“A One-Armed Salute to 2010’s Most Skintastic Achievements in Motion Picture and Television Sex and Nudity”. You have to admire any awards with a specific category for ‘Best Nude Parasailing’.

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Episode of the BBC radio show, Endnotes, focusing on David Foster Wallace. Features a load of interviews with DFW himself, a bunch of other authors and his editor, his agent and his sister. I’ve yanked the audio from the Vimeo so I can listen to it on my iPod. Download it here.

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CGI and the Death of Urgency

Have I mentioned before how much of a huge Indiana Jones fan I am? [I think I may have said it once or twice](http://lowbrowculture.com/?s=indiana+jones). I’ve also [briefly mentioned](http://lowbrowculture.com/2009/07/09/fan-service/) my feelings on *Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull* (short version: I liked it well enough, despite some huge flaws).

Of all the things to not like about *Crystal Skull*, the thing that annoyed me most was the way Señor Spielbergo backpedalled about mostly relying physical effects, to keep it stylistically in line with the rest of the films in the series. Now, rather than having Terry Leonard *actually* getting dragged along behind an *actual* giant truck, hardly a shot went by in *Crystal Skull* without some sort of digital touch-up, whether it’s a set they couldn’t be bothered to build or a fucking monkey with a 1950s greaser haircut (really?).

All that said, here are my least favourite 16 seconds of that entire movie, the part that almost makes me give up entirely. Fortunately, they happen right at the end, so I can watch most of the movie without wanting to throw something at my TV.

Here we have a set of giant cogs closing in, destroying the only way out. Bad news, right? Except watch the way the characters react to this. Watch *Harrison Ford’s* reaction. Everyone just strolls along, as if this kind of thing happens all the time, so why worry about itI also have a pet theory, which I don’t think I’ve ever written about before. Watch Marion in this movie. Watch her stupid grin as she drives them over the waterfall. I’m convinced that she has somehow come to the realisation that she’s one of the protagonists in an action movie and she cannot die. If it’s deliberate, it’s brilliantly post-modern. If it’s accidental, it’s a testament to *just how much* cocaine Karen Allen did in the 80s? Christ, I’ve seen people more stressed out about setting the alarm and leaving the house before the timer runs out. Where’s the sense of urgency? Without urgency, where’s the sense of danger?

I bet this is how it went: Señor Spielbergo said to the actors “Listen guys, I know you’re all old and tired, so don’t sweat it. Take your time. It doesn’t matter how long you take to get across here, we’ll get the ILM guys to make it so that the cogs close just behind you.” Compare this to the opening scene of *Raiders of the Lost Ark*, where Indiana Jones is running from a boulder. Although it was only made out of fibreglass, that boulder [weighed around 300 pounds](http://www.theraider.net/films/raiders/making_5_production.php). And you know what? That’s real fear you see on Harrison Ford’s face as he’s running. That’s real urgency in his movements.

Some things you just can’t fix in post-production.

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Dead Island Trailer

Looks amazing, right? Well, here comes the buzzkill, David Jaffe, [who says](http://www.twitlonger.com/show/8shr5c):

If the GAME makes me feel like the trailer, hail to the new kings! How amazing!

If the GAME, great as it may be, is nothing like the trailer then here we freaking go again. And I’ll say it again:

If our medium isn’t capable of generating compelling enough content that trailers have to sell something totally different than the actual product they are advertising, then we have a very serious problem.

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We’re a small island in a big ocean

“We engage in unnecessary, often criminal behaviour and justify it by calling it ‘the craic’.”

[Context](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdjLBXlieI0).

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A collection of the abuse recorded by girls playing videogames. If you’ve ever spent any time on Xbox Live, you know how ridiculous it can be, but you’ve never seen anything like the stuff these girls put up with. E.g. “im going to stick an egg in ur vaginal canal and punch it-

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R.I.P. Kenneth Mars

Kenneth Mars in The Producers

You have no idea what a big deal *The Producers* was in my house growing up. I didn’t get half the jokes, and I had no clue what the hell a Nazi was, but goddammit, I knew that Kenneth Mars guy was *funny*.

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Baba Yetu

If you didn’t think *Civilization IV* had an embarrassment of riches, last night, Christopher Tin’s ‘Baba Yetu’ — the theme song for *Civ IV* — became the [first ever piece of music written for a videogame to ever win a grammy](http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/10982/civilization-iv-wins-grammy-award).

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“Games like Bulletstorm cause violent behavior and, since rape is a violent crime … ergo, there is no question that [violent videogames] cause an increase in rape.” – all this without a single report that links violent videogames to criminal violence of any kind.
By the same logic: “I’m eating an apple. Apples are fruit. Bananas are also fruit. Ergo, I am eating a banana. Q.E.D. PEACE OUT, BITCHES.”

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