The Guild is a web series which claims to be “for gamers, about gamers, by gamers”. The main role is played by Felicia Day (Buffy, Dr. Horrible). It’s basically about the members of a MMORP game guild which meet for the first time in RL.

I found it by watching this music video by and with the main characters:

There’s already a second “season”, but here’s the first episode:

And here it continues: Youtube

Categories: Short Review, Web
Tags: Buffy the Vampire Slayer · Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog · The Guild
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Deutsche Version

I can’t remember how it started but I can’t seem to stop it now.

Every time I watch a movie or a TV show I think about what could be the earliest time one could premiere this without destroying the pop culture references.

I am not talking about stylistic means, I am talking about visual or textual references to the real world or other movies/shows.

To make an easy example: In the opening of Dirty Dancing baby makes a reference to JFK’s murder. Thus you couldn’t premiere this film before 1964 without making that comment a un-funny aneurysm.

Yesterday evening I watched Kill Bill Vol.1 and apart from the indirect references to eastern movies in general (and to Hattori Hanzo) there were two references that stood out: The owner of the restaurant is referred to as “Charlie Brown” and Sophie looks like a “villain from Star Trek” with ST being the later time anchor (Charlie Brown strips have been around since the 50s).

Interestingly there are only a few main anchors that pop up all the time: Fixed anchors like JFK’s murder, the moon landing in 1969 and it recent movies 9/11 and variable anchors like Star Trek and Star Wars. The latter ones are variable because if I can move a movie back in time I surely can move the referenced movie, too.

Luckily both Stars are basically endpoints, especially Star Wars. Since it plays in a galaxy far, far away it does not contain textual references to our real world and can be moved back in time to the dawn of cinema. Star Trek makes historical references to the 2nd World War and the Chicago of the thirties but I tend to play that game only until the beginning of the 50s.

The more references a movie/series uses the more fun it is to think about but the more likely it is that it will be “anchored in time”. To move Buffy as a whole back in time is a sheer improbability even if you accept to lose a third of the references. So I break it down to an episode level (so when Spike mentions that he fed of a flower person, it makes Woodstock the fixed anchor for that episode).

Once I’ve established the earliest premiere date I try to imagine how the movie would look like in the eyes of that year’s people. For example, premiere Back to the Future in the actual year 1955. That would work since people would assume that Marty’s car and the music and everything from the “future 1985″ were invented by a writer. Like the same writers imagined a year 2015 with hover cars and a holographic Jaws movie.
Although there is a reference to a “John F. Kennedy drive” it mentions nothing specific and JFK was already a senator at that time, so that wouldn’t be a problem.

This way my mind keeps active even if I have seen that movie several times. Imagine Top Gun in the early 50s where the US military was testing their first jet engines. Imagine Armageddon (with all its special effects) shortly after the founding of NASA (although that would be prevented by the actual naming of Neil Armstrong as the first man on the moon -> fixed anchor; Armageddon also mentions Star Wars (several times), the Kennedy murder, Evel Knievel and some other things which have to be taken into consideration).

Somehow it can be a lot of fun.

Categories: Thought Storm
Tags: Armageddon · Back to the Future · Buffy the Vampire Slayer · Dirty Dancing · Jaws · Kill Bill · Peanuts · Star Trek · Star Wars · Top Gun
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Some guys have put real effort in re-cutting trailers of movies in order to give them a whole new meaning (If something like this happens in a TV show, it’s called a Retcon).

It’s very funny, especially if you know the actual movies:

Not a retcon, but driving the point home:

Categories: Fun, Misc
Tags: 2012 · Back to the Future · Blue Velvet · Good Will Hunting · Mrs. Doubtfire · Shining
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For no reason at all I kicked my XP Friday evening and installed Windows 7 Ultimate (“Never change a running system” my ass ).

Once upon a time I installed Vista, but the UOPs were annoying and my XAMPP didn’t run properly and I didn’t like it at all. So I switched back to XP.

Friday I downloaded the RTM (Release to Manufacturers) from MSDN and installed the 64bit Ultimate edition.

And I have to say, it looks and feels really good. OK, some things need getting used to. But overall it feels like a modern OS and all my programs (DVD Profiler, Visual Studio 2008, TortoiseSVN, XAMPP, Firefox, Thunderbird, … -> x64 when available) are running just fine.

Categories: Misc, Software
Tags: DVD Profiler
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Richard Castle is a successful bestseller author who just killed his main character in the last book. But now he has a writer’s blockage and isn’t able to write anymore. But then a copycat killer shows up who kills his victims in the fashion people were killed in Castle’s books. The New York police asks him to assist in the case and he agrees. He works with Detective Beckett und he begins to taste blood. He wants to make her his role model for his next character. She is not amused – but he’s buddy with the mayor.

I am normally not into cop shows (anymore), especially if they are of the run-of-the-mill kind. But this feels like a modern day version of Murder She Wrote and I loved that show. And Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) makes a great author and Stana Katic is good at being annoyed of him. Sometimes when she smiles he looks a bit like Sarah Clarke (Nina Meyers from 24) – not that this is a bad thing, just noticing. The premise also reminds me a bit of The Hard Way, but that isn’t bad either, since I liked that movie, too.

Categories: Short Review
Tags: 24 · Castle · Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog · Firefly · The Hard Way
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While I have been reading the current c’t, they called my attention to this website: TV Tropes

Build in the form of a wiki, it outlines countless schemas that appear in literature/movies/comics and gives these “tropes” catchy names. Yesterday I’ve been reading this site for 7(!) hours straight and I barely scratched the surface. One jumps from trope to trope and one stumbles across new tropes that one recognizes and continues to read there.

The last tropes I read yesterday:

Genre Savvy – Television Tropes & Idioms
Took A Level In Badass – Television Tropes & Idioms
Our Vampires Are Different – Television Tropes & Idioms

You can get really lost in there.

Categories: Web
Tags: No tags
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Season 3

From Hell

Synopsis: Jen has a builder in her home and Roy is quite sure (99% … 60/40) that he’s seen him on “Builders from Hell”. Now Jen can’t let him out of her eyesight. Meanwhile Moss is bullied by some guys in the park and Douglas shoots himself in the leg with his father’s service revolver.

My Opinion: A great start to the new season. Love to see Jen getting more and more paranoid and Roy re-evaluating his surety. And I loved Moss’ role-playing and trying to find a snappy comeback. I never cared much for Douglas though. I liked his father better.

Are We Not Men?

Synopsis: Moss has found a website that allows him to use the right sentences about last night’s football game. Roy tries it, too and gets them both to hang out with a bunch of real men. But these new friends are not what they appear to be. Meanwhile Jen is dating a guy that looks like a stage magician.

My Opinion: I am a German and I never cared much for football either. This week a player returned from FC Barcelona to the VfB Stuttgart and a friend of mine couldn’t be happier about it – I couldn’t care less, the only thing I found interesting was that the player’s name is “Hleb” which is a transcription of the russian хлеб* and means “bread”. Back to topic. I enjoyed to watch Roy panicking in the car after the robbery and also in their hideout. And I found it hilarious that Moss took the money just to count it.

* Remember when Christopher Plummer said “to be or not to be” in klingon? The “Ð¥” letter sounds pretty much like the “H” in taH pagh taHbe’.

Tramps Like Us

Synopsis: Jen is applying for a new job in a different company but fails to explain what “IT” stands for. Meanwhile Roy crashes a minute of silence for a dead colleague and lands himself on the streets not even having a shirt anymore. And Moss is in his “happy place” while Douglas gets tasered every time he gets aroused.

My Opinion: What I liked about this episode was Roy’s “walkabout” in the streets and Jen’s attempts at not having to say what “IT” actually stands for . But I didn’t really like the entire harassment storyline and Moss’ part in it.

The Speech

Synopsis: Jen was awarded with the “Employee of the Month”. But now she has to give a speech to the shareholders. And the speech is about her area of expertise – meaning IT. Roy and Moss are so generous and lend her “the internet”, a black box (wireless of course, everything is wireless nowadays) that what demagnetized by Stephen Hawking himself.

My Opinion: One of my favourite episodes of the show. I simply love the entire scene when they let Jen borrow “the internet” (Youtube). And I love it when their prank totally backfires on the shareholder assembly.

Friendface

Synopsis: Jen has joined Friendface, a social networking site where you find all the people you never wanted to see again. Roy and Moss join also and soon Roy has to face a woman he dumped because she looks like Batman’s Joker. And Jen is invited to a class reunion where she can’t show up without her husband – Moss.

My Opinion: An obvious pun on Facebook which I really liked, especially the part about persons you’d rather not see again. Especially the “Joker” and Roy’s attempts at “winning over” Jen made me laugh so hard.

Calendar Geeks

Synopsis: In order to organize a charity fundraiser the girls of the seventh floor want to make a nude calendar and Roy gets to photograph them. But Jen sabotages it and convinces the girls that it would be a far better idea to photograph their grannies – until she becomes responsible for the success of that calendar.

My Opinion: The Geek Calendar shooting was so funny, how Roy had to convince Moss and the others to get into certain poses was so hilarious.

The Season – My Opinion: Too bad that UK seasons are always this short, I am quite certain that the writers would have no problem to come up with more ideas. But it is as it is.

Categories: DVD / Blu-ray, Mini Marathon
Tags: Batman · The IT Crowd
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Deutsche Version | June | August

July, 12th

13 Going on 30

Jennifer Garner    …    Jenna Rink
Mark Ruffalo   …    Matt Flamhaff
Judy Greer   …    Lucy Wyman
Andy Serkis   …    Richard Kneeland
Kathy Baker   …    Bev Rink

Synopsis: It’s 1987 and Jenna has her 13th birthday. But it ends in disaster and she wishes nothing more than to be 30. And then her wish gets granted. When she awakes it’s 2004 and she’s Jennifer Garner and editor of the glamour magazine “Poise”. But she’s still 13 and she finds herself in a world where everything is different and – most importantly – where she’s different.

My Opinion: Jennifer Garner is a great 13-year-old. It’s funny to watch her react to things like a small girl would react. I also liked the fact that it turned out to be her that sold the front cover topics to their competitor and not Tom-Tom/Lucy because that would have been too obvious. What I didn’t care much about was Mark Ruffalo, I have nothing against the actor, I just don’t care about him in any of his movies.

And now:

‘Cause this is Thriller!

(more…)

Categories: DVD / Blu-ray, DVD Marathon, Movie Watchings 2009
Tags: 13 Going on 30 · Highlander · Independence Day · Kleinruppin Forever
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