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Friday, August 06, 2010

THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH: Epic television we haven't seen in DECADES

Who'da thought that the story about the building of a church would make for the grandest use of the television medium since Lonesome Dove and War and Remembrance more than twenty years ago?

The best thing on the tube this summer in this blogger's opinion is without a doubt The Pillars of the Earth, currently running on the Starz channels. Based on Ken Follett's bestselling 1989 novel and with production from Ridley Scott's company, The Pillars of the Earth is an eight-hour historical epic set during the Anarchy: the period between the sinking of the White Ship and the assassination of Thomas Becket in the England of the twelfth century. Amid the political and religious intrigues of the fight between Stephen and Matilda for the throne of England, the virtuous Prior Philip dreams of helping the people of his parish improve their lot. When Kingsbridge's original church burns to the ground, master mason Tom Builder presents Philip with plans for a majestic new cathedral. Set against their plot are Sir Percy Hamleigh and his wife Lady Regan (who is as cunning as she is hideous), their sadistic son William (who fears Hell above all else) and the wicked Bishop Waleran Bigod. These allies of King Stephen also must contend with Aliena and Richard: children of the Earl Bartholomew who seek to avenge the honor of their father and regain their title. And then there is Jack: the step-son of Tom Builder, who hides a secret history that is set to clash the secular and the spiritual against each other in an already tumultuous era.

Starring Ian McShane as Waleran, Donald Sutherland as Bartholomew, Rufus Sewell as Tom Builder, Matthew Macfadyen as Prior Philip, and with Eddie Redmayne in what should be a breakout role and contender for Emmy with his portrayal of Jack, The Pillars of the Earth is sumptuous in its acting, its production values and its attempt at storytelling in the television medium. The result is a work of art more of the caliber of Oscar-nominated film. It also single-handedly resurrects the miniseries - narcoleptic for far too long - as a potent narrative tool.

The first two hours aired two weeks ago and the second part was broadcast last week. Part 3 airs tonight on Starz, and throughout the next week. I've already got The Pillars of the Earth Blu-ray set pre-ordered. But don't wait for that: check it out now if you've got Starz, and prepare for a treat. Highly, highly recommended.

The 367 miles per hour school bus

Sporting a jet engine from a Phantom fighter plane, this school bus that Paul Stender and his team at Indy Boys Inc. out of Indianapolis hacked together can reach speeds up to 367 miles per hour!!

The downside is that top speed is sustainable only for a half-mile. And it takes 150 gallons of fuel to reach it. But that's gotta be a hella scary ride for any kiddies that might be aboard this beast. Stender and his crew used an actual school bus to build their creation but admit having to reinforce it quite a bit because "There's no way the original bus could have withstood the speeds that I take it to." Still, he estimates that about 5 percent, including the door, are original parts.

Why a 367-MPH school bus? The self-taught Stender quipped that "I grew up on a farm and to tell you the truth I always wanted to learn things myself and didn't like school much... I guess this is my revenge for all those days riding on the slow journey to school, now it goes at my kind of pace."

But there are other reasons as well. From the story at the Telegraph...

Mr Stender's creation, which he has dubbed 'The School Time Jet-Powered School Bus', also fires out 80 foot flames from the back creating massive clouds of smoke.

Mr Stender, 43, said: "I built the bus for two reasons. The first is to entertain people because, come on, it's a jet bus.

"The second, is to keep kids off drugs. Jets are hot, drugs are not...

"We do a lot of displays at schools and we are trying to show them there's more to life than sitting in front of computers.

Click on the above link for more, including video of the School Time Jet-Powered School Bus in seriously hot action!

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Happy 80th Birthday to Neil Armstrong

The Knight Shift and its eclectic proprietor would like to join the very many other admirers of Dr. Neil Armstrong in wishing him all the best on his 80th birthday today!

Proposition 8, states rights, and the end of jury nullification

Two things that trouble me about California's Proposition 8 - the "gay marriage" ban - being struck down yesterday by Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker...

The first is that a single member of the federal judiciary is empowered to render null and void the vote of more than 7 million voters in a matter pertaining to their own state of residence.

The other thing is that even as this is being cheered in some quarters as a "victory" for certain individuals, in truth it is a dire setback for all individuals. I speak of the now decades-long erosion of jury nullification: the tradition that common people empaneled on a jury can acquit defendants and even overturn legislation in spite of legal and prosecutorial weight, if sincere conscience should so dictate. And even though jury nullification is generally a matter strictly relegated to affairs at trial, its principle extends throughout the whole of the law of our democratically-elected republic.

Jury nullification is something that I have long appreciated. It is - and should always be - the citizenry's last, best bulwark for peaceable resistance against any and all agents of government overstepping the rightful bounds. The moment that government refuses to honor this, then it begins to be questioned whether government is obligated to acknowledge and respect the rights of the people... or whether the people are obligated to acknowledge the government in kind.

The people of California voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 8, and whether the rest of us agree with it or not we should respect the people of California to manage their own affairs as a state.

And one judge, sitting on the federal bench and regardless of agenda, should never be enabled with the power to negate the legislative will of citizens in good conscience. For that way, lies tyranny.

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Don't pretend it isn't true

Politics is the pursuit of power by those who rarely deserve it.

Huh?!? So the plot for INCEPTION was already done in a Scrooge McDuck comic book?!?

Yesterday the Internets were lit up about how Christopher Nolan's new film Inception shared some common elements with one of Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes comic strips.

If you thought that was a honkin' big coincidence, wait'll you get a load of this 'un...

Those same sharp lads at GeekTyrant have scored another find. The whole plot of Inception is eerily similar to Dream of a Lifetime: a 2004 Disney-published comic book about... Scrooge McDuck!

Here's a page from the comic. Click on it to drastically embiggenize...

According to the guys at GeekTyrant, Dream of a Lifetime "... tells the story of how the Beagle Boys used a device to enter Scrooge McDuck's dreams to extract the secret combination to Scrooge McDuck's vault! I dead freakin' serious! Did Nolan get his idea from a Uncle Scrooge comic book!?"

Mash down here for the link to GeekTyrant's page, which has a link to where you can read the comic in full.

Yah, that's a great find. However the more I think about it, the more examples of this same "invading a person's dreams" thing I'm able to think back upon. There was an episode of Batman: The Animated Series involving Mad Hatter that was kinda like this. And I even remember one of the episodes of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero years ago that had Cobra's Dr. Mindbender messin' with the Joes' dreams (one of the Joes, I think it was Low-Light, turned the tables on Cobra 'cuz he didn't sleep normally, or something...). However nothing that comes to mind bears anything as close a resemblance to how dream-stealing worked in Inception than does this Scrooge McDuck comic.

Now all we need for the world to be perfect is to wait for Muppet Inception.

Darth Plagueis novel WILL be published after all!

James Luceno is a happy man: word came out a few days ago that his long-simmering Star Wars novel about Darth Plagueis is going to be published at last! Release date at the moment: February 28th, 2012.

That's a year and a half from now, but given what we've gone through already to see this book happen, it ain't so bad. Around the same time that Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was premiering in theaters five years ago, Luceno was talking in interviews about how he wanted to write a novel about Darth Plagueis: the Sith Master of Palpatine AKA Darth Sidious. Specifically, Luceno said at the time that he wanted to explore at length Plagueis' search for the means to immortality (and how what Plagueis wanted differed from the immortality that Qui-Gon Jinn discovered). A year later it was announced that Luceno was writing his Darth Plagueis book with a publishing date in 2008.

Less than a year after that however, the Darth Plagueis book was cancelled by Lucasfilm! The official reason given was that it was "decided that this was not the right time to delve into Palpatine's back story and Plagueis's beginnings..."

Four years later and the time is apparently ripe to at last reveal the history of this enigmatic Sith Lord. I shall certainly be looking forward to it :-)

Man robs restaurant, calls back to complain about small haul

Crime does not pay. At least it not pay enough for one Atlanta-area robber, who held up a Wendy's and then phoned the restaurant to gripe about how little money he got away with.

From the story at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution...

A man who robbed a Wendy's at gunpoint Saturday night apparently was so upset with his haul that he twice called the restaurant to complain, Atlanta police said.

"Next time there better be more than $586," he said during one call. He made "a similar threat" in the second call, police said.

About 11:15 p.m., a man wearing a ski mask and holding a gun walked up to the drive-through window at the Wendy's at 1940 Piedmont Road, police said. He told an employee to put the cash drawer on the counter.

After grabbing the drawer and running away, the robber discarded the drawer in the bushes at the nearby InTown Suites. Police dusted the drawer for fingerprints. However, the robber was seen wearing yellow gloves at Wendy's.

I've worked in fast food before, and nearly six hundred bucks is quite a lot for one register drawer. How much more was this guy expecting?

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

CALVIN AND HOBBES did INCEPTION first!

Props to GeekTyrant for noting that years before Christopher Nolan's cinematic foray into dream country with Inception, that Bill Waterson was already "kick"-ing around the idea in Calvin and Hobbes :-)

Y'know, this would explain some things about Calvin, when you think about it...

Fred Reed's take on WikiLeaks

The inimitable Fred Reed - who I consider to be the Internet's greatest curmudgeon - has weighed in on the WikiLeaks issue. And as is the case more often than not, he's saying the harsh truth that too many reporters, pundits and professional policy makers would rather the rest of us not think too much about (for our "own good", 'course).

Here's some of Fred's musings on the matter...

Two ways exist of looking at Wikileaks, the site that publicizes secret military documents and videos. The first is held self-interestedly by the Pentagon and by Fox News, the voice of an angry lower-middle class without too much education. These believe that Wikileakers are traitors, haters of America, who give aid and comfort to the enemy and endanger the lives of Our Boys.

Implicit in the Foxian view is a vague idea that the leaks give away important—well, stuff. You know, maybe frequencies of something or other, or locations of ambushes or, well, things. Important things. The Taliban will use this information to kill American soldiers. The notion is vague, as are those who hold it, but emotionally potent.

The other view, held usually by people who have some experience of Washington, is that the Pentagon is worried not about the divulging of tactical secrets, but about public relations. Wikileaks doesn’t endanger soldiers, insists this way of looking at things, but the war itself, and all the juiceful contracts and promotions and so on entailed by wars.

Which is obvious if you look at what the military (the president, remember, is commander-in-chief) actually does. Remember the military’s frantic efforts to suppress the photos of torture at Abu Ghraib, photos of prisoners lying in pools of blood while grinning girl soldiers play with them? These had zero tactical importance. They did however threaten to arouse the Pentagon’s worst enemy.

The American public.

Plenty more at the above link. If you've never had the pleasure of reading a Fred Reed essay, I've been told that it's quite like the literary equivalent to drinking several shots of Jack Daniels. Not that I personally know what that is like, mind ya...

Monday, August 02, 2010

Severe geological activity about to happen?

I may get called a "kook" from some quarters for writing about this. All I can really say in my own defense is that it's something I'm sincerely curious about and I was told a long time ago that the only wrong question to ask is one that isn't asked at all...

Slashdot is spreading the news this afternoon about a massive ejection of high-energy particles from the the sun. It's headed toward Earth and should reach us sometime tomorrow. Among other things it means that we should be enjoying some lovely aurora, if you're fortunate to live at a high-enough latitude.

Awright well, here's the thing: I've noticed in the past several years that most every time we get hit by a solar flare, that there's usually a massive earthquake that happens not very long afterward.

Considering that the inside of the Earth is a molten piezoelectric dynamo that generates this planet's magnetic field and that the plates of the planet's crust are floating on top of it, it doesn't seem that coincidental a correlation. I mean, if every now and then the sun ejects some highly electromagnetic particles toward us, seems only fitting that there'd be some agitation of the works beneath us.

So... will an earthquake be occurring in the near future? More than one, perhaps?

I decided awhile back that the next time there was a report of this kind of solar weather that I'd make a note of it on this blog, just to see if anything happens. And whether or not it does well, guess this'll be my own lil' contribution to the body of observable data on geological activity :-)

Sunday, August 01, 2010

Greetings to all of y'all at the 2010 National Boy Scout Jamboree!

Tonight I'm sitting in Reidsville... but my heart is at Fort A.P. Hill.

Here's bidding a hearty "hello" to all 45,000 or so of my friends who are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts in style this week :-)

Question for anyone who's playing STARCRAFT II

Is this game really that good? I'm thinking of getting it.

And should I play the original StarCraft first? Believe it or not, for all of the original's legendary renown, I've yet to play it.

(I'm way behind on my video games. I still need to finish Batman: Arkham Asylum sometime. Not to mention Halo 3: ODST.)

Anyway, StarCraft II looks incredibly promising. Just wondering if it's worth dropping sixty bucks for it, or if I should wait :-)

Friday, July 30, 2010

Anne Rice: Clinging to Christ but leaving Christianity

Is it possible to follow Christ but not to claim to be a Christian?

Some of us have pondered and discussed that question at great length. If you're one of my Facebook friends, you've probably noticed that I describe myself to be an "Irreligious follower of Christ" in my religious affiliation. And that's just what it means: my identity is found in Christ. He and He alone establishes and defines my spiritual nature.

Do I enjoy worshiping our Lord with other followers of Christ? Absolutely. And I enjoy that regardless of what kind of "denomination" they might happen to be. Christ is magnificently bigger than our feeble and flawed perceptions. Where we invariably fail, He does succeed.

That is how I can fellowship with many different manner of those who follow Him, be they Baptist or Methodist or Presbyterian, or non-denominational, or whatever. Does that mean I agree with or understand everything that other Christians hold to? No, it does not. But those things don't really matter anyway. We don't have to agree with each other 100% on issues that in the end have nothing to do with our faith in Christ. When He is truly our focus, He will overcome our foibles and errors. As much as I have faith in Him, I have faith in that as well.

That said, I can understand where author Anne Rice is coming from. Unfortunately, the message she is conveying is going to get lost in the rush to proclaim that she is "abandoning Christianity".

You might have heard already that Rice has announced on her Facebook page that she is giving up being a Christian. And as this sort of thing is apt to do, it has generated a whole heap of interest and controversy.

Here's Rice's post that started it all...

For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten ...years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
That was on Wednesday. Yesterday afternoon, Rice made a follow-up comment on her Facebook page...
"1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." (1 Corinthians. St. Paul).
Between that one and her initial post, Rice made a few other posts. And in them she expressed what can only be deemed dire frustration with the expectation that as a Christian, she and anyone else with that label must be "anti-gay... anti-feminist... anti-Democrat... anti-science", etc.

Is she right? Let's ask ourselves, and let's be honest in answering this: Could it be that we as Christians define ourselves more by what we are NOT than by Christ who we claim to have?

If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know about a certain cult in my area. This is a group of self-professed "Christians" who claim to be "the church that you read about in the Bible". And these people do nothing else but apparently spend every waking moment hurting others, harassing others, slandering others... all in the name of God. These "Christians" have nearly 10 hours of live television a week. What do they do with that airtime? Preach about how everyone else (especially Baptists, who according to them are without exception all damned to Hell) is wrong. These "Christians" are so overwhelmed with their hatred that they can't see that they don't have Christ at all. To them it is about "this is who we aren't", and not "this is Christ within us who has overcome us".

That is what Christianity does become, when it ceases to be about Christ. It will turn into a fixation on our own meager understanding: something that scripture warns us not to lean on or place our faith in. For without God, man inevitably places his trust in his own fallen nature.

And then, all too often, we actually excuse that away... in the name of God. In the name of Christ who came to love us and redeem us.

Reading Anne Rice's words of the past few days, I cannot BUT hear her frustration. And not with Christ, but with what is being done by some who proclaim Christ's name.

I don't see Anne Rice giving up Christ at all. And anyone who thinks otherwise should read the post that she made later yesterday afternoon...

My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.
Very beautifully put. And if I dare say so, Miss Rice has better articulated what it means to follow Christ than most anyone else that I have seen of late.

Read her words again: she has been led to be "an optimistic believer in... a loving God", from previously being "a pessimistic atheist".

Hey, I've been there too. Lots of us have. It's not something we're particularly proud of. But then, God never intended any of us to be whatever we might have once been. It's by His grace that we can grow from that.

So is Anne Rice abandoning Christianity? Apparently so... but I can't blame her. And that's no reason to condemn her either (as many will no doubt rush to do). Rice is asserting that her faith is in Christ, and that her faith is not in Christianity.

Anne Rice has perhaps grown more in ten years as a follower of Christ, than very many who spend their entire lifetimes boasting His name. We should consider what she is saying.

Chris is so lazy, he reviews PREDATORS, THE A-TEAM and INCEPTION with one post!

Dear Lord, it's worse than anyone thinks. Y'see, so far this summer I've only seen three movies. What does that mean: that there just ain't as much good stuff playing down at the cinema this season? More likely, it's that I've been so bogged-down with working on various projects that I haven't had much time to indulge in what is usually something that I look forward to each year: namely, summer blockbusters.

But somehow or another I've gotten to see the following, and will share my thoughts on them accordingly.

Predators

This was the first movie I've seen in a theater since April or May, and I saw it on opening day with my filmmaking partner "Weird" Ed. And I was very pleasantly surprised at how well this turned out. The Predator franchise holds a special place in my heart: Predator 2 was the very first movie that I saw after getting my driver's license. Maybe that's coloring my perceptions but I've never understood the flak that movie seems to get. Alien vs. Predator was okay, and I haven't seen Alien vs. Predator: Requiem yet (I've a cousin who swears its better than most people say it is).

With Predators, we get a smart and fresh throwback to what started it all: the John McTiernan-directed 1987 sci-fi action thriller that was almost certainly the first film ever to feature two future state governors (when does Carl Weathers get his turn, anyway?). Instead of it being one unseen alien hunter stalking his prey in the jungles of Central America, Predators brings some of the most cold-blooded and capable soldiers and murderers on Earth to the game preserve of an extra-solar planet: pawns in the games of several Predators.

This isn't a movie focusing on the Predators as a species or a culture. Rather, Predators follows the formula that made the original film work so well: making it the story of the humans and how they cope and try to survive their predicament. What the heck the Predators are exactly, is just two scoops of ice cream and a cherry on top of the real meat of the tale. And with a strong cast including Adrien Brody, Topher Grace and Danny Trejo among many others, director Nimrod Amtal and producer Robert Rodriguez deftly play up the characters' strengths and weaknesses against each other. My one big complaint about Predators is that Laurence Fishburne's character could have been turned into something much bigger and more compelling. As it is, he's barely in the story.

But that was my only real quibble with Predators. Perhaps the sequel(s) will make up for it. The film ends on, not the most ideal note but certainly one holding more promise than any other Predator film that I've seen. I'll be looking forward to seeing where Rodriguez takes it next.

The A-Team

So far this is my favorite movie of the summer, because The A-Team is everything that a summer blockbuster should be: big, dumb, loud, outrageous and fun!

Now being a good child of the Eighties, I was of course leery at how the much-beloved television series would translate to the big screen. Well, The A-Team succeeds in much the same way that 1993's The Fugitive triumphed as a movie: by not trying to be the original basic material of the television show.

How should I put this? Okay... this is the A-Team. It's just not The A-Team of the series that ran on NBC... and it doesn't have to be either. This is still about four crack commandos who get sent up the river by the United States government for "a crime they didn't commit", then "promptly escape" to become soldiers of fortune. All of the classic elements from the show are here, like B.A.'s van and Hannibal's plans. It's just different. Like how Frank Miller gave us a different Batman in The Dark Knight Returns and wound up giving that character a revolutionary and direly-needed makeover.

Two examples of this stick out in my mind. First, Liam Neeson as Hannibal Smith. Neeson knows he's not George Peppard and that's fine: he's not attempting to channel Peppard's spirit into his own take on Hannibal. Instead, I saw Neeson bring his own talents and perspectives to the role: there's a kind of gravitas in 2010's Hannibal Smith that perhaps Liam Neeson is the only actor who could have done this with. I appreciated and even admired that.

And then there is Quinton "Rampage" Jackson as B.A. Baracus. The role that Mr. T played on the TV show (by not doing much more than just being himself). How the heck does anyone portray Mr. T as a character without it being Mr. T himself?! Again, as with much else in this movie, the answer is "by not trying to be Mr. T at all". Make no mistake: that is B.A. Baracus you're seeing in The A-Team movie. It's just a different interpretation of the character: one that is perhaps driven to more wild extremes of both kick-assery and penitent humility. How B.A. Baracus was handled was the biggest hurdle that this movie had to overcome in my mind in order for it to work... and with Quinton Jackson in the role it succeeds brilliantly.

But I can't let a review of The A-Team end without also saying something about Sharlto Copley as Murdock. The Howling Mad one is a scream to behold. In every scene that he's in (and thankfully there are many) Copley's Murdock brings a teetering, dizzying and completely crazy compelling performance. Sharlto Copley is fast emerging as one of my favorite people to watch on screen, between District 9 last year and now The A-Team. Not bad for a guy who not long ago was a filmmaker behind the camera, aye?

The A-Team is the first movie in awhile that I left the theater looking forward to buying the Blu-ray on the day it's released. But don't wait for that if at all possible: go check it out now while it's still playing on the big screen.

Inception

I want, nay, need to see Inception again. As with The A-Team, I'm also planning on getting the Blu-ray of this as soon as it comes out. And if my previous experience with The Matrix DVD is any indication, my Blu-ray machine will likely be spinning Inception more than any other title on my shelf in the foreseeable future.

I guess Inception qualifies as a science-fiction film. But it avoids the trap that too much of the genre falls into: namely, giving more time to the intellect than to the emotion. Inception barely gives us the nitty-gritty nuts 'n bolts of shared dreaming: we find out that it was originally developed by the military as a training method, before it wound up in the black market world of corporate espionage. And we do find out how stealing from a dream works: what the role of an architect is, what a "kick" is, etc.

But those represent what is merely the slick and fresh patina on the real core of Inception: an exploration of the human condition by way of a newfangled take on the old-fashioned heist film. This is a $160 million art-house movie: the kind of film that will be discussed and dissected at length for many years to come... and rightly so.

I don't know what else to be said about Inception that hasn't been said already by very many other people. This is certainly one of the best movies that I have been able to catch in quite a long time. And I'm looking forward to possibly seeing it again this weekend.

So that's what I've seen this summer so far. Still ain't watched Toy Story 3 (and you wouldn't catch me dead in a screening of Eclipse). And now that I'm caught up on that, I can be more timely in writing other movie reviews this summer.

If only we could finally see Tucker & Dale vs. Evil get distribution before Labor Day...

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Top 10 politicians' lines... and why they're always lies

Good friend Danny de Garcia II forwarded this piece from his own blog: "Top 10 Politician Lines (And Why They're Lies)". I am directing y'all to it in turn because I found it to be a brief but noteworthy essay detailing the most commonly heard cliches out of the lines of incumbents and candidates... and why we should never take them at face value.

Here's a sample...

4. “I’m a leader that people can count on.”
Technically speaking, if elected officials obeyed the Constitution, there would be very little evil that they would be allowed to work against the people. It’s a dangerous thing to believe in men.

5. “I’m not dominated by party politics.”
(Yet they’re running with a party label. ‘Nuff said.)

For more of the list visit The Official FALCON Blog.

Fan-made GEARS OF WAR 3 trailer MUST be seen to be believed!

I wound up driving past Epic Games' studio in Cary the other week. Wasn't much to see. But I couldn't help feeling like Charlie Bucket from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: wondering if there were Oompa-Loompas inside. But chasing each other around with chainsaws.

Anyway...

What you are about to see is not an official trailer for Gears of War 3. This is something that a group of fans collaborated on and... honestly, I think this is a much better piece than the "Ashes to Ashes" trailer.

Focusing on Augustus Cole and with Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" helping to set the tone, here is "What Have I Become?"

That is just plum haunting. Hey Epic Games, hire these guys now!