'Bachelor': ratings
By AWSON MILLS
Staff Reporter
MXA932@PSU.EDU
A date in a horse-drawn carriage.
A dress worth thousands and jewels
worth millions. A handsome,
romantic man by your side. Are
you a princess on a date with your
prince?
Possibly, but you could
just be a contestant on
ABC's reality romance
"The Bachelor." While
the show's ratings are
high enough to launch
it into its 12th season,
the actual romantic
success of the show is
an utter failure with a
track record of only two
successful relationships.
To make it worse, that
statistic includes the three
seasons of spin-off "The
Bache lorette."
With host Chris Harrison
keeping everything
straight, 25 beautiful
women meet a handsome,
eligible bachelor. In
fact, the women are so
beautiful and the bachelor
so successful that it's hard
to understand why these
people felt the need to
search for love on national
'Dead Leaves' : a comic book come
By PHIL HARSH
Staff Reporter ligo
PSNSOOI@PSU.EDU
From Production I. G., the people
who brought you FLCL (furi kuri),
in association with several of the
animators from Kill Bill, comes
one of most bizarre and action
packed chunks of LSD-soaked
animated madness the world has
ever seen: Dead Leaves. This is
the kind of movie that, if it had
come out 10 years earlier, my mom
would forbid me to see, but then
my dad would take me to see it
anyway its that good.
Now, I know what you're thinking
- anime is for little kids and
perverts but you've got to hear
me out on this one. Watching Dead
Leaves is like watching a comic
book come to life. It doesn't flow
like other anime, it has a style all
its own, all but defying the general
anime stereotypes. None of those
big, watery eyes or any of that
magical girl nonsense. Just straight
up insanity.
The film begins with a man and
Zelda *oke causes on
By JAMES COUCHE
Columnist
JTCSIOI@PSU.EDU
This year's April Fools Day will
live in infamy. On that day the
deafening sound of fanboy hearts
breaking could be heard across the
country (it was especially loud on
the internet). At the root of this
chaos is one of the most elaborate
April fools jokes ever; The Legend
of Zelda movie trailer created by
ign.com. Reactions to the prank
ranged from congratulations
to angry boycotts and petitions
demanding an apology.
What made this particular joke
so convincing (and effective) was
the surprising amount of effort put
into it. The trailer actually looks
like people who know what they
are doing as opposed to overweight
fanboys flailing around with fake
swords in what almost resembles
combat made it. The lighting,
camera work, and the orchestral
music, was enough to make even
the most cynical person believe
television. As the series drags on,
it's obvious most contestants are
searching for love along with their
own few minutes of fame.
The bachelor meets all 25 women
on the first night as they emerge
from their limousines. He gives a
first impression rose after meeting
every woman based solely on
their few minutes of interaction,
demonstrating this show's emphasis
.to courtesy . ..com
In ABC's hit show "The Bachelor", now entering its 12 th season, 25 women compete for the affection
of one mane.
a woman who wake up naked in pasts or their identities. "That ring
a field with no memory of their around your eye makes you look
"Dead Leaves", a full-length anime motion picture,aims to avoid typical anime
stereotypes and be a very psychedelic experience.
that the trailer could be real even
if it was only for a moment. The
only chink in this façade's armor
is the sub-par
makeup effects
for the series'
main villain
Ganon (and to a
lesser extent the
sub-ILM quality
CGI).
The trailer is
a collaboration
of `ign' and
independent
production
company
Rainfall Films
Director Sam
Balcomb was
tasked with
creating a truly
epic trailer for
the fake Legend
of Zelda movie
with little
money and a
mere three months to do it. The
project was a huge undertaking for
are high but chances of love
on beauty. The rest of the initial show
consists of a cocktail party in which
contestants vie for the bachelor's
attention. Many often make fools
of themselves and occasionally one
has a little too much bubbly. At the
conclusion of the evening, Harrison
whisks the bachelor away to a
private room full of pictures of the
ladies where he will deliberate and
make his elimination decisions.
A 0 0404 , ,4- ,
the small production company with
intensive special effects work and
orchestral music.
As an April Fook's Day joke by online movie site ign.com, a false Zelda traier was re
leased, causing mixed reactions from the online community
The trailer became a labor of
The show's elimination ceremonies
are a reality TV classic and have
found themselves at the butt of
jokes on television ("House"
spoofed it this season.). Generally,
the bachelor cuts from 25 women to
15, to 10, to eight, to six and then
individually.
The women stand in a cluster while
the bachelor stands with Harrison
and the roses. The bachelor calls
like a panda bear," remarks the
man. "That retro TV on your head
makes you
look like an
asshole," replies
the woman.
And thus, the
names Retro
and Pandy seem
to stick. And so,
the Bonnie and
Clyde type duo
decide to go on
a mini rampage
through down
town Tokyo
for food,
clothing and
transportation.
The cops are
quickly called
in and a high
speed chase
and gunfight
ensue. At one
point during
this sequence,
Retro has a very
impressing and
very impossible
love for those who worked on it
since many of them are longtime
Zelda fans. The filmmakers prove
to have an in depth knowledge of
the source material as the trailer
THE CAPITAL TIMES
out a woman's name, the woman
comes forward and he poses the
question, "Will you accept this
rose?" If she says yes, she has made
it to the next round. Women have
the option to decline the offer of his
rose if they feel a connection is not
present, an option which has been
chosen occasionally. These rose
ceremonies tend to be overly
dramatic and predictable, despite
ABC's claim of "the most shocking
rose ceremony ever" every week
Consistent with the dramatic
theme of this show, the bachelor
lives in his own pad while the
women share a house in which
the undertones are cattiness and
competition. The competition heats
up when certain women receive
one-on-one dates rather than the less
romantic group dates. One-on-one
dates are the Cinderella-like dates
where group dates include trips to
an arcade, the beach, bowling alley,
etc.
The dates are often predictable and,
well, corny. Supposedly, viewers
are watching people fall in love,
but with the elaborate detail and
fantastic setting, it just feels unreal.
As Season 10 bachelor Andy
Baldwin described it, "When the
fantasy wore off and the reality set
in, we both realized that we weren't
ready to be engaged."
Baldwin's dilemma seems to be
the norm in the couple's aftermath
fight scene on top of moving cop
cars. Eventually they are captured
and sent to a prison celled Dead
Leaves, located on the half
destroyed moon. There they meet
the other prisoners, who all seem
to be strange, half-robotic clones.
They also meet the two chief prison
guards; two extra badass clones
called 666 and 777. 666 and 777
are great characters, they really
steal the show
So, Pandy and Retro get locked
in a holding cell together. Retro
starts going stir crazy until he
realizes that he's locked in a room
with a woman and pounces on
her. "How are we supposed to do
it with all these straps?!" Pandy
demands. "Some people pay good
money to get tied up like this!"
replies Retro, and the lovemaking
begins. Apparently they're sex is so
great that it blows open the locked
door and causes them to lose their
restraints. Once freed, they realize
all of the other prisoners and
orchestrate a mass prison break.
After some insane gunfights and
epic battles with 666 and 777, they
ine turmoi
is surprisingly accurate to the
game. The visual style is heavily
inspired by the most recent Zelda
game Twilight Princess
with its somewhat dark
atmosphere and epic
look. The costumes are
very detailed and stay
true to the art from the
games and even the music
is true to form. Despite
the attention to detail,
the Internet community
and especially longtime
fans of the series have
dissected every small
aspect of the trailer. It
can be assumed that if a
true Zelda movie was to
be made it would face
more scrutiny than any
video game based movie
before it.
Within an hour of the
trailer's release the
internet was set ablaze
with talk of the hoax as
the trailer was dissected
by fans of the series. It was not
long before many gaming websites
April 21, 2008
are not
of this show. In each season finale,
the bachelor picks an engagement
ring and has the option of proposing
to the winner. Sometimes the
couple ends the show engaged,
sometimes only with the promise of
continuing their relationship and
in the case of Season 11 bachelor
Brad Womack, still stag. Womack
genuinely shocked audiences when
he broke up with both finalists in the
season finale.
While this stunt truly shocked
viewers, "The Bachelor" is a
predictable reality show that needs
to be retired. The show certainly
had its success just ask America's
couple Trista and Ryan, and their
baby Max, or the only other
remaining couple, Byron and Mary.
But as the show gets sleazier and
makes feeble, futile attempts to
mix it up, it only sinks lower into
the Reality TV Shows to Avoid
category.
"The Bachelor" has inspired its spin
offs, many of which are classless
successes, most recently MTV's
"A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila,"
but it's safe to say the hay-days of
"The Bachelor" are over. While
ABC may continue to drudge
out season after season, and
viewers may continue to tune in
out of boredom, curiosity or even
indulgence in a guilty pleasure, this
show needs to break off the
engagement with current television.
to life
discover the secret work being
carried out at the facility. Over the
course of the film, we discover
that Pandy and Retro were spies
working for the facility and the
crazed warden is trying to get
revenge on Pandy by recreating a
deranged fairy tale she remembers
from her childhood.
In the finale, Pandy has Retro's
child, who comes out with twin
machine guns and blows the
warden away. A giant worm (part
of the demented fairy tale) begins
consuming the station until the
mutant baby sacrifices himself
so that his two parents can live.
The film ends with Pandy and
Retro crashing in the middle of
downtown Tokyo in their escape
pod, crushing a bystander below.
The end.
Dead Leaves goes so fast that
there is hardly enough time to catch
your breath. It is just non-stop ultra
violence. Now I'm not condoning
the use of psychedeiic drugs, but
if you should happen to be on
one while watching this movie it
couldn't hurt.
started seeing message board
debates about whether or not
Zelda could actually be brought
to the big screen. Many people
argued that it could not translate to
film, citing the fact that the main
character Link is completely mute
throughout the entire series. Others
claimed that the story's epic size
would require a budget higher than
any other film to date. The most
significant fact is that Nintendo
may not want to sell the movie
rights for one of its most popular
series; after the abomination that
was the Super Mario Brothers
movie, it is understandable. On
the contrary, The Legend of Zelda
could fill the fantasy epic void left
after the Lord of the Rings series
ended. The success of that trilogy
would definitely make Zelda an
easy sell to film studios.
Whether or not a true Legend
of Zelda movie ever materializes
remains to be seen. The fake trailer
has stirred up serious debate on the
subject and shows that the Zelda
franchise's possible move to the big
screen would not go unnoticed.