By JOSH DUBOW (AP) –

OAKLAND, Calif. — Bruce Gradkowski provided more than a spark for the struggling Oakland Raiders. He delivered a much-needed comeback victory that the Cincinnati Bengals handed over to Oakland.

Gradkowski threw a 29-yard game-tying touchdown pass to Louis Murphy with 33 seconds left and Sebastian Janikowski kicked a 33-yard field goal after Andre Caldwell fumbled the ensuing kickoff, giving the Raiders a 20-17 victory Sunday.

The Bengals (7-3) have lost all 10 games in Oakland, including one playoff game. But this had to be one of the most painful. Cincinnati maintained its one-game lead over Pittsburgh in the AFC North after the Steelers lost in overtime at Kansas City, yet this loss could prove critical to seedings or even a playoff berth down the stretch.

Oakland (3-7) rallied from an early 14-point deficit and trailed 17-10 with 2:06 left when Gradkowski took over at the 20-yard line. Gradkowski, who took the starting job from JaMarcus Russell this week, threw a 19-yard pass to Zach Miller, then a 16-yarder to Chaz Schilens on fourth-and-10.

After a spike, Gradkowski found Murphy near the goal line. Murphy got loose from Morgan Trent and dived across the goal line for the tying score.

Just when it seemed the game was headed to overtime, Caldwell was stripped by Brandon Myers on the kickoff, giving the Raiders the ball at the 17. After three kneel-downs, Janikowski delivered the winning kick, setting off a celebration among the few fans who showed up. Nnamdi Asomugha intercepted a last-ditch pass from Carson Palmer to seal the victory.

The Bengals scored touchdowns on two of their first three drives, but managed only three more points the rest of the way. They were done in by three lost fumbles, eight penalties and a missed field goal.

The biggest fumbles were by fullback Jeremi Johnson at the Oakland 15 and poised to add on to a 17-10 lead and the one by Caldwell. Shayne Graham also missed a 37-yard field goal in the third quarter.

Palmer completed 14 of 22 passes for 207 yards and became the first Bengals quarterback to run for two touchdowns in a game since Jack Thompson in 1979. Rookie Bernard Scott ran for a season-high 119 yards in place of the injured Cedric Benson, and newcomer Larry Johnson had two carries for 5 yards.

Gradkowski replaced Russell in two of the past three games, but was unable to lead a single scoring drive. He did plenty with an entire week to prepare, giving the Raiders their first two-touchdown game since the opener.

He connected on a 10-yarder to Miller in the second quarter and then the tying TD to Murphy. He finished 17 for 34 for 183 yards, with one interception and a lost fumble, and won for the first time since his rookie year in 2006 with Tampa Bay.

Raiders defensive lineman Richard Seymour left the game in the first quarter with a lower back injury.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

I thought we were past this as a nation. “Media family values” champion Jack Thompson was disbarred from the Florida legal system a while ago, and a report from Gamasutra.com says that The National Institute on Media and the Family – NIMF, if you want to mock them – has shut down after 14 years of operation. NIMF has been extremely critical of the video game industry over these past 14 years, giving an annual “report card” of the video game industry, and I honestly feel nothing over them shutting down. They have been completely irrelevant to my life throughout their existence. This organization was never discussed around the dinner table, with praises sung by my parents, or Halo-induced rage from me. I doubt anybody in my family or circle of friends has ever heard of this group. In their 14 years of life, they accomplished nothing, except help draw attention to the “Hot Coffee mod” in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, garnering a boost in sales for Rockstar Games. They have always been irrelevant.

If they’re so irrelevant, why in the Hell am I talking about them? Well, why are all 9 of you asking questions? The answer is this: after seeing the fall of Jack Thompson, and seeing Joe Lieberman become the joke of Congress that he is, I assumed we were past this “video games are evil” kick as a nation. This has been done before, first starting with comic books, then cartoons like Road Runner and Bugs Bunny, then movies like “Natural Born Killers,” followed by television shows like “Jackass,” and finally with video games like Grand Theft Auto and Doom. So, I was led to assume that the video game industry has withstood the onslaught of “family-first” groups that have attempted to stare down so many other forms of media that are “ruining our children and our nation.”

Apparently, I was wrong. On GamePolitics.com, a study was performed by the Swiss groups Pro Juventute and Track Impunity Always(TRIAL) to “raise public awareness among developers and publishers of the games, as well as among authorities, educators and the media about virtually committed crimes in computer and videogames.” In other words, to count how many human rights violations exist in video games, and the consequences that are presented to the player. Shockingly, in the first person shooters with highly cinematic tones taking place in combat environments, there were quite a few violations of the International Humanitarian Law with little to no consequence.

Hold on, you mean to tell me a video game isn’t a realistic portrayal of life? Huh. I thought if I ran over some hookers and the police start chasing me, all I have to do to lose them is get my car repainted for a couple hundred bucks. Even if the cops watch me go into the paint shop. In the car I used to run over the hookers. Just like in Grand Theft Auto. Obviously, children should not be playing these M-rated games. In the end, it falls on the parents to guide their children in the right direction. If they allow their kids to play these games, their needs to be parental guidance involved, instead of relying on “family values” groups like NIMF.

I played some violent video games as a teen, I’ll admit. My parents watched me play some of them. They would ask questions, like “why are you shooting that guy? What’s the reason behind this?” And I would explain to them, and I made sure they knew I could tell the difference between fantasy and reality. I have had “concerned mothers” explain to me that the violent first person shooters I played as a youth influenced me to join the military. Of course, I told them no. The recruiter influenced me to join the Marine Corps, not a video game. In the conversation between my recruiter, my parents, and myself, the topic of video games, guns, violence, or the media didn’t come up once. College money, outstanding training, a secure job, and discipline were the topics discussed. Now that’s influential.

Semper I…don’t wanna die.

The DevilGeek

Agora sim saiu a versão restaurada da obra prima!

Congratulations, Jack Thompson, you are the first person to appear on the list of Things That Need To Die.

Though, it’s almost a staple of many internet hate groups to attack Jack Thompson. For those of you who do not know who he is, I’ll give you a little bit of background information.

If everything were butterflies and rainbows, life would be a lot less interesting.

Let Jack Thompson’s Idealistic View of Society and his Imposing Nature Die

There has been a furore of commentary recently over leaked footage of the highly anticipated FPS Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. In the footage we see a terrorist attack taking place in a public airport, civilians duck and cover, bullets fly and bloody rampage ensues. The controversy with the footage stems from the participation the player takes in this mass culling.

Now, video games have always had their fair share of critics and campaigners calling for the destruction of the pixels, but their arguments were normally grounded on a framework of alienation and indoctrination rather than political commentary and taste. What makes this leak more harrowing, more personal and subsequent more tabloid worthy, is the direct comparisons that have been made between it and the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year.

There have been some perfectly level-headed articles about the footage in question, but there is a worry that this will be outweighed by the more draconian reactionary responses before the general public has had a chance to digest the scene within a narrative context.

It is the focus on interactivity that defines the very medium but is also the cause of most of its ills. How much is too much? Infinity Ward (the developer of the game) are revered for their video game immersion – utilising these bleak set-pieces to absorb the players within the fiction. The opening scene of the first Modern Warfare would be a perfect example of this,

This uncomfortable positioning is the very foundation of the franchise. We are very much aware of our own mortality and the antagonist who is in control of it. This is a developer with no track record of controversial publicity – only consistently compelling FPS’s. Understandably, the footage was vehemently discussed because of the placement of the player within the attacks. We are no longer the impassive president being dragging unwillingly to our slaughter, or the grunt grasping their last breath beneath the mushroom cloud. We are in the position of power now, the Cheney with acog. There is no doubting that the new Modern Warfare will be the biggest selling game this year. I just pray that the footage shown will be part of a narrative that doesn’t leave itself open to a hysterical media campaign.

We’ve already got the night vision goggles for that.

Dré

Written & Directed By: Mark Hartley
Cinematography By: Karl Von Moller & Germain McMicking

FEATURING: Quentin Tarantino, Russell Mulcahy, Barry Humphries, Jamie Blanks, Russell Boyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Rod Hardy, Richard Franklin, Wendy Hughes, Stacy Keach, Ted Kotcheff, George Lazenby, George Miller, Philippe Mora, Greg Mclean, Steve Railsback, Fred Schepisi, Rod Taylor, James Wan, Jack thompson, Brian Trenchard-Smith, Leigh Whannell, Simon Wincer, Susannah York

A fun rollicking, No holds barred documentary about the Australian film industry from the beginning in the sixties to it’s peak during the 70’s and 80’s which produced more exploitation type movies then anything but also put several of it’s filmmakers and stars o the map. It also showed a emerging style of filmmaking that rightly deserves to be noted and noticed. Which is still kicking around today though unfortunately not as much.

This is a fun documentary with tons of clips from those movies. Which allows a viewer like myself to discover a lot of these films only half of which are still available to see in the united states. It let’s you in on some behind the scenes details on these films and what it’s influence was at home and abroad. While celebrating the directors who deserve credit for there strides in helping put Aussie films on the map.

You hae details from most of the people involved in these films from the actors, Producers Directors, Crew Members, Directors and the critics even Quentin Tarantino gets involved.

Without this ozploitation series of movies there would be no films as diverse As MAD MAX, WALKABOUT, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, MY BRILLIANT CAREER, STARSTRUCK, BMX BANDITS.

This film is a genre lovers wet dream my only complaint is that I wish it was longer.

I really enjoyed myself watching this if you are a true film fan. I think you will to. Its not just boring talking heads interviews, Because as fun and crazy as the films are. The filmmakers are just as crazy if not crazier as they tell stories of using real ammo firing at the actors in action scenes. Not using any proper safety precautions. A lot of things they couldn’t have gotten away with today. 

GRADE: A+       

Jack Thompson is a disbarred attorney who has riled up the videogaming industry and its denizens.  Now, he filed suit against Facebook for $40 million for allowing users posting threatening material.  Facebook looks to be immunized from liability based on federal law so why would Mr. Thompson bother with the lawsuit? 

Look at all the outlets that have reported on the lawsuit and you see why.

Jack Johnson is man made infamous by suing video game companies. He is a self-proclaimed anti-video game activist. He has led crusades against Games like GTAIV, Sims 2, Bully, and other video games. He claims the violence and sexual content in video games is ruining our youth. He calls video games “murder simulators”. This douche lost his practicing license and was dis-barred from the Florida supreme court (why do all the idiots come from Florida?!) for inappropriate behavior including lying!! Anyway he is now suing Facebook for $120 MILLION dollars. Some gamers started a Facebook group called “I Hate Jack Johnson” (which I of course joined). He apparently doesn’t like it and is trying to sue Facebook. Hell he might try and sue me. I bet you can all guess what I think about this guy so I won’t even go into it. Facebook is not remotely intimidated by him and has stated that the group will stay and he is welcome to keep fighting his merit-less suit. This guy if officially on my douche list!

You know you have pretty much made it when you get your very own Facebook hate group but for some they don’t see it that way. Jack Thompson, the crusader against all things violent on video games, is not very happy after the “I hate Jack Thompson” Facebook group started posting violent threats against him. One member had said “Jack Thompson should be smacked across the face with an Atari 2600.” Whoa that should be enough to sue Facebook for emotional stress. Hmm,a $120 million should heal the nerves. Facebook say the lawsuit is without merit and so to the 1,436 members of the group.

Psst He could have easily avoided all the emotional stress by not going on the friggin Facebook site! Lucky they didn’t call him a skank!

Produced 2009.10.04

The Podcast returns from a technology-enforced holiday with a (nearly) full-staff, special, double-length, deluxe edition–complete with German Beer! Bust out the pretzels, crank up the polka, don your alpine hat and lederhosen, and listen now!

via 1UP RSS feed by Kris Pigna on 10/1/09

Disbarred Florida lawyer Jack Thompson is making legal news again, and while this time he’s playing a different role in the courtroom, it is, you will probably agree, no less unusual. Thompson — well known for his self-described "crusades" against game violence over the years — is now suing Facebook over their refusal to remove an "I Hate Jack Thompson" group, and is seeking $120 million in damages (via Bloomberg).

According to the lawsuit, the "I Hate Jack Thompson" group was started in 2006, following an interview Thompson did with 60 Minutes where his battles with the gaming industry were highlighted. Evidently Thompson faxed a request to remove the group to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, which went unanswered. This prompting Thompson to accuse Facebook of "intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and failure to supervise the site."

As Bloomberg’s story notes, the group has allowed members to post messages such as, "Jack Thompson should be smacked across the face with an Atari 2600." No other examples were cited, so whether that comment is in fact the worst of the worst ever produced by the group is uncertain.
=============================================================================

Really Jack?   Are you trying to go for a world record for the amount of times you can look like a douche bag?  You might as well try to sue every Gamer in the world because they you.   Why don’t you use that personal vendetta you game against video games for something worth wild.. oh I don’t know.. world hunger perhaps?  Perhaps helping to gather money for some pet project for NASA?  Help to stamp out breast cancer some how?  (God knows all men love boobs!)  

One year ago today, Jack Thompson was disbarred from practicing law.   For those who have anything to do with video games or just enjoy playing them, that was a victorious day.  Thankfully, we haven’t heard much from him since.  He gives gaming and Christianity a bad name.

But now there’s some current news about him.  He just issued a news release saying his ban from practicing law is invalid and he will begin to practice again on October 1, 2009.  As usual, he’s stretching (and inventing) “facts” that aren’t valid.  (And if you read his letter at the link, know that his claims aren’t all factual, either.)

Jack Thompson might’ve made a few good points, like that kids shouldn’t be able to buy M-rated video games, but he went way beyond what was reasonable.  If you aren’t familiar with him, let me give a few “career highlights”.  I’m getting these from this article: 10 Great Moments in Jack Thompson’s (Failed) Career.  But be forewarned that the article has some explicit language in it, so view only if you don’t mind that.  Hence I’m making a summary (because I know some of the regulars here don’t want to read that).

At the start of his career, Jack Thompson tried to become the state prosecuting attorney in Florida.  He went up against Janet Reno, who was the current attorney.  He passed her a note that said, “I, Janet Reno, am a:”, followed by 3 boxes: heterosexual/bisexual/homosexual.  That sounds like something you’d do in junior high, when you really have no idea of what is proper and/or tactful.  She walked over to him, dissed him, but put her hand on his shoulder while telling him he was stupid.  And as you’ll see with Jack Thompson, this is only the start — he does not know when to stop.  He filed a police report claiming that her touching him on the shoulder constituted battery.  That’s basically admitting that he needed police help against a 50-year-old woman.   Jack’s career only went downhill from there.

In 1990, Thompson attacked the rap industry, and he claimed he was Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman, in his fight against the evils of rap music.  But this isn’t just verbal nonsense — he wore a Bat-watch and mailed out copies of his driver’s license with pictures of Batman edited in.  Note that at this time he is a certified, legal lawyer in Florida.   (Somehow he would stay certified for another 18 years!)

Doom screenshot -- does this look like a military-style murder simulator?

In 1997 he filed a lawsuit against the makers of Doom, MechWarrior, several other games, most of Hollywood, and porn websites, claiming their influence caused kids to become evil.  Fortunately the case was dismissed before it even started.  He claimed Doom was an extremely accurate military-style murder simulator.  If you’ve played Doom, you know better.

Every time there was a school shooting, like at Columbine and Virginia Tech, Jack Thompson was there, claiming video games were the cause.  And even when there was no proof found, Thompson never backed away from his allegations.  He can’t be bothered to let facts interfere with his statements.   I remember when Virginia Tech happened, that Thompson was on TV that day blaming video games before anyone even knew who the killer was or why he did it, and then it was found that he didn’t even play video games.  (I wrote more on that here.)

Years later, Jack Thompson offered $10,000 to charity on behalf of anyone who made a game representing the murder of Paul Eibeler, who was the boss of Take Two (which makes the Grand Theft Auto games).   When someone took him up on that, he backed away, saying it was just satire.  So he offers money to charity, then takes it away.  Doesn’t sound like a funny joke, does it?  But wait, there’s more!   A website called Penny Arcade donated the money on his behalf to the Child’s Play charity for sick children.  What is Jack’s response?  He called the police.  Why?  Because two men had donated their own money to charity.

In 2008, the Florida Bar Association finally had enough of Jack Thompson, and they ordered him to attend a disbarment trial.   He had to prove that he hadn’t been using the legal system as his own personal soapbox.  They also ruled that any further legal proceedings filed by Jack had to be cosigned by another member of the Florida Bar, which means he can’t use the legal system unless supervised by a responsible adult.  To this, he immediately filed an appeal without a signature.

Normal disbarment was for 5 years, but for Jack, they made it “enhanced disbarment”, citing 27 violations of professional misconduct.  That meant he couldn’t practice law for 10 years.  His response to this was to walk out of the proceedings, and he accused the judge of not having the authority to hear this case.  Realize that this case was from the Florida Supreme Court, and he said they don’t have legal authority over him.  This sounds like somebody who has lost touch of reality.  But, as I mentioned before, these crazy situations with Jack Thompson keep going and going and going.  He also accused the judge of being mentally unbalanced, and he started using phrases like “killing three thousand people“.  Given that this happened after 9/11, one shouldn’t use such phrases, particularly around law enforcement officials.  This childish act resulted in U.S. Marshals being dispatched to his home.  His behavior also resulted in a permanent disbarment from practicing law.

In his appeal to the judge who disbarred him, he said, “She is just making this stuff up as she goes” and “Maybe Dava Tunis is mentally impaired” and he called her a “raving wild woman … who had become unhinged”.   He also wrote a letter after the visit by the Marshals, saying “the purpose of that visit was to intimidate and harass me”.  And now the FBI won’t even talk to him anymore, after so many fraudulent claims.  Thompson wrote about that: “The FBI has done nothing and refuses to talk to me. … With all respect, either the FBI takes this seriously — the computer hacking, the criminal use of lunacy proceedings, the whole nine yards… or I and others will do what we need to do.”  I really don’t think it’s wise to threaten the FBI…

Jack Thompson’s written objection to his disbarment trial references the Holocaust and lynching of blacks, in comparison to how he’s being treated.  He manages to compare himself to John the Baptist and Jesus.   And he said the people who run The Florida Bar are fascists.   He told the judge she was a liar.  He says he’s being persecuted because he’s a Christian, and while such things do occasionally happen, in this case it’s because Jack Thompson promotes fraudulent lawsuits and participates in unprofessional behavior (including name-calling and threatening people).  He said they hate him without reason.

I could go on, but if you want to read more, there’s many more examples on the Internet of how he’s done stupid things and threatened people.

If somebody asked you to name or think of a list of ‘mature’ videogames, which games would spring to mind? Personally I would respond with Fahrenheit, Bioshock and the GTA series. I asked a few friends and colleagues of mine who also added to this list Portal, Age of Empires, Postal, Fable, The Sims and Age of Conan (thank you TonyNBS, John and YoMma).

I think anyone familiar with these games will agree that they are mature. All have an adult storyline, do not rely on cute graphics or appear ‘childish’ from the off (though that is not to say that a cute looking game cannot be adult-orientated – see Disgaea – Or amazing - see Kingdom Hearts, Jet Set Radio or Pokemon) and all have the capacity to depict extreme violence in a way rarely seen in other mediums.

Even the two most innocuous games listed above are, once thought about, extremely violent. Portal, an FPS puzzle game with no weaponry, has a storyline revolving around insanity, captivity and murder. Even The Sims allows players to kill and torture their avatars if they so desire (though this probably says more about the player than the game).

The aforementioned games also have one more key similarity. It is this theme that I wish to discuss further today. When I asked my motley crew, and indeed anyone I have asked since, for their mature games candidates one game was mentioned by every single participant without fail.

That game is Leisure Suit Larry.

I’ll save you the history lesson but in a nutshell the Leisure Suit Larry games went from a fresh, risque, never-before-seen take on the adventure/puzzle genre to an agonisingly terrible parody of itself. You play as the titular Larry, a loser/wannabe PUA who tries to desperately sleep with any female with a pulse, which is not helped by the fact that later games cast you as the bastard son of Hugh Hefner and Jimmy Neutron. The fact this game, above all others, stands out to almost all gamers I’ve asked as the most mature game our beloved past-time has to offer is, quite frankly, petrifying!

LSL also goes a long way to illustrate my point. Though ‘mature’ games have exceeded other art-forms in terms of their depictions of violence, gaming’s attitude towards sex remains almost Dickensian!

Every game I can think of that depicts sex, nudity, or erotic/adult behaviour of any kind is at best coy and at worst pre-pubescent titillation. For example: -

• Duke Nukem - a fully clothed stripper and a few jokes. Real Mature.
• Fahrenheit – Though there were sex scenes, nothing was actually seen and the weird control scheme used in the game made it feel rather robotic and entirely un-sexy.
• Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Squad - Throw in a lolicon inspired sidekick and no apparent reason for the heroine wearing a bikini and you have one of the most naive games ever made. Gamers are boys who like to kill zombies and stare at chicks. How could it fail?
• DoA Series - Once again, no particular reason other than bouncy boobs look funny.
• Fable - Should get an honourable mention as you could choose to have sex, get married or be gay, but fails in that women couldn’t be gay, same-sex marriages couldn’t go ahead and the sex scene faded to black.
• Custer’s Revenge – An 80s rape simulator. Luckily, graphics weren’t good enough to depict anything other than blocks back then. How did this even get released?
• Tomb Raider Series – Lara Croft, gaming’s ultimate sex symbol. Scantily clad and an ever expanding cleavage
• BMX XXX – Not a terrible game apparently, and one of hundreds of extreme sports titles released during the Tony Hawk boom of the late 90s, but why the (partial) nudity?
• Mass Effect – This game shouldn’t be on the list. One of the best action RPGs ever made was dubbed a ‘porn simulator’ by some igorant hacks for a 40 second sex scene. With an alien.  After 30 hours of robotic murder.

Even the GTA series, the grandaddy of videogames controversy, doesn’t exactly break down barriers in it’s depiction of sex. Yes you can pick up a hooker, but it’s about as sexy as Jack Thompson’s haircut. You don’t see anything. Even the strippers have enormous ‘X’s over their nipples. It would also be ignorant of me to not mention the infamous ‘Hot Coffee’ mod from GTA – San Andreas, where a hack meant you could open a mini-game that allowed you to have sex with your in-game girlfriend.

Yes, you read that correctly, a hack.

Rockstar made it, then decided they didn’t want you to play it.

IT WAS NOT AVAILABLE IN THE ORIGINAL GAME UNLESS YOU CHANGED PART OF THE GAME’S CODE.

You had to want to see it, to actually see it.

Now I’m not saying I need sex in a game. I don’t think GTA IV would have been a better game if you saw full-on sex as opposed to the neutered scenes included in the game. It just seems odd to me that uncensored, graphic violence is fine but nudity isn’t.

There are of course many factors. One of the main reasons is that Walmart, the biggest games vendor in the world, won’t put anything nude on their shelves, or more specifically, it will not stock anything that has the dreaded Adults Only rating from the ESRB. Strangely enough, no amount of violence has ever gained a game this rating, but sex has every time. Also, when the NES was released, Nintendo stated that they would not allow any videogames depicting sexually explicit content or their console, and since then every future console has just stuck to the same principal.

Videogames are an art-form in their infancy, and they must bridge this gap if they are ever to be taken seriously. Slowly, avenues that will allow for this kind of exploration are opening up. Though not exactly mature, the recent DLC for GTA IV (The Lost and Damned), had a full frontal male nudity shot (the inspiration for this article and it’s title). After the initial shock (a reaction I shouldn’t have had) I thought to myself, ‘there is no way that scene would have shipped with the boxed copy of this game’. Games developers can, with DLC, bypass the scrutiny of larger games vendors and get the content gamers want to see directly into their living rooms. Whether this is for the best I couldn’t say.

Now I’m not saying I want to see any Sonic Porn (the furries have that covered). Nor am I saying I need to see Master Chief naked (though it would make videos like these even more amusing).If gaming ever wants to be taken seriously as an art-form though it needs to grow up, remove it’s head from the sand, and learn how to cope with the birds and the bees.

- Mikey Base

Acting in films as diverse as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Leatherheads and The Good German has meant Jack Thompson has developed a remarkable American accent.

At a dinner party at the end of the filming of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Thompson was seated opposite director Clint Eastwood but every time Jack spoke Eastwood cracked up.

“To get that accent right I stayed in character the whole time on set and it was the first time Clint had heard me speak and it amused him enormously,” laughed Jack.

1971 movie ‘Wake in Fright’ (digital re-release) showing at the Chauvel in Sydney is a harrowing, surreal tale of outback life. A ‘bonded’ new school teacher serving in the country is drawn into a hopeless downward spiral of two-up losses, hard drinking, kangaroo shooting, culminating in a homosexual act and attempted suicide.

A menacing aura of violent mateship and misogyny is awash with the conformist Aussie ethos of beer-drinking which defined masculinity. The only female character is treated as an almost sub-human sex object, and brutal wrestling scenes between ’mates’ are charged with latent sexuality. 

Chips Rafferty, Jack Thompson & John Meillon play the caricatures and acting is left to Donald Pleasence (villain Blofeld in You Only Live Twice) as ’Doc’, who befriends teacher John Grant. English-born Gary Bond played the lead role, and died of AIDS at 55 y.o.

Not a film for the faint-hearted, with real kangaroo-shooting sequences, it ruthlessly portrayed bush town society with hyperbolic exaggeration, and the effect is grotesque, worrying and ’close to the bone’.

Interestingly the film was well received at the Cannes Festival in 1971 and subsequently had a good run in French cinemas; but it failed to attract an audience in Australia. Videos and DVDs have not been available since and it was considered ’lost’ until this year. Distributors are hoping to include the Kookynie Ritz in its coming outback season.

Jack Tompson went to college at Washington State University, where he set numerous school, Pac-10 and NCAA records from 1975-1978. He is known as “The Throwin’ Samoan,” a nickname that was bestowed on him during his breakout sophomore season at Washington State University. He concluded his college career in 1978 as the most prolific passer in NCAA history, throwing for 7,818 yards. He set Pac-10 records for attempts, completions and TD passes. He was all-conference three times and either first-team, second-team or honorable mention All-American three times. He is one of only two players in WSU history to have his number retired. He finished ninth in the voting for the Heisman Trophy in 1978. His prowess led the Cincinnati Bengals to make him the third overall pick in the 1979 NFL Draft. He played for Cincinnati from 1979-82. In 1983 he went to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and became the team’s starting quarterback. Jack retired from the NFL in 1984.

Jack Thompson... lawyer no more?

The war has been a long one, with casualties piling up on both sides… actually, it turns out that the only casualty in Jack Thompson’s war against video games may be Thompson himself. A graduate of Vanderbilt Law School (strange… I just developed an excruciating pain in my fingers after typing that…), Thompson has spent the better part of the decade waging war against the video game industry, ranging from video game makers like  Take-Two Interactive to well-known and respected video game pundits like Penny-Arcade. In his tirades, Thompson abused the court system, filing suits against practically anyone that disagreed with him. Last year the war reached a fever pitch, culminating in Thompson’s disbarment in the state of Florida. In the disbarment order, the Florida judge had this to say:

Over a very extended period of time involving a number of totally unrelated cases and individuals, [r]espondent has demonstrated a pattern of conduct to strike out harshly, extensively, repeatedly and willfully to simply try to bring as much difficulty, distraction and anguish to those he considers in opposition to his causes. He does not proceed within the guidelines of appropriate professional behavior, but rather uses other means available to intimidate, harass, or bring public disrepute to those whom he perceives oppose him.…

So ended Act One. However, undeterred, Jack Thompson continued his assault on the industry through the legal system by attempting to convince state legislatures in Utah and Louisiana to pass anti-video game laws. Both attempts proved to be epic fails, however. Adding injury to insult, an Alabama judge dismissed one of his pending cases with prejudice. It now appears Act Two in the Thompson drama may be coming to a close, as Thompson now faces federal disbarment. According to the document, Thompson has until July 26 to answer a federal judge order explaining “why the imposition of the identical discipline [as the Florida permanent disbarment] would be unwarranted and the reasons therefore.” No proper response has been filed as of today, but when/if it is filed, I’m sure it’ll be riveting.

This is the point in my post where I usually express my personal beliefs…but I really don’t have a whole lot to add this time. I don’t know the guy personally, but I’m willing to bet that Jack Thompson isn’t a bad guy, per se. Nonetheless, I believe the Florida disbarment was absolutely necessary. Mr. Thompson was running amok, and if there’s one thing I hate to see as a future attorney, it’s abuse of the legal system for someone’s personal gain. It appears that judges at both the state and federal levels share my feelings on that point. While I’m not particularly excited that a man is in jeopardy of losing his livelihood, it’s good to see the courts are willing to step in and prevent lawyers from abusing the system.

– Rylan Smith

Image Source

Sometimes in my line of work I am presented with opportunities to photograph celebrities, now before I go on with this I like to clear up that I am not a “paparazzi” photographer, I dont drive around in cars chasing celebrities and endangering there lives for a photo that will grace the cover of tabloid mediums. Most of my photos are taken at events where celebrities are in attendence and are well aware they will be photographed. Unfortunatly these photos hardly sell to the market, but there a great asset to a photographers portfolio.

Canon EOS-350D with 75-300mm, 149mm, F/4.5 @ 1/100 sec

Some of the well known persons that I have photographed have been: Daniel Radcliffe, Sam Neil, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Jack Thompson, Daniel McPherson, Darryn Lyons, Eva Mendes, Miranda Kerr, Megan Gale, Kevin Rudd, Princess Mary of Denmark and many many more.

Canon EOS-20D with 70-200mm, 200mm @ F/2.8, 1/125 sec

Some photos I notice in the media have been taken by a person who was at the right place at the right time and had a camera, such as when Tom Cruise was recently in Melbourne with Katie Holmes, the images of Tom Cruise and his daughter when visiting locations in Melbourne within there first few days were taken by a bystander.

These days I attend events such as the David Jones Fashion launch, TV Week Logie Awards, Brownlow Medals, L’oreal Fashion week, these events are well known to have celebrities in attendence. For further images check out our Celebrity Gallery

Untill the next photographic adventure, thats all for now

Brett Robson – Freelance Photographer

In 1991, I did my final essay for my Fine Arts degree at Sydney University.  The essay topic (of my own devising) was a little-known film, a film (to my knowledge at the time) that had never been so much as mentioned by Australian art academia – a community quite fixated at the time on a quest for an Australian national ‘identity’ as portrayed by the all-pervading notion of ‘the Landscape’ in Australian art and film.  They went on about a string of films they saw as embodying this ‘identity’, a list stretching all the way from the cinematic gem ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ to ‘Mad Max’ and ‘Sunday Too Far Away’, to such rotten tomatoes as ‘They’re a Weird Mob’.  My essay was on a film they’d left out.  And that, indeed, was the singular, foaming-at-the-mouth point of my essay.  It wasn’t the world’s best essay (I wasn’t the world’s best student), but it made its point.  After handing it in with a copy of the film I’d videoed off a rare TV screening, I met my tutor by chance in a pub and he said he’d enjoyed reading it.  (He couldn’t understand why it was the first time he’d read about this film either.)  The film was called ‘Wake In Fright’.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, the Sydney Uni Fine Arts Department could hardly be blamed for never having caught on to ‘Wake In Fright’.

The film had been lost.

With its cinema release in 1970, though nominated for the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971, ‘Wake In Fright’ had not done well at the Australian box office nor, it would seem, internationally.  Evidently Australian audiences ran screaming from it, so confronting was the giant mirror it held up to them.  Hence, since 1970, it was never reproduced in film format or released on video, only ever (to my knowledge) being shown on TV every now and then until the mid-80s by Australian film presenter par excellence, Bill Collins.

So you can imagine my delight to hear recently that the single salvageable copy of ‘Wake In Fright’ known to exist had been found in an obscure U.S. storage facility (along with the Arc of the Covenant, presumably), that the film has been restored, re-printed and is in cinema re-release.  I rushed out to see it at a local independent cinema.  If you want to see one of the finest, most important films ever made in Australia, so should you.

‘Wake In Fright’ is the story of John Grant, an intelligent and ambitious young man dissatisfied with his lot in life:  He is the lone schoolteacher at the one-room schoolhouse of the two-building outback town of Tiboonda, an all-but-deserted outpost of the larger country mining town of Bundanyabba.  By John’s own admission, he is ‘a bonded slave of the Australian Department of Education’, his one desire being, at the beginning of the six week Christmas school holidays,  to escape Tiboonda, escape teaching, escape Bundanyabba for Sydney, where resides his girlfriend, then escape Sydney for London, where, in John’s mind, resides ‘civilisation’.  However, on the eve of his air departure from Bundanyabba, he makes a fatal mistake, what Bill Collins once called a wrong turn at a fork in the road for which John is going to pay, and pay, and pay – possibly for the rest of his life.

Cinematically, ‘Wake In Fright’ is stunning from its opening shot:  From an elevated camera point of view, we see a lone building in the mid-distance.  All around it and beyond it to the horizon lies the flat, infertile nothingness of the Australian Outback.  To the eerie early synthesizer strains of composer John Scott, the shot then pans very slowly to the right.   Taking a full minute, the camera pans through a full 360 degrees of this desolate nothingness, finally coming to rest on the town’s second building by the first, and the train-line running between them.  Not unfittingly was the film entitled ‘Outback’ for its initial U.S. release.

If there is one word that describes this film, it is Harrowing.  Not harrowing as in the harrowing physical violence and terror of the excellent Australian film of 2005, ‘Wolf Creek’, but harrowing in its portrayal of the baseness of human behaviour and in the truths revealed, firstly, about the rough mining town locals John finds himself surrounded by, or, more accurately, seduced by: The false hope they offer him, their fickle hospitality, the offer of a light for his desperate cigarette being from a cigarette lighter flame just a shade off a blow-torch.  Secondly, it is harrowing in the truths revealed to John about himself.  ‘Wake In Fright’ is being called a film of true greatness.  My description of it so far may make it sound reminiscent of the classic ‘Deliverance’.  In my opinion, ‘Wake In Fright’ puts ‘Deliverance’ in the shade.

The peculiar brand of Australian ‘mateship’ and social goodwill of the outback town locals is cast in another of the film’s opening scenes: John boards a one-carriage train from his schoolhouse outpost bound for the country centre affectionately known by its residents as ‘The Yabba’.  Making his way up the train carriage, he passes through a clutch of rowdy but ostensibly friendly local men who try to press a can of beer onto him.  John declines it, moving up the aisle and taking his seat at the vacant end of the carriage.  Sitting down, he notices across the aisle from him an old Aboriginal man sitting silently and alone, as if segregated, tacitly excluded from the ‘white’ end of the carriage.  The old man sits with quiet dignity, nothing else to do but accept his ‘place’ within the carriage: To the whites in the carriage, he isn’t there.  Clearly, the old man has accepted his place (or lack of it) on the margins of their society.  His Australia is their Terra Nullius – the Land of Nothing.

But most of all, ‘Wake In Fright’ is a film about beer.  On his first night in The Yabba, John experiences the town eccentric, ‘Doc’ Tydon, drinking beer while standing on his head.  Mid-sip, Tydon (played by Donald Pleasence) explains that beer gets to the stomach not due to gravity but due to Peristalsis:  For the town drunk and clown ‘of character’ is, by his own admission to John, “a Doctor of Medicine, a tramp by temperament… oh and also an alcoholic…  My disease prevented me from working in Sydney.  Out here it’s scarcely noticeable.”

Based closely on the novel ‘Wake in Fright’ by Kenneth Cook, the title is taken from an ancient curse, ‘May you dream of the Devil and wake in fright.’  During one scene of booze madness, though John has just fallen off his chair, Doc Tydon still responds to a lost comment from John: “Your idea of Civi… Civilisation?  Civilisation… It’s a vanity born of fear…  Hey…  Where’d ‘e go?!”  ‘Wake In Fright’ debunks a few Australian myths, one particularly, one we long held so very dear, as pronounced by a young Jack Thompson, mine-worker: ‘She’ll be right, mate…  Darn worry.  Drink ya beer…’

The film’s soundtrack by John Scott is unforgettable.  Early in the film, Scott’s music evokes the main character’s exquisite rush of hope, of possible escape and victory.  Though the moment is conspicuous within the film, for the tone is chiefly one of eerie desolation.  At key points, the soundtrack is nothing short of manic, especially when accompanying the film’s montage sequences – rapid-fire image assaults portraying John Grant’s mental descent.  These sequences verge on the psychedelic – though their mode is one of the very worst trip indeed.

To me, ‘Wake In Fright’ possesses a ‘realness’ about it like no other Australian film, or any other film I can think of:  Soon-to-be-legendary is the film’s epic kangaroo hunt.  Real animals are slaughtered on film, and not just one like in ‘Apocalypse Now’.  Seemingly real is the violent, alcohol-fuelled mania of cast members – Jack Thompson, particularly Donald Pleasence.  The doomed daughter, Janette, also the ghoulish, automaton-like motel clerk, these performances must be seen to be believed, not to mention those by John Meillon.  Then there is the ‘realness’ of the withered old man on the Main-Street Yabba bench beside which John Grant finds himself sitting, the knotted gaze from the old man that says to the young man, ‘I was once you.  You will be me.’  Realness?  Unless I’m mistaken, this withered old man is no actor.  He is a withered old man of Broken Hill, the town where ‘Wake In Fright’ was filmed.

For me, ‘Wake In Fright’ is reminiscent of many things.  It seems influenced by the aesthetic of Australian Outback painter, Russell Drysdale, his human forms reduced to the wasted physicality of the harsh, unforgiving landscape they must inhabit.  Re the roo-shooting scene, I can’t help thinking of Peter Carey’s description, in his ‘True History of the Kelly Gang’, of the young Ned’s necessary first slaughter of an animal.  (To Ned’s agonizing regret, it’s not a ‘clean’ kill.)

‘Wake In Fright’ is reminiscent of Hitchcock in mood and atmosphere.  For, like that grand master of the cinema, Canadian director Ted Kotcheff (‘Rambo’) exposes that which is fearful, twisted and desperate just beneath the surface of the Ordinary.  In my calling this film one of the best films ever made in Australia (as have others recently), I put it to the test: Is this film of the same calibre of Hitchcock’s best work?  Does it consistently match the standards of the grand master’s craft, levels which even the greatest films fall narrowly short of?  In my opinion, it is, and it does.

Now that ‘Wake In Fright’ has been rediscovered after 39 years’ oblivion, I can only hope that the world of Australian film and art academia will retro-award it its rightful place on the film school syllabus.  In 1991, I was swimming (drowning) in Australian art theory of the literal ‘O’ of the Outback, the infinite ‘zero’ into which Australian explorers like Burke and Wills had ventured only to disappear – just as Miranda and her school chums in ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ had disappeared.  By 1991, so had ‘Wake In Fright’.

It has returned.

Though beware:  Film critic Leonard Maltin once wrote that this film would hardly be likely to be endorsed by the Australian Tourist Commission.

Go see it.

Justin Sheedy 2009

To see a YouTube snippet of the film, click on the link below. (Only one of the two characters is an actor.)

To read another article by Justin Sheedy, click the next link…

‘One of the Mightiest Cover Versions of All Time – “Light My Fire”, sung by Shirley Bassey’

Grand Theft Auto es lo peor que le ha pasado a la juventud desde la polio

-Jack Thompson

El último episodio de Penn & Teller Bullshit! (espero no tener que explicar de que se trata el programa) se trató sobre los videojuegos. En el aparece, entre otras tantas “personalidades”, Jack Thompson.

Disfruta del característico humor de los Showman Penn y Teller, mientras ves quedar en ridículo a Jack Thompson, lo cual no es muy dificil por default.

Nota: Las tres partes desafortunadamente están en inglés. Y te recomiendo verlos antes de que les den cuello los de Youtube.

Y por último, si lo van a empezar a ver, véanlo completo. El final es hasta cierto punto estremecedor.

Parte 2

Parte 3