Home Opinion The good, the bad and the ugly of the past week (7 April 2017)

The good, the bad and the ugly of the past week (7 April 2017)

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Panda sleeping

Today is a complicated day in South Africa. Many are out on the streets protesting. Some of those people are genuinely trying to march for change. Global and national politics have been front and center on my mind this week, and honestly I think I’ve missed a lot of the other stuff that’s happened. If you’re like me in that regard, here’s what we all missed this week.

Best Stories

MTV awards are seen as a popularity contest and not much else. But now with new categories and rules, it looks like it might actually be something worthwhile again.

Speaking of worthwhile, the Xbox Scorpio specs have been revealed and made all the techno people go mad. Something about RAM and teraflops and heatsinks. I’m sure there were some made up words thrown in there, too.

Also in good news, The Doctor has a new companion in Doctor Who, and she is openly gay. Best part about it? The show is treating it like it’s no big deal, exactly as they should.

Worst Stories

The Internet of Things can be really cool. Connected devices can work to make life so much easier. But they are also the foundation of pretty much every dystopian story, and when this garage door opener was bricked after a bad review, it makes me afraid for the future.

Random Stories

I don’t want to classify political and civil society stuff as good or bad, so here’s the link to all the info about protesting today.

Reviews and Features

Deus Ex: A Criminal Past Review – Gorgeous environments meet confined character development
New Media v Old Media: The battle over YouTube
LG G6 available in South Africa from Friday for R14 629
Yooka-Laylee review – A tedious trip down memory lane
The Destiny retrospective – Five things that Bungie got right with their brave new franchise
ASUS ROG Strix Impact Gaming Mouse Review–Comfortable, affordable, precise

Header image of the week

Nanoo Suit

I was going to steal this for my crimes against pixels, but that wouldn’t be fair to Darryn. Wait, why do I care about that? What sort of brainwashing have I gone through?

Comment of the Week

This week’s winner is scamrasc for this comment about War Machine that actually required research:

i like your article and i agree with almost all of it, but one statement caught my curiosity, so off i went for a quick bit of fact checking over at box office mojo…that helpful little site that has box office stats ready at a glimpse….(from which i have copy and pasted a fair bit, so long post ahead).

“Brad Pitt is not much of a box office draw……the Ocean’s series, but that was an ensemble cast and probably more to do with George Clooney than Brad Pitt.”
— i disagree with this statement for a simple reason; pitt does a lot of smaller budget, difficult to market and not meant for the mainstream (as you pointed out) yet can still potentially carry them into a few hundred million worldwide gross despite that. they’re not meant to be blockbusters, but if you swap out pitt for a lesser known actor, would films such as “moneyball” or “fury” have done as well? they were marketed solely on the back of him (given both have dire topic matter in terms of marketability, they were promoted as “brad pitt” star vehicles instead).

but it was the clooney referrence that got me, because…..really, what other big hits has he been in?…
see, when pitt does do more mainstream material, they’re always hits. he has several films on par with the ocean’s franchise or bigger (wwz, mr & mrs smith and troy all did better than any of the ocean’s movies. hell even seven (unadusted = 327) in 1995 did similar when you factor in inflation on USD alone – which box office mojo have done, adding on an easy 100million to domestic gross ….so even without adjusting the other 2/3s of it’s total gross from international screens that puts it on par with oceans…). yet NONE of clooney’s non-oceans films can even come close to that gross……there’s only one film in his entire filmography that did better – gravity…….the sandra bullock star vehicle in which clooney featured for roughly 10mins or so…

in fairness to clooney, he ALSO eschews the more mainstream for the most part, but his biggest movies aside from the oceans franchise – batman and robin (238), tomorrowland (209), the perfect storm (328) – are opperating on levels closer to pitt’s middling range (benjamine button (333), inglorious basterds (321), fury (211) interview with a vampire (223).

nothing against clooney, but it strikes me as remarkably odd that people (not just you) credit him with the success of the oceans’ franchise, when nothing else he’s ever done has come close to matching it?….yet pitt not only has several films in the same ball park, he has films – that he carried – that did $50-100million better….that just strikes me as odd.
i like both actors and think they’re both talented, but i also think pitt has clear weight at the box office, and often IN SPITE of his stubbornly unmarketable choice of projects (especially in this modern climate of EVERYTHING needing superheros in order to make big bucks…hits outside that formula are increasingly rare. which is a shame because there’s only so many times i can watch the same bridge destroyed by cgi…).

Bonus Conent

I would ask Darryn what he does on YouTube to find weird things for me every week, but I’m not sure I want to know.

Then, here are Kervyn’s awesome picks that honestly made me giggle more than they should have.


The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Critical Hit as an organisation.

Last Updated: April 7, 2017

3 Comments

  1. VampyreSquirrel

    April 7, 2017 at 12:52

    That Naruto vid… HAHAHA thanks Darryn!

    Reply

  2. Admiral Chief

    April 7, 2017 at 13:07

    Holy mother of comments

    Reply

    • Lu

      April 7, 2017 at 13:18

      My brain took a whollop there reading that, the dude (or lady or Rotary wing aircraft) has a point. Though I wonder why my personnal favourite Arm Pitt film was omitted? Perhaps cos we aren’t allowed to talk about it?

      Reply

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