The new Holy Text definitely starts off strong– I particularly enjoyed the book of Randall, in which the Lord unveils fifteen all new commandments. Granted, it feels like a few of them were added just to bring the total up to a nice even 25. I wonder if, for example, commandment 17 (“Thou shalt listen to more Skynyrd, because the Lord really digs them”) really necessary. Still, the majority of the verses are pretty solid, and I can see it becoming popular in liturgical readings for years to come. The same can be said of the book of Larry, which helps clarify God’s positions on a few political issues. For one thing, we find out why Leviticus wrote those nasty things about gay people (spoiler alert: he was just jealous that they were all better at dancing than he was).

Unfortunately, I kind of felt like the Lord really saved his best ideas for the beginning and ending, with most of the chapters in the middle being rather slow and uneventful. We do get to see the return of quite a few favorite characters from the original, but most of the appearances seem a bit forced and unnecessary. Samson, for example, only shows up for a brief cameo in a few chapters of the book of Explosions to help out in Jesus’ fight against Sub Zero. Meanwhile, John the Baptist spends a good chunk of the time wandering around the desert searching for a bunch of magical macguffins, which don’t even end up being all that important to the story. The worst offender by far, though, is the second book of Numbers, in which Jesus decides to see if he can count to ten thousand. I don’t think I’m really giving anything away by saying that he does.

Still, there are a few gems tucked away in there. The book of Jerry has a fantastic twist ending that God claims even He didn’t see coming. And the book of Awesome, which comes in at the very end, is a great finale to the whole series. I know a lot of fans, including myself, were excited about the prospect of a Jesus/Moses team up, and thankfully the new Bible delivers. Most of the finale is devoted to an epic battle sequence in which they– along with Solomon, Elijah, St. Paul, and a few others– team up to save the earth from a horde of invading dinosaur ninjas. It’s a great way to end the series, and I hope the movie version is able to capture the drama as perfectly as the book does.

All in all, despite a few missteps, I really liked “The Bible 2.” It clears up a lot of the questions raised by the original, and even makes room for a few genuinely funny moments– something that the first Bible was sorely lacking in. Don’t expect a masterpiece, but if you’re looking for a solid addition to your summer reading list, you can certainly do a lot worse.

$3 for this crap?

Ah, the glasses. Those plastic never-the-right-size pieces of overcharge. They’re used to separate the images to each of your eyes. The effect is to make some parts of the screen look closer than others. In this, they succeed. In comfort, they fail. For one thing, they were not made with people who already wear glasses in mind. So either they go with blurry vision or stretched glasses squeezing their face. And the one-size-fits-all approach isn’t the most inclusive for the ‘all’. People with small heads and/or slanted noses have them fall right off their face. The sooner we can be rid of these, the better.

Here’s one of the larger technical obstacles. The image doesn’t adjust to you. So if you were looking at the screen from the end of an aisle, then move to the center to sit down, the image looks exactly the same. Real 3D objects viewed from different angles would create different images. Sure, they expect you to sit in one seat and not jump about, but there would be a difference just by moving your head within a two-foot square. It creates a disconnect between you and the movie, which is part of what 3D is trying to get rid of, right?

Example of problem. The trees are in focus, but if we were looking from that spot, the mountains would appear out of focus.

There’s another big problem with the camera: the whole thing is in focus. That’s just not how it is in real life. You look at something close, distant objects get blurry. Look at the distant objects, and close thing go blurry. But when the movie tries to persuade you one thing is closer to you than another, they both look neat and sharp. Dock another few points from the connectivity meter there. And then they go and zoom around from shot to shot. To a person sitting in a movie theater feeling no force feedback like that necessary to fly through the air, it can either make a person dizzy or outright sick. Plus, they try to keep the 3D effects on! You want to know how to make someone sick from a movie? Here’s your solution. The benefits get tossed aside as the patron hastily reaches for a barf bag. Then, realizing this is a movie theater and not an airplane, just pukes in their neighbor’s popcorn.

So why do directors and producers keep doing 3D? Well, two main reasons. Initially, 3D was more for the ‘ooooo, look what we can do’ pop-out tricks to make people afraid of things flying at them. To startle, mainly. Nowadays their goal is the one that they most often shoot in the foot: immersion. To suck you into the world they’ve created and make you more invested in the movie than you would be when seeing a flat 2D image. And here they fail. Hard. Just when the plot gets interesting and you’re drawn into the fictional universe, BAM! Whirled around and made sick. Or maybe they’re showing you an impossible image with graphical overlays. Text subtitles ruin 3D shots. Where are we? Oh, look, there’s the floating text kindly letting us know where and when we are. Thanks floating text, that couldn’t have been conveyed more subtly through signs or newspapers or whatnot. Next time I want to know what the date is, I’ll just look outside.

Wow, that sure looks real to me!

While this entire review has been negative, I strangely will generally choose to watch new movies in 3D. And at and extra $3 each time because they don’t let you keep/reuse the stupid glasses. What does this say? Either I’m foolishly optimistic that maybe this time they’ll get it right, or they’ve marketed the concept really well and I’m a sucker for it. Either way, I don’t seem to come out on top. You win this time, 3D… ]]> So we live in what we perceive as a three-dimensional world. It works well enough for us; we can get around from place to place each with three coordinates. We know of a fourth dimension, but cannot actively notice it. Sure, we see its effects, but we cannot travel through it. So we’re stuck with 3 usable dimensions. At least, for material things like your computer, a cat, the ocean, or even tardigrades. For images, we have been stuck with two. Wall paintings, crayon pictures, up to majestic works of art at a museum have all existed with a one-dimensional handicap.  Sure, you’d have those red and blue colored glasses, but those were gimmicky and changed the actual color of the picture you were seeing. Electronic images for years had the same hindrance. Only recently have movies come up with a way to keep the color consistent while not sacrificing the trick. But is it good enough? Let’s take a look.

$3 for this crap?

1. The Glasses

Ah, the glasses. Those plastic never-the-right-size pieces of overcharge. They’re used to separate the images to each of your eyes. The effect is to make some parts of the screen look closer than others. In this, they succeed. In comfort, they fail. For one thing, they were not made with people who already wear glasses in mind. So either they go with blurry vision or stretched glasses squeezing their face. And the one-size-fits-all approach isn’t the most inclusive for the ‘all’. People with small heads and/or slanted noses have them fall right off their face. The sooner we can be rid of these, the better.

2. The Viewpoint

Here’s one of the larger technical obstacles. The image doesn’t adjust to you. So if you were looking at the screen from the end of an aisle, then move to the center to sit down, the image looks exactly the same. Real 3D objects viewed from different angles would create different images. Sure, they expect you to sit in one seat and not jump about, but there would be a difference just by moving your head within a two-foot square. It creates a disconnect between you and the movie, which is part of what 3D is trying to get rid of, right?

3. The Focus


Example of problem. The trees are in focus, but if we were looking from that spot, the mountains would appear out of focus.

There’s another big problem with the camera: the whole thing is in focus. That’s just not how it is in real life. You look at something close, distant objects get blurry. Look at the distant objects, and close thing go blurry. But when the movie tries to persuade you one thing is closer to you than another, they both look neat and sharp. Dock another few points from the connectivity meter there. And then they go and zoom around from shot to shot. To a person sitting in a movie theater feeling no force feedback like that necessary to fly through the air, it can either make a person dizzy or outright sick. Plus, they try to keep the 3D effects on! You want to know how to make someone sick from a movie? Here’s your solution. The benefits get tossed aside as the patron hastily reaches for a barf bag. Then, realizing this is a movie theater and not an airplane, just pukes in their neighbor’s popcorn.

4. The Point

So why do directors and producers keep doing 3D? Well, two main reasons. Initially, 3D was more for the ‘ooooo, look what we can do’ pop-out tricks to make people afraid of things flying at them. To startle, mainly. Nowadays their goal is the one that they most often shoot in the foot: immersion. To suck you into the world they’ve created and make you more invested in the movie than you would be when seeing a flat 2D image. And here they fail. Hard. Just when the plot gets interesting and you’re drawn into the fictional universe, BAM! Whirled around and made sick. Or maybe they’re showing you an impossible image with graphical overlays. Text subtitles ruin 3D shots. Where are we? Oh, look, there’s the floating text kindly letting us know where and when we are. Thanks floating text, that couldn’t have been conveyed more subtly through signs or newspapers or whatnot. Next time I want to know what the date is, I’ll just look outside.

5. The Verdict


Wow, that sure looks real to me!

While this entire review has been negative, I strangely will generally choose to watch new movies in 3D. And at and extra $3 each time because they don’t let you keep/reuse the stupid glasses. What does this say? Either I’m foolishly optimistic that maybe this time they’ll get it right, or they’ve marketed the concept really well and I’m a sucker for it. Either way, I don’t seem to come out on top. You win this time, 3D…

This was possibly the most amusing game ever made on the Sega Genesis platform.

~*~*~ R.I.P. ~*~*~

The plot of this game is pretty unremarkable. You save children. Probably should have seen this coming, right?

Speaking of coming…

This is actually a screenshot from the arcade version of the game. (And yes, it's photoshopped.)

I wasn't kidding.

You control Michael Jackson himself, clad in his Smooth Criminal outfit. He mostly defeats enemies by throwing dust and doing spin moves at them. He can also throw his fedora boomerang-style. When he runs low on energy, he loses the dust, and the spin move button will instead trigger a crotch grab. But unfortunately, the crotch grab does not do damage to enemies.

Just like that.

The most impressive move in MJ’s bag of tricks, by far, is the “recruit backup dancers, then kill them” ability. When this is executed, all enemies currently onscreen move into a formation around Michael and do a short dance. (There’s a different dance for each round.)

Telling? Perhaps.

Michael’s enemies are generally nondescript and sort of boring. Each round contains two or three sprites that are used for all of the enemies in the round. In the first few stages there are women who appear to try to embrace Michael in what looks like attempts to kiss him. To escape them Michael must use an attack move. …Yeah, just a little weird.

HAHA! YOU'LL NEVER SEE A NEW SPRITE!

After rounding up all the children in a stage, Bubbles the chimpanzee flies onto MJ’s shoulder and directs him to the boss area. Upon Michael’s arrival, the boss appears and says the same thing he says every other time he appears. Then a bunch of enemies appear which must be defeated to complete the stage.

So by now it may seem like this is a fairly unimpressive, formulaic, and repetitive platformer. But there’s something else. The game is saved by a somewhat well-hidden powerup on some stages. Watch the video below starting around 1:45.

If you can’t see the video for some reason, I’ll explain what happens: Michael gets hit by a comet and turns into a huge Robotech-esque robot with a laser cannon, missile array, and rocket boots. Yes, it’s fucking awesome.

But sadly, aside from that, I can’t say there’s really anything else amusing about this game that I remember. If you have a half hour to kill, you can watch a full play of the game in three parts. Come back here and let me know if you find something else worth laughing at.

Whitney (Natalie Portman) battles zombie mall cops physically indistinguishable from regular mall cops.

The plot runs parallel to the first movie, telling the tale of a different group of still-human survivors.  With the film’s expanded budget comes big talent.  Natalie Portman stars alongside Benicio Del Toro and Matthew Broderick.  Though zombie films traditionally cast lesser-known actors to enhance the “realness” of the apocalypse, somehow, in P-Zed2, it works.

A survivalist couple who live “off the grid” (including Portman) have their lives shaken to the core when a philosophical zombie of the apocalypse wanders onto its property.  At first, they are not overly suspicious of the zombie (as, true to the series, it is behaviorally indistinguishable from uninfected humans).  Soon, though, they begin to suspect that the visitor only “thinks” it “is,” without actually therefore-I-am’ing.  Too late they realize the truth, and the husband is infected by the zombie “thinking” “about” him, turning him into a “him” who is otherwise completely indistinguishable from how he once was, a shuddering mockery of consciousness that is without being.

As Portman flees for her life, she runs across a band of survivors (led by Del Toro).  Together, they have to fight for survival and come to terms with the end of conscious society (where the new one is physically indistinguishable from regular society).  They decide to barricade themselves in a local shopping mall, but all is not well as they are constantly harassed by philosophical zombies trying to get into the GAP and Cinnabon.  Blood and gore are bountiful as the survivors tear through hordes of the Walking Unconscious, who are eerily physically identical to the normal men, women, children, and eventually SWAT teams they once were.

The famous teaser poster for Philosophical Zombie 2

Honestly, after viewing the film in its entirety, my initial reaction was that it actually wasn’t very different from many other zombie movies in recent memory.  It shares the same basic plot from everything from Dawn of the Dead to Left 4 Dead zombie outbreak, and a few survivors facing the fall of human society.  Whatever additional plot there may have been, I don’t think it could possibly be detected.  But I feel like it still influences the film.

The acting was top-notch and appropriately horrified, from stars and new faces alike.  Especially noteworthy was Natalie Portman’s first foray into full-frontal nudity, albeit mostly obscured by sprays of zombie blood.  The zombies were also fantastic – all played by Matthew Broderick.  With the flawless philosophical zombie makeup, you could really believe that he was physically and behaviorally indistinguishable from a regular human being.  It really draws one into the film.

CGI techniques used to create huge crowds of zombies turned Broderick into a horde of the Walking Unconscious unto himself.  And fans of the series will appreciate the numerous Easter Eggs and callbacks, like the reappearance of the fan-favorite movie chain Cartesian Theater.

And if all this isn’t enough for you, 20th Century Fox confirmed a second sequel, Philosophical Zombie 3, is already in the works.  However, despite promises of a resolution to the story, the series seems poised to merely retread the same ground over and over again.

Philosophical Zombie 2 opens this Friday.  It’s rated R, and it means it, so don’t take the kids.  Not recommended for philosophers over the age of Daniel Dennett.

(Jake / Paul) is seen as an outsider until he mates with a local girl and passes the right of manhood. Eager for vengeance against (the corporation / House Harkonen) for their brutal rape of the world for the precious (unobtanium / spice), a clear analogy for (oil / oil), (Jake / Paul) sets out to unite the tribes together for a final assault by mastering how to ride a (weird bird bat thing / weird worm thing). Despite all odds, the technologically inferior primitives defeat the technological might of their foes, liberating the world and ending happily.

Visually, the movie is stunning with (millions/thousands) spent on state-of-the-art effects. Highlights of the film include a (forgettable / amazing) soundtrack by (the guy who did the “Titanic” soundtrack / mother fucking Sting), cameos by (the sort of hot chick from “Aliens” / the bald captain from Star Trek), and the use of kick-ass looking (VTOL’s / ornithopters) for all transit needs.

(Avatar / Dune) is in theaters (now / 25 years ago)