Recent content by Dr. Dan Challis

I didn't like the first Expendables but the second is an improvement in just about every way possible, and a lot of fun to boot. Better villain, stronger, uncluttered story, bigger, more sustained action setpieces - this is one of the few sequels that truly learned from the mistakes of its...

I find the criticisms of the structure and pacing extremely odd; despite its length Rises is easily the fastest moving of the trilogy, and the one with the strongest story arc. The construction of Rises' script has a definite edge over Dark Knight's, even if the end product isn't quite as good...

In terms of marketing, merchandising and home video turnaround time, yeah, Burton's Batman set the modern standard. Especially the video thing; that a blockbuster film would be in theatres in late June and be on video before Christmas? Unprecedented. To give it context, Batman hit video about...

I'm not a lawyer but maybe I sound a bit like one because I've actually taken the time to learn and understand what my rights as a consumer as and are not. If you're going to throw around legal terminology, it would behoove you to do the same. If you want to express your unhappiness with a...

I don't know who TotalBiscuit is, but he/she sounds very learned and well informed. The legal parlance may vary slightly but the concept of "fitness for use" still underpins product liability law in the US. I think you recognize this, which is why you switched tack from defective products to...

I hope you can see the contradiction between those two points. You can define ?defective? any way you choose, I guess, so long as you recognize that your definition has little to no relation to the legal one. You certainly have the right to feel that that product was defective and that you...

I think we need to be very careful making sure we don't equate *any* negative interaction a child could have with full-on bullying, lest we dilute the term so much it lacks meaning anymore. There`s a world of difference between being beaten up in the school parking lot during lunch hour and...

See, here`s the thing: players were *never* writing even an ounce of the story themselves. They were choosing from a series of pre-scripted, predetermined options that were written by the folks at Bioware. You are participant only as far as your choices and actions fall within finite parameters...

Nerds no more run Hollywood now than children ran Hollywood in the early 00's, when you couldn't spit without hitting a computer animated kids film that grossed over $100 million. Just because you're being catered (or pandered) to does not mean that you have the keys to the asylum. I'd say that...

I think this is an appropriate time to remind everyone that Jedi has ALWAYS sucked.

There seem to be an awful lot of people who profess to have hated the first two Transformers films yet still went to see the third. I hope those people realize that they are just as responsible for the series financial success as those who enjoyed the films, and at least the latter group had a...

Can't speak for anyone else but I wasn't personally offended. No worries.

I assume all of this is directed at me, no? All I can say is you're reading far more into what I said than is actually there. I didn't condemn the human Centipede movies or their viewers. I just explained why I think drawing parallels between the two series isn't an apt comparison. I've seen...

What's the point, then, of any film with an ounce narrative ambiguity? Is Inception a poor film because of its ending? Were the first two Godfather films made better by the definitive ending of the third? Sorry, not buying the "what's the point?" angle. It's too easy dismiss anything you don't...

I know Saw is the go-to whipping boy in discussions of "torture porn" (I really hate the perversion of that term) but it's really a poor example. Firstly, there's no appeal to the prurient: Jigsaw gets no pleasure from the traps he springs on his victims, nor is the audience intended to...