SecondSkin Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Watch This: 'Second Skin'
It's been more than a year since we've talked about Second Skin, the video gaming documentary, but now you can watch the entire movie online for free, via Hulu. In fact, you can just head down beyond the break below to watch it right here on Cinematical. The only thing we can't supply is the popcorn.
If you need a primer on the film, you can read our own Peter Martin's review of the film from 2008. It documents gamers who are fully immersed in games like World of Warcraft and Everquest, and how it affects their lives. It's not afraid to show the bad side, but it also covers the unexpected good sides as well. It's surprisingly engaging, and well, you can't beat the price of admittance.
Second Skin will be out on DVD at the end of the month, by jump the gun and watch it from the comfort of your browser just beyond the break. And if you're a hardcore gamer, shrink this window and watch it while you continue your raiding party through that new Crusaders' Coliseum all the kids are playing lately.
Trailer Park: Keeping It Real
Filed under: Documentary », Drama », Horror », Music & Musicals », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Trailer Trash », Family Films », Games and Game Movies », Trailers and Clips »
They say truth is stranger than fiction. To that I say "you obviously haven't seen Naked Lunch," but reality is certainly a fertile ground for film makers and today we've got five trailers for films based, to varying degrees, on real events.
The Perfect Game
I've never enjoyed watching sports so baseball movies usually leave me cold, but this one has a couple of things going for it: a true tale of a bunch of kids rising up from poverty to become world champions, and former drug culture icon Cheech Marin playing a priest. Based on true events, a former coach for the St. Louis Cardinals (Clifton Collins Jr.) takes a group of poor Mexican kids under his wing and teaches them the fine art of baseball, which ultimately leads them to the 1957 Little League World Series. There are the usual sports metaphors: "Love ain't like baseball," says Collins' character. "Yes it is," replies one of his bright eyed proteges. I'm teetering between cute and cringe-inducing on that one, but this kind of rags to riches story is pretty appealing and the period setting is pretty cool. The Perfect Game hits theaters on August 8.
SXSW Review: Second Skin
Filed under: Documentary », Independent », SXSW », Theatrical Reviews », Games and Game Movies », Cinematical Indie »
If you know absolutely nothing about Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG), Second Skin will get you up to speed in a hurry. Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza's documentary specifically revolves around a group of players who are obsessed with the World of Warcraft game, spending every waking moment in front of their computers, lost in an animated, medieval world of honor, loyalty, battles, romance, ceremony, and gold, always the gold. But it's not just World of Warcroft that attracts players -- it could just as easily be Second Life, Everquest, or dozens of others.
The film wants us to know that MMORPG are not just for kids. Of the 50 million players, two-thirds are in the much coveted 18-35 age range. (Here is your lost audience, Hollywood.) The folks that appear on camera are, by and large, wonderfully pleasant people, well aware of the outsider status that gaming places upon them in the eyes of the general public and (mostly) not caring. As one of the interview subjects says, maybe there are better ways gamers could spend their time, but the same could be said for people who watch sports all day long, guys who tinker with their cars all night long, or, really, any other hobby on the face of the earth.
Second Skin pumps out a lot of on-screen facts, offers plenty of sincere testimony from gamers, talks to various experts, gives lip service to the idea that gamers come from all walks of life -- and then proceeds to reinforce many of the worst stereotypes about gamers.
SXSW Watch: 'Second Skin' Gets a Trailer
Filed under: Documentary », Independent », SXSW », Festival Reports », Fandom », Home Entertainment », Polls »
One of the more interesting-looking films in the SXSW lineup is Second Skin, directed by Juan Carlos Piñeiro Escoriaza. The film is a documentary about people who are utterly obsessed with the virtual worlds of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). The film follows several folks who spend all or most of their spare time (and perhaps even their time that's not really spare) immersed in virtual worlds in places like World of Warcraft, Everquest, Second Life and other MMOs. Firstshowing.net has the trailer up, and from watching it, it seems the filmmakers handle the subject matter without looking down on or making fun of these folks for whom virtual life is as important as real life.
It looks also like they examine both the dark and light sides of gaming. There's Kevin and Heather, who met online as a knight and a cleric slaying dragons on Norrath in Everquest, fell in love and then met in real life; then there's a guy on the trailer who talks about playing obsessively for 14-16 hours a day, to the point that his addiction to gaming was ruining his life and he became suicidal. I wonder if they'll delve at all into people using Second Life as a virtual space for sexual encounters and affairs (which personally, I find beyond creepy, but whatever gets you off, I guess). I'll be the first to admit that I don't get the whole appeal of virtual worlds and virtual identities; I can grok the concept that people get really into their video games, but the idea of not having much of a life outside of a virtual reality game puzzles the hell out of me.
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