When down to the crumbs in my media pantry, I like to watch Netflix instant titles (streamed via the Xbox, natch). Most of the offerings are 2-star ratings, so it was with great leniency that I gave Bickford Shmeckler’s Cool Ideas 3 stars. The premise is ridiculously pretentious for a film that was superficial enough to bleach Olivia Wilde’s hair: Bickford Shmeckler is a first-year college student who is just way too philosophically mature for his partying housemates. He keeps his mind-blowing insights about the universe in a journal called The Book. (This is deep, so hold onto your skull: The universe is in flux! Atoms in our bodies could have once been part of stars! Basic science rules!).
To further illustrate Bickford’s intellectual superiority, he’s compared to his roommates, who do totally immature things like play video games. Here’s where this flick almost lost the “meh” rating I gave it. Bick’s gamer roommate’s single line is (hold onto that skull again): “Watch this special move!”
Now, I’ve heard a lot of things said by a lot of different gamers while playing a lot of different games, but I’ve never heard a statement quite so generic or bland or vague uttered in real life. I’m pretty sure that no one has ever said “special move” while playing a video game. In fact, I’ve never heard “watch this,” either. It’s usually “ohhhh” or “suck on it,” or– well, it just devolves from here.
“Watch this special move!” indeed. I think you’d be laughed out of my grandmother’s Sudoku DS league for saying something like that.
Game Berry 