But otherwise, yeah.  Most of the anti-immigration rhetoric follows some form of: “we only have _x_  jobs” or “our resources are limited.”  But this is not Kuwait.  We don’t all get a salary from the government based on some natural resource we’re selling to the world.  If you believe in the free enterprise system, a hard-working immigrant who has already gone through the dependent years is net gain to the economy.  This person brings in both skills and additional consumption.  Even if they send money to family at home, that still is a form of trade balance correction, you’re paying the whole family for service exported.  All is good.

But if you think of jobs and resources as a form of limited entitlement, then you’re in the socialist model.  Ergo, anti-immigration based on “scarce resources” = socialist thinking.

Everything else got better.  Racing games moved up to Burnout Paradise.  RPGs evolved into Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, and Oblivion.  First person shooters became Modern Warfare, Halo, and Bad Company.  But Westerns failed to go anywhere.  Too vast, too lonely, guns that don’t reload quickly, stereotypes that often just stare, putting all their wisdom into nearly un-readable eyes.  Great movies, bad video games.

But now there’s Red Dead Redemption.  Rockstar, who can afford to spend $100 million dollars to make sure all that open space is filled, all those guns feel right, and all those stereotypes have a place and a story, did it.  I love this game, so far.  I love wandering around, forgetting what my mission is, and just exploring.  Hunting feels real. (and I did hunt in the desert as a teen).  Not realistic, there’s just too much game running around, and things attack you.  Cougars and coyotes, even wolves.  In the real desert, these animals mostly hide.  But in this kind of archetypal American fantasy desert, they will jump you, and they should.  That’s real, the way it should be.

I’m still a long way from finishing (or even really starting) the story elements.  But the world is beautiful and, after oh these many years, I’m playing the game I was promised.

The World of Red Dead Redemption

Arizona Governor says "F*ck the police."

Think about it.  If you’re a police officer, you are constantly making difficult judgments.  Yes, you have to enforce the law, but you only have a certain amount of time, and every infraction you address means a dozen others that will escape notice.  Of course the department helps you set your priorities.  But even with whatever the latest guidelines might be, you still have to choose.  Many choices will be wrong, but you learn.  If your superiors are supportive, they help you develop.  Most have been in your shoes, and they can give you training and guidance on how to tell when something is worth pursuing.

What if someone decided to add a whole bunch of second-guessers.  If you make a decision, anyone can second-guess it.  You can be sued if you get it wrong.  And what is the guidance on which you have to make these decisions?  ”reasonably suspect of being undocumented”.  How to do you reasonably suspect something like that?  Get it wrong and get sued by an illiterate tea-bagger.  Then, just because, left-wing groups will sue you if you don’t apply whatever standard was established in the last suit to non-hispanic residents.

So, though it may suck to be an immigrant, legal or not, in this Arizona, it’s going to really suck to be a cop.

I like Roger Ebert, and I think he does think things through.  And many of the critics of his position on this have been a little too ad hominum, as if finding some deep psychological problem with Ebert’s feeling towards games would dissolve his argument.  But I suspect that his thinking on this reflects the thinking of most video-game outsiders.  He doesn’t think they’re art, and neither does your mom.  But you don’t give her crap about it, do you?

Some of arguments are true.  He doesn’t get video-games.  He can’t readily distinguish between “braid” and a shooter based on David Koresh, at least not enough to see why people suggesting these games as art have entirely different perspectives.  When he tries to describe what’s there, he lists the mechanics.  But I don’t think that invalidates his opinion.  I don’t understand Nascar, but I can make a cogent observation that it is not a sport. (Especially if I can use the “as I understand sport” escape valve.)  Maybe I think sports require the exertion and testing of physical body vs. physical body.

But the one trick that Ebert really pulls off, is to hide his actual argument.  Then, as people attack him, he moves from “as a matter of principle” over to “bad in fact”, then back.  Also, as he never defines his conception of art, it’s easy for him to discount arguments based on various theories.  When people claim they have been moved by video-games, or that they see beauty, or that a video-game is sublime or subtle, he can go to a point of view that doesn’t accept any of these things as a definition of art.

Here’s the thing.  ”matter of principle” means tautological, which requires precise definitions of both high art and videogaming.  It also means that the level and quality does not matter at all.  And, it means that no amount of change over time would change it.  Ebert does not give us the precise definitions, he does argue about the quality of the examples, and he allows that a time may come when this changes.

But once admitting that it is not “matter of principle,” then his other factors come into play.  If it is the quality of the examples, then we can find better ones.  The truth is that video-games are maturing at a far more rapid rate than other media.  A video-game sequel is considered a good thing, because it WILL be a lot better.  (not always, but moreso than with movies).  New experimental directions, such as Heavy Rain, do not have an equivalent in film, because there are no new avenues being opened up in terms of the technology or the potential interfaces.  The newest thing in film? 3-D.

Ultimately, I think Ebert’s claim is really more personal.  It’s like that made by the film professors back when music videos were trying to be art.  ”Nothing new here.”  Yes, from their POV, nothing.  But they had the whole history of film to draw on.  The music video audience was seeing new stuff, sliced and diced and offered up in a format they could understand.  To them, it was an emerging art form.  Similarly, if you try and abstract the story, or the visuals from a current game and offer it up to someone who doesn’t engage, someone who has a library of great movies in his head, there won’t be anything new.   Because the new part doesn’t translate.  But to us, some of this is art.  And someday, the art may be new in ways that nobody now can anticipate.

Those within the church are arguing about  justice and how this might affect the church as a whole.

There are those outside the church who are arguing about justice, crime, and cover-up.  But some have also taken it as a platform to debate the legitimacy and goodness/badness of the church itself.  I think they’re barking up the wrong tree.  I’m not Catholic.  By definition, I guess that means I don’t believe in the legitimacy of the church.  I also think, like any large institution that has dominated the last 2000 years of human history, it’s done a lot of harm and a lot of good.  Currently, I think they are actively working against third-world development with their policies on birth control.

But the Pope argument is completely unrelated.  Contrary to the beliefs of the mis-informed, the Pope is not infallible.  The only exception is when he speaks “ex cathedra”, which does not happen often.  Even if the Pope where infallible, that infallability would not logically extend backwards in time to decisions prior to becoming the Pope.  Also, what would infallability even mean?  That any decision made would be just and moral?  That it would lead to no possible bad outcome?  That it would be in accord with current human laws?  Or should all decisions lean more towards Church values, such as forgiveness and redemption?

The Pope did whatever he did.  Made some kind of decision about some level of information.  We don’t know what he really knew, but it’s natural for critics to apply all that we know now to someone who was described as knowing something at the time.  Even critics who keep claiming the crown of reason as something they own personally make this mistake.  But administrators make decisions all the time based on information they barely understand or can’t really trust.  And he was an administrator, looking at old information, on a topic that he may not have really understood the scope of.  Human beings tend to dismiss things we aren’t ready to deal with.  And administrators do that more than anyone.

No doubt that’s what Cameron meant when he talked about his movie.  Hopefully he was not talking about the story.  So, will every movie in the blockbuster/space-opera genre be in 3-D with flawless CGI? Will budgets continue to push upwards of $400 million dollars?  Seems likely.  On the other hand, will Avatar go down in our collective memory the way Star Wars did?  I find that very doubtful.  Technical advances may have had a great influence at the time Star Wars came out, but that’s not why we remember it now.  After all, as soon as it was out, everybody else set out surpassing it.  Matrix made a similar leap in visual technique, but little else about the movie has lasted.

Star Wars had something else that was special, something that even George Lucas could never find again.  Though nobody could call the acting great, the relationships between the characters were inspired.  Obi-Wan is still an archetype, and Darth Vader is synonymous with ultimate bad guy.  Princess Leia was the perfect damsel in distress, who could also kick some ass.  But the key was really the hero.  Instead of just focusing on the “chosen one”, Star Wars kept balancing Luke with Han Solo.  Han Solo was fun in a way that Luke could never be.  Neo was never fun, the hero of Avatar could never catch that magic.  Nobody in the sequels had it.  Maybe it was just Harrison Ford, but I also think the character of the co-hero lifted some of the seriousness that oppresses adventure movies when the film-maker starts thinking about making art.  Lucas could be as serious as he wanted about the Force, destiny, and the themes of good and evil and fatherhood, without drowning the old-fashioned serial-movie fun, because Han Solo was always there.

It seems odd that one movie could have given the modern standard examplar of three cultural archetypes, but Star Wars did it.  Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, and Han Solo are always with us.  You can pull out any of those names and describe someone, and you’ve covered that topic.  I can’t imagine any character from Avatar will be that memorable even a year from now.

In Piranha II, you were likely to get killed by a carnivorous flying fish if:

• You are female and naked.
• You have sex unconnected to romance.
• You’re a somewhat ridiculous older woman.
• You are an ethnic side-character.

Also, if you’re ex-military, you’re instinctively evil, even when you try to be good.  if you’re a corporate person, you’re stupidly evil.

Things have gotten a lot better for naked or semi-naked women/aliens in Avatar, and only good people have sex, which is romantic as heck.  On the other hand:

• Military is still evil.
• Corporations are stupidly evil.
• Michelle Rodriguez? Dead.
• Sigourney Weaver? Dead. (well, she does get instantly recycled into a giant tree, so that’s something)

I’ll write this up as it goes.  The first section involves an overdue astronaut, coming back from the moon.  They make it clear that this is the second mission, the first one ended in disaster.  The second one is starting to go the same way.  The sets are minimal, but the film-makers didn’t try and show whole command centers, so it works well enough.  Then there’s a scene where the astronaut makes contact, twenty minutes after they know his oxygen must have run out.  He is pleading with control to kill him, use an auto-destruct button.  He cannot do it himself, because his hands won’t obey him.  The scene is nicely done, nothing low-budget of badly acted here.  You actually do feel the agony of the decision the scientists on the ground have to make.  So far so good.

Also, Alan Hale will be in this one.  I love Alan Hale.  He turned in a pretty great performance in The Giant Spider Invasion.  For those who don’t know, he is the skipper in Gilligan’s Island, the ultimate prototype sit-com.

We get introduced to the small town in a scene set in a cafe.  Some kids are dancing, the owner keeps telling them: “no dancing”.  Meanwhile, two girls, obviously main characters, are chatting.  They also have a cage with rats in it on the table.  One is wondering how the other managed to “snatch” the young med student as a boyfriend.  Apparently a dozen other girls have failed.  Actual dialog:

“I’m not saying you’re not stacked, he’s just not with it.”

That leads to a romantic interlude that, at whatever age I was then, probably went over my head.  Which is for the best.  The characters are weak 60s style teens, and the whole thing gets a little painful until it’s finally relieved by the arrival of the hand.  That section of the movie seems as if it were directed by someone else as well.  A second team director, maybe?  The angles are often wrong, people who are supposed to be conversing are staring off into space, and the presence of the back-screen is clear.

But when the action starts up again, it is kind of tense.  Moreso than with “Shredder,” a 2003 movie I tried watching earlier, but had to bail on as boredom swept in.

Now that Paul is going half-zombie, the quality of the movie starts plunging.  People keep acting strangely.  I think even as a child, I understood that things weren’t making sense.  The arm doesn’t seem very threatening, and the infected Paul seems to be more likely to go Emo than actually kill anyone.  But the movie is still fun.

It’s black and white, cheesy, and full of wooden acting, bad camera angles, and difficult to swallow plot points.  The central danger isn’t that credible, except when people are pretty near wasted.  But there are a few creepy scenes, and the overall cheese factor makes it fun.