David L Reinke's past comments

  • 1

    David L Reinke

    Games are good for you.

    And not just video games -- Board Games also serve to reinforce social interaction that has been sown to have beneficial impact on mental functions.

    Play More -- Play Often.

    Posted in: Videogames slow, reverse mental decay: study

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    Kabuki in 4 & 8K --- Mattemashita!

    Posted in: Sony to release two models of 4K TV

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    We can hope that the new US made Godzilla film revives the box office fortunes of this venerable cinema icon.

    Of course, that all depends upon both the story being told and, more importantly, just what the new Godzilla looks like. I want to be optimistic, but if recent history is any guide, Godzilla may be in trouble and his fans in for a big disappointment.

    That said, until we see some actual footage we can do little but hope for the best.

    Posted in: Doraemon topples Godzilla's audience figure record

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    Watanabe Ken = Good 3D = Bah!

    In fact the entire cast looks good, but that doesn't matter -- it's all about the monster. If Godzilla doesn't look right then it is all down hill from there. The Sony Godzilla had several problems, but it was the monster that did them in. It was not Godzilla.

    Posted in: Ken Watanabe joins cast of Hollywood's 2nd go at 'Godzilla'

  • 7

    David L Reinke

    His book on the films of Kurosawa is still the gold standard. A fascinating scholar and writer -- he will be missed.

    Posted in: Japan expert, writer Donald Richie dies at 88

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    “If Sony wants to win it, they need to show some killer games to get people to go out and spend a lot of money for the core game experience,” Hickey said.

    Just as Sony stated at one of the very first E3 conventions: It's The Games.

    That truth has not changed. Will sony return to that wisdom? As always, time will tell ...

    Posted in: Sony faces challenge with new PlayStation

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    Thinking back to the earliest E3 conventions, Sony had a tag line that said it all: It's The Games.

    That's still true today. $430 for the basic system? Add in a few accessories and you pass $500 in the blink of an eye. For that kind of money the games better be great, and then in lies the rub. Sony is still looking for that "must have" killer game that drives hardware sales.

    PS3 has several games I like, but not the must-have killer game. At least, not that I found. Perhaps that game is waiting for the PS4.

    Posted in: Sony to announce launch of new PlayStation

  • 2

    David L Reinke

    I first saw Danjuro perform in 1978, on video tape, when he was the rising young actor named Ebizo. Even in the relatively 'small' role of the Noodle Seller in the play Sukeroku, Danjuro took the stage by storm and more than held his own on a stage already filled with major kabuki stars including Onoe Shoroku playing the title role.

    Danjuro was an actor of immense talent & energy -- a true powerhouse of an actor. He will be missed.

    Posted in: Kabuki star Ichikawa Danjuro dies after leukemia fight

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    Hollywood and History have a "checkered" relationship. As writer/director John Sayles noted:

    "If historical accuracy were the thing people went to the movies for, historians would be the vice presidents of studios. Every studio would have two or three historians."
    (Past Imperfect -History According To The Movies c1995, p22)

    It is amusing to watch all of the "sound & fury" whipped up by Argo and Zero Dark Thirty and the concerns with their lack of historical accuracy, when many of these same people see no problem with the historical distortions in films like U-571, Gladiator, 300, Saving Private Ryan or even Henry V. In the last case the distortions began with Shakespeare himself.

    Of course, one man's action film is another man's travesty. The Greeks took offense at the portrayal of Alexander in Oliver Stone's film Alexander, while the Iranians were incensed by the treatment of their ancient king in Zack Snyder's 300. That film was noteworthy for it's visual artistry but totally worthless as history.

    As Darryl F Zanuck observed: "There is nothing duller on the screen than being accurate but not dramatic." (p238)

    This is somewhat ironic given that Zanuck's own film, The Longest Day, is still the most accurate Hollywood feature film about that 20th Century event. (Spielberg's own Band Of Brothers was an excellent corrective to the fiction in his film Pvt. Ryan.)

    Argo and Zero Dark Thirty are exciting films, but they are not history. Views should always be concerned when a film starts: Based On A True Story. Yes, it's all true .... except for the parts we changed.

    Posted in: Fact or fiction? 'Argo' fuels debate over 1979 hostage crisis

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    "But you can pick it up off the table, unhook the power cord and lay it flat for games of “Monopoly.”

    Hmmmm .... We can do that already -- it's called a Board Game.

    I can see where this might have some efficacy for a game like Axis & Allies, where the rules can be more complex and you spend as much time interpreting the rules as you do figuring out your strategy. Having the computer play Rules Sherif and Bookkeeper would help. However, to make it worth while you would need a tablet the size of a 55" monitor. Sounds like yet another amusing CES widget with a very limited audience.

    Posted in: Lenovo to release giant 27-inch 'coffee table PC'

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    Interesting idea, but film selection is key or this could go south rapidly. Imagine doing Schindler's List, or Zulu, and while 1984 would avoid some of of the other film's thornier issues, it might not be much fun to live through. On the other hand, The Wizard of Oz or Fantasia might be a lot of fun, and so too Star Wars, if a bit obvious.

    Posted in: 'Secret Cinema' smashes through the screen

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    News from a friend and fellow student of kabuki is that Kanzaburo passed away today. It seems the cancer had spread to his lungs.

    Have not been abled to confirm this yet, but sad news if true.

    He was a powerful actor.

    Article Unavailable

  • -1

    David L Reinke

    Movies aside (we could end up with either Avengers good or John Carter bad) the real question is how Disney will deal with the Fan Films and the Fan Costume Groups like the501st Legion.

    Lucas has been very liberal with his copyright, particularly with the Fan Films. However ...

    Disney has a reputation to 'vigorously' enforcing their copyright. (Remember the Winnie The Pooh case?) So the question impossible to answer at the moment: Will Disney follow the liberal policies of Lucas, or will the Dark Side emerge as the Disney Empire moves to control their new property?

    As Yoda so wisely observed: "Difficult to say, always in motion the Future is."

    Posted in: New 'Star Wars' movies - dream come true, or cosmic yawn?

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    Sony said this at one of the very first E3 expos a long time ago: It's The Games.

    That still holds true. Sony has yet to release that "must have killer game" that drivers sales of both hardware and software.

    If they can make the jump to tablet games with an app that everyone 'must have' then there is hope. Otherwise, Sony's hight water mark may have been the PS2 - XBR monitor -and the Walkman.

    As always, time will tell.

    Posted in: Is Sony buying time - or problems?

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    “He has gone out of his way to say that sexual slaves in wartime was a fiction,” Nakano said, referring to Hashimoto’s remark that there was no evidence Japan’s Imperial Army forced Korean and other Asian women to work at military brothels.

    It would seem that sleeping though history class is not something only US politicians are guilty of.

    Article Unavailable

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    This at least sounds like a better approach than the current re-make of the 47 Ronin being filmed in 3D and staring Keanu Reeves. Beyond the title and a few character names, there is little else there that anyone would recognize from the original story or even from any of the numerous re-makes.

    I have more hope for this re-make of Unforgiven than I do for 47 Ronin.

    Posted in: Clint Eastwood western 'Unforgiven' to be remade in Japan with Ken Watanabe in main role

  • 1

    David L Reinke

    As the historian John Toland wrote in the introduction to his seminal work, The Rising Sun - The Decline And Fall Of The Japanese Empire 1936-45:

    "I have done my utmost to let the events speak for themselves, and if any conclusion was reached, it was that there are no simple lessons in history, that it is human nature that repeats itself, not history. We often learn more about the past from the present, in fact, than the reverse.”

    Posted in: History’s harsh lessons

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    H.G. Wells, noted writer of both History and Science Fiction, champion of equal rights for women, avowed pacifist, and recognized as the 'father' of modern tabletop war games, dealt with this very issue back in 1913. Wells understood the difference between games and reality.

    http://narukamisthunderbolts.blogspot.com/2007/11/pacific-war-gamer.html

    "And if I might for a moment trumpet!

    How much better is this amiable miniature than the real thing! Here is a homeopathic remedy for the imaginative strategist. Here is the premeditation, the thrill, the strain of accumulating victory or disaster -- and no smashed nor sanguinary bodies, no shattered fine buildings nor devastated country sides, no petty cruelties, none of that awful universal boredom and embitterment, that tiresome delay or stoppage or embarrassment of every gracious, bold, sweet, and charming thing, that we who are old enough to remember a real modern war know to be the reality of belligerence.

    This world is for ample living; we want security and freedom; all of us in every country, except a few dull-witted, energetic bores, want to see the manhood of the world at something better than apeing the little lead toys our children buy in boxes. We want fine things made for mankind -- splendid cities, open ways, more knowledge and power, and more and more and more, -- and so I offer my game, for a particular as well as a general end; and let us put this prancing monarch and that silly scaremonger and these excitable 'patriots,' and those adventurers, and all the practitioners of Welt Politik, into one vast Temple Of War with cork carpets everywhere, and plenty of little trees and little houses to knock down, and cities and fortresses, and unlimited soldiers -- tons, cellars-full, -- and let them lead their own lives there away from us.

    Great War is at present, I am convinced, not only the most expensive game in the universe, but it is a game out of all proportion. Not only are the masses of men and material and suffering and inconvenience too monstrously big for reason, but -- the available heads for it, are too small. That, I think, is the most pacific realisation conceivable, and Little War brings you to it as nothing else but Great War can do."

    H.G. Wells from his book of war game rules: Little Wars published in 1913.

    Posted in: 'Call of Duty' latest fiction to inspire nightmare

  • 0

    David L Reinke

    3D ... Bah!

    Of the top 300 films based upon US Box Office, Titanic ranks #6, behind Gone Wit The Wind (#1), Star Wars (#2) and The Sound Of Music (#3).

    No doubt this 3D release will move it up the list, but not to the #1 slot. (This list was complied pre-Avatar.)

    See: George Lucas's Blockbusting by Alex Block & Lucy Wilson c2010

    Posted in: Cameron unveils scenes from 'Titanic' in 3D

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