TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Category: Entertainment

  • The 2006 Trenchie Awards

    The 2006 Trenchie Awards

    Back by popular demand, mostly from my wife again, I present to you the 2006 Trenchie Awards.

    Best Movie: Clerks II. I went into this movie with low expectations, but I was extremely surprised by how good it was. I may even dare to say that it’s better than the original, but I know that’s heresy.

    Worst Movie: Since Clerks II was basically the only movie I saw this year, I defer to my wife for this category, and she says that the worst movie of 2006 was a straight to video horror abomination called The Graveyard. When I asked what was wrong with the movie, she said, “Name it and that’s what’s wrong with it.”

    Best Album: No album kicked as much ass this year as the self-titled album from Ripper Owen’s solo project Beyond Fear. Honorable mention goes to Dio’s Holy Diver Live.

    Worst Album: You’d have to try really hard to have a worse album than the disappointing Operation: Mindcrime II by Queensryche. And Iron Maiden did. A Matter of Life and Death has no good songs whatsoever. It should be called A Matter of Suck and Blow.

    Best TV Show: Heroes. It was the one show I made sure that I was home to watch. House had a few missable episodes. If you’re wondering why not 24, it’s because 24’s jersey has been retired to let others have a chance.

    Worst TV Show: CSI. I got hooked on it last season due to my abandonment of Law & Order. Last season was interesting and kept me glued to my seat. This season was boring at best.

    Best Wrestling Moment: I haven’t actually watched a lot of wrestling this year. I mostly only watch TNA. In my opinion, it’s the closest they can get to the original ECW. Anyway, the best moment of the year was when Kurt Angle came to TNA and headbutted Samoa Joe.

    Worst Wrestling Moment: WWE’s continued defiling of Eddie Guererro’s corpse.

    Best Videogame: Suikoden V. A little slow in starting, but once it got underway it had me hooked. The fishing minigame is addictive as hell. The best one since II.

    Worst Videogame: Final Fantasy III. Not a horrible game, but as with most games, it didn’t live up to the hype and wasn’t worth the 15-year wait.

    Dumbass of 2006: All the dumbasses that committed various crimes to get their hands on a PS3. Get a life, people.

    Most Inane Political Agenda of 2006: The Wrong Reverend Fred Phelps who in just one of his may asshatted statements of 2006 said after the Amish school shooting in Pennsylvania his “church” planned to protest the Amish girls’ funerals saying that the Amish “don’t serve God, they serve themselves.”

    Biggest Jackass Celebrity of 2006: The skank party crew of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears. ‘Nuff said.

    That’s it for 2006. I hope to see you here again next year for 2007.

  • A tout le monde

    A tout le monde

    Megadeth defends music Dawson College gunman loved:

    I am a huge Megadeth fan. I didn’t even know that Kimveer Gill had referenced one of my favorite Megadeth songs in his lunatic ravings. I was pissed when I found out. I can only imagine how pissed Dave Mustaine was…

    In his blog posted on vampirefreaks.com, Gill, who described himself as a huge Megadeth fan, had singled out the song À Tout le Monde, urging others to listen to it. He wrote in his blog that the song helped convince him to go on his shooting rampage that killed one and injured 19.

    Megadeth likes to perform the song À Tout le Monde in Montreal because the title and lyrics are in French, Mustaine said in an interview before the concert.

    The song’s chorus says: “A tout le monde/ A tous les amis/ Je vous aime/ Je dois partir,” which means: “To everyone/ To all my friends / I love you / I have to leave.”

    Mustaine was deeply offended when he found out Gill referred to the song in his online plans for Dawson.

    “I was so angry that this guy would use my song, and that he would try and turn that beautiful song into something ugly and nasty,” he said. The singer wrote the song about his mother, who died when Mustaine was young. “I had a dream that she came back to me, and said ‘I love you.’ That’s the whole song.”

    The song is in memory of the living, Mustaine explained. “It’s for those who lost their lives, and it’s a gift to those who are in the process of healing.”

    There was no question in Mustaine’s mind that Megadeth would perform the song in Montreal during their show Wednesday night. “[Gill] is not going to control us from the grave.”

    I don’t always agree with Dave Mustaine’s opinions, but I have more respect for him now than I ever did.

  • SCMRPG creator comments on Kimveer Gill

    SCMRPG creator comments on Kimveer Gill

    Yesterday I said that I had e-mailed Super Columbine Massacre RPG creator Danny Ledonne looking for a comment on the fact that Dawson College shooter Kimveer Gill played his game. This was his response…

    I’ve been fielding press on this one all day. Interesting to note that while Kimveer listed dozens of games as favorites, “SCMRPG” is the one listed in the press. On some level, they are proving my point for me: video games are readily-made scapegoats for violent behavior… this guy was 25 years old and probably needed some serious help.

    My one regret is that he never contacted me so I could suggest a different course of action.

  • A chicken comes home to roost

    A chicken comes home to roost

    Killer loved Columbine game:

    MONTREAL — On a scary website, Kimveer Gill describes himself as a potential killer and admits that his favourite video game is Super Columbine Massacre.

    For those of you just joining us, Super Columbine Massacre RPG (or SCMRPG for short) is a homemade video game put out by amateur game designer Danny Ledonne that puts you in the shoes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

    I’ve previously called it something along the lines of a sick tribute to one of the most horrific mass murders of all time, or something like that. For some of my previous takes on the game, you can go here or here.

    I’ve emailed Mr. Ledonne asking for his comment about it, but as of this posting, I have yet to hear back from him.

  • Zero Day

    Zero Day

    Last night, I watched the movie Zero Day. For those of you who haven’t heard of Zero Day, it’s about a fictitious school shooting filmed from the point of view of the shooters much like what Harris and Klebold did with their basement tapes.

    As far as movies about school shootings go, Zero Day is the best. It is much more interesting than the crap fest that is Elephant, and much more realistic than Home Room. In my opinion, the director tried to make it like Columbine without it actually being Columbine.

    What at first I didn’t like about the movie turns out makes the movie better and more disturbing. In the actual basement tapes, you can see the anger and hatred in Harris and Klebold. In Zero Day, the actors were much more subdued about the whole thing.

    My only complaint about the film isn’t with the film itself, it’s the fact that the mutants look at this as almost a “fan film” when I’m pretty sure that this was not the film’s intent.

    Anyway, I won’t spoil any more of it, but I highly recommend that anybody, especially those with kids still in school, to watch this movie.

  • Ronnie James Dio, the answer to world peace

    Ronnie James Dio, the answer to world peace

    With all the strife and turmoil that has been going on in the Middle East, I have come up with the solution. There is only one man with the wisdom and presence to bring peace to the region. That man’s name is Ronnie James Dio.

    I know what you’re thinking? What can a musician do to solve the Middle East crisis? Dio is not just a musician, he is a god among men. For instance, he speaks to the heart of the Iranian people…

    Iranian teens speak love, life and… metal:

    Mani is a 16-year old student from Karaj, just west of Tehran. He plays football as a centre forward and trains every day after school with his coach.

    When I ask him about his dreams he explains he wants to play in Europe.

    He says Iran has some very talented players, but that they don?t play well together, thus scuppering the country’s chances of international success.

    Mani’s other passion is music.

    “I love rock and metal music. Ronnie James Dio is my favourite singer,” he beams.

    Still not convinced? Read the words of a noted political pundit…

    Casting the First Stone:

    When I think of peace and good will in this part of the world, I am reminded of what rock star legend Ronnie James Dio once said. He said “where good thrives, evil survives.” This is very well described in Middle East politics and society. As long as evil lives, so will war and death. Only when sin is defeated by the return of Christ our Lord will these things be destroyed.

    So Ronnie James Dio could be the harbinger for the second coming.

    So now I appeal to Mr. Dio to be that Holy Diver and to Stand Up and Shout for world peace before the chains are on, and we’re all the last in line.

    All hail his name. \m/

    If you were offended by this, I have three words for ya. Lighten up, Francis.

  • 6/16/06: From the Mail Sack

    6/16/06: From the Mail Sack

    Let’s dip into the mail sack today, shall we?

    Today it’s from a mutant that escaped from the cornfield in my entry about the Columbine death photos…

    Vodka & Reb Says:

    June 16th, 2006 at 2:54 am

    Check out Super Columbine Massacre RPG. It’s a game with crummy graphics, but it’s a game about the columbine shooters. Super cool. They’re actually making games about these Heros, One day they’ll make a game, with graphics like Doom 3, but it’ll be just about that day April 20, 1999. The whole game. Can you imagine.

    Hope a gaming company makes the game soon.
    That would rule 😈

    Is that the kind of dialog you were hoping for, Danny?

  • Bull

    Bull

    Columbine game maker has lame excuses:

    Yet another opinion piece on the video game aberration that is Super Columbine Massacre RPG. I usually don’t like to reprint entire articles, but this article is from someone whose opinion I respect. Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald. You can see another one of his great pieces here…

    So now you, too, can shoot up Columbine.

    Like Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris seven years ago, you can roam the hallways with explosives and guns, bring a bloodbath to a high school in the suburbs. All from the comfort of your desk, all just by booting up your computer. Point, click, shoot.

    Super Columbine Massacre RPG is the name of the game, available for free online. It was created last year, but first came to media attention in mid-May. The game is the creation of a 24-year-old Colorado filmmaker, Danny Ledonne.

    And if you want to know what in the world would possess him to make such a monstrosity, well, he says he can identify with Harris and Klebold, though he doesn’t justify their actions. He says that at the time of the Columbine massacre, he was a five-foot, two-inch high school kid, an outsider, constantly picked on. He says he had many of the same dark fantasies of revenge that drove the two Columbine students to kill 13 people. He says he created the game in order to foster discussion of why these tragedies occur.

    He says a lot of things.

    `DEEPLY MORIBUND’

    Indeed, in a long, sometimes thoughtful, always self-justifying essay on his website, Ledonne assures us that his goal is commentary and critique of a ”deeply moribund” society that embraces simplistic answers to complex questions. It’s a criticism many observers would echo. Where they would part company with Ledonne is in his claim that putting you and me behind the trigger at Columbine will cause our understanding of that tragedy to be ”deepened” and “redefined.”

    Bull.

    I should say here that I tried to take a look at Super Columbine Massacre, but it would not initialize on my computer. Perhaps the machine has better taste than I. However, we know from news reports that the game features photographs of Klebold and Harris, excerpts from their written rantings and primitive graphics. We also know the game is unwinnable: no matter how many people Klebold and Harris manage to gun down, the ending is always the same, meaning the police close in and they commit suicide.

    Evidently, this is meant as the moral of the story. But the real moral, it seems to me, lies in the very fact of turning a slaughter into a video game.

    I say this as someone who likes video games. Video games can be challenging and fun. But they also have a way of depersonalizing violence, of creating a false disconnect between the act and its effects.

    That’s bad enough when you break someone’s arm in Tekken, the martial arts game, and he or she gets right back up, ready to rumble. It’s worse when the ”victim” is real.

    IT IS INDECENT

    Consider JFK Reloaded, a game that, for a $9.99 download, allows you to be Lee Harvey Oswald and try your luck at assassinating John Kennedy. The creator of that game, like the creator of this one, professes a high-minded objective: to interest young people in history and prove that Oswald was the lone gunman.

    Both creators either don’t know or, more likely, don’t care that they trivialize murders whose effects are still extant, create emotional distance where none should exist.

    Bang. Kill John F. Kennedy.

    Bang. Kill a Columbine kid.

    Bang. Feel nothing.

    That’s scurrilous. It is indecent. Not simply because of the disrespect it shows the dead, but also because there’s more than enough emotional distance, more than enough feeling nothing, in our lives already without encouraging more.

    Other people are not objects. Other lives are not abstract. Other feelings are not trivial. These are truths that should be self-evident, but they seem less so all the time.

    Remember the exchange between Klebold and Harris as they committed mass murder?

    “How many did you get?”

    “I got three.”

    Keeping score. Like it was a video game, even then.

  • Virtual Bitchslap

    Virtual Bitchslap

    The Emperor’s New Clothes is a Trench Coat:

    Here is another gaming review on the video game abomination that is Super Columbine Massacre RPG…

    After spending some time with this crudely made game, all I can say is: do not waste your time. Please. Forget that it uses 16-bit graphics, making it look like it was created at the dawn of the video game age. What is more disconcerting is that it reenacts – step by bloody step – the tragic events of the shooting. The creator has managed to mish mash actual crime scene photos, a hodgepodge of newspaper clippings and actual quotes taken from Harris’ diary in a way that almost glorifies what Harris and Klebold did.

    But I’m not here to review a game or add to this disturbed individual’s fifteen minutes of fame. I’m here to point out the error of his ways and deconstruct his so-called arguments for making this piece of filth. To give him a good ole fashioned “bitch slapping” if you will. After all, I have as much right to speak my mind as he does.

    According to The Man Who Wishes to Remain Anonymous, all he wanted to do was create something “unique and confrontational” that would “promote a real dialogue on the subject of school shootings.” He claims to have been in a Colorado high school at the time, and similarly bullied by “a culture of elitism as espoused by our school’s athletes.” He goes on to say that while it was terrifying to see the event unfold, “it was empowering to see two oppressed, marginalized kids rise up.” Empowering? Does this sound like a logical response to you? Based on these wildly unstable comments, and the fact that he intentionally and repeatedly refers to Harris and Klebold in the game as “brave boys,” suggest that he revered them then, and is honoring them now. But it doesn’t stop there, Columbin adds that “Behind all the pixels is the fact that people really died, including two angry boys who were, at times, very thoughtful, sensitive and intelligent young men.” Sensitive? They didn’t show it when they were planning, and then carrying out, their execution of thirteen people.

    To further show that the reality in which Columbin lives in is vastly different from the real world around him shows in this: “Also there’s something innately comedic about making a violent school shooting into a game with tiny, cartoonish sprites and text-based menus that make firing a TEC-9 feel like casting a magic spell.” I’m sorry, but there is nothing comedic about this scenario. Recreating a monstrous real life event that involves stalking and then gunning someone down should not be trivialized and made to feel like you’re simply “casting a magic spell.” There’s nothing comedic about making a game that includes the following hints in the game’s README file (verbatim):

    * Save often and reload between battles so you’re not fumbling for ammo during combat.

    * Watch your health, too! Several items replenish health and are very important to nourish Eric and Dylan during a hard day of killing.

    * GOOD LUCK! “Kick some, take some, and get some” says Vodka. (which is what an eye witness reportedly heard Klebold say to Harris during the massacre)

    This second tip is the most disturbing, and says a lot about how Columbin truly feels about the killers. He says he wants people to learn more about the shootings and to walk away feeling disturbed, or at the very least introspective. If that were true, none of these “hints” to improve your score would be included! To me, this smacks of simply wanting notoriety (ala some deranged hacker), and to honor Harris and Kleybold.

    And that’s only a portion of the article. I urge you to read the entire review.

  • No fun at all

    No fun at all

    Columbine game no fun at all:

    Here we have another review of the video game abomination that is Super Columbine Massacre RPG. This time from a Virginia Tech student newspaper. So you know it’s being reviewed by someone of relative gaming age who “gets” video games…

    Although the game is not very graphic when compared with titles like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, it still sends a strong message to users. While it may seem to be nothing more than a Super Nintendo Mystic Quest-style pixellated RPG, the reality remains that it was created as a form of mockery of a very serious event.

    The fact that this RPG exists says a lot about the lack of respect society gives to present-day situations. Although this Columbine incident occurred over five years ago, problems similar to these are still a concern in the public school system. If children download this game and go about playing it as if it’s all a funny joke, the message being given to them implies it’s OK — and even a bit funny — to go into their school and kill 13 people.

    While some may argue that the game is actually enlightening because it lets outsiders see the emotions and logic behind the killers’ motives, it does not make up for the fact that, with a click of the mouse, a person can kill pixellated versions of the real victims involved that day. This game laughs in the faces of the friends and families of victims killed that day and utterly disrespects anyone who may have been in any way affected by the incident.

    What more needs to be said?