I would love to see a citation of the program currently in place that pays people to not grow grain. The Farm Subsidies Act of 1973 pretty much eliminated the act of paying farmers to underproduce or not produce crops. Subsidies since then have favored over-production, particularly beneficial to very large companies and very damaging to small, family farms.

Total genre flick and they know it. No pretense. Just a good "Oh crap! Werewolves!" movie.

Any fiction writer, playwright or screenwriter will tell you that you have that backward. The king died and the queen died is a plot. It's a series of events. When you get into why it happened it becomes a story. But ultimately, you're right... story is more interesting than plot, but you can't have a good story without a plot. Story is dependent upon plot. You can have a plot without a story though.

Romeo and Juliet is a story. Boy meets girl from a rival family. They fall in love. They die tragically and kinda stupidly. That is a plot.

Star Wars. Small town boy fights an evil galactic empire with the help of a ragtag band of helpers. That's a plot. Small town boy discovers he's one of the last of a long line of mystical warriors. He fights an evil empire with the help of a mercenary in search of personal redemption, an embattled princess who is actually the small town boy's long lost sister, a couple of robots who serve as comic foils... blah blah blah. That's a story.

People like listening to, reading and watching a story unfold. Reading, listening to or watching a plot unfold is well, a lot like experiencing a powerPoint presentation filled with nothing but bullet points. This happens at this point. Then this happens. Then this happens. And this. And this. The end.

Actually, you have that backward. Video games have plots, a series of things that happen. Story involves "story arcs", character development, internal conflict, external conflict, etc. Creating a plot where you care about the protagonist and his journey, then you have a story.

I'll use Dog Soldiers as an example again. Light on story. Heavy on plot, but a lot of fun. Most genre films tend to be light on story, but if you play to the strengths of the genre, watching the plot unfold can be a lot of fun.

You can have a plot without a story, but you can't have a story without a plot.

Ever see Dog Soldiers? Not high art by any stretch of the imagination, but a fun movie nonetheless. Reservists go into the wild for exercises. Oh crap! Werewolves! Find refuge. Survive the siege during the night. People die. Make jokes. Fist fight werewolves. Oh no! Someone's with them on the inside! Morning comes and the survivor moves on... Total genre flick. Entertaining, but not high art. Given the modest production budget, they made the most of it and made a lot of money in DVD sales and rentals.

Trying to make profitable summer blockbusters out of what are essentially cheesy genre flicks is an exercise in bad economics.

Really, the only way they can make these work is to go all out as genre flicks where character development and story arc isn't all that important. Most video games map almost directly to some cult genre. LIke a poster above said, shoot 'em up, throw in some cleavage, maybe a boob or two, some cool explosions, some blood and guts, off color humor and bang! You have a direct to DVD movie that stands a chance of actually making a good return on investment. Trying to cram these into theaters is a lousy idea given the amount of money needed to market and distribute them. Cut through all that, print up a bunch of DVD's and sell them in the bargain racks at major retailers.... profit! Cult classics.

Add to the fact that most video games just don't offer the kind of human connection most people expect out of a movie. They simply don't gel structurally. Doom? Lone man shoots monsters... not much to it. The moment you add character motivation, attempt to create a story arc and internal conflicts for the protagonist, you've already gone far beyond what the video game itself has to offer a good story. Like someone said, "Add a little Alien to 'insert another action/sci-fi movie here' and you have an instant hit." That's the ultimate problem with the conversion. What is fun in a video game isn't necessarily fun in a movie. Adding what makes for a good movie to a usually VERY simplistic storyline ruins both what makes a movie good and what makes a video game good.

Now that's I call a BIIIIIIIG McGuffin.

I would assume it was on the plane in the first place.

I did a cross country video blog comparing a 2009 Jetta TDI to a Prius. You would have NO IDEA you were driving a diesel while sitting in the Jetta. Quiet. Powerful. Clean.

We put a coffee filter over the exhaust pipe and ran the Jetta for 10 minutes and then made a pot of coffee and drank it. Very impressive.

Combine it with a battery and you basically have what the Prius should have been from the beginning.