So as mentioned previously, I built my new comp (Ghazghkull) so that I could finally load up Mythic Entertainment's MMO "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning", aka Warhammer Online. I was completely prepared to either love this game or be very blah about it (like with WoW), and if it was the latter, I'm not paying $15/month for blah.

After about a week, I'm very much happy with it. First of all, I can play an Orc. Not just any kind of Orc, but a Games Workshop Orc. The British have a lot of good and bad, but one of their best aspects is the way they do Orcs. One of the designers of WAR described Orcs as "basically soccer hooligans", and that's spot on. They're mean, loud, and brutish, and their armor and weapons (usually called choppas) are covered in spikes. They refer to their main opponent, the Dwarves, as 'stuntiez'. I could play six different factions encompassing a total of 18 different classes, but at the moment I have no interest in in anything but the Black Orc.

Like many MMOs, there's the traditional questing....go talk to this guy, go kill X boars, etc. But there are also Public Quests, which occur throughout all of the races' zones. Once you happen upon them, you're informed of what needs to be done, and a time limit (sometimes). Since this is a "public" quest, any player can take part at any time, so often when you come upon it, the quest is in process of being completed. Taking part in PQs gets you both XPs and Influence that the big NPCs in control of the area look kindly upon.

Then there's Realm vs. Realm (RvR), which is like PvP, only on a larger scale. The world of Warhammer is nothing but war, and the landscape reflects that. In RvR scenarios, there are contested points (keeps, bridges, artifacts, et al) that both the forces of Order and Destruction fight over, and when you select to participate, you are transported to the site in conflict. Then for the next 5, 10, or 15 minutes, the side you represent (Order or Destruction) tries to control the critical objectives. You get XP and Renown for RvR scenarios...the more Renown, the more 'known' you are in the Realm. You also get cool stuff with high Renown.

The final thing I want to mention is the Tome of Knowledge. One of the neat things about WAR is that there are literally hundreds and hundreds of unlockables. You click on yourself 100 times, that an unlock. You kill 25 dwarves, that's an unlockable. You wander into a new area of the map, the Tome unlocks and updates with history and info. There's endless stuff that the Tome contains, and keeps track of the life of your character.

Overall, good stuff! :)

So before I talk about my new computer, let me just say...

I'm ENGAGED!!

I proposed to my g/f Grace on Saturday, and she accepted!

http://www.youtube.com/girl2point0

Many, MANY more details as they become apparent.

Speaking of successes, I fired up my computer (named Ghazghkull) and so far it's been error-free! I'm already booted up Warhammer Online with no lag whatsoever (even running AIM in the background). Huzzah!

Now, I'm just hoping that my car inspection goes as well. :)

So the final three pieces of the new comp have been ordered.

1. WinXP. I was going back and forth between Vista and XP, and settled on XP. Eventually, when Windows 7 comes out, I'll probably directly upgrade to that, but at least I'll have a fully legal copy of my OS, so that Windows will talk to my XBox 360, which will be cool. :)

2. Video Card. The ASUS EN9500GT GeForce 9500 GT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121267). It's a pretty badass card...it's got 512MB of GDDR3 Ram at 128-bit. It also came with a free copy of Alone in the Dark for the PC.

3. A 3.5" Floppy Drive. So cheap, there's no reason not to get one. Also handy in case you need to load something on that's NOT on CD/DVD.

I've already assembled the rest of the comp, installing the motherboard, CPU, DVD, HD and PSU. I have yet to fire it up, and am hopeful that all the parts aren't DOA when I do.

And I've decided that the name of the comp is Ghazghkull. For the many of you who have no idea who this is, I invite you to check this out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghazghkull_Mag_Uruk_Thraka#Ghazghkull_Mag_Uruk_Thraka

and this...

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2398/art3bigye2.jpg

FMT Championship Game

Young Frankenstein
vs.
Airplane!

Well, this is it. After 7 months (!) of talking, listing, watching, and choosing films from a list that went from 93 to 236 to 238 to 65, it's now down to just two.

It's a very odd feeling seeing the end of this project, but it's also very gratifying. I got to talk about my favorite movies, and a little more than just "it's great!", though I'm in no way a fantastic writer. The exercise caused me to look analytically at what I *thought* were my favorites, and then justify them (at least against each other). And after 63 matchups, I've arrived at two films that I can definitely say are my two favorites.

Each time a Round passed, the matchups got better, and my choices became harder, and this last one is no exception. But there is a winner...and I've pretty much known it since the Final Four were set. Once you get to this point, the choices become less connected to filling criteria, and more instinctual. You see two films' names, and you get a visceral reaction when you see one of the names. You just know it. And I did.

Young Frankenstein - 104
Airplane! - 101 (3 OT)

And that's it. Young Frankenstein is my favorite movie of all time. I want to thank everyone who've not only commented on this project (both in-person and online), but also just stumbled across it and read just one post. It always makes you feel good when someone finds interest in something you love to talk about.

Excelsior!!

The Final Four

Murder by Death
vs.
Airplane!

Okay, so let's follow the same formula for this side of the Final Four...

- Airplane! is mostly a parody of Zero Hour!, a film that had a main character named Ted Stryker and such famous "not meant to be funny" lines like "We have to find someone who can not only fly this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner."

- It was while working on Murder by Death that Alec Guinness received the script for Star Wars. He read it between scenes in his dressing room.

- In Airplane!,Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's role was originally to be played by Pete Rose, but he was playing baseball at the time of the filming, so the part went to Kareem. He was offered $30,000 to appear in the film, but he asked for $35,000 to buy an oriental rug.

- In Murder by Death, the screaming woman sound used as a doorbell is Fay Wray's screams from King Kong (1933).

- Airplane!'s translated title in Germany was "The Incredible Trip in a Crazy Airplane".

- In Murder by Death, Orson Welles was originally considered for the role of Inspector Wang but was unable to accept because he was appearing in a play in Italy.

Both of these films are extremely funny. I think Murder by Death's big strength is its cast. Maggie Smith, Peter Sellers, David Niven, Alec Guinness, and Peter Falk are just some of the great actors in this film, and all of them are perfect in this film.

As for Airplane!, the entire film is perfect. It's the first of its kind, and has spawned endless descendants. The acting, the comedy, the absurdity of the entire situation is as good as it can be. And that's what's deciding this matchup.

Murder by Death - 86
Airplane! - 87

Final Four

Raiders of the Lost Ark
vs.
Young Frankenstein

As this is now the fifth time I'm talking about these two films in the Tournament, I've been trying to think of things to say about both Young Frankenstein and Raiders of the Lost Ark that would be interesting. I'm going to just throw out some little factoids about each...

• Raiders is the only non-comedy film left in the tournament
• In Young Frankenstein, Gene Hackman's turn as the blind man was uncredited, and his last line "I was going to make espresso" was ad-libbed.
• Raiders's original budget was about $7mil, but production costs tripled to $22mil...I can't imagine how cheap that is, even in '81.
• The joke regarding Igor's hump moving back and forth was evidently not in the script...Marty Feldman was surreptitiously shifting it back and forth without telling anyone. When the others found out, it was written into the script.
• In Raiders, the giant boulder that chases after Indy at the start of the film was made of fiberglass. The sound they used for it was of a Honda Civic rolling downhill.
• The original cut of Young Frankenstein was almost twice as long as the final cut, and it was considered by all involved to be an abysmal failure. It was only after a marathon cutting-session that they produced the final cut of the film, which both Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks considered to be far superior to the original product. At one point they noted that for every joke that worked, there were three that fell flat. So they went in and trimmed all the jokes that didn't work.

(thanks to the IMDB for those bitz)

For Raiders, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the title is the music. That almost superheroic score by John Williams so makes the film...it's the kind of score that you turn the speakers up on the stereo to inundate yourself in. As for Young Frankenstein, it's also musical...the haunting sound of the violin that lures the monster is so beautiful it almost brings me to tears.

And I think that's the determining factor. Young Frankenstein is a Mel Brooks comedy, but it's also so much more...it's a beautifully shot cinematic treasure with wonderful acting (another shout-out to Madeline Khan), wonderful sets, and wonderful emotion.

Raiders of the Lost Ark - 80
Young Frankenstein - 83
 

So, very soon I will finally resolve this long-running Tournament and answer the question of what my favorite film is. A couple of thoughts/comments on where I'm at with this...

- Looking at the four films left, I'm very happy with the choices. If I were given Raiders of the Lost Ark, Young Frankenstein, Murder by Death, and Airplane! as finalists for Favorite Film at the beginning, that would be just fine. Again, there were definitely a couple of films that maybe shouldn't have been in the running at the start of the tourney, but at this point, there are no dark horses left.

- As one commenter mentioned on Livejournal, all four of these films are either homages or spoofs of previous films. Raiders drew upon the serials of the 30's and 40's (specifically the adventures of Allan Quartermain). Young Frankenstein is an homage to James Whale's Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Murder by Death involves caricatures of the heroes of the Charlie Chan films, The Thin Man, and The Maltese Falcon. Finally, Airplane! is a straight-out spoof of Airport, Zero Hour, and other disaster films of the 70's. I certainly didn't intend for this specific type of film to do well, but in retrospect I can think of a few other films that do the same thing and did well (Singin' in the Rain and Who Framed Roger Rabbit come to mind).

The first half of the Final Four will face off within the next day or two. Stay tuned!
 

Fargo Region

#7 The Thin Man
vs.
#12 Murder by Death

The one odd thing about this matchup is that the two main characters of The Thin Man, Nick and Nora Charles, are actively spoofed in Murder by Death as Dick and Dora Charleston. And that's the strength of the latter film. The characterizations of the various characters...the Charlestons, Sam Diamond, Milo Perrier, Sidney Wang, and Jessica Marbles...all of them are spot-on and hilarious.

#7 The Thin Man - 86
#12 Murder by Death - 88

The Fargo Region's entry into the Final Four is Murder by Death!

The Elite Eight is complete, and the Final Four is set!

Raiders of the Lost Ark vs. Young Frankenstein
and
Murder by Death vs. Airplane!

New York Region

#6 Young Frankenstein
vs.
# 8 Blazing Saddles

This is a matchup between two excellent Mel Brooks comedies, but only one is so much more than a comedy. One is an homage to much older stories, with stark beauty, and fear, and so many other things. And it's really funny.

#6 Young Frankenstein - 88
#8 Blazing Saddles - 85 (OT)

The Hollywood Region's entry into the Final Four is Young Frankenstein!

Hollywood Region

#7 The Blues Brothers
vs.
# 8 Airplane!

Solid matchup...two great comedies...

#7 The Blues Brothers - 89
#8 Airplane! - 92

The Hollywood Region's entry into the Final Four is Airplane!!