What’s Up With Your Wagon Wheels, Red Dead Redemption?

I’ve noticed that the wagon wheels in Red Dead Redemption have that counter-spin effect on the spokes when in motion. Why?

Roger Ebert Stars in Blow-hard: With a Vengeance (UPDATED)

Ebert and I go way back.  First I disagreed with him, then he agreed with me…

Good times.

And I would never have referred to Ebert as a blow-hard until today.  Today I read this.

The pomposity and smugness of his supremely backhanded retraction, as well as the many, many semantic arguments it will inspire, I shall leave to others to address.  Instead, I’m going to talk about Clive Barker.

Depth Perception – An Unnecessary Evil

I can’t for the life of me see how 3D can be made a necessary part of a movie.

I understand special effects – allowing a film maker to make manifest impossible things is important.  From the models of Blade Runner and puppetry of Alien to the CG of Jurassic Park or The Matrix, the special effects are part of the storytelling process.  Without special effects would be no future city, no fearsome alien, no pissed of dinosaurs, and no…well, no Matrix.

But 3D, so far, doesn’t impact the ability to tell a story at all.  Does it matter if that one plant really seems closer to you than that other plant?  Or that shrapnel looks like it just flew over your head?  The mere fact that the recent spate of 3D movies have all also been shown in 2D clearly indicates that the 3D is a bonus, an extra – the characters, the story, plot, themes, tension, and emotion, none of these things are created by a special camera and a pair of funny glasses.

Would you have cared more about Guido in Life is Beautiful if he’d ridden that bike right at you before crashing into Dora?  Would the opening scene of Inglorius Basterds have been any more tense had that glass of milk been popping out of the screen?