving all the people here. I know everyone goes through that every time we change life situations, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

So that’s pretty much my life right now.

So, according to this clip from major news outlet Fox News (which I have no overarching gripe about), Mass Effect is chock-full of graphic violence and sex and should be rated Adults Only and kept out of the hands of most gamers, since virtually all gamers are prepubescent boys. And this they know because some psychologist who hasn’t played the game, who in fact laughs at the hinted suggestion that she might ought to play the game before she rails on it, says so. Geoff Keighley tried his best to counter these ludicrous claims, but kept getting cut off before he could fully make his point. Which is, of course, that these are absolutely untrue, ludicrous claims, as anyone who’d actually, like, played the game would know.

Yes, there is a sex scene in the game. It comes after about 30 hours of play and lasts less than a couple of minutes, as Keighley points out. And there is no graphic nudity in it. In fact, it’s rather tastefully done; so “tastefully” that it’s almost funny, in the bad ’80s movie sort of way. And it’s presented as part of a long story/relationship-arc that has to be handled in a certain way to even get to it. It’s quite possible to play the entire game multiple times and never see the sex scene. Oh, and the anchor at one point, while showing a clip of the beginning of said sex scene, says “the player gets to decide exactly what happens between these two characters, if you know what I mean,” her tone intimating that you’re controlling the sex act itself, which is utterly untrue. It’s a cinematic cut scene; you control the dialogue and relationship choices that may or may not lead up to the scene, but you do nothing during it.

There are so many other little things here mostly stemming from people talking about things they know nothing about. Talking about ESRB game ratings, the anchor says you have to pick up the box and read the back to find out the rating; not true–the ratings are ALWAYS prominently displayed on the front (much more prominently than MPAA ratings are displayed on DVD cases, for example); as if reading the back were such a chore anyway. One of the other panel members at the end mentions buying an inappropriate game for his daughter because he either didn’t see the rating or didn’t know what it meant. I don’t know about all game stores, but certainly the ones I’ve shopped at have the ratings and their meanings displayed all over the store. The psychologist states categorically that most gamers are teenage boys, but the average gaming age is over 30 now. My favorite is when one of the panelists says she doesn’t understand why Mass Effect isn’t rated AO (adults only, the equivalent of NC-17 for movies) instead of M (mature, the equivalent of R for movies). Well, if any of these people had bothered to play the game instead of just condemn it, they would know that had Mass Effect been a movie, with the exact same amount of violence and sexual content, it would almost certainly have been rated PG-13.

I think that’s what really gets me; I understand the principle of not wanting sex and violence in games, but I don’t understand the double standard whereby games are vilified for having shades of things in them that movies have had for ages and very few people get unduly up in arms about anymore. No one goes, OMG, Shakespeare in Love has a sex scene with nudity, without at least considering the rest of the film and whether there’s value in it. But that’s exactly what people do with video games; forget the fact that Mass Effect has a film-quality story and script, excellent acting, incredible graphics, and groundbreaking gameplay. Nope, it’s got one sorta sex scene that we’ll blow all out of proportion and thereby condemn the game entirely. (At least the anchor does attempt to be somewhat fair by pointing out how gorgeous the game is.) And believe me, when you finish Mass Effect, the thing you remember from it won’t be the fact that your character got laid. Unless the media continues to hype it this way to the point where you can’t remember anything else.

(via Joystiq.

I have posted some of the entries from X-Play’s Splinter Cell Co-Op Theatre before, but I don’t care. I love them more than is healthy. This first one added at least two phrases to my gaming lexicon which each pop up at least once when I’m playing with my co-op gaming friend. First, the immortal “You shot me! You ****ing shot me! … Yeah, and I revived you, so shut up.” This normally comes up when I accidentally mistake him for an enemy and shoot him. Or when we get bored right after a save point and start shooting each other on purpose. An even more common is for one of us to yell “NAVY SEALS!!” when about to run stupidly into enemy fire, which happens a lot, since in most games you respawn when you die unless the other player dies too, which yields recklessness. (That doesn’t work as well in Splinter Cell itself, since you have a limited amount of time to get to your partner and revive him, thus placing yourself in danger too.) The second one in the series is awesome, too…I’ll probably post it in the next few days, just ’cause I can.

Well, it’s that time of year. And while most critics seem to be bemoaning to one degree or another the expectation that they compile year-end top ten lists, I still relish list-making, even though any list I might make is going to woefully incomplete. This year I saw 182 movies, which is roughly double my normal average. Not having a job is a big help. ;) And enough of them were released this year for me to be comfortable making a Top Ten of 2007 list. It’s still incomplete, but hey. It’s a fair working list, I think. After the released-in-2007 list are a bunch of more subjective I-watched-in-2007 lists of both films and books.

Top Ten 2007

(A few of the top 2007 films I actually saw early in January before I posted this. I thought it prudent to include them here, but they don’t appear in my favorites-that-I-watched-in-2007 list because, well, I didn’t watch them in 2007).

Links lead to my original review or reaction post; I tried to get anchors to work in the reaction posts so that the link would take you straight to the relevant part of the post, but I was unsuccessful. Sorry.

No Country for Old Men - The Coen brothers are back, and as good as ever, blending creepy atmosphere and dark humor perfectly.
Once - I almost put this on top, simply because I love it so much, but NCFOM deserves to be number one.
Juno - Clever, snarky, human, and Ellen Page being brilliant.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - A film of great beauty and sensitivity that I never wanted to end.
Eastern Promises - Not as edgy as Cronenberg often is, but an extremely solid crime film nonetheless.
Hot Fuzz - Probably the most enjoyable film of the year; part action, part comedy, all pop-culture-referential, and pretty much all perfect.
Away from Her - Simple and perfectly acted and directed drama; Julie Christie is quietly sensational as a woman diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
3:10 to Yuma - One of the first westerns I’ve seen recently to successfully use and update the genre conventions.
Ratatouille - Not Pixar’s best, but that’s hardly an insult; the added bonus of a Parisian setting had me at go.
Waitress - The sweetest film of the year has enough sarcastic bite in the script to keep it from going completely off the rails into sentimentality. My major faux pas of the year, apparently, was forgetting to include Waitress in my monthly recaps.

Honorable Mentions

Atonement - Extremely faithful adaptation; well-done, but also more literary than cinematic except for a few virtuosic steadicam shots.
Paris, je t’aime - Not all the short films in this compendium are good, but many of them are excellent, and how could I not love 18 films about Paris?
Enchanted - Amy Adams (and James Marsden) elevate this from what could have been pure cheese to a delightful fantasy/comedy.
Zodiac - Hits a sweet spot between serial killer thriller and ambiguous character study.
The Darjeeling Limited - Doesn’t reach the dizzying heights of The Royal Tenenbaums, but still an evocative, entertaining Wes Anderson-esque road film.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - A bit on the gory side, but beautifully shot, acted, and yes, even sung. Macabre is the word.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - The Harry Potter series keeps getting better; great supporting work gives this one an extra edge.
The Lookout - This little crime film must have gone under a lot of radars, because it deserved more attention than it got.
The Bourne Ultimatum - Another solid entry in the already solid Bourne series, proving that action franchises can be both exciting and smart.
Paprika - Dreams and reality start to mix with potentially world-ending results in this visually inventive anime film. I *heart* reality-blurring stories.
Avenue Montaigne - Unassuming and enjoyable little French film of interlocking relationships in the vicinity of the Parisian concert hall.
Across the Universe - The melding of Beatles music with a 1960s love story/political scene doesn’t completely work, but much of it is lovely.

Haven’t Seen

Films which have been on lots of critics lists or are otherwise notable, and thus might be on my lists somewhere, but I haven’t seen yet.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Persepolis, I’m Not There, There Will Be Blood, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, This is England, Rescue Dawn, Lars and the Real Girl, Margot at the Wedding, Sunshine

edit 5/5/08 - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly has moved up to second place, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is in 4th, but constantly threatens to move up to second or third, The Assassination of Jesse James is now 6th, and Lars and the Real Girl and Sunshine are in the low twenties. I hated There Will Be Blood, so it’s down at #32. Sorry.

After the jump, my favorite films I watched all year, regardless of release date, as well as favorite books I read.

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New record set again! Twenty-six movies this month. I love vacation time. And having awesome libraries around. And art-house theatres. After the jump, reactions to No Country for Old Men, Cars, Rushmore, Flags of Our Fathers, Slacker, The Squid and the Whale, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Underworld: Evolution, The Black Dahlia, MirrorMask, Juno, Notes on a Scandal, Interiors, The Illusionist, Mass Effect, Gears of War, and others.

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Very little in the way of media consumption last month. I’d like to say that was because I was studying so hard, but really, it’s because of the new Xbox360. So I decided to include video games in the recap, too, since they’re currently taking up such a large chunk of my life. After the jump, reactions to The Darjeeling Limited, Pierrot le fou, The Sportswriter, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Call of Duty 2, and Guitar Hero II. I also haven’t forgotten that I owe Mark some original Xbox reviews/recommendations, if he still wants them–I’m having trouble figuring out what I should consider family friendly for your kids, Mark. What do you let them play?

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The first vids of this kid were when he was seven. Now he’s nine, and he’s only gotten better. This is the Expert version of “Through the Fire and Flames,” the boss song on Guitar Hero III, and wow. I’ll never in a million years be able to play that.

We’re coming down to the wire on this semester; only two weeks left to finish up (aka write) those final papers and do those last projects. And we know what that means! Layout change! It’s like a Pavlov’s dog scenario, for serious. Anyway, I’ve actually been messing around with the layouts for a while, but I kept getting roadblocked from what I really wanted to do by my lack of PHP knowledge. But mostly what I wanted was to be able to do was highlight video clips, and I finally found a layout template that had enough space in the sidebar to manage. I can never decide how many columns I need, so this one that lets me sort of have both two and three at the same time is perfect!

Of course, the real reason I needed to move to something with wider sidebars is so I could display my brand spanking new Xbox Live Gamertag. I tell you what, the thing is eating my life. In a good way. Mostly. I’m now addicted to getting achievements, which is encouraging me to replay Call of Duty 2 at the highest difficulty to get more. I never do that. I used to just play games through on Normal difficulty once and then quit; yay for increasing replay value! I also finished Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, which was so great I’m very close to naming it my new favorite RPG, even over Knights of the Old Republic. And that’s saying something. It’s saying a lot, actually. Now I’m lusting after Mass Effect, but I’m going to wait and give it to myself as a post-semester reward. In any case, if you have Live and know me, add me! I don’t know very many people on Live, so I need friends.

It also lets me put last.fm’s radio widget in there instead of the playlist one; I no longer have full control over the songs, but they’re all recommended based on my musical taste and they’re the full songs rather than the 30-second preview. I think that’s better. Plus I don’t have to feel guilty that I haven’t changed the playlist for months.

Let’s see, anything else new and interesting? Or at least new? Nope, not really. Back to last week’s Grey’s Anatomy. It has Seth Green! I swear, I’m getting to the point where I recognize half of the guest stars on TV. Eliza Dushku was on Ugly Betty last week, which was awesome. I miss her. Did I ever post about the show she and Joss Whedon are working on? I don’t think I did. But they’re working on a new show, and I’m so excited. Okay, rambling now.