kunttray

Back in the late 90s I maintained a very active online social network. And by that, I mean several emails a day to people I'd never met plus almost constant everyday chatter via ICQ.

Some people have since died but their webpages haven't.

The internet never forgets.

Now that I don't have Michael Ferguson to kick around since he got voted out...

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Editor,

Paul Lennon can go fuck himself.

While John Gay watches.

Because, obviously, now that Paul wants to pickpocket taxpayer funds to lay down infrastructure necessary for the bloody Pulp Mill to operate, he and Gay might find it even more difficult to go out in public than ever.

We didn't want it.

Democratic process was perverted to allow it to happen.

And now the State Government wants to use funds from the public purse to help fund it.

PAUL LENNON, GO FUCK YOURSELF.

Regards,
Chris Rattray.
--

I know it's not as eloquent as you're used to from me, but I believe it makes the point succinctly.

If all you expect from a film that features the two most awesome celluloid monsters in the title in it is cool kills and some marginally fun encounters, then Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem will not fail to disappoint.

However, if you expect these two venerable creatures, with their rich history, their mystery and menace to be treated with respect and for the filmmakers to deliver a story that moves these races forward while giving you engaging, unique, and memorable characters to care about, then AvP2 fails on every level to deliver.

AvP2 feels like a "best of" compilation. It takes everything fanboys of the Alien and Predator properties will remember, from sound cues to lines of dialogue, even mini-replays of entire scenes (the armoured vehicle crashing through debris aping the same scene from Aliens, for example), and unsubtly places them in the film - almost like the filmmakers are pleading with us to recognise that they did, in fact, watch the same films as us and therefore are justified on an artistic level to repackage our favourite bits for our self-serving fannish pleasure. It conveys a feeling of familiarity, designed to placate the less discerning filmgoer and to ensure them that they are, in fact, watching a film grounded in the superficial history of the franchises. There is an undeniable thrill at hearing the Predator “drumbeat” sound cue, or the elephantine Alien squeal from Aliens, for sure. These are immediate hooks into the “character” of the creatures and are as inseparable from them as Doctor Who’s TARDIS materialising sound effect. It’s when the film begins ripping wholesale from prior entries in the series that it really begins to grate.

Scenes that had meaning in the context of the franchise history, from a plot and character advancement point of view, are lifted and plonked into this movie without any thought for how it should affect the story. For example, when the Predator is wounded in the original film, it performs a medical procedure on itself. This scene lingers, showing a workmanlike, but almost ritualistic application of medical care. When the Predator howls in pain, the unearthly sound echoes throughout the jungle reaching the stranded soldiers - already spooked beyond their wits – serving to unnerve them even more and heighten the tension of the film.

The same scene is repeated in AvP2, to no effect. The Predator is wounded and heals itself. No earthly characters discover its blood. Its cry does not alarm anyone in the town, and we learn nothing new about this Predator, its race, or history. It’s merely slotted in there because, for some reason, being privy to a Predator’s self-surgery procedure is indicative of a Predator movie.

If I wanted to watch the best bits of the Alien and Predator series, I have a great DVD player with fast forward and rewind and can do it myself, thanks.

It's not that these things were present in the movie that I mind, it's that they were utilised so poorly - it's not even with any sense of irony or satire that Mr. Forgettable Cast Member #24 musters the line "Get to the chopper" - he means, quite literally, that the other Forgettable Cast Members should get to the chopper, which is what Arnie's Dutch meant as well, but back then it was an iconic actor uttering a line that would become iconic. Here, it's forgettable, and I doubt if anyone new to these franchises would be out in the playground or standing around the water cooler later smirking at each other as they relived the experience. This is not an experience to be relived, in any case, because the majority of people going to see this film have lived it already.

The only line worth quoting from the movie "This is a stupid plan, let's get the fuck out of here" was great, because it was the only piece of dialogue that seemed to come from a genuine place, and it was the only piece of wisdom that came from the most unlikely of sources - the dumb blonde jock. However, it was more comedic than anything else, purely because of the unlikeliness of a film character finally articulating what's on everyone else's mind.

Speaking of the characters, AvP2 gives us nothing in the way of memorable or unique ones. Instead, we came out of the theatre comparing the forgettable characters we'd just seen killed to the unforgettable templates on which they were based. Aliens and Predator were first and foremost about the characters, where the monsters and the threat they offered served as catalysts for change in the characters that encounter them. We think of the coward, Hudson, whose petulant "Game over man, game over!" becomes the defiant "FUCK YOU!" as he makes his last stand, for example. In that film his "FUCK YOU!" means something. In AvP2, where it's recycled as a nod to us, the foolishly paying public, it's hollow and empty, because there's nothing backing it up. The character is meat for the vicarious cinematic grinder, as alien blood splashes over his face and we're treated to a scene we've seen in the trailer, which is itself merely a compilation of all the bits in the film that are worth watching.

Let's not forget the journey Ripley herself goes on throughout the four Alien films, where she's the hunted, the mother, the saint, and then the hunter - by film four she's become the Alien, an entirely new creation. As flawed as the fourth film in that franchise is, at least Ripley herself has been the central character who must learn and overcome. The AvP series has attempted to emulate this model, but with no continuity and with running times more suited to the MTV generation’s attention span, there’s no room to develop any of these characters or relationships beyond the most barely realised clichéd pap.

It's as if the filmmakers made a list of what is an “Aliens” or what is a “Predator” film and ticked them all. As each film is released, the formula becomes more entrenched. After all, it seems to work doesn’t it? Well, if you’re thinking purely in the short term and hope to see a quick financial gain, I guess. A cover band can certainly make a living out of performing some other band’s repertoire. But what lifts a cover band beyond mere imitation is the interpretation of the materials. Despite the inherent weaknesses of the latter films in the Alien and Predator series, at least there was always a fresh director bringing their own vision, however successfully, to the franchises.

That's the kind of thinking that has led to the fresh thinking behind whoever decided to revitalise the Batman and James Bond franchises, which had gotten so bogged down in the superficial trappings of their characters that the thing that drove them forward in the first place, the core character relationships, had been lost. The “reboot” of these franchises have been overwhelmingly successful because they’ve ejected the trappings and gone for the essence of the franchise in question. In Batman’s case, it’s the darkness of a double life, fuelled by vengeance. For Bond, it’s the frailty of a lovelorn killer, driven by duty. For Aliens, it’s the unstoppable force; the Predator, an immovable object.

So I say, keep pumping out these cheap Alien/Predator knockoffs. Let the floodgates open and give me one every couple of years. Keep them coming until one day, blemished by diminishing returns and indifferent reviews, someone might declare a “reboot.” Because then I might finally be presented with an Aliens/Predator film free of the superficialities of the past that takes us squarely somewhere we haven't been before, on a roller-coaster I haven't ridden fifty thousand times already, that does justice to the rich history of the franchises, with a story respectful to the audience and written with imagination, integrity, and passion.

© CHRIS RATTRAY 2008

Hosted by Chris.

That's me!

Hi Michael,

As a keen collector of all the stuff you insist on wasting my money on sending me, I'm curious as to what you're going to do in the eventuality of either outcome of the election this weekend.

For the optimists out there, say Jodie Campbell is voted in. What will you do with your natty Smart Car? Will you continue to drive it around with your name emblazoned upon it? It should be pretty easy to find in the Birchalls car park, at least. As will your shirts. And balloons.

Should the worst happen, can I look forward to weekly updates on what you're going to do, including, but not limited to, possibly sending me DAILY updates via SMS, MMS, inline HTML email, phone, and (hopefully!) personal visits! I can't wait.

Whichever way it goes, thank you for your service over the last three years, especially for getting that Monopoly thing sorted out. I'm a prouder, much more upright Australian for it.

Sincerely,

Chris Rattray

The Religion Edition.

1. Yay, is it not strange how people seek to impose order on the random, chaotic and meaninglessness of their lives by imposing upon themselves the teachings derived from random, chaotic, and meaningless texts?

2. Verily, I say unto thee, G.W. Bush, we are heartened to hear your holy war jihadification of Justice and Right and Truth is yielding results and WIN... now should you not set about wresting the log from thine own eye you self-righteous, injust, and wholly wrong excuse for a human being - and what of the growing rise, empowerment, and armament of the Fundamentalist Extremist Christianical movement on thine own soil?

From the Book of Hyprocrises FCK:U:69

All I want for my birthday, for the rest of my life, is to go see Iron Maiden LIVE in Melbourne, in February '08...

http://www.theage.com.au/news/music/iron-maiden-to-tour/2007/09/06/1188783382197.html

Please Internet WebJebus, make it happen!

Directed by Gabriel Range

Years after the assassination of George W. Bush, an investigative documentary team interviews those most closely associated with the event. The subject matter of this fictional documentary is fascinating as is the cinematic trickery employed to recreate the shooting of the President. However, the idea ends up being more compelling than the sometimes ponderous on-screen autopsy of the night and the ensuing investigation.

On the streets of Chicago, protestors clash with police as the President delivers a personable address to his admirers safe inside the comfortable surroundings of a hotel. The contrast between ideologies couldn’t be clearer and the sense of danger is enhanced in light of earlier events depicted, where the same protestors halted the President’s motorcade. The brewing civic dissent doesn’t stop the President from greeting his admirers at the rope-line afterwards, and it is here that he meets his downfall in a particularly well-shot scene combining archival footage and CGI. That’s the first thirty minutes of the film – genuinely taut and tense, and tragic in the truest sense of the word.

The Bush depicted in this film is almost fatherly and the reverence with which his surviving staffers remembers him makes the actual shooting fairly shocking, because you’re, and I use the word hesitantly, liking the bumbling ol’ retard by this point. This is not a Michael Moore anti-Bush polemic, more a special extended episode of Four Corners. This is both, ultimately, the strength and weakness of Death of a President.

The film does an admirable job of presenting a plausible sequence of events in the aftermath of the shooting. Dick Cheney assumes the Presidency and passes Patriot Act III, and a Syrian national, Jamal Zikri, is quickly identified and vilified as the assassin on the most threadbare of evidence, drawing disturbing parallels with the Haneef case in recent weeks in our own media. Had I seen this film a few months prior I might even have been surprised at this turn of events. What did surprise me was that the film does not dwell too long on the increased dissolution of civil liberties brought about by the President’s death, but that the investigation continues down the “whodunnit?” path. This results in a fairly dull third act, replete with the requisite “ah-HA!” twist that, though thematically integral, lacks the dramatic punch of the first thirty minutes.

Despite this climactic misfire, the film manages to get under the skin. Every interviewee is earnestly believable as they recount the parts they played before and after the fateful event and, if nothing else, the filmmaker’s sheer balls at having the moxy to depict the on-screen assassination of one of the most controversial world-leaders of our times deserves applause. Despite how you may personally feel about Bush’s tenure as President, Death of a President serves as a modern-day parable preached from a smoking gun on the tenth floor. The message is bang on target – better the devil you know, and be satisfied with the freedom you have today.

My Nan, Win Sorrell, died on Monday, July 9.

I wrote this for the funeral held Monday, July 16 in Perth, Western Australia.

I was unable to attend, and the mp3 I recorded and sent wasn't able to be played for various reasons.

So here's what I would have liked heard at my dear Nan's funeral.

--
Hello everyone, this is Christian down in Launceston Tasmania. I’m too far away today, like most days, but especially today. I’m sure Nan understands.

And that’s probably the greatest gift my Nan gave to me, was her unwavering understanding. Playing Scrabble with her as a boy, she understood that I didn’t understand the words she always beat me with, but because Nan knew them, I understood that I didn’t understand them, and that was okay. Nan was all about trusting that I could be more than what I was and that my limits were expandable. Nan knew that I would learn, one day.

She wrote to me, and always trusted that her words were treasured. Nan used words well and her quiet wisdom spoke volumes. I always felt loved and cared for in her presence and her home. Nan nurtured my mind and fed my heart, and always made the best cheesecake because aside from Scrabble, she understood that the way to my young heart was through exceptional cheesecake. We will all have special memories of Nan, or Mum, or Win, but for me Nan taught me the love of words and to never settle for anything but the very best cheesecake.

These are the gifts Nan gave to me – to share time simply and with love. To appreciate that I can just be me, and that’s good enough, and to accept that sometimes life may serve you a bad cheesecake, but somewhere, someone was enjoying Nan’s. That comfort is lessened for us today, but Nan’s words, and love, lives on in us. It’s up to us to love each other as she loved us, with quiet acceptance and understanding.

Thank you Nan, and goodbye.

Finally, the long-awaited first episode of CSTV is here! You'll laugh, you'll cry, you may even pee yourself a little.

However you respond to it, it is almost a certainty you'll want your mommy afterwards to hold you.



Enjoy, and please let us know what you think!

Send email to:
shitehole@coolshite.net

Leave voicemail:
Australia: (02) 8011 4365
United States: (240) 949 2665
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Or jump on our forums and leave a post!

Spread the love...
Chris.

A scant ten years ago, well more like eleven really, a lass by the name of Lara Croft bounded into her first tomb… and my heart. For a good five years afterwards, she and I continued to raid tombs together, all over the world on the PS1. And then, it all came to a grinding halt as my fantasy friend made her turgid debut on the PS2 with Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. By now the relationship was starting to fray. Those little habits that made her so endearing at the start were now becoming annoyances. Soon after, we went our separate ways. It was nobody’s fault. Well, actually, it was.

Turns out, it was Core Design’s fault. Their constant rehashing of the same Tomb Raider engine meant the controls were stodgy, rooted in mid-90’s inflexibility. Lara returned in 2006, courtesy of her new custodians, Crystal Dynamics, in a new adventure – Tomb Raider: Legend. Suddenly, everything old was new again. The game mechanics had been thoroughly reworked, and Lara herself had been redesigned. Slinkier than ever, she nimbly leapt, shimmied, and slid all over the place, in a fashion more befitting a modern 21st century girl. To celebrate Lara’s resurrection, and over ten years worth of adventuring, Crystal Dynamics brings us a reworking of her very first adventure, Tomb Raider: Anniversary.

It’s a stroke of genius. The very first Tomb Raider, the one that started it all off so many years ago was brilliant. With fiendish puzzles and traps, it was arguably the best of the original PS1 series. In combining the best with a brand new (since Legend anyway) control system, we’ve got a wonderfully fun adventure for Lara to undertake. She’s after the Scion of Atlantis, chasing a lead given her by businesswoman, Jacqueline Natlas. Her journey will take her, and you, from lost cities in Peru to the very depths of an Egyptian pyramid. Lara Croft is worth getting your hands dirty for again.

Every location and puzzle has been redesigned, with cues taken from the original. However, this is no slavish rehash, it’s a new game. The locales are the same, as are some of the heart-stopping great moments that surprised and delighted so many years ago (T-Rex anyone?), but it all plays out like an homage, honouring what made Lara’s adventures so much fun in the first place – the sheer joy of exploration and puzzle-solving. Sure, there are things to shoot at, but this isn’t the point of the game, just a symptom of trampling around some long-forgotten crypt. Of course, you’ll need to dispatch a rogue bear or wolf from time to time, with an appropriate musical sting for atmosphere. But when the clips are emptied, it’s just you and Lara’s footsteps echoing around the expanse of yet another cavern, as you both edge nearer a turn in the path, inching closer to see just… what’s… around… the corner…

And that’s the thrill of it, as it should be, making this anniversary a truly happy one.

4 pneumatic leaps out of 5.

It’s around the mid-way mark of this album that the words “blistering” and “frenetic” begin to lose all meaning. You’d hope that it was because the album was eliciting some kind of response other than “this song sounds a bit different”. And that’s because at the mid-way mark of the album the first song to actually make an impact, “Honest Goodbye” kicks in, devoid of any blistering or frenetic fretwork. The album really could have begun here, ditching the largely forgettable first half, because after “Honest Goodbye” the gears shift back into that blistering and frenetic mode again. Bad Religion were right at the forefront of the early punk movement in the US and their trademark sound is relatively unchanged on the New Maps of Hell. However, there’s no real movement forward. Even 2001’s “The Process of Belief” had more standout moments than not. It’s a pity then that this offering treads tired, familiar ground – satisfyingly so, but perhaps Bad Religion should ditch the maps, new or not, and start heading somewhere off the map every now and then, just to shake things up. However, having said that, even bad Bad Religion is better than what their contemporaries are doing, so it’s not a complete waste of your time. It is blistering and frenetic, and tracks like “Dearly Beloved”, “Prodigal Son”, and the aforementioned “Honest Goodbye” are worth seeking out. The other thirteen tracks could have been lifted from any other album in the BR back catalogue though, so if it’s good enough for them you may as well just keep listening to that too because there’s nothing really compelling here.

6/10

For this installment for FROM THE SAGE, I defer to Ms. Paris Hilton, who has "successfully completed" her first night in prison!

All of us here in Australia can now rest easy with that news.

Furthermore, it seems Paris is now about to take a big step in her life, with this announcement...

"This is an important point in my life and I need to take responsibility for my actions. In the future, I plan on taking more of an active role in the decisions I make," said Hilton.

Words to live by, right there.

Thanks Paris, I too will attempt to take a more active role in the decisions I make.

Maybe.

Just as well Shakespeare never had access to Word...

GOD OF WAR II – PS2

It’s around when I’ve jumped onto the back of a griffin, sliced off its wings and thrown it to a splattery doom before remounting my flying steed that I realise I’m enraptured in some kind of orgasmic Bacchanalian ecstasy. But its not the sort that leaves a sticky mess, this is the sort that places me in The Zone – that meditative high that comes from a constant barrage of dazzling experiences. Just when I think I can’t take any more comes the next thing, and the next… and the next. Such is the power of a tale well told, and it helps when the tale being told features countless mythological figures of the Greek persuasion committing horrendous acts of violence on each other, in epic, grand style.

Our titular God, Kratos, sits on a pretty cushy throne now, having bitch-slapped the previous owner, Ares, at the end of the last game. However, most of the other Gods aren’t too happy with this turn of events and so conspire against Kratos to bring him down a peg or three. In the opening level of the game, Zeus gives Kratos an extreme makeover courtesy a huge fuck-off sword through the chest, killing him and sending him to Hades, which understandably pisses off the already explosive Kratos. With some help from the Titan, Gaia (who has her own axe to grind with the Gods), Kratos is given a chance to prevent his own death by seeking the Sisters of Fate to alter his destiny. What follows is an orgy of revenge soaked in more cool than a Tarantino film-festival projected onto the naked bodies of a Swedish cheerleading squad made up entirely of no less than three sets of buxom twins. But enough of my Christmas wish list.

Cutting the long story short, God of War II is bigger, better, and bloodier than the first one. In the first level alone you’re tasked with defeating the Colossus of Rhodes in a stunning series of encounters that never lets up. The Colossus is HUGE (hence the name), and at one point Kratos climbs inside the thing to defeat it, the camera shifting around as it walks about the city, laying waste to all it sees. This imaginative level design is just one example of the many incredible set pieces to follow. There are puzzles to solve along the way, mostly to break up the relentlessly satisfying combat. Nothing much has changed from the first game in regards to fighting. Kratos still wields his twin Blades of Athena, whirling and twirling about the battlefield, to devastating effect. A variety of other weapons can be acquired but none satisfy quite as much as the Blades. Kratos himself can be enhanced with greater health, magic, and even the ability to slow down time at some stages.

With an endlessly grandiose setting the graphics are gorgeous. You’ll want to take as much of it in between the battles as you can, before setting off to tear the limbs off yet another mythological misfit. Gloriously bloody and immensely challenging, God of War II is pure unadulterated entertainment of the highest order. This is the best of the best, right here.

5 dismembered sirens out of 5.

Nothing makes me feel more like an adult than acting childish.

Nothing makes me feel more like a man than being a mentor.

When a little girl asks you to help do up the zip on a suitcase, make sure you've done a thorough search of the play area for her brother.

In the world known as Ivalice, city-state islands float in the sky, vast empires clash in bitter battle, and a young street urchin named Vaan, too pretty to be an Emo but too Emo to be pretty, dreams of piloting his own airship one day as a dashing Sky Pirate, free to forge his destiny amongst the clouds. And so, for the twelfth time we are treated to the fantastic, courtesy the genius artists at Square Enix, and, finally, a number of the problems that have been part and parcel of prior instalments in the series have been completely redesigned to craft one of the finest RPGs I've had the pleasure of playing.

Twenty hours into the game and it's like the first hot flushes of a newly ignited love – I want to be with it always and explore its many nooks and crannies as thoroughly as I can. Every exploration is rewarded with a new revelation or reward as the game reveals so much more than just the superficialities of the storyline. The in-game animation is as good as it's going to get on the PS2, the design and artistic direction as rich and detailed as a classic painting. Ivalice is truly a wonder to behold, with architecture evocative of the Middle East and Renaissance-era Europe. Massive airships glide through the skies between the floating island-cities, as a tight cast of thrilling characters meet and embark upon their quest. Other reviewers have called this game the Star Wars of Final Fantasy and I believe them.

The main changes in this instalment have all been for the better. Combat is now a fluid experience, and foes can be avoided or engaged with because you can actually see them roaming in the environment! Fighting and other actions are handled by the elegant Gambit system, where you can set character actions according to conditions. Character levelling and skills attainment progresses using the License system that allows you to freely determine a character's specialties. Finally, you can customise your party how you want, free from predetermined character "classes". You want Fran the Viera bunnygirl to be a black magician? Sure thing! You want Vaan to be the party's sureshot bowman and healer? Then unlock the requisite licenses and you're away!

With an intricate story of political intrigue and world-spanning conquest, Final Fantasy XII is a constantly entertaining game. Actually, it's more than a game – it's a commitment. The world of Ivalice demands to be entered at every opportunity and you'll go willingly because the whole thing is just so bone-achingly gorgeous. The only drawback will be that, at some point, the game will end. However, with such a vast land to explore there are, at least, 100+ hours worth of game on offer. If you're an RPG fan you simply must own this game – it's what you bought your PS2 for.

http://www.finalfantasyxii.com/

5 bunnygirls out of 5.

When changing trousers during a quick costume change, make sure you're wearing something less troublesome than boxer shorts.

Especially silky ones.

This has been a Note To Self Production (tm).