DVD | Movies | Netflix

Aliens Invade Los Angeles, Mexico, and Los Angeles

April 7, 2011 by Christopher

Aliens! They be invadin’ all the time. Am I right? Ladies, back me up on this.

I’ve seen three alien invasion movies in the past month or so: Skyline, Battle: Los Angeles, and Monsters, but before we get to them I want to highlight a few things about alien invasion movies in general.

There are three main rules that make up most alien invasion films:

1) The aliens have a poorly conceived attack plan
2) The aliens go door-to-door looking for humans (there are billions of us and we have a bunch of doors: this is gonna take a while)
3) The aliens have a glaring weakness that humans can exploit

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Movies | Video Games

Mass Effect 2: The Screenplay

April 6, 2011 by Christopher

Okay, Hollywood, listen up. There are three things nerds have wanted for a while: good movies based on comic books, good movies based on fantasy novels, and good movies based on video games.

I’ll give you this: after some early struggles, you’ve finally made some decent comic book movies, like Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man (the first one), Spider-Man (the first two), and maybe one-and-a-half of the X-Men films.

Plus, you scored twin dunkers with The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter and the Blankity Blank sevenilogy. Or eightilogy. Whatever.

But good movies based on video games? In my opinion, you haven’t cracked the code. You’ve given us crap like Doom, Hitman, Prince of Persia, Max Payne, and Streetfighter. Where’s our good movie, the one we can point to and say, “Hey, this doesn’t suck too bad!”

You need help, and I am qualified to provide it due to the following facts:

1) I have played some games
2) I sort of remember some stuff about them
3) I wrote the stuff down in screenplay form

You’re welcome. Please note, Hollywood, that if you haven’t played this game yet, there are spoilers.

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Movies

Women Talking To Women About Men

April 6, 2011 by Christopher

The Bechdel Test for films is simple. To pass, a film has to have:

1) At least two women in it
2) who talk to each other
3) about something besides a man

Sounds easy enough, but I guess it’s a little too much to ask of Hollywood, because even a cursory glance at The Bechdel Test website demonstrates that roughly half of the films in their database don’t pass. The test’s origins lie in Alison Bechdel’s comic Dykes to Watch Out For, specifically a strip she drew in 1985 called The Rule. (You can read more about it on TV Tropes, and you can also watch a short video about the test here.)

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Movies | Video Games

The Cloned Cavemen of Future Brooklyn: The Movie

April 6, 2011 by Christopher

(The following post originally appeared on my old gaming blog, The First-Person Shouter)

If you follow my Twitter, you already know I’m very excited about a game called Merchants of Brooklyn. [Edit: it’s now called Drug Wars.] Here are some excepts from the game’s description:

In 3100 A.D., global warming has caused the sea level to rise and engulf the streets of Brooklyn. The land is gone, but society rebuilds the city on top of existing structures, connecting buildings through a network of sky bridges…

To meet the upper city’s demand for laborers, city leaders contract the Brooklyn Institute of Technology (B.I.T.) to clone a new working class…. Neanderthals were chosen as the main focus of the research based on their physical resilience. The city’s contract called for far more Neanderthal clones than were required, causing the excess and sub-standard Neo-Neanderthals to be discarded to the dregs of the city…

…You take the role of an elite Neanderthal fighter with a taste for blood. Having had your arm unwillingly detached from your body courtesy of a chainsaw, your new prototype biomechanical arm transforms into different twisted and brutal weaponry to aid you in the slaughter…

That is quite simply the most awesome description of a game I’ve ever read. It’s so fucking awesome I don’t even dare check out the game itself, because in no way could it ever live up to that description. I can’t look at screenshots or videos or read reviews or anything that might take away from the perfect concept of cloned cavemen building sky bridges in future Brooklyn. No matter what the game actually is, it will never equal the images flooding through my brain.

But I want to do something with this game, so, I’m going to take the only logical step left: I’m going to write a screenplay for the movie adaptation of Merchants of Brooklyn.

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Internet | Video Games

Four Letter Words

April 5, 2011 by Christopher

I’m currently addicted to Swipe Four, an iPod/iPhone game. You can try it in your brower for free here, and it’s on sale in the App Store for $1.99, easily worth it if you like word games.

Make four letter words until you’ve filled the four by four grid, then move on to progressively harder levels (seriously, what am I supposed to do with three Y’s and a K?) I made it to 40th on the leaderboard one day, but it’s not unusual I get the message “You’ve placed 1,855th!” Like I’m supposed to be proud of that.

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Movies | Netflix

The Future Was Then: Freejack

April 5, 2011 by Christopher

For decades, filmmakers have looked ahead to the 21st Century, imagining it as a time of wonder and technological advancement. And here we are, wading balls-deep in the very future they so fervently imagined. The Future Was Then will examine various filmmakers’ visions and predictions of a future that we are now living in, and see how they stack up against reality.

Our first film is Freejack, the 1992 Emilio Estevez time-travel film that takes place in the distant, futuristic world of 2009. Keep in mind, I’ll just be looking objectively at the predictions the filmmakers, not actually reviewing the film itself, though it should be noted that the film in this case completely sucks.

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DVD | e-Books | Movies | Television | Video Games

On The Menu: Nazi Dinosaurs, Medieval Stoners, and Norm!

April 4, 2011 by Christopher

As I’m typing this week’s menu, I’m sitting in a cafe across from two young people clearly on a first date. Man, I’m so glad I’m not single anymore. The mid-day coffee date is the worst date ever. Even if things totally work out, both people have horrible coffee breath and it’s the middle of the afternoon (on a Sunday, in this case). Luckily for these two, it is clearly not working out, though they’re both trying to pretend it is. I feel like I should pull a gun and rob the cafe, if only to give them an excuse to cut the date short.

This cafe also appears to be a prime spot for divorced couples to swap out their shared children. So, this whole place is incredibly depressing.

Anyway, here’s what’s coming to screens this week!

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Work Stuff

The Unabridged Co-Worker Translation Guide

June 23, 2010 by Christopher

Co-workers: they’re always saying stuff, am I right? Ladies, you know what I’m talking about.

Sometimes the things co-workers say are not the things they mean, and since I am the first person in history to ever notice this, here are some random entries from the Unabridged Co-Worker Translation Guide.

Entry #249: “I can’t figure out how to work my phone” = “I have not made any attempt to figure out how to work my phone”

Entry #106:  “I need help with this” = “Do this for me”

Entry #387: “Hey, quick question…” = “Hey, several dozen lengthy questions…”

Entry #426: “We need to give Cathy a call” = “You need to give Cathy a call”

Entry #325: “Are you going out for lunch today?” = “Get me lunch”

Entry #622: “I think we’re out of pens” = “I do not see a pen within a three foot radius of where I’m sitting”

Entry #88: “Did Todd get a new computer?” = “Why haven’t I also gotten a new computer?”

Entry #139: “Thanks for showing me how to do something in Microsoft Excel” = “You are now the company’s expert in Microsoft Excel”

Entry #320: “I’m expecting a fax” = “I’m expecting you to hover over the fax machine for the next seven hours”

Entry #212: “I don’t like the look of that applicant” = “That applicant is black”

Entry #381: “I copied you on an e-mail a while back…” = “By copying you on an e-mail, I actually expected you to completely handle it despite the e-mail being primarily addressed to someone other than you”

Entry #414: “How’s everything going with you? = “I am about to ignore whatever you say and then tell you how everything is going with me, which is terribly, and which will take an hour”

Entry #198: “The copier is broken” = “The copier is out of paper”

Entry #198A: “The copier is broken” = “The copier hasn’t telepathically divined what I want it to do”

Entry #198B: “The copier is broken” = “The copier is broken, and since you are standing there I’ll just assume you’re the copier repairman”

Entry #198C: “The copier is broken” = “I broke the copier”

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Not My Desk

Seriously, What Are You Doing Up There?

June 18, 2010 by Christopher

I ask the above question with no real sarcasm or snark, but out of simple curiosity. And perhaps a bit of impotent rage.

Lately I’ve been lucky about waiting in lines: at the bank, at the store, at the bail bondsman, and all the usual places lines form. I keep arriving at places to get in line and there’s only one person in front of me, which seems to indicate that my wait will be the briefest it could be besides having no wait at all. There’s only one person between me and doing the thing I am waiting to do. And what could take one person very long to do anything?

But these waits always turn out to be an eternity, and I don’t know why. For example:

1) At the ATM.

There’s one person using the ATM when I arrive. Using an ATM shouldn’t take long, and I’m mentally subtracting the time they’ve already been there before I show up. But the person has either never seen an ATM before and is confused by all the buttons and options or is doing some complicated stock trading or maybe hacking into the CIA mainframe or something that requires at least 7,943 different button presses, with irritatingly long, confused pauses between each.

Not to mention all the fake-outs, when the thing beeps and their card pops out and I figure it’s my turn. But the person pops the same card right back in and goes back to pushing buttons like they’re on the deck of the Starship Enterprise during a war with the Klingons.

And then when they really are done and the card pops out and they get their receipt (which seems like it should be 147 feet long from all the dozens of transactions they had to complete in order to withdraw their $40) they stand there scrutinizing it like it’s a new Dead Sea scroll without actually moving away from the machine so I can use it.

Even when I make a deposit and a withdrawal from the ATM it takes me maybe two minutes. I don’t know what these people are doing up there.

2) The drive-thru

Okay, so maybe people have more complicated meal selections than I do. But once you’re done at the speaker and you drive up to pay and then drive further up to get your food, you should be about done with the complicated, time-consuming stuff.

But there I sit peering in growing confusion through my windshield as the employee passes you a bag of food and you accept it and say something. And then they say something. And then you say something. And then they pass you a drink and a straw. And then you say something and they say something and you pass the drink back and they pass you another bag and you pass the first bag back and they say something and you say something and then they lean out the window and rest on their forearms because they’re about to say something that will last a good four minutes and you say something and they pass you a bag and you pass them some more money and then the drink goes back in and two more bags come out and you say something and they pass you some money and you pass them a receipt and you both look at it and then more things are said and then I turn off my engine and sigh loudly as if that will clearly send the message that I am annoyed.

I do not know what you are doing up there, seriously.

3) The break-room sink

Do you know this guy? At work? The guy who washes out his coffee cup for like ten solid minutes? And you need to get to the sink to dump out your coffee so you can get new coffee in your cup and go back to staring at the internet until it’s time to go home?

Washing a small cup should not take the better part of an hour, but the guy I’m waiting behind appears to be trying to scrub it down until it no longer physically exists. And the rinsing process he’s doing uses more water than an industrial washing machine. I don’t know where he thinks his coffee cup has been since he used it last but it’s apparently filthy. Maybe it’s been sitting in a toilet in a malaria testing lab on the planet Germulon in the Bronchitis Nebula. It’s not even a cup anymore if you scrub all the ceramic out of it, guy.

4) The airplane bathroom

There must be a shower hidden somewhere in those tiny bathrooms, because seriously, people go in and they don’t come out for ages. And you have to stand in the aisle waiting, dodging drink carts, attempting to stand so your butt is not in someone’s face, and trying not to be judgmental about all the Dan Brown books the other passengers are reading. This comes after an hour of sitting in your seat, craning your neck around making sure there’s no line, and then having to wake up the guy sleeping next to you so you can get into the aisle. He will of course be fast asleep upon your return.

5) The toll booth.

Okay, this time I know what you’re doing up there. You’re asking for directions. To the Bronchitis Nebula. That’s the only way it could take this long.

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Work Stuff

The Office Mate — A Play In Two Acts

April 22, 2010 by Christopher

The Office Mate is a play in two acts. It was written by Christopher Livingston.

CURTAIN UP:

INT – OFFICE WITH TWO DESKS AND TWO WORKERS. ONE WORKER IS NAMED CHRISTOPHER LIVINGSTON. THE OTHER WORKER IS NAMED PETER

PETER IS WORKING ON HIS COMPUTER LOOKING ON THE GROUP DRIVE (CALLED THE X-DRIVE) FOR SOME CONSTRUCTION DRAWINGS THAT A THIRD WORKER, NAMED MATT, WHO WORKS TWO DOORS DOWN (ROUGHLY 30 FEET AWAY) AND WHO DOES NOT APPEAR IN THIS PLAY. CHRISTOPHER APPEARS TO BE WORKING ON HIS COMPUTER BUT IS ACTUALLY WRITING A BLOG ENTRY IN THE FORM OF A PLAY IN TWO ACTS.

PETER: Do you know where the drawings are for that Railyards project?

CHRISTOPHER: Um, no. I think Matt downloaded them a few days ago.

PETER: Do you know where he put them?

CHRISTOPHER: No, no idea.

PETER: Did he put them on the X-Drive?

CHRISTOPHER: I don’t know, maybe.

PETER: I don’t see them on the X-Drive.

CHRISTOPHER: Okay.

PETER: Do you think he put them on the X-Drive?

CHRISTOPHER: I don’t know. Maybe.

PETER: Where would he put them on the X-Drive?

CHRISTOPHER: I don’t know. Did you ask him?

PETER: No. Do you think he saved them on his computer?

CHRISTOPHER: I don’t know. Maybe. You should ask him.

THERE IS A LONG PAUSE.

PETER: Did he save them somewhere else? On another drive, maybe?

CHRISTOPHER: I really don’t know. Matt would know. Matt could tell you.

PETER: Where did he download them from?

CHRISTOPHER: I really have no idea. You should check with Matt.

LONG PAUSE.

PETER: Do you think he put them on a CD?

CHRISTOPHER: I, I really, I have no idea. You should check with Matt.

PETER: Yeah, I’ll ask him.

LONG PAUSE.

PETER: Did he print them out?

CHRISTOPHER IGNORES HIM. OUT OF THE CORNER OF HIS EYE, HE SEES PETER TURN AROUND IN HIS CHAIR AND STARE DIRECTLY AT HIM. FOR ABOUT A MINUTE.

CHRISTOPHER (eventually): Sorry, what?

PETER: Did Matt print them out?

CHRISTOPHER: I don’t know. You know who would know? Matt. Matt would know. Ask Matt. He’s sitting thirty feet from here. Ask him. Ask Matt, for the love of all that is holy, just get up and go ask him.

PETER TURNS BACK TO HIS COMPUTER.

LONG PAUSE

PETER: Did he save them as a PDF?

CURTAIN DOWN:

ACT BREAK

ACT TWO:

CURTAIN UP:

INT SAME OFFICE. PETER AND CHRISTOPHER ARE STILL SITTING THERE.

PETER: Did he save them to a flash drive?

CURTAIN DOWN:

THE END

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