Friday, May 15, 2009

Friday Ramble (balloons+ Pixar+ Critics+ Excitbots)

Happy Friday ya'll!!! Have a great weekend!


49 comments:

REZBLUE said...

Terminator better be good. They already have McG signed on to direct Terminator 5 according to IMDB.

So far it looks good though.

I hope it doesnt turn into one of those franchises that goes to part 12 just because it makes money and not because they feel the story is so important it needs sequel after sequel to tell it.

Graham Waldrop said...

Yeah I think that Terminator 4 looks sweet even though McG is directing. I have high hopes for it. Christian Bale is great and Jonathan Nolan rewrote the script and made it better, and those guys kicked ass in The Dark Knight.

That balloon was hilarious.

Excitebots is a fun game, my friend has it for Wii and we've played it a few times. Fun stuff.

Terminator and Transformers are the only two movies I'm looking forward to and the only reason I care about Transformers is that the last hour of the first film was fucking sweet and I just hope this time it's more focused on the Autobots and the Decepticons and not on Shia (even though he did all right, there was too much of him).

The new Coppola movie looks good. It's called Tetro. Check out the trailer on Youtube.

Regards and keep cranking out that glorious game.

-G.W.

KonKat said...

Terminator looks pretty good, but I still haven't seen Star Trek.. I'm gonna see it tomorrow though. As for Up, it looks cute. I might check it out.

Anonymous said...

Ice Age 3 could be interesting.

iceveiled said...

Happy friday David. I've never liked critics, particularly movie critics. Do I need some guy I don't know telling me if I'll like a movie or not? Fuck no. That is just absurd.

Have your own opinion on the matter. Watch the damn trailer and decide on your own if you want to spend $12 and an afternoon seeing it. Fuck critics.

Side note. You're looking rather youthful these days. It appears those 10 years the God of War development sucked out of your life has been restored recently. ;)

Enjoy your weekend

Shades Perk said...

I agree on the notion that there are a lot of movie critics out there who have this notion that in order for a movie to be good, it has to be pander to a inner circle of people who frequent film festivals. It's a little pretentious to me. Summer blockbusters have their place just as much as a critically acclaimed indie flick.

Gazzo said...

Neat vlog. Only you would let a goddamn balloon loose on their blog.

I'm not too big of a movie guy, I know of all the summer movies, but I haven't seen any of them, and I probably won't until 3 years from now when they're on TBS or FX or whatever. I am, however, kinda looking forward to the new Transformers. I thought the first one was pretty good, all things considered. So long as they improved the formula a bit with the 2nd one, I have high hopes for it.

I have heard good things about Excitebots. I'm not a big racing game guy, but I've heard good things about it, and it looks fun, so it may be one of those "down the line" purchases.

Oh, and Pixar. Mind you, I've only seen Nemo, Toy Story 1 & 2, and The Incredibles, but I love Pixar. I really recommend Toy Story 2 if you were a fan of the first, it's a great movie. Great for kids, great for adults. Just great.

Anyway, have a great weekend. I'll try to. May the Fun Gods be with you. :)

Anonymous said...

saw star trek yesterday and you do sound just like kirk.

Eddie said...

David, I think there is something you should know. It's about your son, Kratos. Warning: It's nauseating and hilarious. http://rule34.paheal.net/post/view/138476?search=Kratos

bossman87 said...

i know UP is using that new digital 3d tech but if u actully go to marketsaw.blogspot.com its supposed to be the next big step in movie making..Even james cameron has an epic 200 million dollar movie coming out in december called Avatar, which is using it and is supposed to be like dreaming while u watch it completely immersing u into the world..i dunno i thought of as an interesting read check it out

Jala said...

Diddy Kong Racing was THE SHIT

GamingOwl said...

Lmao! Silly, David...

MrDaBucket said...

I heard at GDC once you debated a schoolteacher about if video games have negative effects on gamers. I just found out today that I will be debating a teacher on it. Can you PLEASE give me some talking points/arguments in favor of video games to use against my opponent? Itd be of great help.

Chissock said...

I just laughed so hard with the balloon!!

yog-sothot said...

wow David, you did not like Ratatouille, Nemo and Wall-E ? Well, everybody has its own taste I guess... You should watch Toy Story 2, imo this is the funniest Pixar movie.

Seriously, how could you not like Ratatouille ? The second "bad guy" is a critics ! ;-)

Kianu10 said...

I agree, Funny People looks really good, but my bet is that Transformers 2 will be the big summer movie of the year.

Jason said...

Jeepers David...

I've never seen anyone get so upset over a movie reference. Diving Bell was used because it won 2 awards (and nominated for 3) at Cannes last year; the context is a comparison of Cannes viewer reactions. While perhaps not the greatest comparison, I think it's still revelant, especially considering Pixar typically is met with voluminous applause at these things.

Has he lost sight of his audience? I don't think so at all. It's not like he summoned some obscure 1960's flick that hasn't been released on DVD. And let's say a reader hasn't heard of Diving Bell - would it be such a bad thing if they checked it out after it was brought to their attention? Isn't it a positive exercise to be brought to unfamiliar movies/music/games/literature?

If you were to review a game, and brought up another game you held in high regard as a casual comparision, possibly one that isn't a mega budge title, would it not be a little absurd for a reader to harbor such an aggressive response? To claim that you lost sight of your audience? For them to spout, "Fuck reviewers! FUCK THEM! Bringing up Flower!" (or whatever title, you get the point)

I don't get your ire at all.

I'm not saying you should have liked Diving Bell, because it's all subjective. I'm just saying he, you, anyone, should be able to bring up any reference that the author deems fit.

For a film critic to bring up a 2008 release that won dozens of awards, and also a film, perhaps more importantly, that gathered an IMDB USER review score of 8.1, is something that, frankly, makes a lot of sense.

And I wonder, if you loved Diving Bell, would you be applauding that someone has brought some attention to this film?

David Jaffe said...

My point in referencing the massive love Diving Bell got at Cannes- and to berate the critics who (at Cannes) stood for 10 minutes and applauded- was to show the lack of connection that audience has with the mainstream.

I have not seen UP. Could suck, could not.

BUT the point being- in the context of the article- just because the CANNES audience does not stand for 10 means does not mean the film is:

a- not good
b- destined to fail at the box office

in many ways, it's quite the opposite.

Anonymous said...

I feel the same. The summer movies that came out, or is that coming out soon, don't really interest me. Star Trek? Meh. Wolverine? No. G.I. Joe? Maybe. But the movie I'm looking forward to the most is Transformers 2. The first movie was surprisingly good. I'd like to see what they have in store for us this time around with the sequel.

F1REST0RM said...

The balloons thing sounds fun, I should try it sometime. :P Definitely watch the second Toy Story, it's better than the first one, probably their best film overall. Just really entertaining.

And while I disagree with your opinions on the other Pixar films for the most part, I did agree about Ratatouille or however the fuck you spell it, it was really boring and easily their weakest film. Although I think Up is going to be running close competition with that actually. The trailers hold my interest even less than Ratatouille.

And Jesus fucking Christ, thank you for stating that about movie critics, I'm really fucking glad that I'm not the only person who thinks that way, especially about Ebert. I go on Rotten Tomatoes for fun sometimes but it's frustrating that half the time my favorite movies will have been rated so low by movie critics. I mean, I enjoyed the hell out of Speed Racer, and while it was hardly an Oscar-worthy film, it was also hardly worthy of the 20-something fucking percent rating it had on RT.

I've actually heard that Angels & Demons the movie really improves on The Da Vinci Code. I haven't heard many people saying it was shit. And yeah the book rocked so I'll see it for that. (DVC the movie wasn't horrible, though probably only rental worthy.)

Terminator Salvation I'm excited for b/c it's Christian Bale who I think is awesome (I'd say it speaks pretty well of him that The Dark Knight was arguably one of his weakest performances), and he made sure the script got the Jonathan Nolan treatment, so that also makes me optimistic. Plus I'm a Terminator nerd (don't care much for the show though), and I've been hoping they'd do a film fully set in the future like this for a while. So I'll definitely see that.

The only movie so far this summer that looks to be definitely good is Transformers 2, which already looks to absolutely kick ass. (Fuck the haters, the first one was awesome. Plus, seriously, you don't go see these movies for the fucking story, I'm sorry.) I mean, A&D and Terminator might still kick ass but they're not really guaranteed or whatever. We'll see I guess.

Unknown said...

defiantly not a happy Friday for me. My game's deadline is tomorrow... sssssshit!

Anonymous said...

Critics pander to the best movies. The Dark Knight was one of the most well reviewed movies of all time and one of the highest grossing films of all time. Wolverine sucked, got bad reviews. Star Trek is a very main stream film, still got stellar reviews. Don't take your disdain out on indies with subtitles out on movie critics. You said you wanted to see the new Apatow film, his last two: 40 year old virgin and Knocked up reviewed very very well. The critics as a whole are right far more often than they are wrong.

Anonymous said...

Toy story 3 is coming out next year from what I hear.

sean said...

mosters inc kicked ass

Sawyer said...

yo jaffe another great video blog, that balloon was awesome! It jsut kept going and going! I love it!

And do you know what jaffe, this is gonna be so completely random but im listening to the song "No Surprise" by Daughtry and it f'ing good go check that song out, tell me what u think.

And one more random thing. Ever watch LOST, it like the best show ever, if you didnt ever watch it go to the store and pick up the first season, its a really good show. Your mind will get so f'ed up.

keep the video blogs coming

starblinky said...

Jaffe, just so you know, movie reviewers are all employed by the big 6 movie studios.

Whenever I pass by a DVD at the video store with my girlfriend, I point out movies like 'The Happening' (which was so so horrible) that have prints on the front of the box saying '5 stars! Best horror movie of the summer!'. I tell her the only people saying these things are the ones being payed by the movie studio that made that movie. Not directly like a bribe or anything, but its like its their job to say good things about their own companies movies.

Take Rolling Stones magazine for example, Disney owned a large portion of shares for Rolling Stone magazine not too long ago (now sold completely to founder of RSM). And guess who released The Diving Bell and the Butterfly on DVD?? DISNEY DID THATS WHO!

Yeah bitch!! haha, so yeah, I thought you, Jaffe would have known about how powerful the big 6 movie companies are. They own just about everything, every tv channel, every magazine, newspaper, news channel, most websites now, clothing lines and the list goes on and on with few exceptions (obviously not EVERYTHING is owned by them).

:P :P :P

DigiMish said...

David,

Since you love all things Disney, I think you should take a look at this:

http://mrbossdesign.blogspot.com/2009/03/everything-i-learned-about-game-design.html

It's an interesting in-depth look from Scott Rogers (game designer) explaining how you can apply concepts from Disneyland to game design.

Enjoy!

A said...

"fuck em fuck em fuck em"

quote of the day :)

Killzone310 said...

I won't be having a good weekend Mr.Jaffe. I got suspended from the PSN for 30 days. :(

GrYnder McDuff! said...

"Oh, well now it's behind the couch. Well, I'll probably never see it again."

Made me LOL. Good times on the Jaffe blog. :D

On Pixar, I've been a fan of a lot of their stuff but Ratatouille just looked outright boring to me. Never saw it. I never cared to see it. Never saw Wall-E either, but at least that one looked more promising.
For the most part I enjoyed their other movies. Some more than others, but they're fun nonetheless. I think Up looks like a decent flick, so I'm set to see it when it releases. Hopefully in Imax 3D :D

On your reaction to critics: HAHAHAH! Yeah man, fuck em! In regards to movie reviewers, most of the time it's hard to agree with anything they say. This ties in with all the people who decide the outcome of Oscar night. For the most part, I don't care about the Oscars because the winners are mostly movies I'd never care to watch. Milk? Slumdog Millionaire? Count me out.

Oh, and I know Bryan Adams and I'm only 21. He actually gets a lot of radio play here. But that's probably because we have to have a good percentage of our radio music to be from Canadian artists.

It's too bad you didn't enjoy Star Trek. I thought it was a great start to the summer moviefest for me. Looking forward to Transformers 2 even though the first one kinda let me down a bit because let's face it- I enjoy a good action flick, even if it has a bit too much human interaction and not enough straight robot wars. Do you really care much for Transformers? Not sure if you've mentioned it.
As for Terminator, I'm blindly looking forward to it whether I'll be disappointed or not. Don't know what to expect from it (What with McG directing it :/) so I'll go in with lowish expectations and hopefully it'll exceed them :D
Up, of course, is on my list, The Year One with Jack Black looks like it'll be a good comedy flick, G.I. Joe trailers have looked great so I can't wait for that one. How bout you? What do you think of G.I. Joe?
Then there's District 9. I've only seen one trailer so I don't know much about it. I should read up on it some, cause it peeked my interest but I couldn't tell if it might be good or if it might just be a horrid shitflop.

Anyway I feel like I'M the one rambling- in your comments section, no less- so I'm taking off.
This is the only blog I frequent and one of the few places I feel compelled to post so I think that's why I feel all rambly. That probably isn't a word but totally it should be. Rambly.
...Okay, that was definitely rambling.

Take it easy, Jaffe.

...Can we still call you Cliffy?

Zodiak said...

I'm going nowhere near Terminator at all...just another piece of garbage...unless they have that whole Bale flipping out thing included in the movie.

Maybe the reason why they review for themselves is because the general public doesn't read much anymore. But I'm glad sites like gamefaqs have people write their own reviews and such.

I'm gunna go and celebrate my birthday today and enjoy the finer things in life.

ged2000000 said...

are you forgetting about transformers 2

David Jaffe said...

a- Zodiak- Happy Birthday! Hope you have a really fun one!

b- Andrei- what did you do to get suspended? You are the first person I've ever talked to who was suspended from PSN.

c- Grynder- where do you live where they HAVE to play a % of music by Canadian musicians? As in, it's a law?!?

REZBLUE said...

Canada doesnt want their younger citizens growing up learning the American way of everything. For example how Americas english dictionary is different from every other country in the world.

Theatre - Theater

Centre - Center

etc.

It can be confusing. I know there has to be a certain percentage of canadian programming on television, its probably the same for radio I dont know.

Anyways the proper way to spell the above words I think is the Canadian/rest of the world way seeing as how it comes from the languages origin and was never changed just to be different from the British after the revolution.

G said...

Hey David, blogger-to-blogger, how do you get your blog's layout? xD

I don't mean to sound stupid, but everything on my blog appears in a thin strip in the center, where as you have you posts on the left and your gadgets on the right, both with plenty of space. Help??

fgffgfgfg said...

Either you really know what you want out of the movies you watch OR you have a attention span of cockerspaniel...How many movies did you stop watching after the first 20 minutes last week ? 5 ? 16 ? :D

But i think that fact makes you a great game designer, You clearly hate staying still and having to wait for stuff. Twisted Metal series and God of War are perfect examples of that.

Keep up the good work, but man relax, stop being sohyper. Try to finish "Let the right one in"- It's a great piece of work. I know that we all can agree that SLOW doesn't automatically mean BORING.

Unknown said...

I think the reason for game reviews to be more "accurate" (for lack of a better word) is because your seeing a shift in review styles. Previously review sites would require the author to write from a non-partisan point of view.

With the increase in independent reviewers out there the reviews themselves are becomming more personal. Take a look at the guys at giantbomb.com, when they were at gamespot they had to write a review in such a broad way that you never knew what games they liked themselves.

Now with their own site they are able to write from a first person perspective and voice. They are letting us into the window of what they personally enjoy playing and thus allow the reader to connect with them in that regards so you know if it wasn't reviewed well you can tell if its just their taste in games or if the game is really shit.

i feel like i'm rambling and have a cook out to goto so yeah, later

Killzone310 said...

@da criminal
I think I got suspended for gamesharing. It's a 30 day suspension. What's your PSN ID? Mine's Killzone310.

starblinky said...

Jaffe you seem to be confused about reviewers all the time, just read what I said in my last post ^^^^ up there, and you will understand why reviewers review the way they review.

Miguel said...

dunno if you saw this, dave, but you've been cast in the video game industry movie.

http://tinyurl.com/py7u5c

Anonymous said...

Ive been following your blog for about a month now and am always very interested in what you have to say. However I do not completely agree on some of the things you were saying in this latest post. FIrst off, I would like to say that I by no means swear by critics whether it be movies or games. But I think, as I hope you would agree, a movie such as diving bell and the butterfly is a much more thought provoking and intellectually challenging movie than say toy story (A movie which I do love). And just because the average american might have an easier time sitting through something like Toy Story, UP etc. and have a harder time sitting through a more challenging movie such as diving bell dosen't mean that those pixar type movies are in some way superior. I love playing video games but I also realize that reading, although more demanding, is a vital thing to do. Couldn't it be the fault of the audience for not having the willingless to sit through something that may be more complex and intellectually stimulating. Not to say that a lot pixar movies aren't great, its just that an easier movie dosen't mean a better one.
Anyways, love the blog.

resident UA said...

While I usually agree with David this time I have to disagree. When I read a review i WANT to know an OPINION of a critic. And an opinion can not be manufactured therefore it is important for me to know and understand the critic. What you fail to mention is that everyone is biased and "correcting" critic's review is nothing more than just another filter which makes review less valuable. The value that people get from the movies or games is NOT the same to everyone so the best thing to do is to understand why a critic likes something... The critic's JOB, as I would define it, is to be able to express his views clearly and to have a background in the subject. I do not expect anything more or less from a critic. Evaluating the general value of the movie is simply impossible and should not concern anyone.

Jim in Erie said...

Wow you do sound like Kirk in the new Trek movie. Neat

REZBLUE said...

Yeah Jim he really does. I saw Star Trek again the other day and specifically looked to see if it was true and sure enough.

Jaffe's voice is a dead ringer for Kirk

Andre Peschke said...

Do you watch UFC? Cause man, you definitely *are* the Dana White of game-development as far as a direct video-blog to video-blog comparison goes. Dana still hast the edge on you as far as the f-word-per-minute highscore is concerned! Anyway: Love your blog man, keep it up.

Anonymous said...

Hey Jaffe!!!

Did you see the new show on discovery channel called "Weaponizer"? I just seen an episode where they turned a ice cream truck into a killing machine and guess what they called it...they called it sweet tooth.
You should sue them.

Anonymous said...

001nlla@gmail.com

tobz1000 said...

I can kinda agree about film critics, but I'm definitely glad such an elitist culture exists for films, since I can enjoy pretty much any popcorn blockbuster without too much thought, but then for those that are critically appraised, I find I have to do a little more work to get something out of the film, but it's ultimately much more rewarding. It's those films that are really worth your time, and critics are usually pretty spot on about which those are.

I'd say video games aren't an old enough medium to have developed their own elitist culture - the games the critics love are the ones people buy, low-rated games usually do worse because, well, they're just not fun. But I think as casual gaming is on the rise, and its presence eclipses 'hardcore' game culture, the Call of Dutys of the future will be the rewarding games which critics will love, but the majority of the public will find boring, since they're too busy with Super Fun Party 12. Even now there are plenty of casual games totally panned by critics but bought by the millions by the general public, and just like films, this trend isn't going to slow down.

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