Review A Week

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

2011-09-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

Deus Ex: Human Revolution first came into my radar when I saw it's magnificent CGI trailer detailed in this post. I was wowed by the quality of the trailer first, and second by the implications of what it might mean to gameplay.

Deus Ex 3, the actual game, delivers on the promise of the trailer in all ways except the gorgeous character models (some supporting characters look especially wooden or plastic-faced as the game goes on) with a great deal of variation in gameplay. In college I took a class called "Gametime" that explored the theory and practice of basic game development (board games, children's games, the concept of "play" itself). One of the primary concepts that I took away from my "Gametime" class was "Player Agency". Player Agency refers to the development of the illusion of choice created for the player; creating the idea that they are crafting the story themselves.

Player Agency creates the illusion of freedom, when in actuality the gameplay is generally very tightly defined; in Deus Ex 3 you can sneak, talk, fight, or hack your way through many mission objectives, but the game cannot create procedurally different outcomes based on the differences in play style. However, agency creates an experience for the player, that they are writing the story, based on the different ways they attempt to achieve those static objectives. In diametric opposition in the use of agency are many MMO's, where gameplay and character control is often much more tightly defined and linear, but player outcomes may differ greatly through social interaction.

Deus Ex 3 has one of the best examples of successful player agency in a contemporary, story-based videogame. Its multiple branching paths through levels and ways of meeting objectives gives an illusion of freedom that only really frays at the narrowness of the size of the sandbox (compared, say, to Fallout 3 or New Vegas, which had a similar structure, but much larger areas of exploration) though when pursuing the narrative it has a greater degree of freedom of movement than some similarly structured titles (Bioshock). The stealth-based action (unless you turn your character into an all-out combat tank) brings to mind Metal Gear Solid 4, in particular, but without the exposition overdrive.

Actually, at the end of the game, I wondered if the Eidos Montreal team members were pretending they'd never played Metal Gear Solid games, because while it sure seemed like the narrative couldn't wait to rip them off as much as possible--right down to the post-credit sequence exposition-over-black convention--these elements were played out on screen as if they were developing them for the first time. Even the end-game live action cinemas had me waiting to see if a moose was going to show up in the Alaskan wilderness, to say nothing of the game's conspiracy plot involving mercenary groups, meant to invoke companies like Blackwater and its ilk.

One way it's definitely not like the Metal Gear Solid series, is in the execution of it's boss fights, which is to say, poorly. The making of video that accompanied the special edition of the game indicated that these boss fights were outsourced to another company; which may explain the almost complete lack of agency that so successfully defines the rest of the game. While we're talking about problems the game has, let's not forget the unfortunate helping of racism it serves up in the first hub section of the game:

NPC's in Deus Ex 3, in general, have a somewhat antiquated feel to them, like they belonged in a game that may have been released 4-7 years ago. The use of the same voice actors over and over in Half Life 2 comes to mind. That's hardly a thing of the past though. This also applies to character animations, which often feel canned and stiff, as the models also sometimes look wooden and poorly emotionally affected.

This may seem like nitpicking at first, but there's more emotional content from Link in the original Ocarina of Time when he makes a surprised face:

In the era of Uncharted, Heavy Rain, and L.A. Noire, these problems are increasingly going to be markers of poorly developed graphics. Maybe it was more important to make sure that they appeased their Square-Enix overlords by naming a boss with a gun-arm after another famous gun-armed character.

Still, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, minus these issues, is a real achievement in player agency. In one section I had died multiple times trying to get past a group of armed mercenaries, only to discover not just one, but two completely different ways to circumvent the area. And the amount of pride I felt, on a stealthy playthrough that earned me the Ghost Achievement (which you get from not being seen) was pretty ridiculously high.

While I would have liked a longer playthrough (the recent Fallout games completely spoiled me) I'm sure that a more finalized experience of the game will eventually be completed through DLC. Now the question is, will I have enough money to get Adam Jensen's complete story, or will I want to buy something new by the time it's all available?

Best Fucking Albums: "There is an Ocean That Divides. . ."

2011-02-22T22:29:00.000-08:00

My friend Matt has a blog where he chronicles his adventures in music critique. The blog has several features, one of which is "Great Fucking Albums" where he chronicles his faves on the merit of their awesomeness. I generally lay no claim to knowledge of musical awesomeness. But I had an urge to write my own "Best Fucking Albums" entry while listening to Scott Matthew's (lengthily titled) 2009 album, "There Is An Ocean That Divides And With My Longing I Can Charge It With A Voltage That’s So Violent To Cross It Would Mean Death."

John Alison wrote of The Delgados poppy album Universal Audio that the band made beautiful music about being punched in the mouth in Glasgow. To craft a wholly far too elaborate analogy, "There is an Ocean That Divides..." is like Scott Matthew's mother died and he went to a traveling carnival to try to cheer himself up, bringing a flask of whiskey and a cell phone on which he occasionally makes ill advised calls to an ex-lover.

At first I wasn't sold on Scott Matthew's album, perhaps it's because the opener, Every Traveled Road, feels so much like a closer--coming in soft and light. However, that isn't to say that it's tame, with Matthew doing the vocal equivalent of angrily finger pointing, "Here's one for the valley/Here's one for your family/There's never one for me!"

It's still a bit understated, and though it's grown on me, for me the album doesn't open until the second track, the lusciously orchestrated "For Dick." If you haven't gotten the idea that "There is an Ocean That Divides. . . " is going to be a downer, the lyrics of "For Dick" quickly inform you of an intimate fear of growing old as Matthew croons about "This Middle Aaaaaage" and in the chorus implores the listener to "put me to pasture/send me to slaughter." \

For these first two songs I imagine Matthew walking through the rain (Every Traveled Road) to the carnival entrance, where he spots a weathered old man with tired eyes (For Dick) and then finds himself surrounded by happy people, so he calls up his recent ex (the bubbly next track, Ornament, "I've taken drugs, I've taken sides/the devil taught me alibis/and now you've seen all I'll never be/it kills me that you're still not leaving"). Driven to melancholy, he wanders around and sees a pony ride station (White Horse) and a tired looking old mutt on one of the carnival wagon steps (Dog) and calls up his ex again, after taking libation from the flask, to extol the virtues of love they've rejected (Community).

After getting off the phone he realizes it's over, (There is an Ocean that Divides) and finds a kind of bittersweet acceptance (German, with it's amazing sing-along-chorus at the end, "Make it beautiful now/Make it beautiful"). Then he gets well and truly hammered, finding bliss in a melancholy buzz (the Burt Bacharach-like Thistle, "And Christ, who sacrificed his life/So I'd have mine, why does God/Still treat me like a whore?/Oh, he ignores me.").

It's certainly not perfect, the next song is the lamentable "Wolverine." Scott Matthew, I love you, but to the zeitgeist "Wolverine" means only one thing, and that's Hugh Jackman with a laughable cartoony set of metal claws coming out between his knuckles. The lyrics don't exactly help matters ("Wolverine, come slay this dream/Leave me cowering in the trees") plunging the bittersweet album into what feels like unintentionally silly territory. After that, the final song Friends and Foes passably sends the album out, but can't undo the silliness of the preceding tune.

Still, it's a great album, and one of those that I find myself listening to over and over. It's one of those rare albums that, when listening to the catalogue I've accrued on my computer on shuffle, if a song from it comes on I'm almost assured to turn off shuffle and listen to the whole album. I can think of maybe five or six albums I have like that. That's a great thing.

Peace

2011-01-29T08:44:00.001-08:00

Listening to my favorite rock album, Peace, by The Cult.

I don't generally give a crap about music credibility, but I realized yesterday this is probably the only album where its exclusivity ("you think that's a good album? you should listen to their early, obscure EP..." etc) is probably affecting my judgement.

After their psychedelic rock album "Love" (1985), The Cult went back into the studio and started working on this album. Then, with it mostly complete, they shelved it and hired Rick Rubin to--I think I remember reading this somewhere--produce an album that would help them get a bigger American audience. Rubin produced their next official album, "Electric" (1987). "Electric" sounds like collection of remedial Aerosmith songs, and takes all the best material from "Peace," and strips out everything interesting in it, especially all the ridiculous buttrock guitar-god heights of the title track, "Peace (Dog)."

The "Peace" tracks were eventually released as the third CD on a limited edition 6 CD set, Rare Cult, in 2000. When I heard the album, my jaw just about hit the floor. It's not just that it rocks, but that it also is a perfect bridge between the sound of "Love" and their 1989 "hard rock" album "Sonic Temple," both of which are far from the incongruous "Electric."

But I do wonder if this is my favorite rock album because they're my favorite rock band, and it's unlikely most people who have heard their music have even heard of it. Their self-titled album (1994) and their recent album "Born Into This" (2007), are probably the most musically interesting or outright rocking. But man, I sure do love "Peace."

Three demos enter, One demo leaves!

2010-08-11T08:24:00.000-07:00

I've written about the value of game demos before, but that doesn't stop me from compulsively downloading and playing them. Usually I save a bunch of them up, and then play four or five in a row. Here's the kicker, if I enjoy the demo enough, chances are I'll hold onto it, on the off chance that when the price comes down used at Gamestop I'll pick it up.

I realize that this is somewhat irresponsible to the developers. Since, if I like their game, I really ought to buy it at full price to help encourage the development of more of those kinds of titles. However, I only have so much money, and the amount I would be spending on these games usually goes to titles I know I want to buy without a demo (currently I have two games reserved, Valkyria Chronicles 2, and Fallout: New Vegas). Alternatively, I do expect at some point to revive my canceled Gamefly account, so I can rent games in a Netflix fashion.

So, the demos, in the order I played them:
Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days
Modern Warefare 2
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game

Of these three, I kept one. It was Kane and Lynch 2. And here's why:

Scott Pilgrim is the first out. As a play on arcade-style beat-em ups from the late 80's/early 90's, Scott Pilgrim looks amazing, with character designs referencing Bryan Lee O'Malley's original comics. The colors are vibrant, it's got a great sense of humor, and it creatively re-imagines the property to fit a particular genre of game.

The problem is that Scott Pilgrim as a game invokes the frustrating gameplay of the worst of the games it emulates; in particular NES sidescrolling fighters. Scott moves like a slug, while his enemies run across the screen (it took me half the demo to realize that I was supposed to be using the D-pad--which sucks because most of those old arcade games used a more responsive stick for character control) in order to pick up weapons to fight with you must be almost exactly on top of them, and getting Scott to block in time to deflect an attack is ridiculously difficult. Combined with his just-standing-there after being punched reaction (allowing the enemies to get in more hits, with more standing-there) makes the fight gameplay incredibly frustrating.

I've heard that one of the inspirations for Scott Pilgrim was River City Ransom. I've never played River City Ransom, but I have played a fair share of side-scrolling beat-em-ups from the NES era. They all have the above problems, and result mostly in frustration. Playing on normal difficulty, it was actually pretty hard to lose a life (I managed to lose one) but the frustration at the gameplay more than made up for that. Perhaps the greatest frustration is that Scott Pilgrim visual style is that of The Simpsons Arcade game or the X-Men arcade game.

A friend of mine actually owned the 6 Player X-Men cabinet for several years, and we would often play it during parties. Play was responsive, there was little to no jerking when struck by an enemy, and you died constantly, but the game was eminently more fun. Perhaps the most ingenious innovation of that game was it's use of powers. When a character used his or her power, it would basically wipe out all the enemies across the screen--but the cost of doing so was to have a large portion of their life depleted (prompting a quick deployment of more quarters in the arcade). Additionally, you had basically two or three normal attacks that all did about the same amount of damage to the enemy.

In contrast, in order to play Scott Pilgrim well, it requires you to learn unlockable combos to deal more damage to the beef headed grunts. Unfortunately this completely alienates me, since these combos are reminiscent of fighting games--a genre that (with the exception of the Bushido Blade games) I have essentially no interest in. In application for me, this means devoting all my play time to getting in cheap shots.

In most fighting games, there is some kind of cheap shot that cannot be blocked (a sweep kick, a thrown weapon, etc.) that can be continuously employed over and over. A friend of mine had the home console version of Tekken 3, and I learned the simply commands to make the manga dinosaur character, Gon, sweep with his tale--and/or--let out a noxious fart which my friends could not dodge with their big beefy dudes. I learned no other moves, they were not necessary.

For Scott Pilgrim, the cheap shot seemed to be running at an enemy and either sliding, or headbutting them. It is my earnest believe that cheap crap like this is how 90% of people actually beat those old NES beat-em-ups.

So perhaps there's a great crossover audience for people nostalgic for old frustrating gameplay. But what's more frustrating is that it could have emulated not just the look, but the gameplay of the games it copied. Remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade games? Those were pretty frickin' rad. I might pick up Turtles in Time reskinned instead.

That brings us to Modern Warfare 2.

As the demo opened, understanding washed over me. I get it, this is gorgeous. From the opening view of "Soap" (I was happy to hear Kevin McKidd's voice, having been a fan of his since I saw the first season of Rome) to the final view of the chopper after the snowmobile chase, the visuals were some of the best I'd seen in a game on any platform.

As clean and smooth as the visuals were, the play control was equally responsive. Speed was variable to how far the analogue stick was pressed, targeting was simple and the high mobility of the character made maneuvering almost an afterthought--with sprinting only just a bit faster than maximum normal speed.

The game's flow pushed at a brisk pace, and I was only taken out of the experience when placing a charge or grabbing an item, where it would have been nice to have some animation of my player-character's arms performing the actions a la Killzone 2 (instead things just disappeared or appeared). When things heated up, and the mission turned from stealth to clusterfuck improvised escape (Bad writing, what? These badass covert ops dudes have no plan for shitty circumstances?) I was swept along in the excitement of the gameplay (until getting killed by a chopper 6 times in a row during the snowmobile flight) to it's thrifty conclusion.

So why Kane and Lynch 2 instead of a game that seems to have all the hallmarks of greatness? Let me move on to compare and contrast.

Kane and Lynch 2's demo opens with a cutscene of Lynch getting up in the night to piss and take his (presumably antipsychotic) meds during which he holds a brief conversation with a woman offscreen with flashes of memory from the previous game. It's an amazing piece of storytelling for a game, that gives the player a three dimensional look at a character who, in service of the crime-driven narrative, could easily have had as much depth as a line.

Additionally it introduces the game's frazzled and static-driven video look. Artifacts are everywhere, and the camera refuses to hold steady. The whole game has this look, as if the game were being shot on shitty cameras by the world's most fearless and morally ambiguous documentarian.

When the game finally starts, Lynch moves sluggishly, and fire control seems a bit iffy. Targeting is slow, and the cover system, which one can easily accidentally disengage from, often puts one right up against destructible cover. Pretty soon I fall to the ground in a splash of red and fire wildly, automatically targeting where I was shot from. Panic sets in pretty quick. None of these things are a deterrent.

As a matter of fact, they become the game's strength. As Lynch, you're playing a slightly out of shape, middle aged psychopath--his slower response time and lack of general athleticism fit the sluggish controls in a way that's amazingly immersive. At no point in the game was I more freaked out than when a shootout moved into a video store and Lynch began a constant litany of psychopathic babble under his breath as the gunfight heated up. Holding down the L2 button (I played the game on the PS3) allows Lynch to run, which crafts an almost sickening simulation of vertigo, and moving Lynch into a crouch looks almost laughable as he bends at the back and holds his arm straight, dropping his gun down between his knees in an almost parody of videogame sneakiness--its design philosophy is the polar opposite of Modern Warfare 2.

But that's what made the demo so great. The Kane and Lynch demo was harder than the one for Modern Warfare 2, but a big part of that was that the gameplay mirrored the character. Hell, it had characters, whereas the Modern Warfare 2 demo had soldier archetypes.

Last week, my friend John and I were bitching about glowing industry reviews for shitty games (the Assassin's Creed series, anyone?) and he mentioned loving the original Kane and Lynch. Guess I gotta give that one a go, now, too.

Game Trailers

2010-06-23T10:09:00.001-07:00

The trailer for Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Deus Ex 3) is probably the greatest trailer that I've ever seen; film, television, video games, it doesn't matter--it's the perfect construction of a mini-narrative designed to create excitement for a media property:

The stage is set by its surreal opening, a fantastic juxtaposition between Rembrandt Van Rijn's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and the myth of Icarus: the future-noir trailer opens with the invocation of both Renaissance advances in medicine and rational knowledge, and the Icarus myth, which has transformed in the last several hundred years into a parable about technological advancement acting in advance of pragmatic judgement; it achieves a synthesis of complex ideas suggested as the thematic pulp of the game in less than 15 seconds, and does so in a magnificently stylish way. The rest of the trailer settles into a magnificent montage of sci-fi intrigue that, when I showed him the trailer, my brother suggested were Bladerunner and Ghost in the Shell by way of William Gibson.

As a game trailer it is superlative in all qualities except for the one in which it is entirely deficient--a complete lack of any gameplay. Certainly it suggests what some gameplay features may be (limited invisibility, a retractable arm-blade, super-human strength and toughness, mind-hacking, wall-punching, stealth, shooting, etc.) but we are not even able to determine, through this trailer, what the gameplay basis itself will be. Additionally the story is intentionally vague, leaving a great deal to the imagination--few specifics are mentioned; a mysterious "them" is whom trailer protagonist Adam must find, and the implications of evil corporations as being the antagonists. In this sense the trailer manages to raise expectations as high as possible while showing as little of the game's play, it's story, and actual real look as possible.

Will any of this end up in the finished game? There is literally no way to tell.

Consider this trailer, then, for the thematically similar game, Mindjack:

Pretty awful looking, isn't it?

And yet, for all we've seen of the actual Deus Ex 3, it could be this game. Mindjack's trailer is truly awful, but we can pretty immediately see what we're getting. It's a third-person action game with what looks like a cover-based shooting mechanic and some melee combat. The trailer even has some similarities to that of Deus Ex 3, with it's exclamations of "Who's the REAL enemy!?" and "...FORBIDDEN technology..." though it certainly lacks for subtlety.

Mindjack's trailer features a few pre-rendered cinematic scenes, though most of it seems to be either gameplay or in-game renders of expository scenes. Certainly Mindjack's trailer could probably have been constructed from it's pre-rendered cinematics entirely. On the other hand, there's no certainty that the Deus Ex 3, cinematic trailer contains any actual footage from the game. They certainly could have constructed a better pre-rendered trailer for Mindjack.

The reason I bring this up is that both games are being published by Square-Enix, a company whose advertisement history often relies on showing pre-rendered cinematics over gameplay (consider this 1998 trailer for Final Fantasy 8):

If you pay attention, you can see about 10 seconds of gameplay that starts at the 1 minute mark, and even most of that is a scripted sequence showing a summoned monster. Final Fantasy 8, it's worth noting, was one of the least liked of the series, due in part to problems specifically with the way it handled summoned monsters.

The key here, of course is branding. Deus Ex, like Final Fantasy, is something that Square-Enix can position as a winning brand. It's eminently salable, it has a strong pedigree, even taking into account the original game's fan-disappointing follow-up. In many ways, Final Fantasy is a good lead for Square-Enix's branding of Deus Ex. In both cases the series proper has been abandoned by it's lead designer (Hironobu Sakaguchi and Warren Spector, respectively). As a matter of fact, I feel much the same way about the Deus Ex trailer as I did about the Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailers--a subdued excitement at a magnificently positioned marketing campaign that may have nothing at all to do with it's eventual product:

Perhaps if we were looking at Mindjack 3 we might be getting something more like one of these.

Kick-Ass

2010-04-17T14:43:00.000-07:00

Chloë Grace Moretz is a star now.

It's not just hyperbole, either. She's portraying the child-vampire in the American remake of Let the Right One In (Let Me In) and will star in Martin Scorcese's children's film (and his first shot in 3D) The Invention of Hugo Cabret. But even if these film roles, which are pretty high profile, had not been announced, Moretz would be a star simply by virtue of her performance Kick-Ass.

And Moretz is the heart of the film--the titular character Kick-Ass bears the name pretty ironically--the juxtaposition of ridiculous violence and over-the-top language with moments of childlike innocence makes the film an absurd exploitation of the both the action and superhero genre. The Director, Matthew Vaughn, paints this picture very clearly, with the characters making their own pop culture references to John Woo films and Spiderman, amongst others. My initial thought on the film was that it played like a live-action anime adaptation of American super-heroes. What do I mean by that?

Gunslinger Girl is an exceptional example of a manga and anime subgenre called "girls with guns" that features pubescent girls armed with automatic weapons; it features a storyline in which a fictitious Italian Government Agency employs female, pre-teen assassins from broken homes, whose bodies have largely been replaced with cybernetic enhancements. While the set-up is fairly ridiculous in a way that only Japanese comics or animation can provide, the emotional and social implications of their lives are detailed so richly and beautifully, that the action elements pale next to the series' social drama. And that is the height of the genre, with the rest ranging from entertaining, to completely exploitative. This is almost certainly due, in part to the anime industry's reaction to loss of revenues due to file-sharing woes, by catering to an ever more fetishistic market-base, demanding a very specific output: Moe.

In the context we're talking about here, Moe is a character type or over-genre that is either somewhat adjacent to, or supplemental, to lolicon (the Japanese abbreviation of "lolita complex"). But where lolicon is the sexualization of pubescent or pre-pubescent girls--associated generally with paedophilia--Moe seems to be more of an emotional fetishization; i.e. an idealization of innocence that young girls canonically represent.* In terms of a "girls with guns" style moe character, we're talking about a stylized character who exists as an emotional "win-win" for creators. Characters of this type by definition are emotionally manipulating the audience: as cute innocent girls, they are an immediate emotional target for feelings of protectiveness and filial pride that, when married with the consequence of violent action, inspire both gut wrenching terror and a thrillingly simplistic empathic response to their victory. And while I'm not sure about Matthew Vaughn, I am absolutely sure that this is the element that Mark Millar, who created the comic that the Kick-Ass is based on, was going for.

For Vaughn, this appears simply to be another element of comic book stupidity to exploit; especially with it's juxtaposition of wire-stunts, video-game theatrics, and action-movie bravado. The primary element, that makes the dynamic between Aaron Johnston's Dave Lizewski (the alter ego of the aforementioned titular character) and Moretz' Mindy Macready (Hit-Girl) successful is the forced recognition of Kick-Ass being completely, and totally incompetently out of his depth in his attempts at super-heroics when compared to the nasty, potty-mouthed, ultra-violent little fireball. It is with some sense of humor, that I am forced to draw a comparison to the Coen brothers' film, No Country For Old Men, which opens with a monologue from the old beleaguered sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) against which the events of the film and actions of Anton Chigurh's (Javier Bardem) ruthlessness are juxtaposed:

The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, "O.K., I'll be part of this world."

Similarly, Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise makes a similar observation at the end of the first film, when Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) makes a few comments about "escalation" before showing Batman (Christian Bale) the Joker card--payed off in the introduction of the villain in the next film. In all three cases, with different motivations, the three films juxtapose elements of a surreal and elementary horrific violence with the expectation of rational action and motivation. Kick-Ass uses this largely for comic effect, until it places Moretz' character in peril, at which point the audience is obliged to sympathize because of her age, cuteness, and the biological imperative of protecting her as a child.

Ultimately, Kick-Ass the film's identity and position on violence is similar to that of two vastly different films, both which use a similar tactic in application of on-screen violence, David Fincher's Fight Club and Kinji Fukusaku's Battle Royale (both of which were also based on satirically driven narratives). While I have appreciated the humor in all three films**, they suffer the same specific flaw. No matter how sophisticated, careful, and pointed their satire, there will ultimately be a specific audience that approaches these films only for the sadistic thrill of their bloodletting, in the same way that Takashi Miike's brilliant film Audition unfortunately ushered in a brief era of the torture-porn sub-genre.

As for Chloë Grace Moretz, here's hoping her star doesn't burn out.

* - Though honestly, anyone who has a firm grasp of the social politics of children knows that young girls are by no means any more innocent than boys, especially when it comes to social politics; nastiness abounds, regardless of gender, it's just more socially acceptable for little boys to get into observable, physical confrontations. . .

** - As opposed to Silvester Stallone's interesting, but ultimately flawed, blood opera Rambo (the fourth in the franchise) which takes itself far too seriously, and paints the screen red as if the larger the amount of bloodspray, the more emotional fervor we are meant to experience. A similar film experience might be Boondock Saints, a film that almost everyone I knew in college believed was trying to be ironic, but its long gestating sequel proves otherwise.

The Sky Crawlers: Defying You with Stillness

2009-06-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

Upon purchasing Mamoru Oshii's 2008 film The Sky Crawlers on blu-ray, the first thing I did was to remove the jacket cover and turn it inside out, so that instead of it's action-movie cover that resembles posters for the film Flyboys, it now shows the simple illustration of it's two protagonists staring at each other as if across a great and silent void on the runway of the military base where they are stationed, a moment that implies a tension-filled silence. Everything about The Sky Crawlers packaging, including it's awful and terribly misleading American trailer, suggests a packed-to-the-gills-with-action dogfight-fest, when the film is actually, like many of the best of Oshii's films; a slow, political, psychological-mystery-drama, infused with long silent moments and an emotional vagary that challenges the viewer to discover its hidden depths.

As a film director, Oshii's work has always pushed hard against standard rules of animation and film. Even his most accessible work, sometimes based on the works of others (Ghost in the Shell, Urusei Yatsura, Patlabor) occasionally ventures into strange contemplative territory. In the case of those three specifically, each featured an Oshii sequel that was both a masterpiece of cinema and yet almost entirely discordant to the elements that made each series popular in the first place. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is a masterpiece of isolation, loneliness, and shell shock; Urusei Yatsura 2: Beatiful Dreamer is, for all it's silliness, a wonderful meditation on consciousness and dreams; and Patlabor 2 is perhaps one of the greatest political thrillers ever made, but void of the broad comedy and over-the-top action that defined the mini-series, TV show, and first film of the series.

Reviews of The Sky Crawlers suggest that it's Oshii's "best since Ghost in the Shell," but it would be more accurate to say that it's his most accessible film since Ghost. One wonders if this is in some way in response to Goro Miyazaki's (son of celebrated animation director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle) and director of Tales of Earthsea) online plea that Oshii return to making films for the masses after the release of Oshii's bizarre photo-montage weirdness, Tachigui: The Secret Lives of the Fast Food Grifters. Sky Crawlers features more inset action pieces than most Oshii films, and like Ghost, the action itself is a step forward in action framing and composition, making other films with dogfight scenes look hackneyed and boring by comparison in the same way that Ghost managed to keep it's martial-arts-style action over-the-top but steeped in realistic physical consequence. For the non-Oshii fan, these glimpses of orchestrated chaos are enough to keep them around during the character driven narrative.

The Sky Crawlers is most similar to the Oshii-penned Jin-Roh in style and substance; examining a world and themes of its characters who are forced to embrace emotional distance by their oppressive circumstances (as opposed to works like Innocence, which has a great deal of emotional subtext about suppressed rage and emotional trauma). In the case of Jin-Roh it was lead-character Fuse's work as a counter-insurgent government shock-trooper in a fascist nation, in Sky Crawlers, the protagonists are implied to be corporate assets, expendable children who never grow up, forced to fight in endless wars--the implication being that for both films, the protagonist lives in a state of such immediate possible emotional trauma that distance is necessary for survival.

What drives the film forward then, aside from the brief but extremely violent dogfights that occasionally interrupt, is the way that character, emotion, and plot are slowly and carefully revealed over the course of the two hour run-time. Ultimately it's another film by Oshii that cements him into a position with filmmakers like Wong Kar Wai, and the early gangster related films of Takeshi Kitano, as artists invested in the continuation of a cinematic tradition of stillness that owes it's greatest debt to the Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky. While not Oshii's best, still a masterpiece.

Funniest TV Episode: Warren

2009-02-16T08:32:00.000-08:00

Space Ghost, Coast to Coast - Episode 62 "Warren"

The best TV episodes, both dramatic and comedic, seem to be those that provide an account, revealing a historical precedent that sets the tone, or the psychological makeup of it's characters or the elements that brought about the situation into being. Susan J. Napier wrote a great analysis of this in her book, Anime; From Akira to Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation about an episode of Ranma 1/2.

Ranma 1/2, for the uninitiated, is a TV show about a hyper-masculine teenage martial artist who turns from boy to girl when splashed with cold water (only hot water will change him back) due to an accident at a mystical spring in China. The episode, "Am I Pretty; Ranma's Declaration of Womanhood" (Season 3, episode 9) invokes that classic cartoon comedy device of the blow to the head as a catalyst for temporary psychological change--Ranma, having struck his head on a rock, begins to think he's originally a girl instead of originally a boy. This causes a huge furor with the other characters, but Ranma is content, happy, and more successful adopting a traditional female role than his constant masculine struggle in other episodes.

Napier ties much of this to the whole question of teenage gender identity in her book, but I think a simpler explanation works better, and describes why this episode resonates with many fans (some of whom are sad when it ends with Ranma having a "boy" psyche, because he's so content as a girl). Rather, Ranma's turn as a girl is entirely escapist, his psychic fugue state that results from the blow to the head allows him to escape all the pressures and stresses of the masculine world, without having to address specific pressures of female identity. He gets to take a mental vacation away from all the problems of his life. The absence of those pressures actually helps better define the character, so that when he returns, the show has transformed.

For me, the funniest TV episode of any show (that I've seen, anyway) is "Warren," Episode 62 of Space Ghost Coast to Coast. The episode manages to be hilarious for a number of reasons, not the least because it provides a strange and surreal backstory for the Space Ghost-as-talk-show-host character.

Space Ghost, Coast to Coast is one of two TV shows to feature the 60s Hannah Barbara cartoon superhero, the other being Cartoon Planet (a strange sort of variety show, using stock animation from the original cartoon show combined with mindless skits and silly songs, many of which were released by Rhino records on the albums Space Ghost's Musical Bar-B-Que and Space Ghost's Surf and Turf). The premise of Space Ghost, Coast to Coast, is that Space Ghost (voiced by George Lowe) is an incompetent talk show host, whose captured villains serve as his announcer (Metallis) director (Moltar, a helmeted man made out of lava, who changes camera angles with a large pull-lever) and band leader (Zorak, a giant preying mantis). Some of the routine gags include Space Ghost using rays, from his wrist mounted "power bands" to blow up the villainous staff, particularly Zorak, who uses every opportunity to heckle, attack, or escape from Space Ghost; and incredibly awkward interviews with guests.

The show follows an interview format, where the live action guests are interviewed first, and the scripts built around (sometimes even in opposition to) their answers. Space Ghost is a belligerent, lazy, and often stupid host, who often as not vaporizes his guests (or the Hoover Dam, Paris, and a host of other various locations). This ultimately results in a potential lawsuit, with one of Space Ghost's former villains, Dr. Nightmare ("attorney at law!") having reformed and gotten his law degree in prison, as the litigator (in the episode "Lawsuit").

The show, with Space Ghost as the incompetent host, is particularly funny for how it integrates the live action footage in absurd ways. An interview with Bjork becomes a gag-based show focusing around Space Ghost having gotten, regrettably, married to her. Or an episode with Busta Rhymes where the rapper is only shown laughing in a kind of daze, features all the characters getting high from a gas leak in the studio.

But the best of the episodes are those where Space Ghost's identity is questioned, and his history is augmented. In Fire Ant, Conan O'Brien heckles the host, questioning how he can be a ghost and not be dead, telling him, "Face it Space Ghost, you're a space man who choked on a muffin!" to which Space Ghost angrily replies, "That, sir, is impossible because I am allergic to muffins!" This same episode, Space Ghost reveals that the 60's show was shot with monsters instead of actors, accounting for the poor quality, and an earlier version of the script (from the episode "Table Read") featured a rejected idea showing Space Ghost's death when he tries to shave his pet fish, Dr. Fishopolis, with an electric razor. Or the episodes involving Space Ghost's family: his goatee wearing, evil twin brother Chad, and his pro-wrestler grandpa (from whom we learn his real name is Thadeus Eustice Ghostal) or an episode where Space Ghost is unable to retrieve a package from a mailman because it's addressed to his alter ego.

But my favorite, of all the episodes is "Warren," which features original Space Ghost voice actor from the 60's, Gary Owens, as the guest. The episode begins with Space Ghost, Moltar, and Zorak at Space Ghost's apartment, watching television. A talkshow, Warren, begins, with Space Ghost as the guest (voiced by Owens) to which Space Ghost (voiced by Lowe, and sitting with Moltar and Zorak) begins to object that he didn't do the interview. You can watch the episode, in two parts, on youtube, or below:

Part 1:

Part 2:

In the show's original presentation, the last shot of the episode, where Space Ghost asks "What else is on?" was followed by the channel being switched to the Warren show, and the episode repeated twice from the beginning. The only variation was that the location in Space Ghost's line "Tell em this, When you see them in Poland!" was changed from "Poland" to "Pelham" in the second run through, and "Conyers" in the third.

For me what makes this episode is that it provides contextual clues for the source of everything that's wrong with the Space Ghost as a talk show host. Warren's relationship with Space Ghost is dysfunctional, and it is implied, sexually abusive, with lines drawn almost directly from a Lifetime original movie, "I learned a lot that summer, maybe too much." and Warren's creepy drawl of "Love and Fear are often the same thing." What manages to keep this funny, instead of exploitative I think, is the fact that Warren's status as a potted plant keeps the situation ridiculous enough that it's never too dark or plausible. It's just too silly.

This is funniest to me when Space Ghost is waffling about going to confront Warren. "He hurts me," and then, "but I have been replicated." and his use of the excuse of wanting to buy Zorak a pair of slacks to deflect having to go see his former mentor, which prompts the mantis to yell one of the funniest and most absurdly observant lines in the entire series, "I don't wear pants, and I DON'T KNOW ANYONE WHO DOES!"

Also it provides a reason for Space Ghost's constant abuse of Zorak, in a like-father-like-son moment where Warren blasts the mantis with a destructo-ray from amidst his leafy fronds. Aside from the humor of a plant having destructive blasts ("I got rays Zorak, don't I!? Don't I!?") the whole set up in general is hilarious because the exchange suggests that Warren is actually more Space Ghost than Space Ghost. This is never more clear than at the end, where Warren exhibits the same kind of non seqitur, completely illogical reasoning that Space Ghost often uses to alienate his guests, but to even greater effect ("But Space Ghost, how do you know I'm not the Warren impostinator?" ... "You've lost me there, Warren.") It's even implied that Space Ghost uses variations on the same questions Warren asks his guests ("Are you getting enough Carbon Dioxide?" "What are your superpowers?"). He even feebly deflects the same way Space Ghost does when he doesn't want to address an issue ("How're your folks n'all?) all of which adds up to an absurd situation where you can see exactly where the Space Ghost character of Coast to Coast is supposed to have come from.

While other Space Ghost episodes are funny, none provide the bizarre level of psychological depth, complete with the concept of the sins of the father visited on the son, that provides a sense of weirdness, a strange meta-level to the episode that makes it so much funnier than if it had just been a normal show. And entirely appropriate, since the guest was, in fact, the original Space Ghost.

The James Bond List

2008-12-08T10:34:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched On Her Majesty's Secret Service for the first time. It's one of two Bond Films I haven't seen (the other is For Your Eyes Only). It got me to thinking about the qualities of what makes a good James Bond. So I present:

The Best James Bond List (from Worst to Best)

7. Barry Nelson
6. Pierce Brosnan
5. Roger Moore/George Lazenby
4. Timothy Dalton
3. David Niven/Woody Allen/Peter Sellers
2. Sean Connery
1. Daniel Craig

Before you go getting all crazy over my choice of best Bonds, here's a breakdown of why:

7. Barry Nelson ("Casino Royale" from Climax! 1954)

Nelson played Bond in the spy's first screen appearance, a 1954 TV adaptation of Ian Flemming's Casino Royale for the dramatic TV show Climax! against Peter Lorre doing his standard villain schtick as Le Chiffre. Because Bond was not a well known character, he was reimagined as an American spy, more of a standard pulp hero. Nelson plays his Jimmy Bond as one might imagine William Holden in the role--which is to say, certainly not our conception of James Bond. As far as Bonds go, Nelson gets bottom billing because he starred in an hour long TV version with really low production value that replaced the character's effete Britishness with downhome American grit. Not very James Bond at all.

6. Pierce Brosnan (Goldeneye, 1995. Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997. The World is Not Enough, 1999. Die Another Day, 2002.)

Brosnan is the worst of the "classic Bonds" as they have become known (Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan) though most of the blame probably shouldn't be cast on the actor, but rather on the productions themselves, and those involved.

Why is Brosnan's Bond so bad? He's not an asshole. Brosnan's Bond is the emotionally damaged, sensitive action hero of the 90s; yet there's no manifestation of this emotional damage beyond Brosnan occasionally looking sad. He's an emotional chump whose characterization is meant to persuade us that Bond loves every woman he beds, but he spends most of the movies running around and playing with gadgets with the glee of a kid in a candy store. To put it simply, Brosnan's Bond just doesn't hate himself enough to justify being a 00 agent, which is an absolutely suicidal profession.

Moore's Bond, while almost a parody of the Connery Bond, at the very least has no remorse for his womanizing actions and the death of his cartoony villains. Brosnan's Bond seems to achingly sympathize with his terrorist enemies and female conquests, which doesn't so much make him seem like a badass as a compulsive emotional loser. And Connery's Bond (and especially Craig's) would have cleverly dispatched of The World is Not Enough's Elektra King after discovering her true colors in a post-coital investigation within the first half hour of the movie.

Brosnan, who has played a number of roles that seemed to parody or contrast his Bond (Tailor of Panama, The Matador) unfortunately presided as the character over two of the worst Bond films, The World is Not Enough, and Die Another Day, both which are bloated, poorly conceived, shot, and edited. Fans of Brosnan will point to Goldeneye as a sort of Holy Grail of Bond films, but it's like every of Dir. Martin Campbell movies I've seen to date (including his later Craig Bond film, Casino Royale): it's too long, the characterizations are overwrought and contradictory, it tries too hard to be funny, and the individual segments never really mesh into a cohesive whole. The best of Brosnan's Bond films is probably Tomorrow Never Dies, which is a fun piece of fluff that pays homage to the sillier entries in the series, but likens Brosnan more to the titular character of the superspy's failed cartoon spinoff, James Bond Jr. than the character created by Fleming and realized by Connery.

But I honestly wonder how much of Brosnan's portrayal is just the result of bad choices in the director, writer, and producer's chairs, since the films themselves, taken on their own, are just so godawful. The funniest moment for me, in Brosnan's Bond films, happens in one where Judi Dench (having taken on the role as "M") refers to Bond as a misogynistic dinosaur. It's funny because Brosnan's Bond is anything but the Connery Bond in Goldfinger, who early in the film slaps a girl on the ass and tells her to leave because it's time for "Man Talk" with his agency contact.

5. George Lazenby/Roger Moore (Lazenby: On Her Majesty's Secret Service, 1969. Moore: Live and Let Die, 1973. The Man with the Golden Gun, 1974. The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977. Moonraker, 1979. For Your Eyes Only, 1981. Octopussy, 1983. A View to a Kill, 1985.)

Perhaps fans of Roger Moore (or Lazenby?) will take umbrage me placing these two actors together, but from where I sit they both play Bond almost exactly the same. Theirs is a Bond existing entirely on charm. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it's just not exactly the most compelling viewing.

If I had to characterize James Bond actors by Batman thespians I would liken Brosnan to George Clooney, Dalton to Michael Keaton, and Roger Moore and George Lazenby to Adam West. Their Bond is funny! The films aren't so much thrillers as lightweight spoofs of earlier Bond films, like Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice, where the gadgets and secret volcano lairs are starting to take precedence over the story. This probably reaches it's height with 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, which features a car/submarine, an underwater superfort, and a Russian secret agent Bond girl with the codename "XXX."

Moore and Lazenby's Bonds are charming. They woo women with relative ease, a smile and quip, and kill off their enemies with the same. Still, while I found Lazenby's performance charming (not to mention Telly Savalas and Diana Rigg owning the screen when they were on it) On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a terrible terrible movie. There are low budget Disney films from this period with better rear screen projection synching than the ski chase scenes, the editing is terrible, the courtship scene is mismanaged, the music is misused (Louis Armstrong? wtf?) and the pacing is some of the worst in Bond film history.

4. Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights, 1987. License to Kill, 1989)

Timothy Dalton never seems to get a fair shake from Bond fans. That's okay, he can take solace in the fact that he played the character as a character, rather than the cliches. It doesn't help that Dalton's Bond saw the end of the cold war, as well (with 1987's The Living Daylights being the last real cold war era Bond film).

Dalton's Bond is largely a solitary psychopath, a critical reading of Fleming's character, but with silly gadgets. It works best in Living Daylights, an odd duck of a film, with currents of political intrigue you rarely see in Bond films. Unfortunately, except in the movie Vertigo, people really don't want to watch a movie with a psychopathic protagonist.

3. David Niven/Woody Allen/ Peter Sellers/Et al. (Casino Royale, 1967)

The 1967 film Casino Royale is an out-and-out farce that at times spoofs James Bond, and at other times seems to just want to revel in the swinging 60s of What's New Pussycat? It imagines a world where all Western spies have been renamed James Bond and are equipped with the most ridiculous gadgets. Called out of retirement is the original Bond (played by a stuttering, refined David Niven) who eschews these gadget crazed wannabes, looks for his daughter, and takes on, amongst other things, Communists, UFOs, and Orson Welles (as magician and psychotropic torturer Le Chiffre).

2. Sean Connery (Dr. No, 1962. From Russia With Love, 1963. Goldfinger, 1964. Thunderball, 1965. You Only Live Twice, 1967. Diamonds Are Forever, 1971. Never Say Never Again, 1983.)

The best of the "classic" Bonds and the first.

Connery is at his best in the first few films, where he casino hops while sucking on cigarettes and seems generally disinterested in the whole affair; like a handsome Humphrey Bogart, who could barely give a shit if the world burns as long as he gets to drink, womanize, and play with Her Majesty's cash. His salvation as an action hero is his desperation. Connery's Bond is best in action when he looks like he's about to shit his pants; sure Connery's Bond is inherently self destructive, but when it comes down to it, his instinct for self preservation takes precedence over his desire to destroy himself. Because of this he's a terrible spy, as all his villains seem to already know who he is from his hedonistic manner, but when the chips are down it's his quick thinking that allows him to survive and complete the mission. But his fear of death in these scenes is palpable, writ large in his eyes, and feeling that fear along with him gives the films an urgency that later installments lack.

One of my favorite Bond films is actually the non-canonical remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again, where an aging Bond, now mostly relegated to instruction, is reinstated for one more mission. Connery, his hair thinning, and physical abilities fading, perfectly recaptures Bond's humanity in the face of the absurdity, something totally lacking in the Roger Moore comedy-Bond films it competed with. It's a good contrast with the last two films he made officially for the series, You Only Live Twice, and Diamonds are Forever, both of which play out much more cartoonishly than the earlier films, and I'm tempted to lump in Goldfinger and Thunderball for their "passenger ejector seat" and "jetpack" sequences respectively. Still Connery is the classic Bond, he's fantastic, and the crowd pleaser, but he's not my number one.

1. Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, 2006. Quantum of Solace, 2008.)

2006 saw the series "reboot" from the ground up with Daniel Craig as a newly minted James Bond who receives his 007 number in the opening credits. Quantum of Solace continues the character's ongoing adventures in the first sequel to maintain continuity with previous entries.

Quantum of Solace sure is a dumb name for an actioner, and it's apparently taken from a James Bond short story where James Bond is at a Christmas Party in New York (or something like that) and reflects on how great life is. Or something. It didn't sound interesting enough to read, actually. But I did like Quantum of Solace the movie, and what I liked about it especially was Daniel Craig's portrayal of James Bond. There's a scene near the end, where Craig--whose Bond is like a meaner, beefier, Jason Bourne in action scenes--escapes from M's cadre of MI6 agents by smoothly hopping over some hotel rails and walking along some ledges; one of those awesome developing moments the series reboot has made to Craig's rough-edged Bond slowly becoming the Connery Bond.

And that's why Daniel Craig's Bond really is the best. Because he's not stagnant. He's in the process of becoming the smooth self-loather. In Casino Royale, Craig's proto-Bond is a fairly ruthless killing machine who falls for the wrong woman. When you watch this movie, don't listen too much to the dialogue, just watch his face, and Craig's processing of the emotional cues his character is going through. As great as Connery is, his Bond really doesn't give a shit, and therefore can't really evolve as a character, which eventually means that the villains and spectacle of the series had to take over to keep public interest.

I enjoyed Craig's Bond so much in Royale that I actually made my own cut of the film, attempting to remove elements that were bloated or too sappy (which defines much of the final half hour to 45 minutes of the film) and present a more cohesive narrative. It was tricky, since I didn't have any access to deleted scenes or other footage at the time, and the quality of the video was relatively low, but I'm satisfied with it now. As an academic exercise, it was tremendous fun.

Bond's evolution continues in Quantum of Solace. Reading reviews of the film, I was surprised at how all the negative reviews were disappointed at the lack of familiar Bond conventions--when a lack of traditional conventions is what is necessary if the series is to survive beyond the level of self parody (which reached it's awful crescendo in 2002's Die Another Day). While I was disappointed in the frenetic, clusterfuck editing, Craig's Bond is something of an emotional marvel; a total basketcase who manages to be clever and suave, but use his expression of these qualities as a way of masking pain and anger.

Craig's Bond isn't so dead inside that he's pulling the cigarette sucking, womanizing, compulsive gambling behavior of Connery's Bond, but he's getting there. I only wonder if they'll find some place to take it from there once he gets there--hopefully in a direction away from the Brosnan sensitive 90s hero.

Blake's Anime Moments #3: The Death of Siegfried Kircheis

2008-09-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is an epic series spanning over 100 episodes in the regular series, and eventually perhaps more in side stories that the original author has written at the bequest of rabid fans. The show is a space opera in the truest sense, a series of melodramatic tragedies set against the background of gigantic space battles between capitol ships resulting in the deaths of millions of soldiers. One of the reasons I love Galactic Heroes is that it never attempts to rise above the melodrama, to pontificate about life or elevate itself to the height of great literature, beyond simply reveling in the struggles of its characters against their circumstances. It is pure, flat-out, melodrama set in space, with virtually all the music taken from classical symphonies and operas.

Most of the battles are fought on such a supremely large scale (fleets ships firing lasers at each other from ridiculously long distances away) that the series focuses mostly on the admirals and ship commanders, engaged as much in political struggles as they are in the actual battles. There are some occasional scenes that focus on fighter pilots and hand-to-hand fighters (who use giant battle-axes, for which the series goes to great lengths to create a reason why they can't just shoot each other with laser guns) but these are mostly meant to add flavor to the created universe.

As such there are many memorable moments to choose from, I'm tempted to choose the death of Robert Jean Lappe. Lappe dies in the first half hour of the show, but the consequences of his death reverberate throughout the series, with many flashbacks of memories of times the character shared with one of the series' two protagonists, Yang Wen-Li. In addition, Lappe's widow becomes a political figure in the wake of his death, creating ripples in the political waters that Yang must navigate. Lappe, a military advisor, dies when the hotblooded captain of the ship he's stationed on ignores Lappe's advice, sending the ship into a suicidal maneuver--a large theme of Galactic Heroes seems to be that the virtuous be destroyed by the incompetent and the greedy, for whom social standing is more important than human life.

But it's the death of Siegfried Kircheis that really gets to me. On the opposite side of the war, the story follows the driven Field Marshal Reinhardt von Lohengramm, who seeks to overthrow the Emperor, who took Reinhardt's sister for a concubine when he was a young boy. Admiral Siegfried Kircheis' relationship to Reinhardt falls somewhere between devoted manservant and best friend; the distinction between the two seeming to be lost on Reinhardt, who equally seeks Kircheis' advice and derides him if it isn't to his wishing. Kircheis for his part, isn't entirely altruistic in his devotion to Reinhardt; on the day she was taken from Reinhardt's home, Reinhardt's sister, Annerose, asked Kircheis to look out for her brother, and Kircheis is probably more devoted to her than her brother, ambitions be damned.

As the two of them rise through the Imperial navy, Kircheis never fails not to step on Reinhardt's toes (though in a few scenes it's implied that Kircheis is the better strategist of the two). As Reinhardt becomes more powerful, his decision making in the war becomes less humane, beginning to cause a rift between him and the kind hearted Kircheis. This rift is widened by Reinhardt's political strategist Paul von Oberstein, who sees Reinhardt's favoring of Kircheis as a sign of weakness that may be exploited in Reinhardt's quest for power. Yet, as Reinhardt becomes more and more powerful, Kircheis can be seen as his most powerful link to humanity.

With success within Reinhardt's grasp, he finally relents to Oberstein's wishes that Kircheis, like all the other Admirals, may not go armed into Reinhardt's presence. On that same day, in the audience chamber, when Reinhardt is the subject of an assassination attempt by some captured enemy commanders, Kircheis, naturally, intercedes, but is dealt a deathblow by the would-be assassin. The other Admirals call for medical assistance, but Kircheis bleeds out in a few minutes.

But it's what happens after that, that I find so disturbing. Reinhardt watches the whole procession from his tiny throne in shock. With Kircheis already clearly dead, he finally steps down, and the whole world falls away into black except for him and the body of Kircheis. But in this, Reinhardt's mind, Kircheis is not yet dead, and instructs Reinhardt that he must "win the universe" and that he has kept his promise to Annerose. In this way, Reinhardt subconsciously absolves himself of all the guilt on his part for the death of his greatest ally and emotional support. It also becomes clear in this scene, that more than anyone, Reinhardt loved Kircheis, making the blow that much harsher, which also clears the way for his worst excesses as both an eratic leader and a violent strategist.

When I watched the end of that episode I curled into a little ball on my bed and said, "no no no no no no no no."

Anime Moment #4: Cowboy Bebop - Green Bird

2008-09-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

"Green Bird" is the name of a song that plays just once in the much loved TV series Cowboy Bebop. However, the scene in which "Green Bird" plays is a brilliant piece of cinema and synthesizes the overarching hook of the series' plot as well as crystallizing the emotional essence of it's lead character, Spike Spiegel.

Cowboy Bebop follows the adventures of a group of four individuals (and a genius dog) who form a kind of bounty hunting collective, traveling space in freighter known as The Bebop and collecting bounties on a large variety of criminals (who must be brought in alive). Bebop is a mix of stand-alone episodes, which have no real impact on the overall story, except perhaps to enhance the tone and richness of the series; and overarching story driven episodes which create the context for character actions and motivations.

The characters are: impulsive and brash martial arts fighter and fighter pilot Spike Spiegel; Jet Black, a balding ex-cop with a wry sense of humor, a cybernetic arm, and owner of The Bebop; Faye Valentine, a narcistic, pessimistic beauty with a bad gambling habit; Radical Edward, 13 year old androgynous genius hacker; and Ein, a cybernetically enhanced dog. The characters of the show are fixated on events that happened 3 years ago, events that changed their lives, and eventually led them to living and working together.

Firefly fans probably owe a huge debt to Cowboy Bebop and it's rowdier sister show, Outlaw Star, for much of the setting and scenario of Joss Whedon's sci-fi post-civil war show are borrowed from these shows. For anime fans, Cowboy Bebop owes a lot to Lupin III, as many of the character designs reference the characters from the long running series about the gadget-using master thief (Spike is a strange amalgamation of Lupin III and Bruce Lee, and Jet Black is very similar to Lupin's right hand man, Daisuke Jigen).

The "Green Bird" scene happens at the end of the episode "Ballad of Fallen Angels." The episode is distinctive in that it's one of the few that focus directly on Spike's past, but it's incredibly spare on exposition--whereas episodes about Jet, Faye, or Radical Edward often offer a summing up of some aspect of their character, the Spike episodes require the viewer to use contextual clues to fill in his background.

"Ballad" as an episode raises the stakes for the series as a whole, and puts the arc for it's lead character, Spike Spiegel, into motion. In the episode we are introduced to Spike's nemesis, Vicious. For a character with such a small amount of screen time in the series Vicious makes his mark: a member of the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate, he's a visually haunting character with his white hair, wiry build, bags under his eyes--his anachronistic use of a samurai sword against opponents with firearms has the kind of surreal chillingly cold blooded quality that only works in animation; in live action films or television, that kind of thing just comes off as silly, but here he is simply a deadly viper ready and waiting to strike.

The episode opens with Vicious killing Mao Yenrai, a higher up in the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate on Mars who has been trying to broker a deal with other criminal groups for peace. Shortly thereafter, a bounty on Mao shows up online, prompting the ire of Spike, interest from Faye, and caution from Jet, who beleives something is fishy about the situation. The situation ends up being a trap set for Spike by Vicious, for whom Mao was a kind of father figure; a trap that Faye walks into, and she ends up being captured and held in a church where Vicious (and a sizeable group of gunmen) lie in wait for Spike to show up.

What results is a gunfight almost straight out of a John Woo movie, ripping sizable holes in the church pews and blasting chips out of the stone pillars. After saving Faye, Spike rushes to confront Vicious on a balcony above. After some dialogue about both of them being "beasts. . . desiring the blood of others" and the two wounding each other, Vicious throws Spike through the window, and the song "Green Bird" replaces any previous audio as the last thing Spike does is to drop a grenade on the floor near Vicious before breaking through the glass.

This is the moment. As Spike falls, the shattered stained glass is a visual metaphor for the processes of his memory, matched literally by the life that flashes before his (and our) eyes. We are treated to fragments of the life he had before that pivotal moment three years ago moments captured in quick cuts in black and white tinted yellow, and shots from a scene that preceded the first episode tinted in blue of Spike in gunfight with numerous opponents: (these are not necessarily in order) domestic shots of a simple apartment, a woman with blond hair (who we later discover is Julia, Spike's lost love) Spike and Vicious fighting back to back, more of Julia, Julia with Vicious, Spike firing a machine gun against a group of armed thugs, him falling unconscious to the ground on a city street, as Julia looks on from an open door, etc.

The whole sequence, a fragmented montage less than two minutes long, creates the emotional context for the character's relationship with the antagonist Vicious--they were once comrades, a woman was involved; one can easily extrapolate the rest, or close enough to it. It's a rare example of "pure cinema" where the visuals and music on their own tell the story without the interruption of dialogue. In addition, though more material is added later, these scenes aren't really extrapolated upon. The sequence stands on its own as one of the few intrusions into Spike's past, a rare glimpse of memories that define his character; almost an anathema in popular film and television (including anime, where flashbacks can save a lot of money by using the same animation over and over).

Here's the whole scene, including the gunfight that precedes the "Green Bird" sequence (I apologize for the quality, this was the best I could find with subtitles):

Here is a link to a slightly better quality version of that at youtube.com:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUscM7jL-rw&fmt=18

And here's the "Green Bird" scene by itself:

High quality at Youtube.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9POYDoHXUX0&fmt=18

Tomorrow (or possibly Saturday): The Death of Sigfried Kircheis

Blake's Top Anime Moments: #5 Third Impact

2008-09-09T08:04:00.000-07:00

So I decided to do one of these a day, for the next five days. It's my favorite 5 moments in anime. I'm a huge anime fan. I think that the best anime is able to express things that other formats or cinematic styles miss; sometimes due to differences in culture. Sometimes this is due to the technical limits of live action production, or budgetary constraints, and sometimes due to limiting pressures from higher ups (producers, etc). In any case, let's begin:

5. Third Impact - End of Evangelion

I was recently on a forum where the subject of great anime, and obscure anime came up, and there was a lot of discussion, mostly negative, about the TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion. In a lot of ways, I think Evangelion gets a bad rap for its massive over exposure and the over zealousness of its diehard fanbase. Then there are those who are offended by the use of Christian iconography, which tends to have a polarizing effect, often striking serious discord with those with a conservative Christian background or staunch atheist beliefs (or as I noted on the forum, no one ever gets up in arms about copycat series like Rahxephon that drop the Christian/Kaballah motifs, but keep the weirdness).

Of course, the rabid fanbase is often purely obsessed with the iconography and trying to decipher it's meaning. But realistically, it's simply a literary device used at the discretion of series director and writer Hideaki Anno, who was reportedly heavily influenced by the writing of C.G. Jung during the production; the use of icons (probably influenced heavily by Jung's Aion) gave Anno the leeway to peer directly into the heads of his teenage trauma victims.

A brief synopsis: Neon Genesis Evangelion takes place in fifteen years after the aftermath of a global catastrophe called Second Impact, that is explained away as a extinction-event meteor strike that wiped out a significant portion of humanity in the year 2000 (the show aired originally in 1995). Ikari Shinji, 14, is called upon by his estranged father, the head of the secretive research organization NERVE, to pilot an Evangelion (which at first appears to be a giant robot but is later revealed to be more organic in nature) against The Angels, giant lifeforms of alien appearance.

Shinji is placed in school with other Evangelion pilots (including impetuous German/Japanese exchange student Asuka Langley-Soryu, the doll-like Ayanami Rei, and later, the sympathetic Nagisa Kaworu). As the series moves forward, especially into it's second half, it takes more and more of an introspective turn, becoming more philosophical, perhaps reaching its climax with the second (of two) theatrical films that followed the TV series, End of Evangelion (which many fans take to be a replacement for the last two episodes of the TV show).

In terms of series continuity, I've always assumed, from contextual clues, that End of Evangelion was contiguous with the series, that is to say it provides a literal set of events that occur before or during the last two episodes of the TV show; the last two episodes are deliberately vague, and have a psychologically metatextual element to them. (I recommend watching the show in this order:

1. Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV show) Episodes 1-24

2. Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death (Death is the first part of the first theatrical Evangelion movie, Death and Rebirth. skip the Rebirth section, since it's the included in End of Evangelion).

3. End of Evangelion

4. Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV show) Episodes 25-26)

My favorite moment has been captured on youtube (I've included a clip below).

On it's own it's quite interesting. It begins with a domestic scene between Asuka and Shinji, with him begging her to save him, and her repudiating his claims. In the context of the series and film, it inhabits an odd space, since Asuka is almost certainly dead at this point, which means the situation is either a flashback (possibly accounting for her completely comatose state at the beginning of the movie) an hallucination, or exists somehow outside of rational space. Shinji begs her to accept him, and Asuka's dialogue indicates that she's projecting as much of her issues with herself as those she actually has with him. When she finally rejects him completely, Shinji strangles her, then the world ends. Literally.

Humans dissolve into soup, as spectres of Ayanami Rei are transformed into the people they most want to see (often those already dead or objects of unrequited love). Shinji's father's head is bitten off, after he holds a brief discussion with his long dead wife about why he rejects his son, by an apparition of the Evangelion Shinji piloted; the whole sequence begins with drawings by children of horrible events flashing on the screen, just the painted part of some of the animation is shown; and Shinji screams in flashes of Brakhage-like static.

Here's the scene itself:

At youtube.com it's here.

Tomorrow: Spike Spiegel falls through the stained glass window on Mars in "Ballad of Fallen Angels."

Unfinished Post: Review: Kids Media

2008-07-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

I accidentally started writing a review of Naruto, an anime series that I've been watching in a chat message with a friend. The general theme of which was that the animation was frequently spectacular, the fight scenes were stretched out a bit too long, the character development was good but naive in terms of the villains' homicidal motivations, but that the world building and design was fantastic, especially the level of depth given to character relationships and how the ninja world shaped them. What I realized a day later was that I was looking at the series with a poor critical eye, and that what I had seen as detractions were actually strengths for the format that Naruto is intended.

Naruto was created originally as a comic for the giant Japanese omnibus Shonen Jump, published by Shueisha. Shonen Jump is released weekly in Japan (though it's U.S. counterpart is released less frequently) and contains a number of different ongoing individual titles. "Shonen" means boy, and for the comics demographic denotes a comic designed around certain themes aimed at young boys. With this in mind, Naruto is actually at the top of its game, which I'll get more into later.

Popular kids media is virtually always panned by critics--for a variety of reasons. Kids media that isn't panned is generally made for adults, or is "family oriented." Pixar, in particular makes great family films (The Incredibles) or children's films for adults (Ratatouille) and marginally good kids films. Part of this has to do with the nature of children's media, and the difference between what kids want, and what adult groups think is good for kids. I had the privilege to take a course in college in children's book illustration and writing. One of the first things that we did was read a series of articles on children's media--the details of which I will relate (sadly I don't have the articles anymore, so I can't provide sources).

There is a tendency, in adult critical readers of children's material, to want to protect and guide children that supercedes (or outright ignores) what children actual want from a narrative. Critical awards for children's media almost always have the same thematic elements:

1. The child protagonist is forced to deal with emotional issues (often tied to death and grieving) that puts them emotionally out of their depth, and they are unable to turn to their peers for understanding, as a matter of fact they become more isolated.

2. A kind and wise adult helps them work through their issues, which also allows them to socialize better.

3. They are often stand-alone volumes where the problem is completely solved by the end of the book.

If you're the kind of person who remembers the emotional reality of childhood, you probably see the problem inherent in this kind of story, and the problem that it has in relation to kids. It's damned condescending, is the problem! And kids hate to be talked down to. Year after year, teachers tried to get me to read Newberry award winning books, and year after year I would read about twenty pages and then get bored, and pass them up for some series of books that were poorer in the quality of writing, but had stories that were more exciting. The article went on to describe the kind of books that kids actually like to read (the example used in the article was the Animorphs series):

1. A group of children are faced with an extraordinary, often fantastical challenge.

2. Adults are not only disbelieving of the existence of the problem or challenge, but are often bumbling, even stupid, and hinder the children's attempts to solve the problem.

3. Only by working together as a group, and pooling their physical and emotional resources, are the kids able to deal not only with the problems of the plot, but also any emotional difficulties that arise during the story.

4. They are often extended series, with many many volumes, which allows the kids to return to the same characters and scenario with which they've become attached.

Naturally, this kind of story is problematic for many critics and teachers, since it promotes the autonomy of children and often subconsciously threatens their position of authority. Additionally, because there are so many of them, they tend to be poorer written and mass produced, often with sections that are almost directly lifted from one book to the next. However, what critics often fail to recognize in regards to criticism of these popular children's books is that they promote teamwork, open communication, problem solving, truthfullness, and personal responsibility. Similarly the lifted elements from episode to episode are the smoke screen through which life lessons are taught by the series', they provide an exciting context for the character's more mundane learning experiences.

There are some exceptions to the rule, of course; Daniel Handler, under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket, crafted a fantastic and clever series in A Series of Unfortunate Events that was acclaimed both by adults--for its clever satirical writing style--and kids.

The 4s

2008-07-17T11:01:00.000-07:00

REVIEW NO. 7: THE 4’S (AND ONE 6)

No, this isn’t a review of Ilya Khrzhanovsky's heartbreaking and difficult to watch film, 4, about the plight of working class people in contemporary Russia; this is a review of franchise reboots and explorations, most often a trilogy that started in the 80s and continued into the 90s, but then languished during the period that saw the rise of TV commercial and music video directors. Recently we’ve seen a number of 4s, Indy 4, Die Hard 4, Alien 4--each of these which shares similar traits and properties. It’s not necessary for a film to be the fourth in the series for me to qualify it as a “4” (as I may use examples later) but the specific tropes you’ll see are very prevalent in these sets of 4s.

The 4th installment of a series used to mean the complete collapse of dignity. The first film, often a surprise hit, would be followed by a lackluster, often bigger budget sequel. Then a direct to video release of the third films, often a rehash of the original plot with a fraction of the budget. Then, when the 4s roll around, only a true connoisseur of B cinema is really willing to watch them. If the lead was still around this long, he (or she) would almost certainly have left by the sequel titled 4. If this sounds strange search the number “4” on Netflix and see what comes up. But this new rash of 4s is different, a series of semi-nostalgic, big budget action flicks that update the series at the expense of dignity, but maintain their high profile status.

The first true 4 is probably Lethal Weapon 4, which shares many of the positive and negative traits of the 4 movies. To begin with, after an extended leave of absence, by the time the series returns to its heroes, they are finally beginning to feel their age: “we’re getting too old for this shit.” But there is a paradox here, because in engaging in another adventure, though they are feeling their age, the heroes are more invincible than they have ever been (the action sequences in Lethal Weapon 4 are both the most fantastic and fantastical in the series). In Lethal Weapon 4, after having dodged bullets and killed just about everyone of consequence who isn’t a major player, Jet Li is taken down by two aging Los Angeles cops who now both complain about being “too old for this shit.” They also get a new comedy sidekick, Chris Rock’s Butters, who becomes the human fetish object for the mortality that the series heroes no longer have. Chris Rock’s character can be hurt or killed (whereas Joe Pesci’s Leo Getz only gets hurt in funny ways) and therefore provides the audience with a sense of mortality and danger, because the audience knows that nothing can happen to the heroes. In this sense, the heroes’ mortality from the initial films of the series is transfered to the mortal sidekick: Justin Long in Die Hard 4, Shia Lebeouf in Indy 4, Chris Rock in Lethal Weapon 4.

One of the main problems that often carries over in 4s, that is heavily problematic in Lethal Weapon 4, is the continuation of outmoded or politically incorrect viewpoints or beliefs that would have been acceptable when the series started. Lethal Weapon 4 is heavy on it’s racist double standard--it wants the viewer to see the Chinese immigrants as human beings, but has the same characters who defended them in one scene, torture the Chinese villain and mock his accent and Chinese heritage in another. The message comes across kind of like, “Chinese people are either unfortunate people who must be helped because they get duped into becoming slaves, or they are villainous entrepreneurs who can’t be trusted--or Jet Li as a psychopath.”

The other “4” problem that Lethal Weapon 4 has is the problem of stylistic synthesis. 4s have to synthesize their previous film style with contemporary film styles in order to remain relevant. This can work fine for much of the film, as stylistically, this often merely involves a slight change in the style of editing or effects processing. In Lethal Weapon 4, it meant the inclusion of Hong Kong style martial arts action.

The problem here is that the series has already established series hero Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) as a dyed-in-the-wool Martial Arts badass from his Special Forces training for his tour in Vietnam. However, the attempts to match Riggs’ previous martial arts prowess (a series of punches and spinning kicks) against Jet Li, one of the finest talents of Hong Kong martial arts cinema, fall very flat, even when assisted by brawler Murtaugh (Danny Glover). A consistent problem of 4s is the inability to accurately synthesize their old filmmaking style with contemporary styles.

In this sense, one of the best of the 4s is Rocky Balboa. Not technically a 4 (the sixth in the series, for those counting) it still manages many of the themes the best. What Rocky 6 manages to do so well, is to take Rocky from being an over the hill boxer, and turn him into a 4-style hero over the course of the training section of the movie. By the end of the training section, where Rocky now looks like the Incredible Hulk’s angrier caucasian brother, you can honestly believe that Rocky can and will be the invincible hero.

For much of Rocky 6, it matches the heart of Rocky’s story with a stylishly washed out look and a strange sort of narrative abstraction--where the story is secondary to the emotional reality of the characters--matching contemporary stylistic choices (like the use of HBO and FX style boxing video presentation) with the heart of what made the franchise memorable (Rocky’s never-say-die attitude). As a matter of fact Rocky 6 only falters when it goes too contemporary, when a lot of the fight is truncated in a spot-colored MTV-style montage that places the audience at an emotional distance from what had previously been a much more personal film. Even this hardly breaks the film, though it makes its reality, where Rocky Balboa, not aging too gracefully, is able to tie with the current heavyweight champion of the world, much much harder to swallow.

Perhaps the biggest problem for 4s is attrition through shadow or knockoff continuation. A great example is the Bruce Willis vehicle Hostage (and maybe 16 Blocks, though I haven’t seen it). In Hostage, Willis plays an aging sheriff who used to be a hostage negotiator before a bad break. Willis’ character is forced to come out of retirement to help some kids locked into a house with some serious baddies while some other baddies have kidnapped his wife and daughter and are holding them hostage to force Willis to act in their interest. Hostage is, in effect, another Die Hard movie, but one with a more mature and human John McClane, who can either no longer really do the superhuman stuff or is emotionally mature enough to realize that it’s no longer the best way to get things done. Essentially what you end up seeing in Hostage, and many films catering to the popular image of film stars, are the characters from previous films slightly repackaged into different roles. For some fun with this, check out a youtube video of Harrison Ford characters talking about rescuing their wife and family:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9GwtRsOYSI

The problem with this in the terms of the 4s is that since the 4s series are often the most iconic, and most represent the ideal of the character these actors are known for, the stakes are raised exponentially higher. The hero can no longer be simply human but must, in every way, become something that transcends humanity, while at the same time exemplifying it, hence the necessity of a character who carries the hero’s mortality for them, allowing them to be superhuman.

This makes the narrative a problem, and can force it in odd directions. One way this seems to manifest is through a kind of strange narrative abstraction, where the plot--which in previous films had been paramount to the structure--often makes strange narrative leaps. What is interesting is that while the plot appears to simply pass over expository scenes that would have previously been necessary, the audience doesn’t generally mind, because the confidence they have engendered in the main character is so strong that they can now trust him to fill in the narrative gaps, to be able to read the necessary clues in the ether around them. Much of these films, when examined on a point for point basis in their plot do not make a great deal of narrative sense.

The time removed from scenes of exploration or exposition seems split between a nostalgic rehash of previous exploits or direct references (most blatantly the Ark of the Covenant in the warehouse in Indy 4) more frequent action set-pieces, or an elaboration on the narrative abstraction with an emotional one, where the focus seems to shift from the physical reality of the action to the emotional reality of it; long slow motion shots of character’s faces in the middle of action scenes where you can see the hurt. In Die Hard 4 this is exemplified by the enemies McClain fights being more than human, and in some cased terrifically difficult to kill--and while this is patently unrealistic, it helps underscore the emotional reality, the immense sense of difficulty, of the character’s task.

Another aspect of this narrative ambiguity or abstraction is the colossal sense of narrative anticlimax when the ending finally occurs. This is particularly true of Indy 4 (though the anti-climactic fight at the end of Rocky 6, the old-west-style showdown at the end of Die Hard 4, and the underwater life-saving sequence at the end of Lethal Weapon 4 are all astoundingly prosaic as well). The endings are profoundly matter-of-fact when compared with the impossibility of the action that has just preceded them. Never moreso than Indy 4, where Indy and co. are spectators to the events that occur when Cate Blanchett rushes forward to commune with the aliens, no longer even focal to the story at that point--they are ultimately reduced to observers of a phenomenon that they cannot plausibly verify with the disappearance of the space ship, there are no physical trophies or treasures to take home. Even the line spoken by Ford’s Jones that “Knowledge was their treasure, their treasure was knowledge.” rings hollow, since that knowledge is not passed on to the heroes themselves, but is whisked away to another dimension.

What the 4s ultimately amount to is the final transfiguration of the action hero legend into myth. The characters fantastic series of stories begin with the characters being, at least in some respect, human. One 4 that I haven’t mentioned up until now that works especially well in this regard is Alien Resurrection; in which Ellen Ripley is literally no longer human; an Alien/human hybrid, she’s better than both, but not completely approachable to either. She becomes a mix of mythic elements, sacred and profane, untouchable and unknowable; uncanny in aspect but still emotionally available to the audience. Yet one of the fascinating things about Ripley is that initially she was not exceptional--it is though her encounters that she becomes so.

Perhaps the easiest example of this is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull because the creators (George Lucas at the very least) were aware of the mythological import of what they were creating--if not in the character of Jones himself, then the treasures he seeks. The process is fairly simple.

The initial story is fairly simple, an exceptional man versus impossible odds manages to win the day/get the girl/find the treasure/etc. What makes the films that start the 4 series interesting is that there is a major focus on the humanity of the characters. It is their inherent human qualities that make them fascinating to begin with. That Jones is a man who feels pain, who isn’t the biggest and the strongest, who uses his grit and cleverness to win, who makes mistakes is what endears him to us; likewise John McClain’s attitude, his smartass irascibility, and his never-say-die grit. The humanity of the characters gives them ample room to grow into their eventual mythological icons.

With further episodes the stories get more intense, the villains get more wicked, and the series invariably go more over the top. What separates the 4s from most regular series is the timeframe between films, which allow the expectation to build up. In the case of Indy 4, it’s even worse. Not only does Indy 4 have to live up to the expectations of Harrison Ford’s extended characterization, but to an entire mythology of media that exists parallel to the film series. Books, comics, video games, and lets not forget the Young Indiana Jones television series, in which Indiana Jones travels so extensively as a youth that he encounters virtually anyone and everyone of consequence. This corresponds with mythic creation--while the initial story remains primary to the saga, as other myths generate around it and augment it, the character becomes more and more surreal.

As each series’ extended backstory gets more intense, so too does the need for a more explosive sequel, should one be made. The characters have nowhere to go but towards physical invulnerability, which forces the creators to craft an emotional vulnerability for them by creating an emotional surrogate (McClain’s spunky daughter is kidnapped, Shia Lebeouf’s Mutt is Indy’s son, Ellen Ripley’s connection with Winona Ryder’s Call, etc.) and a mortal one (Mutt again, Justin Long, Call and the rest of the smuggler crew). In some respects this marginalizes the action potential of the 4s. SInce they are destined to win, their lack of mortality makes them less interesting to watch unless the challenge is ridiculous. In Indy 4, this manifests with a lot of action pieces centering around Shia Lebeouf’s Mutt, in Die Hard 4, Justin Long’s reactions to the carnage created by the unstoppable McClain, in Alien 4, Ron Pearlman’s space-barbarian Jonner is taken aback by Ripley’s savagery, and in Rocky 6, the emotional consequences played out in Rocky’s new girl. Ultimately the mythic hero becomes so powerful that they can no longer maintain a narrative--if their story continues, they become, as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, an aged messiah waiting in the wings to step in when necessary, and step back out when the new heroes have got their shit back together. It’s a role Ellen Ripley already played in Alien 4, and one Indy is primed to play in the next film in the series.

George Lucas has already speculated on making a series of Mutt movies, you can guess what sort of role Indy might have in those.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

2008-06-23T19:12:00.000-07:00

The first review on this blog was Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Well, realistically it was a dual review of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2, both of which were released as extras with the special edition of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. This was part of my gearing up for the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which was the entire reason I wanted to purchase a PS3--which should give you a fair indication of what I huge fan I am of the series--I decided to play every game that I could in the series canon in order (actually I missed Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops because I don't own a PSP, but I watched the cut scenes on Youtube: yes I am that big of a nerd). I'm writing this as a way of a preamble to inform you of my fandom before I get to the actual review itself, so that there can't be any doubt about my enthusiasm for the games and the way it will (that's "will" not "may") color the review. I had actually decided before not to do a review of this game because I couldn't see a way that I could really subjectively compare it to other games, since it seems to exist entirely in its own sphere. But isn't the fact that my reaction is so strong to this game enough that it says something very specific about the game itself, perhaps something that could be examined further.

And now that I'm on my second play-through, and I'm examining the game in more thorough detail, I feel like I might be able to fashion something that does my feelings on the game more justice that "Oh My God it's fucking awesome!" So without further ado:

REVIEW NO. 6: METAL GEAR SOLID 4: GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS

It's hard for me to qualify my feelings about Metal Gear Solid 4, because I have a lot emotionally tied to the series, and the way that the episode plays out changes a lot of the context of the entire sweeping saga of the games. The standard Metal Gear narrative has a number of surprising twists and turns that change the meaning of events that seemed much more straight forward early on, MGS4 is exemplary of this, in that the entire narrative is largely one big twist that brings every plot point from the previous games into sharp relief. On this level it is a shining beacon of continuity and creative problem solving in a narrative that made me wonder if Kojima had planned this from the moment Solid Snake emerged from the waters to Shadow Moses island in the original Metal Gear Solid. It's tied up that cleanly and is (for the most part) incredibly satisfying.

For most games, the heart of the structure is the gameplay. The Metal Gear Solid series is different in this respect, the heart is the narrative, often revealed through long non-interactive cut-scenes (Metal Gear Solid 2 tried a few times to give the player more responsibility during some expository scenes by giving them a task, like monitoring a conversation with a microphone, but these often felt frustratingly limited). These expository scenes have ranged from being impressively moving and affecting, to horribly hoaky and poorly implemented (in some cases translation issues or poor acting have been to blame in the past and these things have been cleaned up in remakes, media tie-ins, and extra material).

In the past, video games where the narrative was the focus were primarily role playing games, which digitized the same paper, pencil, and dice systems found in White Wolf and Dungeons and Dragons style games, and added a fixed narrative to them. Since the gameplay was much more basic in these games, the narratives had to fill in where the interaction was lacking. However, sometime in the mid to late 90's, graphical improvements made it possible for characters to show much more expression, and actions games began to resemble action films, but without having to worry about any sort of plausibility or realism. One of the first of those games was Metal Gear Solid, for the Playstation.

Metal Gear Solid 4 brings things around full circle. With most games in the business now obsessed with opening up "the sandbox" to let people play however they want, to whatever end they want, MGS4 narrows its focus, zeroing in on the experience of playing into a deep narrative, rather than creating a shallow one within the limits of the existing still very limited systems. The game is forcefully narrative, refreshingly so, when a lot of games focus on open-ended experiences and trying to allow the user to pick their own path. And while the "pick your own path" rhetoric is cool, as it echoes our desires for freedom from the daily grind, I don't so much see many of these games as having truly that many options (Black and White for instance, was a game that touted that you could choose to be good or evil, but made it so difficult to be good that it was virtually impossible for most gamers) but instead are offering a virtually identical experience with minor changes touted as being expansive and massively varied. This is not to say that MGS4 game is without variation.

As with the previous game, Metal Gear Solid 3, MGS4 does more to open the game up to different styles of play and ways of tackling how to get around (or take down) enemy soldiers. As much fun as it is to shoot everyone in the head with tranquilizer darts, I've had more fun throwing empty ammunition clips near enemy soldiers and then sneaking by while they look the other way. The game has also streamlined the Close Quarters Combat system it introduced in the previous game (you no longer automatically slit someone's throat if you hold the capture button down too hard). An escort mission has you shadowing, rather than leading, a character, making it much less frustrating. Even the rail shooter levels feel smoother. All in all, gameplay is vastly improved in just about every way.

If there is one consistent problem with Metal Gear Solid 4's gameplay, it's that the game controls are actually very similar to western run-and-gun games and twitch-based first person shooters. The problem therein is the temptation to try and play that way when patience and stealth are virtually always more desirable. It also makes it frustrating as hell when Snake is unable to waste a streetful of enemies at the drop of a hat--the old boy just moves too slow for that. In old Metal Gear games this wasn't a problem because the perspective was always firmly behind or above Snake, and the fire-control was iffy enough that firing unless you were sure you could get away with it was virtually always a bad idea. But as long as you remember it's a stealth game (and Otacon is quick to remind you, much to Snake's grumbling) it's a lot of fun.

But any discussion of Metal Gear Solid 4 must come back to the story, which is the foundation on which the franchise is built. This is not to say that the story is without problems. Indeed, the humor that Kojima puts in the Metal Gear Games has a tendency to remove the player from the seriousness of the mission; it's clear from the massive amount of jokes, from inside gags referencing game mechanics and previous games to some very broad scatalogical humor, that Kojima takes the game much less seriously than the primary narrative takes itself. This can be a dealbreaker for some people, as can the series inconsistent grasp of biological science. For some the character melodrama is a low point, and others, the dizzyingly complex conspiracy narrative is just too distracting to match with the action segments they've been playing. Metal Gear Solid 4 reduces an awful lot of what could be seen as the negative elements, stopping short generally where the melodrama goes too far, and explains enough of the story succinctly that much of what was confusing can be seen either as extraneous or interesting background filler, depending on one's point of view.

It's no secret that I enjoy, shall I say, strange and complex narratives that employ not entirely sensical uses of humor as a narrative device. Metal Gear's sense of humor hasn't really ever bothered me, only the over the top melodrama (particularly in Metal Gear Solid 2, which, for the first two thirds, is a mish-mash of sappy, not very intelligent, character driven angstfests). My favorite parts are the complex ways the narrative is strung together as a puzzle, laying there to be put together. It's not necessary to put the pieces together to enjoy the game, but the Metal Gear narrative as a whole is similar to narratives by my favorite, most subtle and challenging authors, film, and television creators, the puzzle's narrative is more compelling for being a puzzle, a game in itself.

One of the most powerful parts of Metal Gear Solid 4, though, something that no game has really done quite as well, are its seamless transitions from video to gameplay. The camera shifts around, fluttering slightly as it settles behind Snake as he moves forward towards the field of action. It's a sea-change in visual design for games that really says, "you're playing this movie, you are the hero." Part of it is the shakiness of it, the fluttering of the camera as if the action itself wasn't entirely certain what was going to happen next.

I look forward to whatever Kojima creates next.

EDIT: I'm on my third play-through now, this time on The Boss: Extreme mode. This mode is so punishingly difficult that stealth is an absolute necessity. If the enemy sees you, they will shoot you in the face repeatedly until you are very dead, which doesn't take nearly as long. This mode of the game also severely limits the amount of ammunition that you start with, making it necessary to conserve as much as possible, and sneak everywhere.

Playing it this way makes it seem like this is the way the game was meant to be played--which is odd since this mode must be unlocked. However, I understand why they didn't go with this being the default setting because I'm sure it would alienate many gamers who don't want to commit the effort to completing something that is just that hard. I'll admit that I'm a games completionist, and generally when I play a game, want to get and do everything in it. Metal Gear Solid 4 is definitely a game that complements a completionist style of gameplay, since the environments are so expansive, and the enemies can be tackled in a multitude of different ways. It's also a game for completionists in that the nerdiness required to strive for that completion is similar to the nerdiness required to enjoy unwinding the threads of the complicated and convoluted plot.

In short, The Boss: Extreme mode is occasionally frustrating, but the most rewarding mode that I've played of the game. I suppose I should say something about Metal Gear Online, which is its own game, but a limited version of it was packaged with MGS4. So far I've only played the beta, and don't necessarily look forward to the ten hours of MGO gameplay that I'll need to complete MGS4 (since there is an item you can only get after playing for 10 hours).

What's wrong with MGO? Well, it's pretty fun actually. However, the massive amount of dicks that I played with in the beta made the game unpleasant. It doesn't help that the game encourages dickery with a fiery passion. I myself am a big fan of the tranquilizer weapons, which are pretty awesome. However, using them is a real dick move, because when you put someone to sleep with a tranquilizer, they actually are asleep longer than it would take to respawn if you simply killed them--and often, after being traquilized, another character will come along and either shoot them in the head, or use the knife, which is so slow and deliberate that it's a really humiliating way to be taken out.

I like the tranq weapons, which have a certain amount of dickitude attached to them in the online game, and I consider myself one of the more polite players in the game. Spawn camping was a big issue in most of the games I played, as was friendly fire (which a small amount of damage, but makes it difficult to aim or remain hidden). I also am not a huge fan of online gaming, which lacks a story and requires an extensive amount of effort to get anywhere near good. When playing games I would rather be able to work towards a more final goal. So yeah, I didn't like the MGO beta, but then I'm not a fan of online play.

Vampirism and Misogyny in American Teen fiction

2008-06-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

REVIEW NO. 6: TWILIGHT by STEPHANIE MEYER

When I started to read Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer, I was struck by the author's ability to turn a phrase; I was surprised by the economy of language she used to put the small town of Forks (which I am familiar with because my brother got married in a small rustic lodge five miles away) into perspective. It was a surprisingly understated approach to a teen perspective that effortlessly put you into the head of a girl forced by circumstances to spend time in a place she didn't want to be.

As a matter of fact, the initial build of tension in the novel was very strong, with a lot of rising tension as the lead character (accident prone Bella) investigates the strange and beautiful Cullen kids that don't eat, isolate themselves from other students, and one of whom fixes her with a murderous stare the first day she's in class with him. This slow burn is very effective, and is the strongest part of the novel. However, it's completely undone simply by looking at the rear jacket cover, which contains an excerpt from the hamfisted second part of the novel (p. 195):

About three things I was absolutely positive. First Edward was a vampire. Second there was part of him -- and I didn't know how potent that part might be --that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Bella's attraction to Edward, and her "love" for him makes no sense at all. Their dialogue is more than stilted, it's terribly uncomfortable, and Edward does nothing but mock Bella and complain about how they shouldn't be together the entire novel. The whole thing is perfectly encapsulated by this comic strip from the web comic Head Trip by comic artist Shinga (at left or at http://headtripcomics.comicgenesis.com/d/20080505.html). This is the primary problem of the novel itself, that the romantic tension necessary between Bella and Edward simply isn't there. This might have worked if the emotions described had added up to physical lust, which is something similar to what is described, but the writing here just doesn't ring true. It's as if Meyer is trying to force teenage lust into being romantic love, and trying to force the audience to buy it in addition to the characters.

Which makes sense, in a way, in terms of the reality of the teen audience and the popularity of the series. For most teens in early relationships lust and love might as well be interchangeable terms, and the mismatch of personalities and the lack of chemistry are part and parcel of early attempts at romantic relationships. But this is precisely the problem of Twilight, that it presents a world of heady teenage romantic delusion, without realistic emotional consequences. It's a retelling of the myth of a Prince Charming for every Princess, whose relationship is defined by misapprehended sexual tension and misogynistic "protection."

One interesting facet of the books is how much they clearly borrow from the fiction of authors like Anne Rice, and especially, the work of Laurel K. Hamilton (whether consciously on the part of Meyer or not, I doubt the book would have have been so heavily promoted if not for the success of Hamilton's Anita Blake series). However, where Meyer's characters are sexually inhibited (I don't recall the word "sex" being mentioned once in Twilight) Anita Blake's literary legacy begins with Dashiel Hammet and ends with lycanthropic super-orgies:

(this strip from Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Kruhulik: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/6/2/)

But let's face it, Hamilton's saga is true to the basis of what vampirism in literature has been about since Bram Stoker first laid Dracula on the page; a mix of lust and addiction (often addiction to lust) where the vampire bite is synonymous with a sexual climax. It's an exploration of the concept of original sin as an intimate tie between sex and violence--and ultimately an examination of morality that eschews sensuality. Hamilton has just taken it to it's natural conclusion and given her readers a world of super sexual, super violent escapism. Twilight, by contrast is practically a thesis in repression.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable scene in Twilight is one where Edward and Bella spend the night together, hiding the fact that they are together from Bella's dad; earnest, hard working chief of police Charlie. The scene is the closest the couple come to a traditional sexual consummation of the relationship, but horribly stilted and repressed (and without any sex). The dialogue through any section with Edward and Bella is bad, reminiscent of the dialogue between Anakin and Padme in the Star Wars prequel (which my girlfriend paraphrases as "I love you loving me loving you, Anny!"). Much more natural and realistic is Bella's interest in pre-werewolf character Jacob, who I read in some wikipedia entries while researching this, goes on to become Bella's love triangle second interest (another mirror of the Anita Blake novels, where Anita's second love interest--her primary is coldly beautiful vampire Jean Claude, who is similarly dispassionate to Meyer's Edward--is the king of local werewolf clan, or something. whatever.)

Perhaps my biggest problem with Edward, and his vampire family, the Cullens at large, is that they exist entirely to conform to a chaste, sexually repressed, socially and religiously conservative set of fantasies of what a man/family should be. The Cullens as vampires represent original sin directly, that is to say their vampirism doesn't take any pleasure in the flesh as a rejection of the guilt of original sin, but an acceptance of the idea. They, overcoming their lust for human blood, are a posterboy family for a family values campaign, overcoming their desire to perform any sort of "sinful acts". They are made to order for Bella, whose broken home (her parents are divorced and vampire patriarch Carlisle is self assured where her actual father Charlie is full of doubts and awkwardness, where Carlisle's vampire bride Esme offers loving guidance, Bella's real mother is flighty and frenetically worried).

This wouldn't be so bad, except that it's totally divorced from any sort of concept of reality. Vampire Carlisle is described as only turning people into vampires who are on death's door to save them. However, Carlisle, who moonlights as an emergency room doctor, has managed to only "save" teenagers--apparently children and adults don't actually die in emergency rooms. Never mind the ludicrousness that these teenagers attend school to keep up the lie that they are normal. Please. Just stop. There are a lot of people in their 20s who look like teens, the fact that the vampire "kids" attend school is entirely for the convenience of the plot: it's a shitty device. Meyer has effectively created a character in Carlisle who is a family fetishist, whose addicted to the concept of a functional family to the point where it becomes dysfunction.

Vampirism, in Meyer's world is remarkably free of negative consequences. Vampires are especially hard to kill and they don't go out in sunlight because it makes them extra pretty rather than burning to ash (as a natural way of attracting prey). The vampires are also similar to those in the Underworld films, in regard to their abilities versus those of humans. Humans just don't compare, again, remarkably free of consequence. The case made against vampirism is, again, the case against original sin. The book becomes a religious allegory for being good and resisting natural (read: sinful) impulses.

The one moment where a vampire bite occurs it is performed by a Hunter who tracks down Bella because she is with the Cullens. In the parlance of vampire books, it is the equivalent of a rape, but is made alright because Edward has to suck the vampire poison out of Bella's system. This allows Meyer to have her cake and eat it to, as it allows Edward to undo the damage caused by the Bite/Rape by performing a virtually identical action. This double standard is kind of messed up.

The book's misogyny is also writ large in both the character's powers and abilities, and Edwards protective looking after Bella (as well as the decision to deny allowing her to become a vampire, the perfect answer to the conundrum of how she and Edward could be together). Throughout the book Edward is constantly looking after Bella, whose accident prone nature (never indicated as a problem before moving to Forks) and clumsiness apparently require his constantly looking after her to keep her from harm. This helps keep Bella in a state of enforced childhood. (I see a little bit of LDS screed coming through here). The few decisions Bella makes on her own (like walking into the trap set by the hunter vampire at the end of the book) reinforce the position that the vampires are adults who should be minded and Bella is their baby.

Again, this isn't so bad, as long as we're talking about wish fulfillment, I don't see any problem with people wanting to be protected and taken care of, except . . . . The Powers. The vampires have powers. And the female powers suck. They're like consolation prizes, or things the wonder twins passed on when choosing their powers. One of them has the power of loving anyone, and the other has the power of seeing the future. Seeing the future sounds cool, except that her visions don't always come true, so it's a shitty power, it's a "this might work" power. The boys on the other hand get to do things like be physical badasses; or taking the cake, Edward can read minds (except Bella's for some as yet unknown reason). The female characters are essentially powerless while the male characters run around doing the heavy lifting.

Yuck.

I don't have a huge problem with escapism, but dammnit! Kids are going to read this horseshit and it's going to reinforce the wrong kinds of ideas they have about relationships. And that's my biggest beef with it. The ideas about life that it proposes are so entrenched a Disney fairy tale idea of life that it's drenched in a saccharine version of the uncanny, perhaps as far opposite from the nightmare Stoker imagined as possible, an inverse of the uncanny, where vampires become chaste American superheroes.

Vampires who enforce conservative morality, these I don't need. Well, all that'll be undone when the kids move on from Meyer's books to Hamilton's. I don't feel so bad about that. Not at all.

P.S. Edward is such a dipshit, I can't really see how anyone could fall "irrevocably" in love with him. He can hear people's thoughts and spends his time as a high school student in a pissant little town.

Yeah, what a great character.

Review No. 5: PS3 Demos

2008-04-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

It looks like I forgot to put up Monday's post, which was a positive review of fingernails (more functional than toenails and easier to decorate). Having accidentally deleted Review No. 4, I'll continue with this, review No.5.

Review No. 5: PS3 Game Demos

PS3 Game Demos suck. There, I said it. Why do they suck? Because they're a poor product that is easily hyped and poorly reported.

So what do I mean by a poor product? PS3 demos have a number of things against them. One of those is that the gameplay experience is too limited--they either have a time limit or a very small sandbox area to demonstrate (Burnout Paradise, a game I very much wanted to play, had a demo that was so limiting that I was frustrated enough that I didn't really care about the game anymore). This is in stark contrast to demos I played for the PSX, like the Xenogears demo, etc, that occasionally came bundled with games, where the areas and gameplay seemed more expansive.

I think part of the problem is the demos we see today are often largely marketed as unfinished products that don't necessarily represent the final gameplay. In some ways this is good, because it can allow developers to get direct feedback on their game (as Kojima productions has done with their closed demos at gameshows for Metal Gear Solid 4). However, most of the demos available for download for the PS3 on the Playstation Network seem to actually represent the finished build of the game. Which is precisely the problem.

Because the games are in development, they often get a free pass by game journalists, leading the public to believe that the games will be better than the demos (which are often crap) only to later surprise game audiences with bad reviews. I never read a bad preview of Kane and Lynch (famously crucified after being mishandled by Gamespot) despite the fact that if the preview they played was anything like the demo I played, the game had some serious problems. Let's face the facts, if someone puts out a demo and it sucks, the game is probably going to suck. And most demos suck.

This should come as no surprise, since video games are like any other media format. As Leonard Bernstein said of the rising popularity of pop-music in the 1960s "Of course, ninety-five percent of it is trash, but that one five percent...". What Bernstein was expressing (then about Brian Wilson's Beach Boys album Pet Sounds) holds as true for any other medium, about ninety-five percent is trash, it's true, but that remaining five percent is really doing something fantastic. And that holds as true for game demos.

But, you may be asking, what's the problem with game demos compared to other forms of media? Well my friends, I answer, game demos are a problem because they're previews. During the 90s and early 2000s, my favorite part of seeing films in theatres actually was the trailer reel before a film. A truly great film would be one that actually exceded the expectation built up by the trailer. Game demos, the video game equivalent of a trailer (demos are an analogous experience to watching a trailer for a film; while there are game trailers, they don't actually allow the player to preview the experience of playing the game; even if they show gameplay, it isn't the same as being able to have direct control over the action) don't even cheat the way previews do! The least they could do is have the demo be better than most of the game surrounding it.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course. Pixeljunk Monsters demo, for instance, is excellent and actually makes a player want to continue playing the game represented. Not wanting to plunk down $10 bucks just yet, my girlfriend and I have played the demo easily a half dozen times each. What Pixeljunk Monsters does, unlike a lot of contemporary game demos, is actually give you control over the initial stages of the game, the very beginning. Many current demos drop you in the middle of the action (though the Condemned 2 demo was pretty good) and sort of wait for you to sink or swim with the benefit of a partial walkthrough of basic controls. Pixeljunk monsters is also reasonably lengthy for a demo, giving you a good amount of time with the game (whereas with Burnout Paradise, the limited scope of the city felt incredibly empty).

So PS3 game demos kind of suck. You'll notice that the really big title games don't have them. Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, Metal Gear Solid 4 (a lot of 4's in this generation of game system). When asked if they would make a demo available for the public, Kojima Productions (producers of Metal Gear Solid 4) responded with the best possible answer for not having one: making a demo would take time out of the production cycle that they were using to make the game the best it could be in the time leading up to its (already much delayed) launch. It's a good point, and I'd rather play a good game when it's released, than a subpar demo for a game that could have been better if they had spent the time on the demo making the game.

Mini-Review: Watchmen--the first 50 pages

2008-04-13T19:12:00.001-07:00

Alan Moore is widely regarded as one of the greatest storytellers in the medium of comics, weaving complex plots together and introducting a highly intellectual bent to populist entries of the format. This said, I don't really like his work, he seems to have a misanthropic bent to his writing that really turns me off. Moore's work has been made into several popular (and apparently completely disconnected from the source material) films, and it looks like they will continue to be adapted.

The latest is the upcoming Watchmen, directed by Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead (2004), 300 (2007)). Snyder's previous work lends me to believe that Snyder's Watchmen will probably be as close as a film will get to the source material (his 300 is a ridiculous spectacle of literal translation) but will have to sacrifice a lot in terms of material, as the original is just too long and dense for it all to be included.

That being said, I went to the library, where I picked up Moore's Watchmen, and also From Hell. Looking at Watchmen, like most mainstream comics, drives me crazy, because the color is just awful. I wish that, like From Hell, it was presented just with the linework. Outside of the color, which has that DC/Vertigo look that manages to make something as beautiful as the art on The Sandman look like garbage, the art is great.

There's a story that I've heard, that on Watchmen Moore asked artist Dave Gibbons to draw the series like the "wrong" examples of framing and composition in How to Draw Comics The Marvel Way. It's a good fit, lending the story a more documentary feel (since the "good" examples in The Marvel Way; are based on Jack Kirby's dynamic, explosive style). The draughtsmanship is pretty strong, and Gibbons ink work reveals a clean crisp line, expressive enough to differentiate character from the background, but subdued; the linework is fairly spare, making it largely expressionistically void, helping to bolster the sense of a documentary feel.

The story is tightly scripted, and Moore is playing around with comic book archetypes--pushing them to extremes. Every generation of comic books expresses the idea that their version of comics is what "really would happen" if people had super powers. Watchmen is one of the better examples, as Moore populates his heroes' world with cold war politics and a cynical outlook on the effectiveness of superheroes.

I needed to do a review today, and I wanted to review a comic, but I've only read the first 50 pages of this comic (and don't much want to review the other comic I've been reading, the manga comic, The Wallflower, which is infuriatingly generic.) It's unlikely that I'll review all of Watchmen, except perhaps in passing in a later review.

I read the whole comic perhaps a decade ago, and the first fifty pages don't disappoint. They're really excellent. However, from what I remember, it's later that the book takes a turn for the nihilistic. Maybe it's my own cynical view of humanity that makes me want to write stories against cynicism (much in the way that Hayao Miyazaki chain-smokes cigarettes, has a dim view of the world and produces some of the finest fairy tales in the history of animation, and his friend Mamoru Oshii has hope for a technologically dominated future, but produces cynical, technophobic stories of distopian societies) Perhaps enthusiasts for the comic believe that Rorschach's diary, in the hands of the free, will turn the public against Ozzymandius. That, however, is a ridiculously positive outlook on a terribly jaded world that Moore has created.

(on a side note, Tilda Swinton sells me on Disney's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's odd watching it so soon after seeing the BBC version, noting visual similarities and differences between the two.

EDIT: 1 HOUR LATER: Nope, bad digital creature effects are pushing it back towards the "bad" end of the spectrum.)

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Review No. 3: KT Tunstall - Drastic Fantastic

2008-04-12T15:46:00.001-07:00

I don't really know anything about music. So where I do know some things about film, art, print design, and literary composition I bow to others when it comes to an in depth analysis of music composition. Still, this is a site where I can review whatever I want.

I don't claim to be objective in my reviews; I'm certainly not going to pretend that I'm reviewing in a vacuum. To give you some context about what kind of music I like, I'll through a fiew youtube links your way. I'm a big fan of hard rock, which is now covered under the catch-all title "butt-rock." My favorite band is The Cult, shortly followed by The Delgados. My favorite composers either write music for video game soundtracks or anime original soundtracks. (incidently, the Xenosaga 1 track I linked to is missatributed to Yuki Kajiura who did the soundtrack for Xenosaga II and III, this track is by Yasunori Mitsuda). I'm a fan of Brian Wilson's especially Smile, and Surf's Up. (the links here are to youtube videos, but the videos generally have little to do with the music). I do not have what I'd imagine is in any way traditional taste, and sometimes what I like, or don't like, seems completely arbitrary.

That having been written, on to the review:

Review No. 3: KT Tunstall's DRASTIC FANTASTIC

I expected this album to suck. Honestly. The only track on the album I'd heard was the radio hit "Hold On." While the track is upbeat, it features a lot of things in contemporary pop music that I dislike, the use of looping hand-claps for the beat, what sound like digitally duplicated vocal tracks, and a huskily spoken word bridge. However, I don't actively dislike the song, but I did assume that the rest of the album would either be more of the same or lame uninspired singer/songwriter tunes. When my girlfriend picked up the CD from the library, I expected to listen absentmindedly to a forgettable pop album while playing videogames.

The first track rocked my socks, it's probably my favorite track on the album. "Little Favours" jumps right in without any preamble. Tunstall's voice on this, and most of the album, sounds like what it might be like if Bonnie Rait decided to ramp up the tempo and sing it straight. The second track, "If Only" continues with a similar sound, with the acoustic guitar dominating the sound.

I suppose here, I should make a statement that lyrics generally mean almost nothing to me. I don't really hear them when I listen to music, at least not until I listen to an album many many times. To me it's all the sound. To be honest I have no idea what the lyrics are Tunstall's singing for most of the songs. I know for a lot of people I've probably just invalidated my opinion, but when I listen to music all I hear is the way things sound together. I think a lot of people are probably like that too, though. It takes a certain kind of ear to hear lyrics and think about them during the music. Unless the lyrics are so perfectly crisp, I hardly ever notice them, so it's unlikely that I'll write about them unless they really stand out to me in any reviews I do of music.

After toning things down for a song, Tunstall returns with "Funnyman," another of my favorite tracks on the album. Here the electric guitar has a bit more of a presence. The background vocals that bother me on "Hold On" are so faded here that they blend in mostly when I listen. Following this is "Hold On," which plays better in the album than isolated as a single track. It's the culmination of a rising sweep of tracks, and things that don't work as well indepently seem built up as motifs from previous tracks. That's one of the impressive things about the album, is that it intelligently ramps up and down the energy of the tracks to keep the whole thing enthusiastic. This balance is probably the greatest strength. It helps that the songs are generally very good as well.

The album mellows as it nears the end (starting upbeat with the uptempo "Saving My Face," which features one of the strong elements of many of the album's songs: a bridge that strips the song down and then builds it back up again, "leave it up to me/I will do the right thing....) and calms to the quieter "Paper Aeroplane" that eases the album out.

The transistion is so smooth that when the CD began to repeat and play Little Favours again, I hardly noticed at first, but was happy to hear more of the same. It wasn't until it repeated twice the first time we listened to it in the car that I realized we had been listening to the same set of tracks. There are a few tracks I haven't mentioned, but I tried to hit, what were, for me, the highlights.

So there's an amateur musical review for ya!

Maybe next time I'll do a comic review.

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Review No. 2: In The Mouth of Madness

2008-04-11T16:38:00.001-07:00

Let me provide a little background before I get to the main review.

I've been slowly making my way through the film catalogue of John Carpenter (excepting the remakes). Carpenter's name is synonymous with some of the most iconic films of the 1980s, Escape From New York, The Thing, Starman, They Live, before his decline in the 90s with the rise of the Indie film scene and music video directors turned film directors changed the way films were made. Carpenter continued in the 90s to make smaller budget horror and science fiction films, many of which made a profit but were nevertheless considered critical and popular failures. An accomplished technical director, Carpenter's films always feel meticulously constructed, even when they aren't entirely successful.

Some of Carpenter's films have a prescient quality. For instance, The Thing (1982) was panned by critics and audiences when it was released for the graphic quality of the monsters and the violence, but has since been heralded as a masterpiece of science fiction filmmaking. Prince of Darkness (1987) apparently has a large fan base in Japan, and its enigmatic force of evil, claustrophobic scenario, and themes of posession by malevolent forces feature prominently in many of the imported J-horror films that have been remade here in the states in the last decade or so. Whether or not this is a good thing is up to the individual viewer, I myself am a fan of some of the original Japanese films (especially those of Kiyoshi Kurosawa) but find the remakes to be pretty hackneyed.

If there's one major problem with Carpenter's films, it's their inconsistent cinematography and special effects. Problems with one or the other are invariably linked. Many of Carpenter's less successful films are shot in a way that makes the image look flattened out, sometimes outright dull. The irony is that if the color was desaturated, if the films were black and white, they would probably look fantastic. This is particularly true of the following films: The Fog, Prince of Darkness, Village of the Damned, and perhaps also Starman. The flat look of They Live actually works well in service to the film, since the trashy look complements the story and characters by having a more documentary feel to it. This flat look generally doesn't lend itself well towards the effects, which tend to be much more noticeably "off."

Another problem is the inconsistency of Carpenter's scores. Perhaps the best score in a Carpenter film is the score for The Thing, which ironically was written by Ennio Morricone (The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, The Mission, Cinema Paradiso) who sounds like he's channeling Carpenter's style. When Carpenter's scores work, the minimalism, the pop-synth sound, or guitar theatrics undercut the fantasy reality being shown in the scenes, as if sarcastically commenting on how silly or bizarre what's going on on screen, as if Carpenter is laughing at his own work. This is particularly true in Big Trouble in Little China, a personal favorite of mine, and my favorite Carpenter score.

The most technically polished of Carpenter's films is probably Christine (1983) based on the Stephen King book of the same name. In it Carpenter has his most sophisticated use of special effects, the story and editing are fairly tight, and the film is well shot. However, though technically probably the best constructed it also lacks some of the energy that makes some of his other films so vibrant and entertaining.

One of those other films, and also building indirectly on the legacy of Stephen King is the subject of today's review, In The Mouth of Madness.

REVIEW: IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1995)

In The Mouth of Madness may be the last truly successful film made by John Carpenter. That same year Carpenter's remake of Village of the Damned was released, a film that boasts some strong performances, but a flat look and cheesy special effects. Escape From L.A. (1996) is fun, but is essentially a parody of Escape from New York (1981) complete with over-the-top cameos and a virtually indestructible Snake Plisskin, whose humanity was part of what made him appealing in the first film. I have yet to see Vampires (1998) but even fans of the film have noted detractions in it, and while I love Ghosts of Mars (2001) I love it as the pinnacle of cinema cheese. But In The Mouth of Madness is probably his last strong film based on its merits as a film itself.

The story of In The Mouth of Madness is an odd amalgam of the works of Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft. The film stars Sam Neil as John Trent, an insurance investigator charged to track down a Stephen King-like writer and recluse Sutter Cane (played by Jürgen Prochnow, whose accent goes in and out) who has disappeared while writing his new book entitled, In the Mouth of Madness. Investigator Trent believes that author Cane's disappearance is a stunt created by the publishers to sell more of books. The publisher, played by a very respectable Charlton Heston, sends Cane's editor (Julie Carmen) along with Trent to find Cane in the non-existent New England town where Cane's books are set. When he finds the town, we are, of course, treated to the horrors of Cane's books made "real."

Thematically, In the Mouth of Madness is similar to Wes Craven's more critically lauded New Nightmare (1994) which treads similar ground. Both films deal with a metaphysical approach to horror icons and monsters pulled into the real world by the collective unconscious of an unwitting populace, hungry for horror. New Nightmare took a very direct approach to the idea, with the cast and crew of the original Nightmare on Elmstreet appearing as themselves, forced to deal with a script writing events into their lives. In the Mouth of Madness approaches the idea with a bit more of a sense of humor about itself, and about the horror genre in general. The self referential bent is an odd bit of post-modernism to be thrown around in populist media, and horror films at that.

While New Nightmare trades in on the idea that the crew and cast are playing themselves, In the Mouth of Madness pushes in the other direction, questioning whether an agreed upon fiction can literally become reality. This is the crux of the film, and the question of whether or not you go along with it depends heavily on an individual viewer. Part of this, as with many Carpenter films, is a question of the believability of the special effects. The foam rubber monsters that looked so wonderful in the dark in The Thing, are slightly over-lit here, giving them a slightly fake appearance that takes a little disbelief.

In some ways that might be considered a unwitting pro for Carpenter's flick. Carpenter fills the film with cheap scares and little shock elements to get the viewer to jump out of their seat. Almost all of them seem gratuitous at first. But considering the genre itself, and it's love of these kinds of cheap thrills, a world of shadows darting across the screen and hands reaching out of nowhere to grab a character perfectly fits in a world taken over by genre horror in the mid 90s. If the world of Stephen King (and like horror writers) seems filled with foam rubber monsters, what's to stop that from being its own horrid reality, where the foam rubber covered man is the real monster?

Like a lot of Carpenter films, the acting by the leads is excellent. Sam Neil, who seems to play slightly different versions of the same character in many films, here is magnificently sleazy and skeptical as Trent. He chews up the scenery, especially in expository scenes. Prochnow is clearly relishing getting to play a real "dark lord" sort, and really shines when he gets to deliver weird, yet utterly banal lines like "Did you know that my favorite color is blue?" Carmen is passable in a role as a potential love interest for Trent, but only becomes interesting when the story fails utterly to go in that direction (in her best scene she tries to force herself onto Trent because she's "being written that way.") Indeed, the most fascinating scenes in the film are when Carpenter and crew let the actors play the reality of the scene. Neil's best scene is a moment where he stands at an abyss, staring at unspeakable horrors while his internal monologue is being narrated by another character.

One of the nice things about the film itself (when it's not avoiding foam rubber monsters as much as it reasonably can) is that it looks fantastic. It's excellently well lit and shot by Gary B. Kibbe (who joins Carpenter on the DVD commentary, which is almost like a mini-lecture on film-lighting for the first 45 minutes or so). One of the things that is mentioned several times in the commentary is that the film was made for a fairly small budget, which would tend to account for the foam rubber creature effects.

In the Mouth of Madness does lose a bit of its steam towards the end, and lacks a truly conclusive punch (though the ending, while somewhat predictable, is still enjoyable). In some ways it might be seen as a more successful version of Carpenter's previous Prince of Darkness, with a similar, seemingly inevitable conclusion. It's an interesting film, that stays heavily within traditional genre limits and constraints, while exploring interesting ideas without exploiting them.

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Review No. 1: Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake

2008-04-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

Note: This review of the game Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake refers to the version present in the Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence package.

This review is a part of my quest to play all the Metal Gear games before the release of the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4, for the PS3. The only exception to this rule will be the PSP games, because I don't have that platform. This means that I've missed Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and the Metal Gear Acid games, but those aren't considered canon. I love the series, warts and all, and so my review may be flavored by that love.

I guess I should start by reviewing Metal Gear. It's been a couple years since I played the game, also from the cell phone port included on the Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence set. Here's a mini-review:

Metal Gear (1987)

Metal Gear is one of those revolutionary games that took video game conventions and turned them on their ear. It practically invented the stealth action genre, and sets the tone for the series that followed. It follows an action movie plot, complete with love story, and a big twist at the end. It is, unfortunately, extremely dated.

Metal Gear's story is simple. The year is 1995. You play as Snake--who's appearance on the box cover art was based on actor Michael Biehn (John Connor's dad from The Terminator, Hicks in Aliens, and more recently the sheriff in Planet Terror)--a rookie operative of Foxhound, a secret U.S. stealth military unit, sent in to retrieve a scientist who has been kidnapped by a nation of mercenaries, Outer Heaven. The scientist (in this version, Dr. Madnar) is building a bipedal nuclear launch platform/tank called Metal Gear. Your mission changes, adding the destruction of Metal Gear and take down of the head of the Outer Heaven organization, who ends up being your commanding officer, code named Big Boss. If I've spoiled the story for you, then you've probably never played any other iteration of the Metal Gear franchise, since the entire thing spirals around these events.

Metal Gear suffers primarily from some minor gameplay issues that would make it incredibly frustrating to play without a FAQ or guide of some kind. Not knowing that you had to punch the walls in some areas or that you had to get certain items to move on, would make it virtually impossible to proceed, and the directions and hints can sometimes seem almost deliberately vague.

The story is basically tacked on. For all the hoopla in later games about Outer Heaven and the legacy of Big Boss, the original Metal Gear is severely limited in the story that would later be retconned around the events of the first game. However, I found the stealth gameplay fun and challenging. The game truly punishes you for being seen by enemy soldiers whose line of sight is easy enough to see. The boss fights are fun and innovative, considering the limitations of the gameplay and graphics.

But that may be the problem with Metal Gear--great for what it was, does not necessarily equal greatness overall. Metal Gear was a fantastic stepping stone, but doesn't really hold up the way other games of that era have. This makes it a must for people interested in the history of the series or a general interest in game development. However for most people, the detractions of the game probably outweigh the benefits.

Now, on to our main review.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990)

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is the true predecessor to the Metal Gear Solid series. It introduces many of the key elements of gameplay, story, and design that have become staples of the series as a whole; indeed, whole sections of later games could be seen as being lifted directly from this game. It itself, is largely a more expansive remake of the original game with a stronger story, characters, and gameplay.

Story-wise Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is a huge step up from its predecessor. Set in 1999, the cold war powers are dismantling their nuclear arsenals, it seems like nuclear war is unlikely to be the threat it once was. But the nukes are stolen from nuclear weapon disposal facilities by the Middle East nation of Zanzibarland. Not content merely to have control over the combined remaining nuclear weapons in the world, Zanzibarland, a nation of mercenaries, also kidnaps a scientist, Dr. Kio Marv, who has created a molecule that produces synthetic oil during a global oil crisis (again, remember this game was made in 1990; including global peak oil as a plot point is fairly prescient). You play as the veteran soldier of the Outer Heaven mission, Solid Snake, who is sent in to retrieve Dr. Marv.

Though Outer Heaven is often played up in The Metal Gear Solid games, a lot of the groundwork for the later characters from the Metal Gear Solid games is laid in this game (and the mythology of Metal Gear Solid sort of conflates the two games into one entity, discarding plot elements from one or the other that are inconvenient to the series as a whole). The game introduces Snake's commanding officer Colonel Roy Campbell (who appears to be based on Colonel Troutman in Rambo), and other returning characters like Master Miller and Gray Fox, who figure prominently in Metal Gear Solid. Snake himself is more of a character as well, if only marginally compared to later games.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake actually looks a little weak when compared to the original game. Part of this, no doubt, is due to the smaller screen area used for gameplay, since the upper right corner of the screen is taken up by the Snake's raidar, which shows enemies moving on surrounding screens. Snake appears to move more stiffly as well, and the control doesn't feel quite as clean. The environments, especially later in the game, are much nicer though, and the enemies are much less static than the previous game.

The benefits in terms of gameplay are great. Being able to see enemies on the raidar gives the player the opportunity to hide, or move to an adjascent screen before being spotted. This is augmented by Snake's new ability to crouch behind objects, as well as his ability to crawl under or behind visual cover. When Snake is spotted, the game has an early version of the "Alert," and "Evasion," modes during which many enemies will swarm you, or patrol the area looking for you, respectively. Alert mode, as in later games, interrupts your ability to use the raidar, meaning you have to find cover fast. These modes also feature a timer that counts down, allowing you to gauge how long you must be cautious, another feature adopted in later games.

One element of the early Metal Gear games that has been largely discarded in the Solid series is the adventure-game style inventory-item-hunts that dominate a lot of time in both the first game and this one. Similar to my critique of Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2 has several sections that would be incredibly frustrating if attempted without a FAQ or guide. Unless the player is willing to punch every wall to see where they need to apply plastic explosives, the game could be pretty maddening. Even with a FAQ, I spent an hour on one particular boss battle before I realized I was using the wrong weapon. Admittedly I felt quite boneheaded when I discovered my mistake, but I could see how the game could facilitate that kind of experience.

Having brought them up, the bosses of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake continue the trend of the series in having great boss fights. It also continues the trend of them having ridiculous names. Quite a few archetypes of later games are represented here as well. There's the appearance of a Ninja, a Sniper hidden in tall jungle grasses, invisible enemies, a Hind-D helicopter, and the inevitable fight with Metal Gear itself. The fight with Gray Fox in the room lined by mines feels referenced by the later battle with the cyborg ninja in Metal Gear Solid, and the invisible enemy (Night Fright) encounter is similar to Naked Snake's battle with The Fear in Metal Gear Solid 3, and the fight with the Sniper (Jungle Evil) is similar to the fight with the centenarian sniper, The End. It's also the first game where you actually fight Metal Gear itself (since in the first game the prototype was unfinished, though guarded by a pair of lasers).

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake holds up much better than the original game. While playing it's easy to see how the later games take the basic structure heavily defined by the second game and push it into a 3D environment. The story is stronger, and told in compact chunks. The puzzle elements are less annoyingly mysterious, though (as I mentioned before) I did play the game with a FAQ.

One note: This game actually cannot be played without a FAQ or guide. This isn't hyperbole, I'm not making a statement about the game's difficulty. There are a few moments where the game requires the player to look at the instruction manual to decode some coded messages and change radio frequencies. Since no instruction manual was packaged Subsistence, these codes have to be found online.

There you go, two reviews today!

Reviews To Follow

2008-04-10T01:16:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

The basic idea for this site is that everyday, to warm up the old writing muscles, I'll review one thing a day. Reviews can range from video games and movies to navel lint I find in the ol' belly button on the spur of a moment's notice.

Weeeeeeeeee!

See you tomorrow,
Dr. Stevew