movarhola
Joined Nov 2006
Welcome to the new profile
Our updates are still in development. While the previous version of the profile is no longer accessible, we're actively working on improvements, and some of the missing features will be returning soon! Stay tuned for their return. In the meantime, the Ratings Analysis is still available on our iOS and Android apps, found on the profile page. To view your Rating Distribution(s) by Year and Genre, please refer to our new Help guide.
Badges2
To learn how to earn badges, go to the badges help page.
Reviews3
movarhola's rating
So why does this show suck? Unfortunately, that really is the only question, because there is no doubt that it does.
For those unfamiliar with the premise of the show, the doomed-to-be-shortlived series Cavemen focuses on a number of Neanderthals and their struggle to exist in modern day America and is based on the characters featured in a series of television ads for Geico Insurance. The concept is solid and there is every reason to think it could be executed successfully.
I had to think about it for awhile, but then the tagline from the commercials -- something to the effect of "We're not that much different from you" provided me with the key to the show's suckiness. Even though cavemen/Neanderthals are actually a different species than humanity, the title characters of this show, it turns out, are exactly the same as those of us who are boring jerks.
Maybe its my background as a game writer -- rather than a soulless, hack, committee-based writer from California -- but this show had so much potential, and none of it has been realized. To start with, the producers should have focused on the fun things that would make cavemen different from us.
What could conceivably be funny, for example, about giving them occupations like perpetual grad student and furniture store clerk, when they would have more compellingly been drawn to things like subterranean utility workers and guides at cave parks? Why would they play prosaic games like squash, when a whole episode could be devoted to them trying get hunting licenses to go after game with spears? A show like this could write itself, and it takes some willfully bad writing to make it quite so crappy and boring.
Another tiresome aspect of this show is an attempt to portray the cavemen as being subjected to a number of stereotypes associated with various human minorities. Yawn! This has been done so many times before, and never more drearily than this. And, as noted previously, Neanderthals really are a different species, so using them as a metaphor for racial stereotyping is both uncompelling and off the mark.
Responses are welcome, including those from anyone who wants to tell me why I'm wrong. I'd like to enjoy this show and am just sorry that I have thus far been unable to.
Michael J. Varhola, Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine
For those unfamiliar with the premise of the show, the doomed-to-be-shortlived series Cavemen focuses on a number of Neanderthals and their struggle to exist in modern day America and is based on the characters featured in a series of television ads for Geico Insurance. The concept is solid and there is every reason to think it could be executed successfully.
I had to think about it for awhile, but then the tagline from the commercials -- something to the effect of "We're not that much different from you" provided me with the key to the show's suckiness. Even though cavemen/Neanderthals are actually a different species than humanity, the title characters of this show, it turns out, are exactly the same as those of us who are boring jerks.
Maybe its my background as a game writer -- rather than a soulless, hack, committee-based writer from California -- but this show had so much potential, and none of it has been realized. To start with, the producers should have focused on the fun things that would make cavemen different from us.
What could conceivably be funny, for example, about giving them occupations like perpetual grad student and furniture store clerk, when they would have more compellingly been drawn to things like subterranean utility workers and guides at cave parks? Why would they play prosaic games like squash, when a whole episode could be devoted to them trying get hunting licenses to go after game with spears? A show like this could write itself, and it takes some willfully bad writing to make it quite so crappy and boring.
Another tiresome aspect of this show is an attempt to portray the cavemen as being subjected to a number of stereotypes associated with various human minorities. Yawn! This has been done so many times before, and never more drearily than this. And, as noted previously, Neanderthals really are a different species, so using them as a metaphor for racial stereotyping is both uncompelling and off the mark.
Responses are welcome, including those from anyone who wants to tell me why I'm wrong. I'd like to enjoy this show and am just sorry that I have thus far been unable to.
Michael J. Varhola, Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine
One of the few non-comedic movies by gamers, about gamers, and ultimately for gamers, Darkon (Ovie Productions/Seethink Productions, 2006) is a documentary that focuses on the activities of the Darkon Wargaming Club, a fantasy live-action role-playing (LARP) group in Baltimore, Maryland.
Moreso than movies of any sort by non-gamers about role-playing gaming (e.g., the execrable Mazes and Monsters), Darkon explores the purposes, positive aspects, and benefits of the hobby and the motives people have for participating in it. While it also hints at the all-consuming effect RPGs can have on their participants, it is ultimately more of an apologia for the hobby than an examination of it.
From a technical point of view, Darkon is well filmed, excellently scored, and structurally sound. One thing it does not do, however, is explain what a LARP is. Naturally, this does not matter much as far as gamers are concerned, but the absence of such explanation severely limits the value this film could have had as a tool for telling the non-gaming world about something about which it has limited awareness and little understanding. It is also a little on the long side, with multiple, interchangeable battle scenes, some of which could have been cut in lieu of some interviews with some third parties who could have helped put LARPing and RPGing in context.
A product of its times, Darkon draws as much on the genre of reality television as it does on that of documentary, with asides to the camera by its various subjects that shed light on their motivations and relationships in and out of the game. Depending on whether one likes reality TV or not, this could be seen as either a benefit or a detriment.
Some of the costuming and props used by the Darkon LARPers are impressive, with especial kudos going to the Dark Elf players (who do not appear in the film nearly enough). Firing catapults and a wooden fortress that is actually burned at the end of a battle demonstrate the willingness of this club's members to go above and beyond in their gaming.
Overall, Darkon is worth a watch by anyone interested in seeing a particular side of the gaming genre. It is likely, however, to be just as confusing as it is enlightening to outsiders, and does not go nearly as far as it could have toward producing an understanding of the hobby to those not already familiar with it.
Darkon is 93 minutes long. It premiered and won the Best Documentary Audience Award at the 2006 South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, and is an official selection playing at the Hot Docs, Maryland Film Festival, Silverdocs, LA Film Festival, Britdoc and Melbourne International Film Festival. It aired on the Independent Film Channel Nov. 12, and that might thus be a good place to keep an eye out for it.
Michael J. Varhola, Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine
Moreso than movies of any sort by non-gamers about role-playing gaming (e.g., the execrable Mazes and Monsters), Darkon explores the purposes, positive aspects, and benefits of the hobby and the motives people have for participating in it. While it also hints at the all-consuming effect RPGs can have on their participants, it is ultimately more of an apologia for the hobby than an examination of it.
From a technical point of view, Darkon is well filmed, excellently scored, and structurally sound. One thing it does not do, however, is explain what a LARP is. Naturally, this does not matter much as far as gamers are concerned, but the absence of such explanation severely limits the value this film could have had as a tool for telling the non-gaming world about something about which it has limited awareness and little understanding. It is also a little on the long side, with multiple, interchangeable battle scenes, some of which could have been cut in lieu of some interviews with some third parties who could have helped put LARPing and RPGing in context.
A product of its times, Darkon draws as much on the genre of reality television as it does on that of documentary, with asides to the camera by its various subjects that shed light on their motivations and relationships in and out of the game. Depending on whether one likes reality TV or not, this could be seen as either a benefit or a detriment.
Some of the costuming and props used by the Darkon LARPers are impressive, with especial kudos going to the Dark Elf players (who do not appear in the film nearly enough). Firing catapults and a wooden fortress that is actually burned at the end of a battle demonstrate the willingness of this club's members to go above and beyond in their gaming.
Overall, Darkon is worth a watch by anyone interested in seeing a particular side of the gaming genre. It is likely, however, to be just as confusing as it is enlightening to outsiders, and does not go nearly as far as it could have toward producing an understanding of the hobby to those not already familiar with it.
Darkon is 93 minutes long. It premiered and won the Best Documentary Audience Award at the 2006 South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, and is an official selection playing at the Hot Docs, Maryland Film Festival, Silverdocs, LA Film Festival, Britdoc and Melbourne International Film Festival. It aired on the Independent Film Channel Nov. 12, and that might thus be a good place to keep an eye out for it.
Michael J. Varhola, Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine