Saturday, July 31, 2010

Friggin' Sweet News

I’m interrupting the Favorite Fights segment to briefly discuss something that makes me all warm and tingly inside. A short while back, Capcom announced that they were finally releasing “Marvel Vs. Capcom 3”. After almost a decade of wait, the king of tag team fighters is returning in a powerful way. Needless to say, the memories that surfaced from just hearing this announcement put me into a nostalgic stupor.

But then it got better.

Slowly over the past month or so, Capcom has been revealing the roster of fighters to the general public. Imagine how surprised I was to see that they are adding one of my favorite Marvel characters to the mix, Thor. The god of thunder himself will be delivering beat downs and bludgeoning the craniums of many a competitive fighter when this game arrives to home consoles!



It’s about time too! I never understood why he was excluded from previous entries in the series. Better late than never I suppose.

Oh ho, but that’s not all. If you are going to take this long to make a sequel, you gotta make sure you give the fans some love. Just when I thought the geek gods had given me all I could have hoped for, I discovered that they have in fact decided to bless me with not one, but two of their celestial champions. Amaterasu from Okami is playable too! This is either my greatest wish come true or I've fallen asleep and awakened at the tail end of the year 2012.



If you’ll excuse me, I must offer up a sacrifice to show my appreciation to Lord Mega Man for his charity.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Favorite Fights: Asuka Vs. Complete EVA Series in "End of Evangelion"


Everybody loves robots, and we like giant robots even more. Maybe it’s the mentality of big being better, but the spectacle of two or more colossal beings waging war against one another is a profound nerdy pleasure that is universally appealing. So given the instant gratification that super beings deliver whilst engaged in mortal combat, why is it that so many motion pictures get it all wrong? Well it has a lot to do with scale.

Look at “Transformers” the movie, sure the Autobots and Decepticons are big, and sure they cause mass destruction with a single foot step, but it’s all a bit too fluid. Some might argue that their movements are the result of alien engineering that far surpasses our understanding or maybe they are composed of some kind of metal alloy that is ultra light. Either way, the illusion that they are gargantuan beasts of destruction is ruined when you see them performing feats of hyper movement and acrobatics. This isn’t an isolated problem with the “Transformers” movies though, even the “Transformers” cartoon and almost every Japanese Giant Robot animation suffers from this very same ignorance. I think most would argue that the reason they detach themselves from the realism of physics is because a slow pace would bore audiences and that it’s not always important to be a purist. You know what? I agree. However, I have seen it work before.

Breaking the continuity of the show a bit, “End of Evangelion” removed the model of smooth movement which was present for 26 episodes in favor of a more heavy experience. In the fight between Asuka and the complete EVA series we see exactly how one realizes the larger than life slow battle scene I was speaking of.

During this moment in the film we watch as these juggernauts of strength grapple and throw down in ways which are rarely presented on film. Each of their movements is laborious; the simple act of throwing a punch requires a tremendous amount of energy and time just to set the action into motion. Once the punch/kick/head butt makes contact, both parties recoil back as their gravity knocks them away from the point of impact. This is a fight of weight, where the ground beneath them crumbles and shakes and the earth itself comes undone with even the slightest motions. Never has size played so well in a fight and it hits home that these are not merely humans locked in combat, but titans.

To punctuate the slow pace and delicate detail that has been shaped in each lumbering movement, the film decides to play Bach’s “Air”. The subtle cello performance accentuates the calculated movements and delivers an unsurpassed emotional counterweight to the barbaric rage and determination of Asuka.

The one thing that some might complain about is the one sidedness of the fight. Asuka literally decimates each of the EVA units, dismantling them one by one without even the slightest hesitation. There’s a strange sort of satisfaction in seeing such raw power going unopposed. This could prove boring, but pay off occurs in the end when things shift in favor of the complete EVA series, making Asuka’s final defeat all the more painful and emotionally rewarding.

If you’re looking for a fight between creatures the size of gods and somewhere along the same level of epic gratification, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Favorite Fights: George Nada Vs. Frank Armitage in "They Live"


Yesterday’s blog focused a lot on emotions and their importance in a fight. Today’s subject is instead about the raw energy of fighting, that primal tenacity that pours from the sweat and blood of two pugilists locked in a battle of strength, determination, and sunglasses.

John Carpenter’s “They Live” is perhaps the quintessential mindless fight sequence. There is no real choreography to speak of and it seems more in line with something you might see on a youtube channel devoted to filming homeless people fighting over a bottle of vodka. You know you’re in for a good time when the two characters engaged in combat are a pro wrestler and the smoothest talking black man to ever bless cinema.

What makes the fight from “They Live” so memorable is that it doesn’t hold its punches. This is a fight that feels real, like you are actually watching the characters thrash at each other in a painfully slow battle that mirrors the reality of hand to hand combat and all of its painful harmony and sloppy execution. The fighters, George Nada and Frank Armitage, aren’t just fighting one another; they are tip toeing along the path of murder.

What works best about this scene is just how long it lasts. Today we can expect most high budget wire-fu to treat us to a 2-3 minute barrage of insanity before the director chooses to get in touch with the script again. In this movie however the audience is subjected to a satisfyingly grueling 6 minutes, and just as it begins to lure you into the false sense of a climax one of the characters springs back for another round. You get to see all the dirty moves of fighting here too: choking, hitting below the belt, kicking a man when he’s down, and biting, basically if you wouldn’t expect to see a certain behavior or action sanctioned in any sort of professional arena you know it’s buried somewhere within this fight. This is true savagery to the nth degree and the audience gets so caught up in the horrifying image of two men trading blows that it begins to project itself back on to the viewer. Whenever a punch connects with a jaw or the impact of a knee to the groin delivers with an accompanying moan of agony, we start to feel the pain emerge from our very marrow as we sympathize with the epic beat down transpiring before us.

The actors deserve a lot of credit as well. As I mentioned before, both men are just perfect for this sort of thing and half of the joy comes from what they say to one another or how their body language translates the shear brutality on display.


This is honestly the manliest moment of cinematic history, and If you’ve never seen this scene before or for some reason you have and yet don’t understand why this is such an awesome confrontation, need I remind you that the notorious “Cripple Fight” from South Park was a shot for shot remake of this very battle? Yeah, it’s that good.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Favorite Fights: Luke Vs. Vader in "Return of the Jedi"


As strange as this may sound, I’m not a fan of the fight sequences from the Star Wars Prequel trilogy. For many people the fight scenes are the one redeemable element of these newer films that can be used as some sort of refutation to any negative criticism. “Sure the acting and story were bad, but at least the light saber fights were awesome!” They are elaborate, well choreographed, and extensive but are also undeniably fake.

Sure, when I was a kid growing up and I saw these films I was ecstatic with joy and giddy adolescent stupidity. To see true Jedi warriors do battle on the big screen was a thing I had been anticipating for years. However, now that I’ve grown older a little wiser I can’t help but see the newer fights as artificial and bland. There is no emotion that exists between the characters of these duels; people are simply swinging glow sticks at one another due to shallow political affairs. There is no connection between the Jedi and the various Sith Lords other than the very thin dichotomy of good vs evil. Since the characters have no bond with one another I end up bored. The fights, while very beautiful, are so immaculate that they end up removing what little humanity there may have been by reducing it to a martial arts exposition.

With the original trilogy we had fight sequences which were more than just spectacles; there was purpose to each fight. If a person like Obi-wan or Darth Vader drew their light saber it meant they had exhausted all their other options and were now reaching for their ace.

After carefully examining all the fights, to me it’s fairly obvious which duel was the most significant. The duel that truly stands above the rest has to be the final confrontation between Luke and Darth Vader aboard the Death Star from "Return of the Jedi".

What’s fascinating about this feud is that most of it is psychological. The majority of the time is spent with Luke in hiding, trying to tame his emotions while Vader eggs him on. Luke realizes that he is now at his defining moment but also senses that he has been played directly into the emperor’s hands. Vader strikes deeper and deeper with words that twist Luke’s psyche until he finally breaks. What follows is a fight which lacks the grace of anything seen from The Phantom Menace or Revenge of the Sith, and instead we are treated to an outburst of pure rage. As Luke lashes out at Vader you see his humanity expose itself. Eventually he overpowers Vader and with animal like ferocity manages to make him yield.

The greatest aspect of this whole sequence happens at the very end. After the subtle build-up which culminates with an overwhelming display of anger, the film has Luke reflect upon what he has done and what he is in danger of becoming. He rejects the notion of the Emperor’s destiny that has been built for him and abandons his sword. Luke throws his very life on the line in a go for broke gambit to save his father and provide him with salvation.

The emotional pay off that follows this duel is one of the most rewarding experiences I can remember from any movie and the reason it works so well is because the conflict itself had so many emotional levels built upon itself. Outside the kick ass beat down that was administered, we recognize that the battle had more to do with revealing the true nature of these characters and less to do with marveling at the spectacle of two men beating each other up.

Strange that all the time and money spent on making the fight scenes from the prequels could not satisfy me more than the simple action sequences of the original trilogy. Without careful consideration of the characters’ feelings it’s easy to forget that fighting needs to have emotional weight tied to the hardships and trials that each of the heroes and villains must overcome. That is why the fight between Luke and Vader in "Return of the Jedi" is the best fight scene in Star Wars history.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

FIGHT!!!!!!

Conflict is a vital component of existence. Whether it manifest as mental, emotional, verbal, or physical, we each recognize the hostility present in our surroundings and adopt the idea of having to confront each other in order to survive.

For these reasons battles seem to be at the foreground of most stories written throughout history. Even the highest minded literary masterpieces are supported by a strong conflict nested at their core. Tales that revolve around more positive emotions such as love also find themselves depending on the ugly topics of lust and jealousy to move the plot forward. The wars we are so willing to engage with are the fabric of anthropology and are the very source of all tension and drama that we so lovingly associate with.

To honor our love/hate relationship with this thing called war, I will be spending the next week or so sharing with you what I personally believe to be the most entertaining and well executed fight scenes in movie history. In no way should you view this as any sort of definitive list, nor should you see their chronology as an indicator of their value to me. I am not the type of person to compose “Top ‘X’ lists”, because I tend not to hold any fondness to absolutes. Instead just take this time to journey into my mind and see what I look for when it comes to our deep seeded hatred for one another.

I hope you enjoy. Also, try not to kill each other while you wait.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Inception Review (Short but Sweet)

Do you remember the last time you watched a smart summer action flick? A movie that had you leaving the theaters knowing you actually saw something that was more than some studio tent pole release? Of course you do, we’ve been seeing this trend slowly come to power over the last few years. In 2009 we had the razor sharp masterpiece of District 9 and in 2008 the world was treated to The Dark Knight, a movie that elevated the comic sub genre to a level of film making movie scholars will be analyzing for decades. Well, the creator of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan, has decided to take another stab at the summer brain stimulus with Inception.

There has been a lot of talk circling Inception, some say it’s the most daring project in Sci-Fi since the Matrix, others think of it as an interesting yet flawed experiment, while others just scratch their heads as they try to wrap their feeble minds around the staggering narrative. Regardless of how you feel I can assure you that unless you really don’t know much about storytelling, you shouldn’t fall into the latter camp.

Don’t get me wrong, this movie IS complex, the story ostensibly revolves around three separate narratives that are stitched together within the framework of a five layer deep scene for well over 50 minutes. The rest of the time you are being told to believe in the procedural assembly line mechanics of constructing dreams and how the main characters navigate the core design principle of shared dream logic. However, the greatest praise I can bestow upon this film is its incredible skill in taking the labyrinthine plot and finding a way to hand it to the audience in the most logical way without seeming condescending.

It’s a rare thing to see a screen play this tightly composed. How Christopher Nolan even managed to communicate an idea like this is baffling to me. Yet here it is, presented on the big screen for all to see. Again, that’s not to say it’s necessarily an easy viewing; if you aren’t picking up on all the clues along the way you’re liable to get lost as you follow some other trail of bread crumbs into a dark and misty forest.

On the other hand its not like this movie has absolutely nothing to offer the critical thinker. To keep it an intellectual pursuit the film makers cleverly decided to make it one of those interpretive movies. While most of the story is opaque, there’s also a lot of it that is ambiguous, allowing people to create their own interpretations. Some call it lazy, others call it brilliant, and I call it fair. When exploring themes this compelling its best to leave something up to the viewer. Inception crafts an outrageous new world that you are invited to explore and write your own stories within, an idea that is sadly missing from many films today.

The cast is another aspect of Inception I found quite remarkable. Every member present gives there all and breaths a great deal of life into their character. Although not all are created equal in terms of importance one need only remind themselves that at its heart, inception is a heist movie. Sure some of the characters are relegated to being a 2-dimensional sidekick with a single defining role, but that is the case with most heist films. What makes each of them work is the contribution from the actor. The team that has been assembled here might as well be the Avengers or the JLA; it’s that epic.

The visuals are impressive although in many ways the movies weakest point. While interesting and fun to look at there are a lot of limitations imposed by the narrative. You won’t see any over the top surrealist dream-like images, but that’s because you’re not supposed to. By the very nature of the story the characters are to an extent controlling the dream world, preventing it from going off into some strange parody of reality. While this is a legitimate excuse and probably one that actually helps the movie from becoming too silly it still makes you wonder what could have been if they had perhaps invested even just a tiny bit more imagination into the dreamscapes.

Special recognition also goes out to Hanz Zimmer who composed the score. There’s a lot of praise to give to a man who seems to have traveled all the way to Valhalla and stolen a Viking’s ram horn to compose most of the sound track. While the plot is subtle, the music manages to stand in direct opposition by delivering a deep sound track that shakes the marrow of your bones. In a sense, it works to remove any sort of somber moments that may surface in a movie about dreams by reminding you of the underlying intensity of the film.

There isn’t a whole lot more that I can say about this movie without spoiling too much. Every moment holds a mystery and half the fun is just watching everything come together in one delicate movement. Regardless of whether or not this is the movie for you I can’t help but recommend it none the less. No, the movie isn’t going to appeal to every man, woman, and child out there but it’s something that maybe everyone should see. Christopher Nolan claimed to have been influenced by The Matrix, 2001 a Space Odyssey, Dark City, Blade Runner, and just about every other milestone of Science Fiction to have been released over the past 40 years or so. With Inception, it shows, and just like those movies this is going to become a pop culture phenomenon that shifts the entire paradigm for things to come.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Almost There

Saw Inception but I'll need more time to post my review. There's a lot to think about when it comes to this movie and I'm trying to find a way to talk about it without giving away too many spoilers. As for my general opinion of the movie, I really liked it. This is one of the best summer action movies to come out in a while. As a matter of fact, this is probably the best summer action movie to come out since The Dark Knight.

Look for the review later today. For now, I'll be giving it a tentative "A" grade. Go see it if you haven't already.

Monday, July 19, 2010

DQ9 Review (No, its not about Dairy Queen)

Square-enix , or “Squeenix” as the rabid fanboys lovingly say , is a company I find myself constantly entranced by; peering over their shoulder like a stalker or some worrisome mother carefully examining every move they make to ensure they don’t end up as a hobo due to the B- they received on a history exam from 2nd grade. The difference being that my obsession with the company has spawned from an interest in all the unusual and experimental stuff that comes flooding out their doors. Say what you will about their ever increasing need to become a motion picture studio, Square-enix is still around because they perform more terrifying experiments than a necrophiliac locked in a morgue

But a company cannot stand on experiments alone lest we forget the fatal flaw in Dr. Frankenstein’s new medical science of prosthetics. That’s why Square-enix periodically releases something old school and familiar to soothe the tooth aches of the winy emotionally challenged adults that look towards their past with a form of nostalgia that borders on the edge of Mel Gibson lunacy, more like Edge of Darkness lunacy, har har har. So to appeal to this group which is fast approaching the endangered species list, Square-enix comes out with throwbacks to classic RPGs usually packaged in the shiny new box of a remake (how progressive) or in this case, a Dragon Quest title.

On its surface Dragon Quest 9 is exactly what this niche market of gaming culture is clamoring for. Instead of polished graphics and overly bloated soap opera-esque melodrama the game focuses heavily on simplistic RPG mechanics that follow the dance routine of click attack to kill monster, grind until you level, acquire new skills, navigate menus, repeat, and eat another Oreo you fat RPG sad sack. While this all sounds well and good on paper, what a lot of people seem to forget is that the old method is rarely the best, unless you’re talking about forms of torture. With the modern shift in RPGs leaning towards a focus on active action that involves the player and epic league storytelling, the classic turn based combat and traditional “Knight saves world” plot feels a little lazy. This isn’t to say that there is anything wrong with this direction, but it is a bit limiting.

Dragon Quest 9 begins with the player assuming the role of a guardian angel, wings and all. From the get go you can change the look of your character, although there were no beard options nor a clickable check box to have the characters’ testicles descend and thus dispelling any possibility of playing an emotionally interesting character or any character over the age of 12 for that matter. Being the mature and sophisticated journalist that I am I made the least human looking youngster I could and went off on my grand adventure of slaying the innocent towns folk only to discover this isn’t one of those free to choose your own adventure games. Nope looks like its tree worship for me! Huzzah!

The story of Dragon Quest revolves around feeding a powerful tree happy thoughts in hopes that it won’t start killing you with wind in the same vein as a M. Night fantasy. Throughout the game you assist people with their problems, like removing that nasty growth on top of the monster’s neck. Being a good Samaritan results in prayers being given to you as some kind of voodoo power that the gluttonous tree devours in its ever continuing quest to trump god on the meter of self-absorbed tiddly-wink masters. This is the sappy stuff of classic gaming although if it had been a little wiser and chosen a more Meta approach where it gives you an even vaguer plot structure with insipid goals I think it could have worked much more effectively.

Say what you will about modern games, hell even Final Fantasy 13, but one brilliant revelation that RPG developers have unearthed over the past five years or so is a method of challenging one’s brains and reflexes. Dragon Quest’s simple formula doesn’t really do this and instead showcases one of the biggest problems with older RPGs and that is the illusion of depth. Whenever an old school enthusiast tries to debate the merits of the older game play mechanics they will claim that it was more about strategy than action. Ok, I will admit that turn based strategy does offer a great deal of meditative play, but very few games actually capitalized on it. There is a possibility to offer a compelling multi-layered element of challenge to this tried and true system but few games can accomplish it. Dragon Quest doesn’t even come close.

Instead the core structure revolves around grinding. Kill enough monsters and no enemy will be able to topple you. Feel free to wave your dick at him while you do so and tea bag his corpse in the honor of Master Chief. Buy the next piece of armor and weaponry at the local store to increase you stamina and have an all nighter – err….

The developers do try to spice things up a bit with some wi-fi group play and gorgeous 3D graphics, but these two things only serve to throw you into a suicidal frenzy; haplessly attacking bee hives and polar bears at random hoping for a painful demise. The element of wi-fi allows you to party with local friends but comes at the cost of completely ridding the game of any true or memorable party members. Gone are the days of the campy-fun sidekicks with unique personalities and back stories, now you travel around with mute henchmen who have a creepy level of anonymity circling about them. For all you know that person who helped you defeat the metal slime is a child-molester. If he tells you he likes the size of your sword it’s about time you reach for the power button.

As for the graphics, they are really impressive for a DS title but create the impression that maybe they spent too much time on the presentation and forgot about a few other things. You know, like that whole fun factor category.

All and all these complaints wouldn’t bother me if it wasn’t for the games sloooooooooow pacing. By slooooooow pacing I mean this is analogous to a sloth being carried by a group of snails across a street covered in molasses uphill – during an ice storm. The first hour or so I encountered only one fight, yes one. The rest of the time I was running around towns talking to the static people about topics as interesting as the benefits of fiber for one’s bowel movements or the local farm girl’s recent herpes development. I realize that most of the dialogue was optional and I could have skipped it but I’m a purist, which is another way of saying I suffer from an extreme case of Stockholm syndrome when it comes to “classic” roleplaying.

Despite all of these complaints, I can’t help but enjoy Dragon Quest 9. I said ENJOY, not love. This is a decent game that calls back to a simpler time when things were perhaps too simple in the IQ dipping below 75 sort of way. No, it’s not perfect, but then again it doesn’t need to be. I completely understand why it exists and to be fair its better that games like these continue to be released. Without them I don’t think people would really appreciate how far games have come. Then again, I don’t think anyone really notices at all. If only there was some way to capture their attenti - Hey, look! It's Seth Green!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

More Nonsense!

Dragon Quest 9 Review comin' up tomorrow. Check it fools!

Also, overtime is back with a hard-on for vengeance. No idea how long this crap is going to be looming over my shoulder so please send you donations to: Feudal Cactus, at the brown mailbox on the corner of 5th and division near the drunken hobo with a butterfly knife. Spokane WA 99005. Thank you, and Cthulu bless you.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Damn You Disney Magics!

Two days ago I saw The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Originally I had planned on releasing a review on the following day but I gave myself a little bit of time to think it over and collect my thoughts. Why? This is a summer movie, not just any summer movie but a Disney family/action title released in the middle of July. These are the kind of movies that require special tools with a practiced hand to critique. Luckily for you I am more than qualified.

Here’s the thing about summer movies, most of them are just stupid; they are bare bones action films that fill seats and get people out of the blistering summer weather to escape for two hours while they leave their brain baking on the dashboard of their car. This isn’t always a bad thing; stupid big budget ‘splosion fests can be really engaging. I don’t always want to test the merits of my English degree when I go into movies or sit down with a mental notepad scribbling down the deep characterizations and arcs that are taking place on screen. Every now and then it’s fun just to see cool things happen on screen with a cast of likable enthusiastic heroes. This isn’t an excuse for stupidity however; in fact one of my biggest pet peeves happens to be when people automatically give a golden star to the pre-school macaroni paintings mass produced by the Michael Bay Legion of Doom School of film making.

Take last summer for example, we had several titles released which failed to entertain me because they were trying to either be something much greater than what they were or spread themselves thin by grabbing for an enormous market. Wolverine, Terminator, and Transformers are all great examples of summer movies that cannot skate by on the “They’re just meant to be fun” excuse. Sloppy convoluted narrative, pretentious writing, insensitive characters that are completely alien to each other and the audience, it’s all there. The counter balance to these films was the lost gem of the 2009 summer movie season, G.I. Joe, a movie which clearly understood what being a big budget action film is all about: silliness, fun, and a light hearted sense of exploration. After much deliberation I feel confident in saying that Sorcerer’s Apprentice falls into that pleasant field of entertainment as G.I. Joe.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a pretty typical family adventure movie involving magic. Young boy is destined to save the world, he eventually stumbles upon his boon by accident, receives some tutelage from a mentor, struggles with his personal life, and in the end rises to the challenge to overcome the pure manifestation of evil. For anyone that has read about the Heroes’ Journey or studied the 20th century idea of the hero with a thousand faces will immediately be familiar with the plot. Heck, even if you haven’t studied this stuff you’ll probably pick up on it as this sort of prose constitutes the very fabric of human literature and floats around in the ether above our heads like some zeitgeist.

No, there’s nothing special here, but there doesn’t need to be. Disney is just offering you the very foundation for a traditional adventure revolving around an up and coming champion and they don’t bother to fill in all the grey areas with sex, pointless action sequences, or forced humor. Everything is natural and recognizable just as it should be.

By now you’re probably thinking, “If this is by the books, what makes it even worth watching?” Well the answer is pretty easy, the talent. Disney is a company that has tons of money and if need be they can move the money in just the right way to get everything running smoothly. This Sorcerer's Apprentice is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, co-produced by the person that did Pirates of the Caribbean (no I have no idea what his/her name is), and directed by the same bloke who churned out the National Treasure movies, Jon Turtletaub. Let’s look at all of these people, none of them are high-minded auteurs but they are pretty good at making popcorn entertainment. So when you mash the three of them together and gingerly sprinkle in some special effects, a recognizable story, and fun characters you get exactly what you need/pay for.

So what exactly is the premise behind this completely unoriginal tale? We the audience follow a young man Dave, played by Jay Baruchel, a college aged nerd who loves science but is plagued by a haunting memory. When he was much younger he stumbled across an ancient sorcerer named Balthazar, played by Nicolas Cage, who informed him that Dave was the Prime Merlinian, essentially the Kwisatz Haderach, who would defeat the evil Morgan La Fay and bring balance to Earth once and for all. Thanks to a little intervention by the film’s villain, whose shoes are filled by the always brilliant Alfred Molina, the destiny is called off for about 10 years on account of rain and a Deus Ex Machine urn and the boy spends the better part of a decade seeking psychiatric help. Well the 10 years pass and Dave’s destiny catches up with him, he must now learn how to harness his powers before Alfred Molina’s Horvath character can unleash the powerful Morgan La Fay and bring about the end of the world.

Yes, its cheesy, yes it’s pretty trite, but damn is it entertaining. More importantly, the characters are a joy. Jay Baruchel plays the awkward Jewish nerd as always and while his range as an actor is beginning to wear itself thin he still fits nicely into this movie. His nervousness and social ineptitude are befitting for a magician since, let's face it, they are the scholarly book worms of the fantasy universe always getting strung up the castle flag pole by their pantaloons. To my knowledge this is the first film where Jay Baruchel has had to carry the weight of an entire project on his shoulders as the lead man, but luckily he is being supported by Nicolas Cade who gives a dynamite performance. Cage is playing a man who doesn’t really belong in our modern era and as such the role allows him to do what Nick cage does best, be really weird and funny. The chemistry between these two is the foundation for the movie and why it holds up so well. Taking an up and coming actor and having him play off the talents of someone who is in many ways making a career come back is fascinating to watch. although the true screen gem in this film is the very force opposing them, Alfred Molina. Thank goodness the producers over at Disney were able to point a gun at Alfred Molina after he finished up Prince of Persia, forcing him to go across the studio lot and start filming this. Alfred Molina as Horvath the Morganian antagonist is a delight to see on screen. His charisma is something that I always look forward to in films and he’s practically dancing across the screen here.

All the supporting cast is regrettably forgettable, but I honestly couldn’t care less. In certain movies a decent supporting cast can do wonders but here its all just bland and unnecessary.

In terms of direction and visual flare the movie is effective. There were only a few spots that seemed a bit rushed or visually jarring but most of it is quickly forgotten once you get wrapped up in the amazing action sequences. In fact the only part of the movie that had me wanting to leave the theater was the very beginning. The opening three minute sequence is poorly done as it tries to organize the back story into a condensed filing cabinet when I feel like that kind of exposition should have been woven into the rest of the film in small doses. So if you are the type to judge a book by its cover be warned that you may have to struggle with that gut instinct to leave your chair fairly early on, but I can assure you that it picks up quickly. Before you know it you’ll be laughing at the simple yet effective comedy and being wowed by the over the top action sequences which truly are a lot of fun.

The biggest complaint that I have been hearing about this film stems from its source material. When I went into this I just assumed it was based on some popular children’s fantasy series like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, or any of the other countless books getting adapted into screenplays these days (can you blame me?). As it turns out this movie is based on a very old Disney property. In fact I didn’t even realize it until much later, although there is a scene in this film which is a dead giveaway which had many critics rolling their eyes in disgust. Here’s the thing: the movie is so far removed from the source material that there is almost no connection whatsoever, so when the film makers finally decided to tear down that brick wall and throw the reference right into my face I saw it only as an homage and still could not fabricate any sort of demonstrable connection between the two intellectual entities. To me this is a brand new product with a brand new universe and I’d like to see more of it.

One other thing I’d like to mention is the product placement; after all, what Disney summer movie would be complete without it! Yes, there are a lot of ads, and while it is intrusive it never really has any lasting effect. When I hear the songs in this film that swell up and completely dominate scenes I recognize that these are probably fresh tunes playing on radio Disney currently, but by the time I leave the theater I had already forgotten them. Sure their presence is annoying but they become so superficial that they literally blend into the background much like the rampant advertisements that appear in major metropolitan billboards and electronic displays. Hell, I’ll even admit that there was one ad in this movie that got a pretty good laugh out of me, it’s for Magic the Gathering, something that I personally don’t care for but god damn was it funny within the context of the scene.

So yeah, Sorcerer’s Apprentice is by the books, it’s corporate, but it’s a lot of fun too. This isn’t going to be your favorite film of the summer, not by a long shot but it’s not a complete throw away either. I’m not going to tell you that this is something you have to see in theaters, because it’s not, but it is something you definitely want to pick up once it hits video or television. What can I say? The Mouse has gotten me again with its charm. Keep up the good work Nick Cage, keep it up.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Fashionably Late Reviews: Zombieland

I didn’t see the new Predators movie last night but since I promised a review up on Monday I decided to post something else. Enjoy.


There comes a time when any critic must stick their neck out and voice a very unpopular opinion, and that time is now for me. I’ve worried about entering this deadly domain where my opinion goes against the grain of pop culture and even the vast critical consensus as it appears on sites such as rottentomatoes.com. So to what movie is this blasphemy aimed? Today I’ll be talking about the undead phenomenon that is, Zombieland.

Before I go any further I would just like to state for the record that I do not in fact hate Zombieland, I just think it is a very overrated movie that probably deserves a B- rating overall. When this movie came out it was all the talk of the movie world; critics, fans, even people who disassociate themselves from zombie paraphernalia went in droves to see this movie. People were saying this was the best zombie film since Day of the Dead while others claimed it was the greatest comedy of 2009. All I could think was whether or not I was in fact watching the same movie that everyone else had seen because what I saw was something that failed to live up to its promise and became a paint by numbers comedy seated within a Zombie apocalypse.

I feel like the focus of my negative criticism actually revolves around the infidelity the movie has towards its own premise. When I first saw a trailer for this I was stocked. To me this was a film adaptation of all the great zombie parody material that were coming out in bookstores like The Zombie Survival Guide or a much sillier American take on the Shaun of the Dead film (Which is better btw. I’ll briefly touch on this later). Instead what I received was a movie that opened with a bang but quickly felt the need to skate along familiar ground to avoid sinking in a lake of creative genius.

The movie opens by taking to the ground running as the audience follows the socially awkward protagonist as he carefully explains his overly analytical methods of zombie survival. His observations are so deeply thoughtful that they end up being absolute gut busters and quickly have the movie goers siding with an otherwise uncaring and unlikable misanthrope.

Now a 90 minute movie cannot survive on the strength of one geek doing warm up stretches before each zombie altercation so they throw a humorous monkey wrench into the scene in the form of Woody Harrelson, the Ted Nugent of zombie hunters. He’s a crude redneck with all the class and tact of a serial killer baboon, but more importantly he is the counter point of the protagonist that constantly points out the futility of his scientific method. There’s no deep philosophical question centering on the grace of zombie survival, there’s just explosions and guns. He is the Moe to the Curly, the Hardy to laurel, the Eric Cartmen to butters, that perfect balance of exact opposites being forced to work together for the greater good of hilarity.

For the first 20 minutes the movie functions on a similar level of crazy comedy that Monty Python operates. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and is willing to dispense with plot if it means getting a great joke across to the audience. Honestly, this highly pressurized attention to comedy was something that has been sorely missing from comedies over the past 20 years or so and I was hoping that this would be the movie that broke the mold once and for all. Alas, two cock blocking females waltz on set and it all goes to pot.

I’m not trying to be sexist or anything, but one of the things that work well with buddy comedies is when there are no distractions to keep the characters from growing far apart. The two women in this movie are the banal instruments of movie storytelling that quickly herald in the incredibly sluggish middle act. Rather than continuing to focus on what was sold to us in the trailers and the first act of the film, the creators decide to force feed a sappy love story into the middle and make us care about two hormonal teenagers that I simply couldn’t give two shits about.

Remember the romance in Shaun of the Dead? Remember how it actually worked to strengthen the film and get the audience invested into the characters’ personal problems? Well it worked because the movie starts out with almost no zombies; in fact the first act of Shaun of the Dead is used to establish the very human elements of the characters. Sure, they’re nothing more than selfish twats but you get to see them each struggle with their own imperfections and once they find their courage you can’t help but cheer them on as they go about their half-brained scheme and sift through zombie carnage.

In Zombieland we get two horny teens who are presumably the only teenagers left in America as far as the film is concerned and because he finds his courage and because she’s – um, hot I guess, they fall madly in love. That’s a pretty big *yawn* for me. How about giving me characters I actually WANT to see find true love and happiness? How about giving the characters a bit more depth? Actually no, forget that, what is love doing in this movie at all? Get back to the humor! I don’t want love in a movie called Zombieland that features Ted Nugent humanoid machines of destruction, I want joke after joke after joke juxtaposed into a hostile environment.

Love isn’t the only characterization problem in this film, early on it’s revealed that the reason Woody Harrelson is the psychopath presented on screen is because this whole end of days scenario killed his adorable puppy dog, the one love of his life. This is so simplistically clever that I wanted to applaud when I first saw it, but then reminded myself that applauding in films is absolutely pointless and stupid. How does one justify the actions of a person with no compassion for his fellow man and wants nothing more than to destroy the shambling remnants of humanity? Kill his puppy of course. Sadly (major spoiler coming up), towards the end we discover that the term “pup” was just a pet name used for his infant son. Congratulations, Woody Harrelson’s character has been made human. No, no, no, please stop film makers. I don’t want this character to be sympathetic I want him to be the inhuman focal point of all jokes in the film. What does this revelation serve to the plot? Sure it helps define who he is, but so did the dog. Does knowing he had a son make him any more likable? No. Does it explain his obsession for Twinkies? No. The only possible explanation it can serve is strengthening his bond with the main character in some sort of metaphorical father/son dynamic, but that seems like a cop-out since their bond is balanced upon hype thin tissue paper. Besides, his inability to deal with both humans and the human like undead is better realized with his adoration of animals. Just a thought, but wasn’t this supposed to be a comedy? Whatever.

Another thing that troubled me was the strange network of zombie knowledge shared amongst the survivors that was never fully explored. Take for instance the scene from the trailer about “zombie kill of the week”, and think about its context within the film. Outside what they showed in the trailer there was little else to the punch line. An old lady drops a piano on a zombie and she earns the dubious title of zombie kill of the week. Here’s the question though, how do these characters know this?

I’m all for suspending my disbelief, but are we to assume there is some underground network of zombie information being channeled to all survivors? If so, why don’t we get more of this in the film? That was a genuinely hilarious moment and I would have liked more of it. Oh, but wait, we have to shift through the love first. *Hourp!* sorry, I just puked a little.

When expressing my opinion on this matter, most common refutations I hear relate to the enigma being part of the joke, that there is no need to explain because the mystery is more entertaining than any sort of explanation that could have been provided. First of all I feel like that is a pretty weak excuse and secondly why was it even in the film in the first place? That scene seems almost like it was left over footage from another portion of the movie, like perhaps the credit sequence or even the prologue where they show all the various scenes of zombie mayhem. Within the context of the scene it seems forced like the editor needed to add another 40 seconds to the final cut of the film and had the characters briefly reference this joke and then abandon it completely. Zombie kill of the week may not have been a great running gag, but they could have taken this idea of an omniscient knowledge data base to the next tier and really ran rampant with the jokes.

The last complaint I have goes back to the characters, in this case its Abigail Breslin. She is an outstanding child actor and I love her to death, but what is she doing in this movie? When I first saw the poster of the movie and saw her wielding a pipe I got pumped. I couldn’t wait to see her mutilating those undead heathens! Yet this scene is missing from the movie. She never does step up to the plate and do any hardcore zombie killing; instead she hangs out in the background. When the need arises for her to actually do some slaying she screams like a little girl and seems a bit reluctant to even pull the trigger. Then again, this all ties in to that scene where she is being trained to use a gun by Woody… forget it. I have seen Kick-ass and I know that films can create badass little kid characters. Abigail should have been the Hit Girl of this movie, it would have added a lot of fun to the experience, but again, this isn’t a movie about pure comedy, this is a movie about giving you the standard Hollywood boy meets girl love horseshit.

Ok, admittedly the movie isn’t bad, in fact I’ve watched it more than once if that’s any consolation, but this is a movie that could have been MUCH better. Remove all the stock character arcs which end up being about as flat as Kate Hudson’s breasts, dispense with the need to shoe horn in a love story which is completely devoid of any rich potential, and focus more on the things that make the movie fun to watch and I swear they could have created the best comedy of the decade. Well, they didn’t do those things and they managed to churn out a movie that ended up not being so memorable but is in no way a complete throw away. Watch it if you haven’t seen it, hell the big cameo during the end of the second act is enough to pay the full $5 for rental.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Red Dead Redemption Review

Every man wants to be a cowboy. Sure, some of us want to be the kind that wears pink ascots and chaps (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but most men desire to be the burly man of the wilds. Men want to be the tough alpha male, a man who follows his own codes and lives his life against the wants and wishes of others. We dream for a life of freedom and ruggedness that is lacking in our sterile modern metropolises. We all want to, “Be your Huckleberry” as Val Kilmer once so elegantly put it, which believe it or not is a lot cooler than how it sounds.

The west has always been so heavily romanticized because it idolizes a harsh and unforgiving form of heroism that is not seen in most other forms of historical writing. Where the majority of warriors in the past lived by strict codes of conduct and were more interested in tribal superiority and national pride, the old west concerned itself with anarchy; it was a lawless land, the very last frontier of Earth where the very elements of nature from the terrain to the plants and animals posed a serious threat to one’s life expectancy. Sadly, we can’t live our lives by this standard any longer, but Rockstar Games is meaning to change that.

Red Dead Redemption is the latest sandbox title released from the same people who brought you the Grand Theft Auto series and for better or worse it sports the same Euphoria engine that the infamous crime series has used to warp our humble youths into serial rapists for years, so sayeth Jack Thompson. I want to be honest with you for one moment, I was never a fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, and no it has nothing to do with the ultra violent depravity (you should see my Wednesday nights), but with the game play itself. Grand Theft Auto has always been about the money shot, it is an experience where the objective is ultimately to have none. The principle design element of the series ever since the second one came out on PS2 was to hand all the most thrilling and shiny toys to the player and have them go off on some sugar induced joy ride into the very mouth of madness. Once I had blown up several helicopters, murdered some women of the street, gone pugilist on unsuspecting pedestrians, and left a nice flaming bag of dog poo on the front porch of the ATF building I got pretty bored. For whatever reason overstimulation has always been a huge problem for GTA. If you give me the means to do anything I want I’ll go ahead and do everything and end up wanting more. The idea behind clever game design is to slowly funnel the experience to the player and constantly bait them with greater challenges and experiences the deeper they go. There was no reason to engage in the story missions because the overall narrative felt like a content blocker which prohibited the player from all that unchecked carnage. Why would I help out with some drug scheme when I could just cut straight to the chase and mow down an entire squadron of heavily armed troops with automatic weaponry?

Luckily Red Dead Redemption is a game of restraint. Instead of giving you everything, it puts you into a sandbox of severe limitations. These limitations however are not mere invisible walls put into place to prevent the wackiness from spilling over the lip but are instead organic to the environment and story in which they are contained. When you take away cars, rocket launchers, and unprotected sex but leave everything else in tact while simultaneously providing an interesting character driven story, then you are now enticing your audience into a game world that they can fall in love with, a game world they actually want to get to know and eventually take to a movie on the third date before getting to first base.

So what is this phenomenal story you ask? Well, the game throws the player into the year 1911 and things are a changing. Hanging above the game is a theme of defiance, the west is dying and the ever present industrial age of science and order are encroaching into the untamed wilds. You play as the former outlaw John Marston who has been contractually roped into helping the government by tracking down his former gang members and bringing them to justice. There’s a lot of animosity towards the protagonist; to the people of the west he is a government yes man, a tool of the faceless society that threatens their livelihood, a city boy with no knowledge of the western lands. On the surface John fits this description, but beneath his ever calm persona is a dangerous man willing to stop at nothing to protect his family. This is where the game truly shines and coincidentally is also the reason for no prostitute sex in this euphoria outing.

Unlike previous Rockstar games which tried to have you controlling people with very little to no redeemable qualities, Red Dead Redemption wants you to side with a tormented man with a shady past. This combination affords the excellent dichotomy of unquestionable hero and man willing to kill without hesitation.

Strangely, the character of John Marston also happens to be the most glaring problem with this game. Although you are given the opportunity to become an outlaw and rack up a rather impressive bounty on your head by laying waste to entire towns ala Vash the Stampede, there are never any consequences reflected in the main story. When I first started playing the game I was testing out the controls and accidently drew my gun while standing near a citizen. Upon seeing this action the man began firing at me in self defense. Before I knew it the whole village was up in arms trying to paint my wagon red with blood. At first I tried to run away but since I was still acclimating to the controls (I’ll get to that later) I was having some difficulties. Long story short I ended up killing most of the town’s people in order to survive and boasted a mighty impressive $500 bounty on my head. Without skipping a beat I immediately went over to my neighbor’s house, who clearly should have witnessed this massacre, to continue with the main storyline and she spoke with me as if the red on my shirt was raspberry jam.
Consistency much?
This is a serious problem with games today where they give you moral choices but have little to no consequence on the primary plot which the game has been tightly fitted into like a saloon girl’s corset. The game has a grand story in mind and you are along for the ride. Whether you like it or not, John Marston is the immaculate hero and nothing you say or do will deviate the game from this path. Now I understand that this is a minor complaint and I also understand that not everyone is into these things for plot or character; after all, game play trumps all other features of a game. So how is the game? Well, it’s rather good.

As far as sandboxes go, it doesn’t get much better than this. While the story is entertaining enough to make tunnel vision set in, there are plenty of side missions. Want some extra cash? Go collect on a bounty or play a game of dice and cards at a local tavern. How about sitting down for some whiskey? Why not go kill wild animals and skin them for their flesh? If your current horse isn’t doing it for you why not try taming a wild one? And if all of this manliness is too much for your sissy sensibilities to bear you can always escape into the wilderness and pick some flowers – I’m being serious. There are a ton of distractions here and each of them feels just as satisfying as completing the main quest line, yes even the flowers! But the main attraction is of course the gun fights.

Red Dead Redemption handles like most third person shooters, run into battle, take aim and lay waste to your opponents. As is traditional with modern gaming there is a decent cover system in place which allows you to hide from enemy fire and pop up periodically to pick off each opponent. Once the enemies are defeated you can run up to them and take their ammo and any spare cash they have on their corpse. If you don’t want to do any lasting harm so that you can collect that large bounty, shoot them in the legs or lasso and hogtie them and get them back to the sheriff’s office. Since health packs are a thing of the past, surviving in the heat of battle is a matter of hiding while your Uncanny X-men rejuvenation powers get you back up to speed. Still, if you are undergoing severe blood loss there are restorative items that can be used in the thick of battle.

The true ace up John Marston’s sleeve however, is his dead eye gauge. By activating this nifty feature john can slow down time and pick off his enemies in a much easier fashion. Don’t abuse it too much as it has a finite amount of juice which slowly recharges after being depleted.

After battle you can take all of your earnings and buy some nifty things like apples for your horse, maps of local areas, or weapons and ammo. Sadly most of these items can be found while on mission so money ends up being silly and pointless, although there are a few items such as snake oil which will always come in handy even much later in the game.

Aside from gun slinging other core game styles include: a rousing games of chariot racing, going on a “Temple of Doom” style mine cart rides ($8 pass for children and seniors, $12 for adults. Pregnant women and people with heart problems shouldn’t ride), escorting coaches across the wilderness, and saving innocents from ravenous cougars and the occasional bandits. Doing all of these things raises the fame meter and makes people enjoy John’s presence by offering more cash for rewards and forgetting that this supposed “paragon of excellence” put a whole in their pa’s head late last night because he mistook that ladle for a six shooter at the camp site.

Despite all the praise, there are several things about the game play that are excruciating. The controls take a lot of getting used to. After combat your fingers will be ready for high acrobatics at the circus because you’ll have juggled your digits across 5 buttons simultaneously as you try to aim, shoot, dodge, and run. Normally these controls don’t interfere much with the fun but it is a little baffling why holding down the A button to run is perfectly acceptable during regular movement, but once combat begins you have to rapidly jam on the thing to maintain that same sprint. Holding down the A button does not change functionality in combat, in fact it’s not used in combat at all, so why does the player have to suddenly press the button repeatedly to perform the same action they were just doing moments ago when there were no bullets zipping through the air? Also, ever vehicle segment from: mine carts, to chariots, and coaches all handle differently. Most of these things suffer from wonky physics when they suddenly brush up against cacti. Luckily hoses mechanics are spot on. Never has the experience of riding a horse been so entertaining or fluid within a game. No lie, there were moments when I actually devoted time to just riding around the wilds on horseback because the experience was so enriching.

Another complaint I had with the game play is that combat seemed a little too easy. Simply drawing your weapon in the general area of your foe has John lock down on them making aiming a tertiary concern. Add to that the dead eye system and there is almost no marksmanship to speak of. This occurs in other third person shooters like Resident Evil 4 and Mass Effect and I blame the recent rise in this trend on analog controls. They simply don’t offer the precision or quick response of a mouse-keyboard setup. Now before any of you console purists say otherwise let me offer up this infallible refutation to your argument, no, you are wrong. I do not doubt your skill with the analog controls, but if you take the best Xbox controller user in the world and pit them against the best keyboard/mouse user you better prepare yourself for a Rick James bitch slap if you had money on the analog sticks.

There’s also some multiplayer here, but as of this review I haven’t tried any of it out yet. Unless we’re talking about a game built exclusively around online play, I like to base games on their single-player experience as I’m not at all interested in reviewing that portion of the game anyways. So Meh.

The last bit of the game that demands some focus is the presentation. The vistas are epic and sweeping the music sounds like it was ripped right from a Sergio Leone film, and most importantly everything feels authentic and gritty. Most of the characters are absolutely hideous with their scars, heat blistered skin, and bourbon stained teeth. The very ugly nature of the landscape and its people compliments the feeling of the harsh dessert landscape. Similar to most games that have been coming out this generation there is a terribly abusive amount of the color brown, although I’m willing to give this game a pass since it sits well with the territory. Can’t say for certain if this was an artistic choice or an accidental blessing (leaning towards the latter), but is seamless.

Interestingly, there are a lot of bugs in the game as well, but none that make it unplayable or frustrating. My horse once inexplicably fell on its rear and activated the turbo rocket it had stored up its bum until it gracefully collided into the side of a saloon, instantly killing itself while leaving me unscathed, how considerate. Several NPCs also need to learn to embrace modern science a bit more since they appear to be carrying some sort of lycanthropic disease that turns them into donkeys and coyotes. Again, this is more entertaining than game breaking as these problems only occur with minor characters and are never present during the incredibly polished cinematic sequences.

Red Dead Redemption is the sandbox game that you’ve been waiting for. By dispelling all the juvenile hat tricks of the tradition Rockstar formula, keeping all the great game play elements that make the euphoria engine worth a damn, and distilling the mess down to the most positive elements placed neatly into a compelling western story, they’ve really crafted a winner. This is a true gem of interactive storytelling and while the game suffers from poor controls, a lack of difficulty, and a slightly blemished presentation, the weaknesses are absolutely buried beneath the hail storm of greatness that leaks from every square inch of the shiny disc the game image has been burned on. If you’re looking for the next great western, don’t expect to find it in your local theaters or the DVD section of your video store, because its waiting for you to pick up the controller and live out that cowboy fantasy you’ve been dreaming of since you were six years old and wielding your plastic gun with the orange tipped barrel.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

I Lied

A week ago when my overtime was finished I promised to get back to work but just like Arnold in Commando, I lied. Yeah I've been slumming it for the past 9 days and haven't accomplished a whole lot. I do have some good news though, last night I finally started drawing again. Nothing note-worthy, just a sketch, but at least I put something on paper.

As for my blog schedule I'll have my Red Dead Redemption review posted tomorrow night before midnight after I get done watching the new Predators movie. Expect to see my review for Predators on Monday morning. Before the movie I might also pick up Dragon Quest 9 for the DS. Been hearing great things about it and I'm all about the classic old school turn-based RPG so I'm stoked. I'll have a review for it on Wednesday. On Friday I will post my first images from my comic since I've been promising it for so long.

That's about all I have to say for the moment. Even though I convinced myself not to write as much, I think I'll be doing small posts like this on a semi-regular basis. Hard to say. Keep reading to find out.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Initial thoughts on Red Dead Redemption

I'm the type that likes to arrive fashionably late. Keeping with that tradition I just picked up Red Dead Redemption only about a month and a half past its initial launch. So now that its in my hands, what is my first impression? Its great!

No, seriously, this game is a lot of fun. I've been playing for a couple of hours now and its really sucked me in; i just can't put the controller down. This is the western that people have been waiting for since Unforgiven, no joke.

The game play is great, the story is engaging, and the atmosphere is perfect. So far this thing is shaping up to be one of the most manly experiences I've encountered in recent memory and it does so without having to resort to absolutely ridiculous levels of juvenile violence (although it still can if that's your thing). Here is a sandbox game that feels right, a sandbox game that feels necessary.

Now that's not to say it's perfect. Trust me, there's some pretty awful stuff here and most of it is the leftovers hanging from the unkempt beard of Grand Theft Auto. The controls take some getting used to and there are some times when the game feels like its holding your hand while you cross the street. But that's all minor nitpicking, the weaknesses of the game are skirted behind the mound of epic win put on display in the foreground.

Once I put a few more hours into it and get a better understanding of all the game has to offer I'll post a proper review for those of you who care about something that is no longer on anyone's radar.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Avert Your Eyes from "Brightest Day"

As we all know by now, I love comic books. Comic books are a form of storytelling that combines the intimate methodical techniques of a novel with the visual flare of cinema. In many ways comics are superior to both formats as they can dispense the need for excessive Stephen King levels of exposition by just showing you a picture of what is happening and are capable of setting up much more dynamic shots than movie because the framework of a comic is not limited to the aspect ratio of a movie theater screen or television set.

Yes, comics can do just about anything and probably should try it all. Looking back at the 80s we had very daring writers assembling deconstructive pieces on super hero stories and analyzing the mental stress and odd social implications that a living breathing super soldier might pose to society. Unfortunately, the amazing lengths that comics such as Watchmen or Sandman took were inevitably the catalysts of the absolute destruction of the industry in the 90’s. Gone were the dark tales of cerebral meditation and in were the ludicrous large gunned, multi pocket wearing, amateurish anatomy of the Rob Liefeld age. Somehow comics survived and are now going through a revival thanks to a little bit of ingenuity and the knowledge that “fun” should always be a part of the equation.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the dark stuff; hell Preacher is so vile that it makes me giggle with delight and appreciate the message it’s trying to deliver with its overtly western feel. Despite this love of the macabre I have to say that silly fun will always rank higher on my personal comic shelf. The Bone series is easily one of my favorite comics to ever see Mylar. Ever since I collected the complete paper trade back I have made it routine to read through the whole thing at least once a year. Why? The characters are endearing, the quest is grand, and it knows when to take itself seriously and when to sit around and just goof off. Hell, this is a comic that takes the works of one of the most noteworthy writers of all time, Melville, and references him by naming a cute and cuddly creature after one of the most nihilistic characters in literature. In many ways it’s perfect. This sort of awareness is pivotal to its success; it understands its own universe and doesn’t deny what it is. So with all that said, let’s talk about Brightest Day.

For those of you that have read my stuff since the beginning, you might recall that I posted a rather negative review of cross over events in comics. To save time and space for those who never read the thing, I don’t really care for them. The idea of throwing together all the characters of a respective comic universe to do battle is rarely self contained within its own series and is nothing more than a ploy by the company to have people buying copies of comics from all of their various characters’ individual series.

Luckily Blackest Night was one of those rare gems that knew exactly what it was. First and foremost it was a Green Lantern comic and so it took great care in focusing almost exclusively on the events of Green Lantern that occurred before the cross over began. Sure there was some stuff about Mera and other supporting third tier super heroes, but it was always in small bursts that complimented the primary story. Blackest Night eventually ended and kicked off Brightest Day. As of writing this review I am 4 books in and what I see before me is a completely bland, insipid, scatter brained, juvenile mess.

I’ve always feared that comics might be in danger of going back in time to revisit the atrocities of the 90’s and books like Brightest Day are the reason. Imagine for a second, a comic book about super heroes within the pristine world where Superman and Wonder Woman reside that features a mother brutally murdering her own family and then ripping her own flesh off then proceeding to tear the skin off her now dead family. Oh I’m real…. Yes, this is a scene in Brightest Day. This is a scene that occurs within the standard DCU. Superman will forever be a hero who protects the people of a world where house wives do things on the level of The Collector. Sure I’m aware that sick things happen in life and many might point to me and say, “Stop trying to censor this! You just can’t accept the harshness of reality.” Well to that I say, this is a work of fiction and for the sake of entertainment I am always willing to suspend my disbelief. I don’t mind this sort of behavior in expanded universe material, but once you have the most brutal of horror movie events unfolding on the pages of what will soon be cannon, I think you’ve got a serious problem.

Yeah, Brightest Day is kinda weird and gross. Blackest Night had its morbid scenes as well, hell this IS a zombie apocalypse run, but nothing on this level of insanity. Fans will probably point towards Marvel Zombies and ask why I don’t mention the strange happenings there but honestly Marvel Zombies was always nothing more than kooky fan service. In no way was Marvel Zombies canonical and once you throw Ash from The Evil Dead into the mix you quickly realize it’s all for fun. Blackest Night and Brightest Day want you to believe in this mythology badly; they want you to understand even years from now that yes, zombies are real and yes they can drop kick Hal Jordan like a punk bitch. This is the sort of stupid ideology taken from the 90’s where you just give the loyal fans exactly what they want no matter how inappropriate. Yes, I blame the recent rise in the popularity of zombies for constructing this DC run and shame on all of you for spoiling what once was great.

So other than being gross what’s wrong with it? Well for starters it can’t keep focused. I applauded Blackest Night for its tunnel vision. Brightest Day on the other hand while still belonging to the Lantern comics only does so in spirit. Hal Jordan and Sinestro in the 4 comics that have been published to date have only made an appearance in the first issue and only on the first 3 pages or so. What the hell have they been doing? This is the White Lantern for god’s sake! Shouldn’t they be more interested in the presence of a brand new Lantern Power source? Shouldn’t they be interested in this since it is essentially ALL of the Lantern powers rolled into one with the awesome bonus feature of being able to bring the dead back to life in the non flesh eating George Ramero sort of way? No, of course they’re not. They tried lifting it a few times and Hal chocked it up to being the Sword in the Stone myth. Do I ever wish that were true, hell where’s the Disney version? That would be a lot more entertaining than this schlock.

Wait, didn’t Sinestro seize the power at the end of Blackest Night for a moment? Didn’t Hal Jordan and the collective A-list members of DCU also get some of its mojo towards the end? This Lantern must suffer from some kind of bi-polarness if it freely offers Sinestro its power at the drop of a hat and then isolates itself like some 14 year-old self mutilator the next.

Without any Lanterns around you’re probably wondering, well then who is the story about? Hate to break this to you but Brightest Day suffers from the biggest problem of most cross over events in that it can’t decide who to focus on. The story jumps back and forth between Aqua man and Mera, Firestorm, The Martian Manhunter, and the Hawk duet. *yawn* other than the Martian Manhunter I really don’t care too much about these other characters. They may have had their decent runs here and there, but I’ve never read them and am not interested in starting now. Furthermore, this disjointed narrative can work and has worked in the past but it requires a great deal of creative story telling that I don’t think is present here. Hell you want a great tale that jumps between numerous characters? Read They Came Like Swallows, watch any Quentin Tarantino film, play Final fantasy 6 as these are all great examples of how you can build up an emotional investment in numerous characters and subplots that coalesce into a single cohesive narrative.

Obviously, the events of these separate characters are all unified by the White Lantern, but as of chapter 4 I’m still not seeing it. By now there should be a clear indication of how these completely boring and uninteresting events involving zombie sharks and Martha Mansons are tied to one another other than the very ambiguous, it’s the white lantern’s doing.

Come to think of it, the more I study this, the more I see a desperate ploy by DC to try and inject their increasingly unpopular A-list stars with relevance in the same manner that they did with their C-listers over the last few years. Blue Beatle and Booster Gold are great examples of characters dug up from the mud and turned superstar over night. The difference here is that while those two had interesting stories written around them that were, believe this, fun and captivating, the characters of Brightest Day are just given a zombie face lift because that’s the most edgy and contemporary thing they can think of to appeal to the current market.

Where are the Lanterns? Why is this zombie thing continuing? How is this event going to sit within the DCU several years down the line? What is the logic in depicting such violence when you have creative license to do so in expanded universe material? Umm, shoot – I’m missing two here. Ah the hell with it. So far Brightest Day does not impress me one bit. I’m starting to think that maybe pandering to the fans of zombie culture may end up biting DC back in the ass if they’re not careful. I’ll stick around for now but I would prefer not to *guffah*.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

As For Movies

After much thought and consideration I will be continuing to see at least one movie a week and post a review of it here on my blog. unlike my previous reviews though, I will be focusing less on the technical side of things: cinematography, editing, character acting, etc and more on giving a general feel of the movie, only focusing on the tech if it is truly worth mentioning. The reason for this change is I feel like my last two reviews were a bit boring. Sure I tried to spice them up with a little bit of non sequitur humor, but looking back it gives off a vibe of being forced, which I don't want. Also, I'm thinking that most people don't really care about the technical aspects of film making as much as I do.

The biggest reason for the change is for the sake of spoilers. When talking about a movie by analyzing its various components on equal footing there's a lot of room for error when trying to explain why one loves/hates it while keeping much of the plot locked safely up in the mystery machine. So if you were bored by my 5 page tech manuals, prepare to be slightly less bored by my 6 page hyperbole response rants.

You have been warned.

Friday, July 2, 2010

The Last Airbender. God, Let's Hope So.

As much as it pains me to admit, I think we owe a lot to the ever increasing popularity of anime. For better or worse the rise of anime within American pop culture has lead to another cartoon renaissance where production companies are bravely going into directions that they feared well over a decade ago. This is commendable because when you remove any preconceived bias and go analyze a cartoon down to its most basic structural points it becomes apparent that there are several hidden paths of creativity that animation can trek which live action cannot; more specifically, the suspension of disbelief.

Cartoons can get away with a lot, even the most off the wall zany ideas are considered “free reign”. You want giant robots? Sure thing! How about characters which behave in completely unrealistic ways? You got it! Want to play with perspective and warp the environment to stretch and mold it to our personal taste? Why the hell not! Sure, in the modern era of CGI film things like skewed environments and giant robots are possible, but when you juxtapose them against real people and actual set pieces it becomes as uncomfortably noticeable as a naked man’s erect penis at a playground. There is some territory within the art of visual storytelling that only cartoons can go while live action plays nicely at its own desk, you hear me M Night Shamalan?

So yeah – let’s talk about that Avat… that Last Airbender movie.

The Last Airbender marks M Night Shamalan’s return to directing children’s movies. Since he views himself as some untouchable demi-god transcending above the rest of us mortals (watch Lady in the Water if you doubt me), Shamalamy decided to hit the ground running and tackle the big budget live action movie adaptation of the critically acclaimed and highly successful Avatar: The Last Airbender series which ran on Nickelodeon from 2005-2008. The movie follows the quest of a young boy named Aang, the last of a group of eastern mystics who can manipulate the element of air, or as the colloquialism within the series goes, they bend it like that tennis player. Aang also happens to be the reincarnation of the avatar, a powerful human who can manipulate all the elements of life: fire, water, earth, and of course air. Given his unique gift he is of course destined to save humanity from its Mobius loop of stupidity. Yay. Truth be told you are probably familiar with this story even if you have never been exposed to the animated television from which this is derived, and by derived I mean in the same sense that diarrhea is the second version of that delicious Mexican food you had last night.

The story of Last Airbender was never anything special, go on admit it, when you deconstruct the whole thing down to its most basic elements (har har) you can’t help but notice that it’s a rehash of many popular Asian and Indian cultural stories and fables. This shouldn’t be seen as a misstep though since it was clearly homage. The creators had a great love for these ancient stories and were cross eyed with glee over the culture and traditions of these ancient societies. That very love and admiration for the source material shined through with each animation cell and as a result the audience was invited to explore and enjoy this world as well. This isn’t the case with the live action version. While extremely faithful to the plot of the first season, there is no passion or respect for the mythos. Whoever penned the screenplay should probably be dipped in honey and lowered into a pit of primeval dire anteaters by his/her nipples with a bee jar stuck up their ass because what we have here is a shallow experience that removes all the excitement from the original and opts for the abridged text book edition, now with tinier font!

One gets the feeling of being rushed while trying to get a hold of all the various story details and locations, like the film makers were actually embarrassed to have released this and were trying to usher people out into a meat grinder in the theater lobby to prevent word of mouth from spreading. Edits are terribly sloppy and pasted together in a confusing array of scatter shots that take the viewer from one locale and plot point to the next. In fact, this is probably one of the most horrific edit jobs I have seen in a while; there are moments where actual scenes appear to be missing as characters reference dialogue and actions that never took place. A tad bit jarring.

The movie also seems caught in the middle of a love triangle between the fans and the newbs as it desperately tries to please both parties. Narrative from one of the lead characters is used to explain things, but it becomes intrusive. Problem is if you’ve never seen the show all of this exposition ends up being vacuous. When love between two characters has the strength and thickness of a wet public restroom toilet paper square metaphorically personified in the act of them making googly eyes at one another, adding narration to explain their love is like having the story shot directly into your face with a blunderbuss. And if gunshots to the face weren’t enough the people behind this mess also decided to throw in some good ol’ montages and flashbacks for good measure! Not until very late in the film does the direction show any strong foot holding, and by then it becomes nothing more than a poor man’s Lord of the Rings paint-by-numbers exercise. This all leads to a caddy wompus cluster bomb of confusion that doesn’t give anyone the opportunity to connect with the characters or their struggles.

Do me a favor and sit down to watch one of the episodes of the cartoon series. Pretty charming characters, am I right? Well, did you happen to notice that not a single one of them is a realistic portrayal of an actual human being (with the exception of several bad guys like Zuko)? You might claim to know someone similar to them, but in actuality they operate completely outside the context of normal human behavior. That’s because they are parodies of human characteristics, they are an exaggeration of who we are. This is one of those strengths of animation I was talking about. Part of the reason the cartoon was such a treat was because the characters removed the audience from that man behind the curtain operating the large green headed plot. These characters were the foundation of the show that sparked your curiosity, their presence and conviction made you want to learn more about their world and its problems, and the characters were more than happy to show you. With the movie they are just going through the motions. Their rigid golem-like behavior makes you unsympathetic and unwilling to hop along their rickety rollercoaster with large segments of its track missing. This is a serious problem.

Most of the actors here seem competent, although I’m not actually sure. Maybe It’s because it was midnight when I saw it, and maybe it was because I was drunk, or maybe it was that strange vaporous substance coming off the three hookers I had brought with me, but I wasn’t able to peg down any real winners or losers here. I mean I want to say they were all bad, but I don’t think any of them were given anything to work with and I somehow doubt Shamalan gave them direction. Maybe watching a few episodes of the cartoon may have helped, but again I don’t think that sort of behavior would work well in a live action movie. This movie needed the assistance of a character director, someone who could have retooled the heroes and villains to make them functional and enjoyable within a live action framework rather than functionally retarded or rather just plain retarded for that matter. I think the kid who played Zuko was passable, but his performance was assisted by the angst filled and tormented role demanded by his character. Within a movie of melodrama, the one brooding character from the cartoon translates well.

At this time I would like to take a step into the deep end of the pool where the adults and big kids play so that I can make a very unpopular comment. In order to save this movie a person with a huge swinging pair needed to be propositioned to rework this mess and axe all the unnecessary things no matter how much the frothing fanboys wanted it (those dirty whores). This pains me, but Sokka should have been removed. No seriously, why was this character in the movie? I understand that he is a fan favorite, hell he was one of my favorite characters from the story as well but let’s not forget that his primary role was comic relief. Here he does nothing, and his presence becomes even more eerie and uncomfortable towards the end when they introduce the moon girl. She has no purpose in the movie and the relationship that forms between them is rushed and artificial. Couldn’t they have accomplished the same goals without those two characters and their respective subplot? The answer is yes! Sure it would have been sad to see Sokka gone, but do you think the movie would have been better had Boomie been in it? Yeah didn’t think so and yeah, I realize if you haven’t seen the show then this whole paragraph is probably a mystery. My apologies, I promise to try and stop comparing this to the cartoon.

Visually the movie doesn’t offend. The effects of the fire and water are decent although the fight scenes left something to be desired. I’m thinking that this slow motion nonsense needs to stop before I can get a good night’s sleep. The costume and make-up department must have had a blast with this film and it shows. All of the clothing and uniforms adorned by the characters are nicely updated translations from the original designs and the attention to detail is phenomenal.

The set pieces were epic and grand as they should be, but a little stock. I’m sure I saw that snow kingdom somewhere in the background of The Golden Compass. Come to think of it I believe they stole the animal effects department from that movie as well. The large Floating bison Appa has numerous on screen cameos throughout the film for the fans to soil their Clone Wars Undies, but he’s easily the worst effect in the movie. The skin looks like it was dipped in a grease fryer at KFC and the fur dithers like a sack of hair clippings thrown into a wind tunnel. Not entirely sure why CGI animators think fur moves that way, but what do I know?

Last Airbender somehow managed to give the fans everything they wanted in exchange for the soul of the project. The story is all over the place, the characters are husks, and there is nothing for the audience to bond with. You know what? Forget what I said earlier about divorcing this from the cartoon. The film makers didn’t care enough to make up their mind for who this movie was for, so I refuse to keep my promises. If you’re a fan you’ll be disappointed, if you just want to see a movie you’ll be confused, and if you are a movie buff then you’ll be frustrated with the sub sophomoric cinematography. Maybe there’s a good movie hidden within an intense editor’s cut but I highly doubt it. The lost scenes to this movie are probably kicking it with the arc of the covenant by now. If I happen to see any of the people that made this movie I will demonstrate my own bending of the four elements by throwing dirt in their eyes, subjecting them to prolonged water boarding, lighting them on fire, and farting on their face. You have been warned Mr. Shamalan.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Updates

Overtime is finished and today was the first day I had off. Kinda nice to sit at home and do nothing, but alas I must get back to some productivity.

Saw Last Airbender the other night, currently writing my review which will be posted either late tonight or sometime tomorrow afternoon. If you're unwilling to wait I can provide you with the abridged version; it blows. Seriously, I had my doubts with M Night Shamalama dingdong behind the director's chair but even he has managed to step off the beaten path and gone done kooky lane with this one. So if you're the type to gather pleasure from negative rants and reviews then boy do I have a treat for you.

On a side note, Cataclysm beta is now open and I'm hoping for an invite. I'll keep you all informed and post information if I get in since the NDA was raised.

Bought a ton of new comics as well. Once I get around to posting the Last Airbender and a quick game review I'll do a write-up on my thoughts on Brightest Day and Second Coming. So far so decent.

Also, I'll try to post some artwork that is being developed for the comic since the site is still in limbo. Probably show a few character/environmental sketches. If I have the time I may even post a frame or two from one of the pages to whet the appetite. Hell, if I'm really feeling froggy I may even show some progression images that detail sketch, pencil, ink, touch-up, and colors - that's a big IF.