Interstellar Review: Boldly Going

Interstellar Review (spoiler-free, honest!)

The recurring note within Interstellar is the W.H.Auden poem, a plea to not go quietly toward death, but to "rage, rage against the dying of the light."  It's a call to arms for life, to not shuffle off the mortal coil, but to fight, fight, and fight some more, until your dying breath, and with your dying breath.  Story-wise, this fits the movie perfectly.  Our world and our species on the brink of a slow, agonizing departure, the hero fights, almost beyond death, to save everything he holds dear, everything any of us hold dear.  It's an epic journey that takes us from dying cornfields plagued by titanic dust-storms, out into the depths of our solar system, beyond it to another galaxy, and beyond even time and space itself, into the realms of the philosophical and the esoteric.  

However, as a movie and as an endeavour, Interstellar is probably better served by Robert Browning's famous lines in his poem, Andrea del Sarto: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"  For Interstellar is nothing, if not a master film-maker, at the top of his game (his game so far, tantalizingly), reaching literally for the heavens, and not quite being able to hold it in his hands.

The ambition of Interstellar verges on the ludicrous.  A gigantic, intellectually-driven, journey into the edges of space.  Where other movies would cower and take the off-ramp into comfortable genre, Interstellar powers on.  To see a movie that even touches on the subject matter and themes with which Interstellar deals would be goal enough.  To see it march on, shoulder the weight of its responsibilities to the story and cross the finish line, is simply breath-taking.  In terms of scope, this is a fearless film.  It charts a course to the edge of that which cinema is capable, and unflinchingly, unswervingly, follows that path.  Nothing in Nolan's pristine back-catalogue comes close to what Interstellar attempts.  And it is in the attempt, the reach, and the not quite grasping of the prize, that Interstellar falls short.

Is the film a failure?  If it is, it's only by the standards of its own colossal ambition.  The story that the Nolans (no, not the sister act from Ireland, but writer-director Christopher, and his brother Jonah) attempt to land is on the 2001 scale.  It is attempting to reach further and higher than any movie has any right to.  It is attempting to transcend not just the ordinary, but also the extra-ordinary, into the truly theoretical, ethereal, and spiritual - whatever that is to you.  In the final act, it is touching the realm where the edge of science meets the philosophical.  If Nolan was making action movies with A Levels with the Batman trilogy, and action-thriller with a degree in Inception, he's making drama with a Ph.D. in Interstellar.  Like Inception, you walk out with your head spinning, dazzled by the spectacle you've just witnessed (especially in Imax), disbelieving that any film-maker is attempting story-telling that requires so much from an audience.

The influences here are apparent and Interstellar wears them readily on its flight suits.  2001 is weaved into the fabric of this movie, with even a sly nod to it in the form of one of the robots joking that he will blast McConaughey's pilot, Cooper, out of an airlock.  Hans Zimmer's score also beats you about the head with the comparison, stopping short of using Also Sprach Zarathustra (the duun, duun, duun - DA DAA!) or the Blue Danube Waltz.  Other knowing winks are thrown at Silent Running, Douglas Trumbull's 1972 movie about an astronaut obsessively and murderously saving the last plant life from Earth.  The robots in Interstellar clearly link back to Huey, Duey, and Looie from Trumbull's film.  The biggest nod comes via the casting of Matthew McConaughey though, to one of his earlier movies (before his badly misjudged detour into rom-com territory, and way before his renaissance), Contact.  Remember that jaw-dropping opening scene?  In Contact, McConaughey played the religious role, skeptical of Jodie Foster's belief in the limitless reach of science.  Here, he's much more in Foster's character's role - a pilot and engineer, desperate to use all the accumulated knowledge of the world to save it.  He's a man of science, driven by the most human of motivations - to save his family, and most notably, his daughter.

While McConaughey's casting is faultless, and his performance will do nothing to diminish his current supernova-esque brightness, some of the supporting members feel like a case of casting a star for the sake of it.  Anne Hathaway puts in a solid performance, but doesn't add much weight to the proceedings.  Her short speech about love being the most powerful force in the universe would be hard for anyone to pull off, but it's one of the poorer notes during the film.  Jessica Chastain is under-used and looks like she walked off the set of Zero Dark Thirty.  Similarly, Casey Affleck does what he can with the little he's given, but it's hard to escape the feeling that this would have been better served by a solid, unknown, character actor.  John Lithgow and Michael Caine perform their duties admirably, but again, when you have actors of this calibre, you want to see them stretch their legs and show you what they can do.  As it is, seeing them on-screen doing so little is frustrating.  The worst miscast is the "secret", unbilled, AAA Hollywood star that appear halfway through the film.  The role itself is substantial and critically important, but the casting is distracting.  In a moment that should be all about the moment itself, the literal unzipping of this character had me immediately replaying YouTube moments in my head.  It's hard to say more without revealing it, but you'll know it when you see it.

This miscast is symbolic of the biggest issue Interstellar has - is it a blockbuster trying to be an arthouse film, or the other way around?  Given the $165m budget, filling multiplexes was clearly key, but the film never quite comfortably wrestles the intellectual, emotional, and the action to the ground.  Unlike 2001 and Contact, both of which stayed within the spheres in which they had placed themselves, Nolan is clearly trying to please everyone - the blockbuster spectacle cinema-goers, the devoted arthouse cineastes, and crucially, the studio paying the bills.  This was something he pulled off with Inception, but the weight of the subject matter in Interstellar is far greater, leading to a larger gulf between the sublime and the superficial.  While the story and the themes demand serious focus, Nolan is forced to inject pyrotechnics where none are called for.  The whole middle section - which culminates in the movie's big action set-piece - comes across as a placatory move to the studio.  It crosses into Gravity territory, going for reliable, audience-pleasing spectacle, but dampening the human drama that is the driving force of the rest of the film.  But without it, perhaps getting any studio exec to hand over that big a cheque would have been unrealistic.  But if Nolan can't do it, who can?

Ultimately though, this is a movie that must be seen, if only for the audacity of its intention.  Interstellar's ambition mirrors that of its protagonist.  We start in the dirt, ascend into the sky, soar into a distant galaxy, and emerge within our imagination.  No one else is doing this, or is able to do this.  Interstellar is yet another quantum (physics) leap beyond the intelligent sci-fi movies which have been returning to our screens - be it Nolan's own Inception, Gravity, Snowpiercer, Edge of Tomorrow, etc.  In tackling a story this far-reaching, it's pushing the boundaries of what visual story-telling can achieve.  At times, you feel the screen starting to buckle under the weight of what it is trying to convey.  And for the most part, the screen holds fast.  

Interstellar deserves a place in cinematic history.  Its few and forgivable faults are understandable - the scale of its ambitions sometimes over-shoot its capabilities to depict; the necessity of the budget requires commerce to overpower creative.  But Interstellar should ultimately be judged not by how much it achieves, but how much it strives for.  Its reach truly exceeds its grasp.  But to witness a movie even reach this far is something truly special indeed.

Pan of Steel

Superman defeated by arch-enemy, Zack Snyder

Prometheus, you promised so much, delivered so little, and yet had moments that remain in the mind.  The auto-C-section 3000; the greatest scientific minds on Earth doing the dumbest things in space; running in the same vector as a following object of greater velocity. On watching Man of Steel, it's clear now that a moronically memorable film is preferable to an instantly forgettable lightshow.

Man of Steel, how I hate thee.  Let me count the ways.

1. O Continuity, Where Art Thou?  It's rare to watch a film that so brazenly disregards the need to have scenes coalesce together to form a single narrative thread.  Man of Steel lurches from one vignette to the next, with each bearing only a scant thematic or emotional connection to the next.  Krypton civil war!  Men on a boat.  Lois Lane being bolshy to military types in the snow!  Boy talks to father.  Bad guys arrive and threaten genocide!  Something about a tornado.  It's like Memento, where scenes are purposefully relayed out of sequence, but handled by an imbecile.  
2. We haz ACTORZ!  Look, it's future Academy Award winner Michael Shannon, with actual Academy Award winners Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner.  Amy Adams is sassy, and Diane Lane is classy - we chose our women for substance, not show.  Guys you love from TV - there's him from CSI and Hannibal being Perry White, and isn't that Toby Zeigler?!  Henry Cavill: broody yet lovable, with a body you only see in Zack Snyder movies.  Ok actors, read these ham-fisted lines I wrote on the back of a beer mat ("RELEASE THE WORLD ENGINE!") and fuck off.  I have an effects budget to burn.
3. Rated U for Mild Peril.  Whole metropolitan skyscrapers collapsing, roads being shredded, Kryptonians with the density of titanum cannonballs being hurled in every direction, and seemingly this is only going to affect 4 people that work in the Daily Planet.  Later, the entire planet is about to be destroyed, 6 and a half billion men, women and children - not to mention all the other sentient and non-sentient life - crushed by the biggest environmental disaster the world has ever known.  Same 4 people affected.  Right at the end, a small family are nearly incinerated by the big bad, forcing Superman to kill (sorry, spoiler alert).  I guess the several thousand that are already dead in Metropolis, plus the hundred of thousands being rushed to emergency rooms, they weren't worth getting angry for because they were off-screen.  I've felt more tension and threat crossing the road in front of my office.  And it's a quiet road.
4. Christopher Nolan, I presume?  Spoiler alert, but this has to be a "The Prestige" type trick, where a Christopher Nolan clone is running around pretending to be the real Christopher Nolan, except this clone Nolan left the incubator a DNA helix short of a brain.  Everything that the Dark Knight trilogy did well, Man of Steel eschews.  The trailer hinted at a movie that walks the same line as BB, TDK, TDKR, one which asks the question "what would it be like if Batman/Superman" were real.  And then the movie goes in the exact opposite direction - "what would it be like if Superman were a live-action cartoon?"   This is not Nolan's take on Superman, this is most definitely a Zack Snyder Superman.  Nolan wouldn't be capable of making a film so vacuous.
5. Iconic?  Moronic.  Superman isn't just his powers.  He is Truth, Justice, and The American Way (this was a while ago and probably needs some revision: Truth, Justice, and The Humanist Way?).  He isn't special because he's got the super-this, and the super-that, he's special because he has the moral fibre and certitude of a divine and just being, and he is the best of us.  The movie even goes so far as to say that.  And yet, show me one scene where the film presents this - not SAYS it, but SHOWS it.  Show me that we are in the presence of greatness, not just power.  The scene where Superman dons the cape for the first time, Snyder throws it away like he's just come out of the toilet.  Learning to fly, not just leap?  It's fun and exciting, like finding money under the sofa.  Pivotal moments in the Superman mythos are given the same weight as a random cutaway, all because the movie doesn't know how to do them, and can't wait to get to the next CG section.

Bryan Singer's Superman Returns had its flaws.  Maybe it clung too desperately to Richard Donner's sentimental vision.  Maybe Routh just wasn't conventionally good looking enough to be the Superman we want (although he was a flawless Christopher Reeve Clark Kent).  Maybe it was even a little stalker/creepy.  But seeing that Superman save one aircraft from being hurled into outer space held immeasurable more thrills and excitement than watching 4 or 5 Kryptonians at full power destroy an entire city.  It also knew what Superman meant to us, and how to connect him to us mere mortals.  Man of Steel however, is a cold, noisy, mechanical film, lacking wit and wisdom in equal measure.  It treats its audience as bad parents treat their children, feeding us with sugary drinks and popcorn over a nourishing meal and cool refreshing water.  And perhaps most aptly, rather than letting us bathe in the warm, nurturing, yellow sun of Superman Returns, it instead transports us emotionally to Krypton: a planet distant, alien, and dead.

Prometheus

One does not simply walk into LZ226. One does not stomp recklessly back into a beloved universe. One does not lightly prance when conjuring a tale on the origin of our species. One treats such things with great care, profound respect, love, and in the full knowledge that under their feet, the hearts and hopes of millions lie trembling.

Peter Jackson and Joss Whedon understood these things. And they made their choices, wisely.
George Lucas did not, either when journeying back to Tatooine or re-donning the fedora. He chose, as the cold light of day clearly shows, poorly. 
Prometheus is Episode 1. They fucked it up that bad.

Let's be clear: this isn't Sir Ridley's fault. He showed up and did what he was supposed to, and did it well. Sure he's the director, but not in a Scorsese, Coppola, Kurosawa, Lynch, Cronenberg, Leigh, Loach kind of a way. He's a commercial director. Just because he's won a few awards and a Knighthood for "services to the British Film Industry", let's not confuse him with an auteur - one who authors. Directing, for Ridley, is a job, a set of tasks. The individual bits of directing, on the set, he knows how to do. Look how well everyone acts. Look how good all the elements look. Listen - it even sounds great. 

Ridley is an old-fashioned commercial director. Actually, he's a commercials director. Put a can of Pepsi in front of him and tell him to sell it, he'll do it (exhibit a: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8IAqatjQVk). Yes, he's got a special skill when it comes to conjuring worlds and making things look pretty. But he's not someone that feels any ownership or authorship over a movie. Put a script in front of him, give him a budget and some actors, and he'll do his job. Should he be more than that? No. Did we expect more from him with Prometheus? Yes, yes we did. And more fool us.

Look at Scott's back catalogue. Once you get past Alien, Blade Runner, and maybe Gladiator (does it really belong on that list?), the rest of his CV looks like a smorgasbord of varying quality fare. For every Blade Runner, there are at least 3 stinking turds: GI Jane, Kingdom of Heaven, Black Rain. I'll see your Alien and raise you a Hannibal, A Good Year, Robin Hood. This is not the CV of a man who prizes quality above all else. This is the CV of a man who lucked out with a couple of scripts and collaborators, and has coasted off them for 30 years. More than anything else, Prometheus has achieved one thing - it's shown Ridley Scott up for the one-dimensional hack director that he is.

What was it about Alien that we all loved? The relatability of space miners going about their business and being confronted by a creature from the deepest shadows of our subconscious. Thank you writer Dan O'Bannon (who also wrote Alien's comedy alter-ego, Dark Star) and designer H.R. Giger. Blade Runner - what is it to be human, and how amazing does L.A. look in the future? Kudos, Philip K. Dick and Syd Mead. Yes, of course it was Scott that chose and brought those elements together, but either he's recently lost his knack for finding great collaborators, or he just got lucky. Given the rest of his filmography over a 30 year period, the odds stack up in favour of blind luck.

The one saving grace is that he's open about it all. His job is to put "bums on seats". Straight from the horse's mouth:
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/prometheus/21646/ridley-scott-on-a-longer-prometheus-cut
"Dramatically, I’m about putting bums on seats. For me to separate my idea of commerce from art - I’d be a fool. You can’t do that. I wouldn’t be allowed to do the films I do. So I’m very user friendly as far as the studios are concerned. To a certain extent, I’m a businessman. I’m aware that’s what I have to do. It’s my job. To say, 'Screw the audience.' You can’t do that. 'Am I communicating?' is the question. Am I communicating? Because if I’m not, I need to address it."
He says, communicating badly.

Why is he like this? My guess is that he's tired of being on the little kids table at the beardy directors convention. There's Lucas and Cameron, sitting on top of the WW box office gross lists. Either of them can fart out a special edition and buy a new sub-continent. Ridley, on the other hand, has to continue to slave away at 70, making new films just to make ends' meet. He's sick of being the also-ran - he wants in on the special edition handle crank cash dispenser. And look, no sooner is Prometheus out, than he's already talking about a DVD/BD with 30 minutes extra footage. The theatrical version is only 2 hours long. But wait, maybe if it's shorter, they can have more showings in the theaters before everyone gets wind of its stench. And then, we can release the "Coherent Cut" for the Holidays, featuring the footage that we've already shown in the trailer so people know it's there. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, please put on your 3d glasses now as we rape your wallet. 

So anyway, it's not Ridley's fault. He's a talent processing machine. Put Dan O'Bannon and Giger in, leave in the oven for 30 minutes, enjoy your marvel of sci-fi horror. Excellence in, excellence out. On the other hand, excrement in...

Damon Lindelof. I don't know him and if I ever met him, I'm sure he wouldn't be a total cunt. But as a writer, he's up there on the writers-who-are-cunts scale, near the top end, alongside M. Night Shawaddywaddy and whoever spewed up Matrix 2 and 3. I'm not a writer, so I'm sure it's really hard to do what he does. But one thing I'm pretty sure I'd learn if I went to writing-for-Hollywood school would be that you should probably have some characters in your films. And by characters, I'm not ever talking about deep, well-rounded, empathetic souls. Just people. Played by actors. Who perform actions that hint at some mind that does things according to a history before the film started. I'm pretty sure that would be important. 

Prometheus doesn't really have characters. It has people that retain the same names and faces throughout the ordeal (ours, not theirs). But otherwise, there's nothing there to suggest that these are people, as you or I would define people. If your best friend suddenly turned around and stubbed a cigarette in your eye, you'd probably be quite surprised (and they don't even smoke!). Of if your beloved grandmother decided to start massacring kittens in blenders, you would probably testify that that was "out of character." That's kind of what it means - a range of behaviours that are to some extent predictable. There are no such things in Prometheus.

In Prometheus, human-shaped creatures do stuff, and then do other stuff, because it makes the story work. It doesn't matter that no human being that you have ever met, or will ever meet, would ever, ever act and react in the way that these creatures do. First contact with a sentient alien race? Here kitty kitty, eat my face off. Hey lady, try taking a step to the left when that ship is moving in one direction powered by nothing but gravity and with no ability to rapidly alter course. Go on, in your own time. Captain of the ship keeping watch while 2 crew members remain stranded overnight in an alien cave system? Sure, go have sex because the last thing you need to be doing is monitoring communications. Trillion dollar budget? So-called smart engineer guy with distracting mohican - maybe you should have ordered more than 4 of those pup things. Then you could wait for the place to get scanned before walking to your - oh wait, too late. You look like an archaeologist that's discovered the remains of an alien race in a distant galaxy. Probably a good idea to get pissed and wallow in a pit of despair so that robo-boy can spike your drink. It's like watching an inter-stellar Darwin Award, except without actual people.

Unfortunately, Prometheus has fallen into the category of so-empty-it's-not-worth-getting-upset-about. We can have a long discussion about over-promising and under-delivering in movies. We could ask questions about the plot, like "what's the black goo" and "why did David do that?"  To ask those questions plays into their hands. Remember "why is there a polar bear on the desert island?" Or "what's the significance of those numbers?" The same mind farted out this stuff. The difference is, we're wise to this now. Just like with M. Night, we've seen through Lindelof's bag (shallow petri dish) of tricks, and we as an audience are better able to reject it. Prometheus didn't need to be about the birth of mankind. We didn't need to see a bunch of new alien species. We just wanted a story that made sense, the backstory to Alien, told well. What we got was a sequence of flashing lights that suggested a story, but never told one. 

If you want a story about humans and Earth being part of a grand plan and an inter-stellar trip to its designers, read Douglas Adams and visit Magrathea. You'll be told a real story, by a master storyteller. It'll also re-raise your expectations, and allow you to properly evaluate Prometheus. 

Prometheus gave fire to mankind by stealing from the gods. They chose the wrong Greek myth.  The movie aimed high and in doing so, crashed and burned. Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof presented us with Icarus.

Films

The Raid: The whole movie performs like a great movie martial arts battle: tense moments of silence and uneasy calm are burst with all-out aggression and violence.  A taut, focused, devastatingly effective kick to the solar plexus of all other action movies. 9/10

The Raid 2: Pulp Fiction to the The Raid's Reservoir Dogs, this is on a grander scale but the discipline isn't lost in the expansion.  Genre-defying fight scenes, especially the Final Fight.  9/10

Only God Forgives: Self-indulgent claptrap of the most nauseating order.  Sadly shot on digital so the negatives can't be destroyed.  Makes me livid just thinking about its existence.  0/10

Gone Girl: Faithful (nudge, nudge) adaptation of the excellent Gillian Flynn novel, it's Fincher at reliable Panic Room level, not Se7en/Zodiac levels of invention.  7/10

The Equalizer: This badly needed Tony Scott to make better decisions - gunfight at the B&Q Corral as the finale is not good enough.  No one needs to see their hero wear an apron.  4/10

Interstellar: Insanely ambitious, and within touching distance of greatness.  Its biggest mistake is its greatest accomplishment: to strive for the sublime, which it just misses.  10/11

Edge Of Tomorrow/All You Need is Kill/Live.Die.Repeat: The Tom Cruise sci-fi movie that you never thought you'd like.  Take the video game conceit of multiple lives and attempts to complete a goal, add AAA stars and effects, lace it with humour, and you get the movie you've been waiting for for ages.  9/10

Begin Again: Sweet, indie-sensibility, music-based rom-com, with a great cast and performances.  Not as admirable as Once, but ultimately more satisfying.  9/10

Snowpiercer: Breathtaking and surprising dystopian sci-fi, in a contained room setting.  Criminal that it's been over-looked.  Earns the "cult film"status it deserves.  9/10

Chef: a full meal in one delicious mouthful.  Chef is sweetened by real sugar, or possibly molasses, but not saccharine.  The real deal. 8/10.

Social Network: great film, fascinating insight, amazing dialogue. Dramatically a big plus, not a huge pull emotionally - unsurprisingly. 8/10

True Grit: beautiful, wonderful, delightful. Fantastic performances all round, doesn't put a foot wrong. A couple of nice Coen moments (yes, the bear head, but also the complete random chance encounter with Chaney). Makes you love Westerns again. 9/10

Tangled: nice, marred only slightly by the bang-up-to-date dialogue. Not a classic Disney, but good fare. 7/10

The King's Speech: lovely, lovely, lovely. A charming delight of a film, 90 minutes spent in excellent company. Unsung hero - Guy Pearce. Probably not a timeless classic, but good. 8/10.

Tron Legacy: dire, boring, drivel. 3D where I saw it was shocking - too dark to make anything out. Will only go to 3D if I feel confident about the cinema e.g. Imax. 3/10.

127 Hours: Danny Boyle fails, once again, to make a dull, ordinary movie. Visually a treat, performance is great (and I wasn't a De Franco fan before so will be interesting to see where he goes next). I'm not sure Boyle could be unexciting if his life depended on it. 8/10.

Never Let Me Go: chilly, tragic, haunting. Makes me want to read the book, and appeals to the side of me that likes going to sad places. 3 leads were excellent. Charlotte Rampling was as icy as ever. Films like this are strange - they feel like wearing a comfortable blanket of sadness that you don't want to take off, but know that the place they put you isn't really good for living a day to day life. Something to wallow in. 7/10.

The Expendables: bad, in every way it's possible to be bad. Will waste no more of my life thinking or talking about it. 1/10.

How To Train Your Dragon: favourite animated film of recent years, even more than Toy Story 3. Just a charming flight of fantasy with astonishing action and just really, really, really good story-telling. 9/10.

Catfish: utterly over-rated. There is no mystery. Ordinary and predictable. 5/10.

Unstoppable: straightforward, non-post-modern, thrilling action. By the master of this stuff. Chris Pine's career is only just beginning and he will be huge. About as enjoyable as straight-out action can get. 8/10.

The Kids are All Right: given I have a man-crush on Mark Ruffalo, this film didn't fail to deliver. Charming and witty, by today's standards. 7/10

Buried: frustrating and ultimately, pointless. Sometimes the end does justify the means. In this case, the ending undermined the entire film. 5/10

Made in Dagenham: super film. I think we're only allowed a good British working class film every 5 years or so. This was this half-decade's. 8/10

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: inventive and original. Very funny at times. And clever. So it flopped. Sigh. 8/10

Book of Eli: as awful as it is distasteful. End of the world and we still give a shit about religion. That truly is a depressing vision of post-apocalypse humanity. 3/10.

Inception: yes, it's great, but a timeless classic? Up there with the Godfather, Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner? Probably not. Still, 9/10.

Invictus: so enjoyable, brim full of pathos. Matt Damon, you are a megastar. 9/10.

The Adjustment Bureau: rounding off the Matt Damon series, a really enjoyable mind-bender. 8/10.

13 Assassins: for what it is - a modern production value and sensibility samurai action film - it's good. Nothing more than that. 7/10.

Tsunezo Kanaoya

So, my grandfather died today. He was 94. Ultimately, I didn't know much about him. He was born during WW1. He lived through WW2. He had one son, 2 grandchildren. He wasn't perfect by any means, but he wasn't a bad man. He lived a life and then died.
I'm in a strange state. I feel obliged to feel that this is a big deal for us, but because I wasn't that close to him emotionally, I'm left wondering how to feel. You shouldn't really have to direct your emotions. Anyway, he was my grandfather, he had a great innings, and now he's gone.
RIP
Tsunezo Kanaoya
October 11th 1916 - January 31st 2011

Design Talk

http://kotaku.com/5479125/points-for-toothbrushing-the-gaming-speech-everyone-is-talking-about

Amusing, alarmist claptrap? Or a vision of society sleep-walking into bondage?