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social commentary, and the generation gap between gamers and critics of the medium. Hearing guys like Ian Bogost and Hal Halpin talk about games as art just plain never gets boring, and we've frankly never seen a cast of videogame personalities this large or prestigious assembled in documentary form, and getting to hear all their varying viewpoints is an absolute pleasure.
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Apart from a few self-interviews and lecture clips sprinkled evenly throughout the film, you don't really feel the presence of
Ledonne the Director as he tells the story of Ledonne the Designer. The vast majority of the film relies on (quite compelling) interviews with numerous personalities based in
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Although Gus Van Sant and
Michael Moore had made films about Columbine, many felt it was wrong to try and in a game. Why? Why are games not allowed to deal with difficult subjects? In part because the medium is still immature. Ledonne says, "While the commercial games industry has shown itself to be
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pulled its sponsorship of the competition and half of the other game developers pulled their projects out of the festival. The
Slamdance documentary jury attempted to award the game a special jury prize but Baxter prevented the award from being given. Eventually, the game screened at other events
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Ledonne assembles a truly noteworthy cast of game designers, media professors, and school shooting survivors who are able to look at the issues he presents from totally different angles. In the first act alone, we get to hear the interviewees talk about games as experimentational play, games as
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Playing
Columbine claims to primarily be about the controversy surrounding the director's game, but it wisely opts instead to spend more time talking about the general demonization of videogames as an artistic medium, and the nature of school violence. Super Columbine Massacre RPG! is used as a
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The ongoing debate over representations of violence in videogames is the immediate focus of "Playing
Columbine," Danny Ledonne's gripping, troublemaking docu about the reaction to his videogame re-creation of the Columbine High School massacre. But the film goes much further, ultimately tying
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The documentary is very engaging and thought provoking though repetitive at times. Ledonne is a talented filmmaker, and I’m curious to see him tackle subjects not as personally close. "Playing
Columbine" is an asset to the ongoing dialogue on protected speech and questions of art in the 21st
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student at the time of the event, is interviewed and dismisses the game's role in the shooting. However, Jack
Thompson maintains that the game is a "murder simulator" that "trained" the shooter. The link between the game and the shooting is regarded as an "easy out for society" by then
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questions of propriety and censorship into a larger discussion of the development of videogames as a form of expressive art. While it raises far more questions that it can answer, pic serves as an impressively nuanced call for games to be taken more seriously.
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that, "Judging by the rather short trailer, it feels like the documentary is a little too much about
Ledonne and not enough about the very real and complicated issues involving both the shooting and the idea of tacking
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at Water Cooler Games observed that "It's certainly no surprise that those 'subjective decisions' would include the rejection of the film, which is openly critical of the festival."
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in
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film. I know that's not saying much, but my point is, this documentary sounds far more pretentious and self-serving than it actually is.
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quite comfortable courting controversy over violent content, it has only the beginnings of a truly socially conscious ambition."
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jumping-off point to discuss much broader, much more interesting issues: for this, the director is to be commended.
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AFI FEST '08| 22nd Edition Announces 148 Films; Boyle, Swinton To Receive Tributes|IndieWire
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Water Cooler Games: "Playing Columbine Screening, Rejection"
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Injured and Survivors of the Columbine High School shooting
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1202:'Playing Columbine' set for AFI Fest|Hollywood Reporter
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Fantasia 2009: Playing Columbine **1/2|Montreal Gazette
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1340:. December 3, 2008.
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515:The Library
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108:Cory Antiel
87:Produced by
56:August 2024
1415:2008 films
1409:Categories
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1134:Palme D'Or
1011: [
958:, and the
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832:video game
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412:columbinus
353:Bill White
143:94 minutes
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48:Wikisource
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420:Dawn Anna
396:Columbine
242:Location:
191:filmmaker
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31:contains
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1132:'s 2003
1128:—
1125:Elephant
1116:—
1094:See also
1089:century.
1022:GameCity
945:AFI Fest
858:art game
552:Zero Day
436:Elephant
348:Sol Pais
294:Weaponry
218:a series
216:Part of
187:American
156:Language
105:Music by
1324:Variety
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1042:wrote:
990:Netflix
936:Release
632:Earshot
266:Victims
159:English
148:Country
125: (
1007:Kotaku
988:, and
986:iTunes
842:, and
721:(1994)
703:(1999)
649:(1999)
627:(2000)
563:(2004)
555:(2003)
533:(2004)
518:(2014)
510:(2005)
502:(1999)
494:(2000)
486:(2008)
478:(1999)
470:(2001)
455:(2016)
447:(2002)
439:(2003)
431:(1999)
423:(2005)
415:(2005)
407:(2002)
399:(2009)
391:(2002)
383:(2009)
375:(2016)
170:12,000
164:Budget
856:(see
712:KMFDM
700:Adios
365:Media
1360:IMDb
973:and
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667:Doom
168:US$
1358:at
1014:sic
947:in
860:).
854:art
850:toy
1411::
1322:.
1281:^
992:.
984:,
977:.
969:,
962:.
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793:,
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785:,
781:,
777:,
773:,
769:,
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1326:.
749:e
742:t
735:v
641:"
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