Planet Blue

Final Fantasy XIII-2 - Part 1

2012-02-05T14:28:00.005-05:00

Obviously there is going to be a lot that needs to be said for "Final Fantasy XIII-2". Final Fantasy, as a series, is sick. Pretty much any player will agree that the Final Fantasy brand does not have nearly the same level of affection and strength that it once had. Years ago Final Fantasy fans were divided pleasantly over silly issues like "Final Fantasy VI" vs "Final Fantasy VII" and honestly thought "Final Fantasy X-2" was as ridiculous as things would ever get. "Final Fantasy XIII" brought us a whole new level of anger, betrayal, and mistrust, which contrasted nicely with new fans who did not mind that the game they were playing was definitely not a Final Fantasy game. But if "Final Fantasy XIII" was merely divisive, "Final Fantasy XIV" was the real blow that turned this series into the laughingstock of the gaming world. (And let's ignore "Dissidia", because I don't want to cry during this review.)

Personally this series, for me, has been in a pretty crappy downward spiral ever since its loftiest heights, "Final Fantasy XII", arguably the best game SE has ever made. I didn't play "Final Fantasy XIII", I steadfastly refused to take part in what I could see clearly was absolutely the wrong direction for JRPGs to take. I explained why I didn't want to be apart of the "Final Fantasy XIII" experience years ago - back then I was convinced that "Final Fantasy XIII" was not a rushed inferior product, and still am. I am never going to play "Final Fantasy XIII", it will never happen. And I was definitely not the only one left behind by "Final Fantasy XIII"'s decisions. The first "Final Fantasy XIII" will probably be debated for years as to its merit or failures, but I'm going to look back upon this era of gaming as a truly sorry chapter in Final Fantasy history. Of course, that's assuming this series even has a future - or a future that's appealing to me, something that I am beginning to doubt.

"Final Fantasy XIII-2", clearly, is the apology to me and many other people who were turned off by "Final Fantasy XIII-1"'s faults, mainly linearity. Of course, "Final Fantasy XIII-2" has also gone ahead and made all kinds of new mistakes, but we'll get into that later. Having played roughly the first quarter of the game, I can say its been a more pleasant experience than I feared, its about as good of a game as I wanted. There have been some good surprises here, I don't outright hate this game. But would I recommend it to other humans? I'm not so sure.

I guess I should explain why I'm on this quixotic quest to play "Final Fantasy XIII-2" in the first place. Honestly, I wasn't all that sure myself. When I booted up the game for the first time I was hit by this niggling thought: "oh god, am I really gonna play this thing? Do I really want to put myself through this? Let's just play more 'Resonance of Fate'." Well, I ignored that thought, because I want to be a part of the discourse around this game. I want to be able to give my thoughts and perhaps give the final word on this whole "Final Fantasy XIII" thing.

I've bashed "Final Fantasy XIII" for years, because as far as I'm concerned, as a JRPG its the root of all evil. I hate linearity, there are no words for it, I simply detest it as a gaming concept. This is why I never really love action games like "God of War" and "Bayonetta", because they're nothing but long tubes of pre-planned action sequences. You might as well hold a controller while watching a movie, that's how much control you have. However, "Final Fantasy XIII" fans have been telling me that the story was good (doubtful), the characters were great (more doubtful), and that the gameplay was really good. Honestly its more the third one that motivated me. Because despite everything, I do enjoy good gameplay, especially good strategic RPG gameplay.

Ironically, the story is not as bad as I thought it would be - its still dreadful and makes no sense, but I'll get into that in another post. The characters are a lot more likable than I ever would have imagined, even Snow who I always assumed for years was just a surfer douchebag. But the gameplay... not so good. The battle system this time is pretty woeful, honestly.

Now "Final Fantasy XIII-2" did fix the linearity, that's important. The first game had virtually no sidequests, no places to go, and nothing to do expect walk forward along an infamously straight linear past that has since been unaffectionately nicknamed "the tube" by fans. "Final Fantasy XIII-2" has no tube, most areas are a maze-like mixture of corridors and open spaces filled with NPCs, sidequests, and of course, enemies. You can also freely wander the game world, going from one area to the next in pretty much any order you want. Do you want to help Snow kill a giant slime monster, or first visit Hope? Its your choice, baby. This also leads to an extremely anarchic difficulty, because I might fight an intensely difficult giant dragon, then the next boss I find is so easy that I can press one button and win.

The way "Final Fantasy XIII-2" justifies your freedom to move around is a time travel plotline. Apparently the fundamental laws of the universe are breaking down, causing all kinds of weirdo time dimensions and paradoxes to appear and wreck havoc across the world. Between each level, you have time gates, where you can then jump and reappear in a different location in a different time. Each level is a closed-off location, but that's fine because you can freely move between levels whenever you want, with the only penalty being annoying load times. I love the freedom this game gives to move around and take on the plotline at your pace. Maybe I want to go visit a side timezone and sidequest for awhile. Guess what? I can. So "Final Fantasy XIII-2" is way better than its predecessor there.

So you might be thinking "well, its like a Final Fantasy 'Chrono Trigger', sounds wonderful!" You would be wrong. Because "Final Fantasy XIII-2" has an utterly insane design decision, one that confounds me to the limits of my sanity. You can only travel about 700 hundred years in the future, and cannot go the past. So immediately, "Final Fantasy XIII-2" wins the title of 'Lamest Time Traveling Mechanic Ever'. I seriously have no idea what SE was thinking when they decided you can only visit this tiny sliver of space-time. Its not like "Final Fantasy XIII" doesn't have an interesting backstory: machine Gods rule humanity, wars between planets, civilizations being destroyed, etc. etc. But you aren't allowed to see any of that. In the future, civilization does collapse, but honestly, I'm disappointed. This also means that previous characters who died cannot come back, so fan favorites like Cid and Fang are out of this game*. Also this means that "Final Fantasy XIII-2" starts in the cyber future, and the technology level never really changes. There isn't much historical change actually happening, just more cyber future.

As a history major, this game's complete failure to take advantage of its own plot ideas is offensive.

Another largely infamous design decision in "Final Fantasy XIII-2" is to limit the playable characters down to just two: Serah and this new guy Noel. Lightning, a fan-favorite character and the former protagonist, is all over the game's advertising, artwork, logo, and even the game cover, but she's not playable. She will, however, be playable in upcoming DLC in what I believe is The Biggest Dick Move of Any Game Company EVER. Lightning is playable in short "Advent Children"-style battle as the opening of the game, then she disappears from the plot only to return in the ending, still unplayable. So let me do a really short character breakdown:

Serah is Lightning's little sister. She runs like a girl, her outfit is horrible**, and she's pretty clearly inferior to her sister in terms of badassness. Serah is a teacher though, like me, so we can agree there, too bad that plot point got ignored pretty fast. I thought Serah would be the annoying cutsey girl that many Final Fantasy games have, like Rikku or Selphie, she's a bit better than that. She's tolerable, really. She's the fiancée to Snow, a guy who is at least fifteen years old than her, but who is judging? Well, except for her internal monologues, those are really bad. Also, her bow/sword is actually a Moogle, you just have to learn to deal with that fact.

Christ is the other main character. He's a boy from the future coming from the past Kyle Reese-style to stop the apocalypse. He wears silly baggy pants and wields a ridiculous sword. Looking at his name "Noel Kreiss", he's obviously Christmas-themed, and is probably the savior of mankind. Christ is kind of a dick, he likes to yell at people and be really bossy and moody. For whatever reason he refuses to tell me his backstory, which is mixed up with the main villains. If this Christ looked like "Persona 3"'s Psycho Revolver Jesus, this would be the best game ever. Oh well.

The third party member slot is taken up by a monster, similar to "Dragon Quest V"'s system. Unfortunately, "Final Fantasy XIII" is not a game with art design by Akira Toriyama, so the monsters are mostly nasty techno lizards, creatures I find difficult to love. You can eventually recruit proper Final Fantasy creatures like Chocobos, Flans, and Tonberries, but for the most part your Pokemon are angry creatures. The Pokemon don't ever have any plot relevance, I don't think the characters ever even mention that they are being aided by monsters. And they don't follow you on the World Map either, which is disappointing. Its hard to connect with your techno lizard when you can never really play with it or take it for walks. For no reason at all you also cannot name your monsters, you can only select new names from a pre-set list of names that SE thought I would want to use. Well, they were wrong, and I hate them for it.

But the most important aspect of "Final Fantasy XIII-2" is clearly its battle system. A game has to be fun, ultimately, and that means good gameplay. I'm going to start off right now and say that those people who raved about "Final Fantasy XIII"'s gameplay were plain wrong, the gameplay is, as far as I can, see barely functional. It is a huge step down from "Final Fantasy XII"'s brilliant system of programmable auto-battle and free open movement.

Much like "Final Fantasy XII", "Final Fantasy XIII" and "XIII-2" rely mainly upon lightning-fast battles that are driven by auto-battle. You cannot individually select every single action, you only have direct control over the lead party member But you'll realize pretty quickly that your own choices are very rarely important and its best to just auto-battle. And since this game's battle system is hyper fast-paced, its dangerous to waste time fumbling through the menus to pick out attacks that mostly all do the same thing anyway. To control the auto-battle in "XIII-2" you need to pick between six preset "roles", which are basically Job Classes. SE broke down their games and decided that there were six things playable characters do in RPGs: attack, defend, heal, use offensive magic, buff party members, and debuff enemies, so each of the six classes reflects these six options. Mid battle you can largely use the auto-battle button all you want, the main strategy is switching to the ideal class for the situation, to change your character's behavior for the most optimal results. At this point I'm basically reviewing both games, because their combat systems are virtually identical.

I'll admit this system is really interest for a game, I haven't played an RPG like it. The battles can be incredibly fast and incredible tense. Unfortunately, this system has some pretty big flaws.

First of all, in "XII", you had Gambits, a list of actions you could program your party members to do. You could change their behavior so they would immediately, for example, heal a party member with low HP, or use a healing item when a party member was low on health. If you wanted to spam a certain kind of magic as the main attack, they would do it. They was a great level of control to that game. If the characters were acting irrationally and stupidly, that was because you didn't make a proper set of Gambits. "XIII" and "XIII-2" have no gambits. I said before that your choices are rarely important in this game, but sometimes they are massively important, to the difference of life and death. So if you're fighting a boss that keeps causing status ailments, how can you make your Healer prioritize the Esuna spell? You really cannot, the best you can do is focus your Healer on individual targets, and I'm not entirely sure what that means. If you need more than one character to use a certain move, it is completely impossible. Which is where Gambits would really help, but - oh yeah, I forgot - there are no fucking Gambits.

The other problem is this concept of "Paradigms". You cannot individually change a character's class, you have to make a deck of six possible Paradigms options, those are the only six compositions your party can ever have. Considering that you have three party members and they each could potentially take six options, there are in total 216 possibilities for how your can compose your party, but the game only lets you use six. You will probably lose against your first battle with a boss because you won't know beforehand what kind of Paradigms you need to beat them. And you can't change them. There's also the massive problem that you can only use three monsters in any Paradigm deck. Monsters can't change classes, they effectively are a class. When you Paradigm Shift, the monster changes into a different monster. So your options in the third slot are constantly limited to just three Jobs, which is bullshit. Paradigm Shifting makes no sense, and I absolutely hate it.

"XIII-2" did fix "XIII-1" outrageously stupid decision to make the party leader's death a GAME OVER, but still switching the party leader is needlessly difficult. I don't know why switching the leader isn't as easy as a button press, its not like the lower shoulder buttons are doing anything. Instead you have to go into the menu, select "switch leader", then wait a second while the game loads up a graphic, and ultimately lose a turn. All this is in real time too, so you really fumble through the menus. Pick the wrong option and you're screwed. You also cannot make monsters the Party Leader, which is a really big problem if you need them to use specific attacks. There are no Gambits, so good fucking luck.

I really want to know where SE hid my Gambits. I want them back. GIVE THEM BACK TO ME.

Leveling up is another thing in this game. In previous Job-based Final Fantasy games, you used the Job you wanted and got EXP in battles for it. Now there's a giant Sphere Grid from which you can level up any Job you have at any time. So you may never use Healer, but you can level up that Job if you have tons of EXP lying around. I like that bit. What I don't like is that there's a Sphere Grid! I hate Sphere Grids! Call them Crystariums or License Boards or whatever the heck, I still hate them! After every other battle I have to manually level up. Ironic for a game that takes away so much control from battles, the one place where it gives extra control is made the most annoying. Also, since you choose which Classes to level up, you can be 100% certain that you'll level up the wrong class and find yourself screwed for a boss fight.

I do like that "XIII" and "XIII-2" you can pound an enemy with a Break Meter. If you use Black Magic long enough, a yellow bar below their health bar is filled and now you can really crush them with physical attacks. Its a great addition for strategy, kinda like "Resonance of Fate"'s Scratch system.

The funny thing is that no matter how complex the battle system is, its really really simple for most fights. You usually do not need to shift once, just enter in a triple Attack Paradigm and you'll win about 90% of the fights. The other 10% require you to maybe bring in a White Mage*** or a Black Mage for Scratching. Buffing Classes are exclusively for bosses. I pretty much never use the Defender Class either. Regular battles are painfully boring, even when you are losing they're boring. Most of the time I avoid them, but that means I'm massively unleveled for bosses, so its a lose-lose. I don't want to fight the random**** enemies, they're terrible.

So "Final Fantasy XIII-2", despite the tone of this review, has actually been a pretty pleasant surprise. The battles, even if they are frustratingly automatic, do allow for some good strategy and there have been good tough bosses. Its definitely not as easy as the "XIII" vets have been saying, if you're new to this kind of gameplay you'll struggle at first. But slowly I've been mastering it, and I'd say its a decent game, I'm pretty addicted now. But it could have been a great game, that's the saddest part.

My plan for posts: Part 2 is going to discuss the storyline, and Part 3, will discuss how much this game secretly is awful bullshit. Because there's a terrible secret to this game, a design decision that is so offensive it will leave you crushed in awe of how evil SE has become. (Here's a hint: it involves the non-ending and DLC.)

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* It also means I can't go back and save Jihl, who is my favorite "Final Fantasy XIII" character, having not played the game. She was all over the trailers as this ruthless Imperial officer with a lovely face and a cool weapon. In the actual game... nada, you don't even get to fight her. She had three scenes in total. Her character is useless, a total waste of what could have been an awesome - and sexy - villain. So I've been pissed about that for about two years now, and I don't plan on letting that grudge go any time soon.

** I got the GameStop pre-order DLC so I could change Serah's outfit to a summoner garb. I really miss "Resonance of Fate"'s extensive outfit options. I really miss "Resonance of Fate" in general.

*** Why couldn't FFXIII use normal names for its Job Classes? Why does "Fighter" have to be "Commando" now? Or "Black Mage" be "Ravenger"? You won't know what the Jobs do until you use them.

**** SE, I hate you so much for bringing back random encounters. Even if you can run from them, I still hate you.

Resonance of Fate - Part 2

2012-02-01T12:20:00.001-05:00

I'm now up to Chapter 10 in "Resonance of Fate", and its far from guaranteed that I'll see Chapter 11. Basically what happened was that after I wrote the Part 1 to this review, I was hit over the head by a piano full of inspiration. Suddenly I had completely mastered all the tricks to "Resonance of Fate" and was a super kung-fu gunslinging master. I breezed through the next four Chapters, even finishing a whole Chapter in a day. Then I was hit by Chapter 10. The mission has no boss, no dungeon, and almost no combat. Its a side mission that crushed me, one against these giant construction worker enemies that cannot be killed except by pure luck.

So I'm going to take a long break on "Resonance of Fate". There are a million games I have to play coming up, most notably being Square Enix's newest adventure in trying to recapture their past glory, "Final Fantasy XIII-2". Honestly, I don't want to play a game that hates me this much. "Resonance of Fate" so far has just been intense challenge, its been hard-core. So I thought. However, after losing to the twentieth time against a Piledriver Giant, I had to throw my hands up and surrender to the hate. This game hates me. The people who made it hate me. There is nothing but pure hatred coming out of this machine. No wonder why there are only two Gamefaqs walkthroughs! Only two people ever beat it! The difficulty in some of these encounters is simply monstrously bad. Worse, after an addictive long play period, I wound up getting the worst migraine of my life. So "Resonance of Fate" is actually causing physical damage to me, that's a sign I need a break.

Here's the problem: "Resonance of Fate" is an amazing game. I mean, there are some serious niggling faults (one of which being the refusal of this game to let me win), and a few major gameplay problems, but otherwise it is really a lot of fun. The story opens up beautifully and the tactical combat is really awesome. I won't give up on this title until I've fought through all its madness and come out the other side victorious. But still, migraines are my limit.

So let me start Part 2 by pointing out the serious major problems with this game. These reviews aren't just about me, I do like to give some consumer advice at times. I'll start negative and go positive. Before you buy "Resonance of Fate", you do need to know this:

There are random encounters on the World Map. This usually is not a problem because the random battles are rarely very difficult. Every battle begins with huge open doors behind you, so you can cheerfully walk away without firing a shot. I just hate random encounters, and I doubly hate them when they have no purpose, like they do in this game. You just get items from enemies and tiny bits of EXP. I run away just about every time and haven't lost a step.

The targeting system is horribly broken and terrible. As I mentioned before, the only way to pause time and safely pick a target is during the start of a Hero Action. So you can easily pick your target, the problem is when you do want to take out multiple targets during a Hero Action. "Resonance of Fate"'s targeting system loves to target the farthest enemy - the ones that take the longest to hit and will suffer the least damage when you do hit them. I wish you could just pause mid-action and pick another target, or even pre-plan your Hero Action, but you can't. You might get one enemy, then you'll fumble around for thirty precious seconds trying to hit the guy next to you because the game wants you to hit a small dog fifty miles away hiding behind a wall. It really doesn't help that the targeting system is really unintuitive, the directions never seem to go the way you want to. If an enemy is behind you, pressing down won't target that enemy, it will target the small dog.

You cant' tell which of your party members the enemies are targeting. "Final Fantasy XII", the other semi-realtime RPG I played helpfully gave little lines that directly indicated who your enemies were after, allowing you to change your actions accordingly. In "Resonance of Fate", you have to guess depending on who the enemies are facing. I learned a trick in this game - you're completely immune to damage during a Hero Attack. So if the boss wants to use his super attack against you, you can Hero Attack at that second and make him lose a turn. If you knew who the enemies were after, you could also hide those characters behind terrain and save them from damage.

The shops suck. Every item you need that's of any use must come from the crafting system. This is an utterly horrible idea that is direct evidence for my postulation that "Resonance of Fate" hates me. You want that super double-barrel for your machine gun? Sorry, can't have it because you need a "Silver Chip". What's a Silver Chip? What enemy has a Silver Chip? You'll never know. This is why I hate crafting systems, in every RPG, I always hate them.

So now that the negatives are out of the way, I'll talk about other things about this game.

Since my last post, I've gone ahead and taken the plunge. I am now a full-blown fashionista. Ultimately "Resonance of Fate"'s complex outfit system was too much temptation to resist. Yes, I knew that buying outfits was a completely pointless exercise that was nothing but a waste of money*. The inspiration just came to me mid-battle: I needed to dress Vash up like Ryan Gosling in "Drive". "Drive" is just the most awesome movie ever made, and if I could play as him in a video game it would be the coolest thing ever. So far the shops aren't selling cream jackets with symbolic scorpions on the back, but I did find one white jacket with red markings that's almost as good. I added jeans, driving gloves, and the effect is working pretty well. If I unfocus my eyes, its the Driver. Then I started going a bit crazy: I gave Leanne a shirt with SEGA** logos and a chibi version of the playable trio to create some metafictional irony, I gave Zephyr some bright white cloths to make him full disco, and I turned Leanne's eyes yellow and purple so she looked like an alien.

I'm going to give "Resonance of Fate" huge props for the clothing detail, because not only does it change your character in the main game, it also changes them in the cutscenes. So Vash is the Driver in every scene, even flashbacks. That's awesome.

Changing Leanne's eye colors turned out to be an oddly effective character design decision, because it turns out that Leanne is actually an escaped science experiment made by the big villains. All the major three characters have dark pasts that lead back to the game's ongoing mythology plotline. Vash was a former soldier for the Cardinals that left after his party was murdered by a monster girl. Zephyr was a... something, I'm still not sure yet. But in the opening he went a murderous rampage, he's probably got some kind of major purpose. The villains are still as cryptic and unsettling as ever, even if they haven't done anything evil just yet. You know its coming.

So far "Resonance of Fate", story-wise, is the best anime I've watched in a while.

Speaking of the storyline, some of the characters in this game have... problems. This is the boss of Chapter 7. Much like Gary Oldman in "Red Riding Hood", that character is trying his best to be the hammiest actor in a game full of scenery chewing. One major character is a Cardinal Pater, who acts like a mentally retarded Peter Lorre. Pater is in love with Leanne, which leads to a seriously disturbing scene. A random goblin walks into a scene between Pater and Leanne, so Pater tries to win her heart by defeating this pathetic low-level enemy. So he punches the thing so hard he breaks the life stone on his hand, which instantly kills him. Pater is dead on the ground. Then the main character go home and never mention this event again. I'm really disturbed by how cruel this game is Peter Lorre. The man was in "The Maltese Falcon", Tri-Ace should treat him better.

Everything was well and good until I reached Chapter 10. The Piledriver Giants are impossible, it cannot be done, I refuse. I really like this game and its storyline, but I simply cannot allow a game to be this unfair to me for so long. There comes a point when you get sick of the spoiled brat cheating, pick up your ball, and go home. Maybe in a month he'll be more willing to play fair. We'll see. For me, however, its "Final Fantasy XIII-2" time.

HUGE UPDATE: I actually was able to beat the Piledriver Giants. I had to eventually give in and use my best weapons, especially the rare bullets that go right through enemy shields and hit their main body. Those bullets I usually save for bosses, but this time I had give up and cheese it. So I beat them all and got some ultra rare Ice Bullets in exchange. What was happening was that the Piledriver Giants were able to simply recover all the scratch damage I did to them before I got a chance to hit them. So with a better gun and those magic bullets, I was Der Freischütz, and the Piledrivers fell to my awesome power.

Also, the big secret to getting better in "Resonance of Fate" is to upgrade your guns as much as you can. What I never would have guessed is that you can actually upgrade your guns to pure absurdity. To beat the Piledrivers Giants, I equipped three barrels to my machine gun, and added something like three sights. Now, two barrels is pretty crazy for any weapon, but three is pretty absurd, especially when one of my barrels is actually pointing down. The customization options are so extensive to the point of stupid, even if these options could work (which they never would because the barrels are completely disconnected to the firing mechanism), the gun would explode in your hand - and that's assuming you could even hold it. Somehow or another doing this results in your stats skyrocketing to absurdity equaled only by the gun. So now I could knock out three quarters of the Piledriver's health in one attack, before he could heal it. Thus, I won.

I then started up Chapter 11 just to see the opening cutscene. You won't believe it, but the game gets even better there. Zephyr has to fight a one-on-one duel with this maniac priest who can teleport. It was really awesome, and I think a fitting conclusion to what I'll call "Resonance of Fate - Season 1". Once I finish "Final Fantasy XIII-2" or give up in frustration I'll start Season 2.

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* One positive of the shops being shit is that you never have anything to buy, so your money is always free. So far most of my money goes into restarting lost battles.

** SEGA is the game's publisher. So far every PS3 game I've played - all three of them - has had a SEGA logo in the bottom right corner. "Final Fantasy XIII-2" will end this trend.

Haywire

2012-01-29T23:31:00.001-05:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to announce that Planet Blue has entered the 2012 film season. *takes bow*

Of all the months of the movie year, there is none worse than January. The Fall is Oscar Bait season, and it hits high gear in December when all the Oscar Fishers send out their lines to catch a some big juicy awards to mount proudly on their wall. January is past the deadline. This is the time when studios dump their worst movies in the least offensive time, hoping to get the tiniest return on their failed investments. So you get crap movies like "The Devil Inside" or "Sanctum". Going to see a movie in January is like going to a party forty-five minutes after half the guests left: all the beer bottles are opened, the only nachos left are floating in the salsa, and the girls are all too drunk to hook up with.

Luckily, however, "Haywire" is that one pretty girl who somehow managed to sit through the party quietly nursing a tequila. You'd think her existence is impossible, somebody should have found her already. But here she is, all yours. It must be fate, right? "Haywire" is a perfectly solid action movie, shockingly good for a January release. She isn't the brightest date, its pretty much just a straight "girl kicks ass" exploitation flick, honestly better for a rent than a full cinema experience. If you need to see a good movie immediately, "Haywire" is your best bet.

The plan originally was for me to see "Red Tails", but something went wrong with the projector, so I snuck into this one instead. The review of George Lucas's probably-quixotic swan song is coming at some point, but I cannot make any promises as to when. I'm back in school, that kinda limits my options a lot for moving viewing.

The star of "Hayware" is Gina Carano, a very sexy and very believable badass chick. Gina is a former Mixed-Martial Arts fighter and an American Gladiator, so you can believe that she's capable of kicking some ass. Its not like an Angelina Jolie kind of situation where the actress is simply using movie magic to be a badass in order to sync with the modern fetish for action star females. The fight scenes are brutal and believable, Carano gets down and dirty, winning entirely thanks to technique and training, not fake impossible CG like you'd see in say, "Sucker Punch". Honestly, I think "Haywire" was built from the ground up just to use Gina Carano in wrestling fight scenes, with a plot and some surprisingly decent actors put around it. And hey, watching Gina Carano strangle dudes with her legs and kicking off walls to flip dudes over and smash their skulls. Its not a bad exterior to an exploitation film: we got Antonio Bandaras, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Bill Paxton and Ewan McGregor. That's a great supporting cast to anything.

Unfortunately for "Haywire" being a mystery story, you pretty much know the mystery from the start. Gina Carano walks into a restaurant and is met by a hung-over Channing Tatum*. They wind up kung-fu fighting, and you learn immediately that the bad guys are Gina's former employers. So the big twist that she's being set up by her boss, that's easy to call. Really, the only mystery in this spy mystery thriller is what the bad guys' are after, you know their entire plan. Its a plot where the McGuffin - the object of no plot importance on its own and just causes people to fight each other for it - is the only mystery.

There's also the issue that even though the supporting cast is solid, nobody ever gets a chance to fully shine. The cast is good, but there's no scenes of crazy awesomeness. Its an entertaining movie, but there's nothing to smile at. A truly great movie needs to have some kind of insanity, something really fun and ludicrous. To use "CANAAN" as an example: I wouldn't have even finished that series if Liang Qi wasn't being off the rails crazy the entire time. At one point a deer falls through the back of a car, that's the closest thing this movie gets to true madness.

Luckily Gina Carano isn't bad to look at. That's a face you can look at for an hour and a half. Gina, will you marry me?

I also happened to really like the background music to "Haywire". Long segments of the movie are just running chases through the streets, but with a jazzy background theme. Its like a live-action "Cowboy Bebop" action scene. Sadly none of the rest of the movie is like "Cowboy Bebop", mostly due to a criminal lack of spaceships and genius comic relief hacker children.

Ultimately the fact that I'm rapidly running out of things to talk about should be your first clue that "Haywire" hasn't revolutionized January cinema. It was a decent start to 2012, but certainly not a memorable start. When this movie comes out on Redbox in a few months, rent it then, its perfect for a dull evening. Its never boring, its a solid B-movie. Enjoy.

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* Yeah, I know Channing Tatum is a horrible actor, but luckily he's not trying to be a hero in this movie. He's just playing a fratboy douche, which is the role he was born to play. Channing Tatum also dies slowly and painfully, which is very cathartic for everybody.

CANAAN

2012-01-28T17:01:00.001-05:00

Recently I had a sad realization. I haven't seen a new anime series that I really really loved in years. The last anime I can truly touched my heart like a woman's embrace was probably Eureka Seven". This might explain why I haven't reviewed an anime series in like six months. Looking back in my archives, I apparently liked something called "Angel Beats", but for the life of my I cannot remember what that was*.

Anyway, "CANAAN" is an anime I watched, to completion unlike a lot of other shows I've seen (like "Bleach"). This is probably because it was only thirteen episodes long, which meant that I was able to watch the entire thing on a lazy Saturday morning. So that afternoon I was able to write up a post about it. "CANAAN" is an all-caps show like "Noir" or "Madlax" in that it mainly involves lithe anime girls jumping around and shooting at other lithe anime girls. And much like those shows there's plenty of implied lesbianism and bullets for everybody to enjoy, only this one is half as long.

"CANAAN" is a pretty good show, but its definitely not the anime savior I was looking for. I liked the cast, I liked the art style, I liked a lot of things, but ultimately the story never really ever came together. And now, if you're happy with just that assessment, you can stop reading, or you read (or skim through) the full post below.

The setting is Shanghai, China. The girl is Canaan. Her picture is above. She's a badass gunslinger with a very specific power: synesthesia. Synesthesia is the psychological condition where you "mix" your senses, causes letters or numbers to appear to have a "color" or may appear to actively have personalities. You imagine years as a sphere, its just a very interesting way to view the world. Canaan, however, has super synesthesia!! She's basically a telepath allowing her to see the emotions of all people based upon their colors. Blue means you're about to kill, gold means love, light brown means death, etc. Thanks to this power, Canaan is able to see through walls, immediately judger her opponent's intentions, and is an expert killer. Also, her synesthesia is so good that she can somehow hack into computers and take control of guided missiles. Those are some awesome colors.

To create a plot-convenient complication, a sinister organization called SNAKE has appeared out to cause vague evil terrorism for an undefined reason. Their leader is a hot dark-skinned chick named Alphard, but she also likes to go by the name "Canaan". Despite having no powers, Alphard is at least as good of a gunswinger and has deep personal issues with the good Canaan.

Along for the ride is Mino, a normal reporter guy here in Shanghai to investigate the various conspiracies. With him is Maria, a ditzy rich girl that likes to take pictures. These two are pretty much the only normal humans in the entire show, so they're your audience avatars. Maria is also desperately in love with Canaan, even if they never kiss. Because of their burning lesbian attraction, Maria gets kidnapped a lot by the psychopaths under SNAKE's hire, so Canaan has to save her. Ultimately its Mino and Maria who end up trying to make sense of everything that's happened in the story. They might not be the heroes, but they are the ones that have to pick up the pieces in the end, so I'd say they're the real protagonists.

So since this is a TV show, let me do a character breakdown:

Canaan is the title character and the main focus of the story. She and Alphard hate each other because they both were trained by the same old gunslinger guy and wound up becoming rivals for the title "Canaan". Why they both want to be named after the Jewish promised land is a mystery to me, but they really have issues. Canaan is kind of a guarded character, she underplays herself, and is somewhat difficult to actually understand. I think her problem is that she's one of the flattest characters in her own show, which is amazing. At least she's pleasant to look at.

Maria is, as I mentioned before, the real protagonist of the show. She starts off as just a typical silly Japanese girl, but winds up getting real depth as the show progresses. She's constantly trying to figure Canaan out, and after being kidnapped a few times she stops being so bubbly and stupid. In fact, I think she gets a little too serious towards the end, the fun seems to ooze out of her character. That's when she starts making long internal monologues about the nature of Canaan and her purpose in Canaan's life... I have no idea what she's talking about. Honestly, considering how often Maria is in danger, she's just a giant load for everybody. Not to knock her character, but logically they should have left her at home far away from COBRA.

Mino is the protagonist to the series that I really liked. He's really just the most regular person here, acting like a normal person would when surrounded by hot chicks shooting at each other. Eventually Mino falls in love with a mystery mute woman... that doesn't go well. Unfortunately, Mino keeps getting kicked out of the main plotline and misses most of the action.

Yunyun is the loud bubbly comic relief, so usually I would hate her out of principle. But actually Yunyun had surprising depth for a comic relief, and is actually pretty helpful unlike idiot "funny" characters usually are. She's a flat-chested minor villain that likes to hide huge fruit in her shirt to pretend to have boobs. Yunyun has her moments, she's good.

Hakko is the mute woman that Mino falls for. Unfortunately, Hakko seems to be already taken with some other dude (whose character design is really really similar to Mino's). Despite being the hottest character in this show and working at a strip clue, Hakko has a tragic disability which means that she can never talk... or moan while having sex. She does get laid eventually, but her partner is was a little... cold in bed, let's say.

Yuri is Canaan's boss and is apparently working every side against each other. She's obviously evil, and has a pathological hatred for Canaan for no apparent reason. Yuri is really cryptic and smug, but never does anything, so she's annoying.

Liang Qi is the second-in-command of SNAKE. At the start of the series, she poses as the secretary of her lieutenant, and walks out naked in the middle of a meeting. Liang Qi is also Alphard's sister, but its really a one-way love, Alphard couldn't care less about her subordinate. Because Alphard never does anything in the first half of the series, Liang is the one who puts together all the evil schemes and pathologically chances Canaan to kill her. When she's annoyed, she shoots BB pellets in her lieutenant's face. Slowly but surely, Liang starts going crazy. And then she gets even more crazy. And then crazier. She's a sadist, she's insanely jealous of Canaan for stealing her sister's attention, she gets turned-on by the prospect of her own death, on and on it goes. She has like seven different kinds of insanity, every episode she's insane about a different thing. So Liang is a lot of fun because she's just so nuts. It wavers from bad to good to bad again to awesome depending on the scene. She also enjoys being naked, so there's points there to be had.

Alphard is the main villain, and easily the most poorly defined character of the bunch. For some reason she constantly refuses Liang's plans of trapping Canaan by kidnapping Maria. Then what is Alphard's final plan? Guess? EXACTLY THAT. You chicks could have done this thing weeks ago! Liang is evil, so I guess I'm not supposed to feel bad for her, but Alphard treats her sister like shit, and there's no clear reason why. Alphard's motivations also aren't very clear either, because at first it looks like she's trying to start WWIII, then she gives that plan up just to torture Canaan some more. Why? Why do you care? Nothing about this character is ever made clear.

The President of the United States is not a major character in this series, he isn't very important. However, he does have a world mandate to give: LOVE AND PEACE! LOVE AND PEACE! Yes, the President of the United States is actually a huge "Trigun" fan and has based his foreign policy on Vash the Stampede. That makes him the best President we've ever had. Sadly he's replaced by Dick Cheney halfway through the show, and then neither show up ever again.

But the best character, by far is:

The Taxi Driver is apparently the only Taxi driver in all of Shanghai. He's also incredibly awesome because for no reason he joins the heroes on a chase. He's just like "action car chase? AWESOME, I'm in!" Taxi Driver is balding, he loves J-Pop, and he has no interest in his own safety or survival. But he does have no problem with parking his cab on the top of a skyscraper. This man is the man.

So now that I've listed all the characters and given away most of the storyline, I guess I can talk about other things. "CANAAN" is far from a perfect show, as you can clearly see. It gets bogged down pretty badly in the last few episodes because I really cannot figure out what the villains are after, and that's not a good thing. The action is great, the animation is great, and the gunplay was great. But why is there gunplay? What is the point of all of this? The long-running mysteries of the show are explained eventually, but not to full satisfaction. Also, I'm pretty sure a lot is left open in the hope of making some kind of sequel.

Ignoring that, this is a show with some great sick moments. A woman has sex with the corpse of her dead boyfriend. One character has super voice powers that cause your brains to explode. One guy pukes up blood when he's infected with a kill virus. And there's all the crazy shit Liang does. It was a pretty mature, dark ride, even if there is no nudity and not much blood.

I also really like the animation. The character models are what I try to draw whenever I make a character design, its almost exactly this. Sadly my hands are clearly inferior to the raw talent that was animation "CANAAN", so the results are not as good. But that's my problem, not this show's.

So yeah, "CANAAN" is pretty decent. I was never charmed into loving it like say, "Madlax", but that's probably because it didn't have Yuki Kaijura doing the music. It was a fun ride, even if I'll probably forget all about it in the coming months.

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* Maybe an evil alternate universe Blue Highwind wrote that review. I know they exist... and they are watching.

Iron Sky Trailer

2012-01-27T12:33:00.001-05:00

HOLY SHIT.

I just found the greatest trailer ever to what may be the greatest movie ever made. Its a little movie called "Iron Sky", and its about... Well, my own words can only do injustice to a film of this monumental scale. Just watch:

*head explodes*

UPDATE: The story is not over! No no no! "Iron Sky" is not the only weird Nazi invasion movie coming out in 2012. The Asylum, makers of such beloved classics as "Titanic 2" and "Megashark vs. Crocosaurus" have announced that they are making a rival movie, called "Nazis at the Center of the Earth". The Nazis are coming from above and below; its both a intergalactic and subterranean invasion! There is nowhere to hide!

Grand List of JRPGs That I've Played

2012-01-22T12:57:00.005-05:00

In the last post on "Resonance of Fate", I was getting a few comments on whether I played this game or another game. Unfortunately, in all likelihood, I haven't played them. Don't get me wrong, I've played a lot of JRPGs: pretty much the entire Final Fantasy series, comprehensively the entire Kingdom Hearts series, a good chunk of the Dragon Quest series, and lots of little other games here and there. But I haven't played all of them, and I really have no interest in playing them. There isn't enough time in any life to play all the RPGs that have been made in just the last ten years, let alone all the many great games that will come in the future. So let me make this really easy by simply listing all the games I've played and give them a one sentence review. Considering my usual diarrhea of the typewriter, can I do it?

Final Fantasy I* - The ultimate classic RPG, even though it has barely any story it is the bare bones of what any great game should be.

Final Fantasy II - Apparently this game had a very complex and innovative battle system, but I never understood it for a second (still beat it), and honestly was pretty bored by the storyline.

Final Fantasy III DS - A wonderfully charming little game about kids who switch Jobs and wander around the world so lovely it doesn't need a plot.

Final Fantasy IV DS* - A thoroughly evil game that constantly looks for ways to make me rage quit: killing off my favorite characters, unfair enemy strength, hiding the best skills in impossible places. Evil.

And many more after the break...

Final Fantasy V* - A more complicated Job-based game with Gilgamesh, but somehow less charming than FFIII.

Final Fantasy VI* - The birth of the modern RPG, the first Final Fantasy game with a storyline that's actually good, and amazing 2D graphics.

Final Fantasy VII* - The most famous RPG of all time, and for good reason, this is the natural evolution of FFVI, doing everything even better - story, characters, and gameplay.

Final Fantasy VIII - The most schizophrenic game I've ever played: the gameplay is a confusing mix-up of far too many concepts, the storyline is even worse, and all in all it made so little sense to me that I gave up 2/3rds of the way through.

Final Fantasy IX* - Probably the best PS1 RPG ever made thanks to a great art style, incredible characters, and really impressive gameplay, arguably the most epic RPG Square Enix ever made.

Final Fantasy X* - In my opinion the most overrated RPG ever, and for good reason - the storyline could only appeal to teenagers (and immature teenagers at that), the world is linear and clearly unfinished, and the entire experience was altogether less impressive than FFIX.

Final Fantasy XII* - A complete overhaul of the Final Fantasy formula (which SE then ignored to completely overhaul the formula again for no obvious reason), but still an amazing game that everybody should play: a great political storyline that ignores typical RPG teen angst, the best gameplay of any RPG I've ever played, and loads and loads of fun.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions* - The ultimate political storyline for an RPG, and the ultimate strategy game, I cannot stop loving this game.

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings - The worst RTS I've ever played, a bad game that tried to make itself seem better by stealing the FFXII license - I don't count this as a real sequel.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - What could have been a great Kingdom Hearts game was ruined by a silly battle system and that STUPID slot thing.

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII - Possibly the worst game I ever played.

Dissidia Final Fantasy - SE proves beyond a doubt they have no idea what makes Final Fantasy a great memorable series by creating an ungainly fighting game and writing the single worst storyline I have ever seen.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers - Its Silver the Hedgehog: the Game, and surprisingly decent despite the entire world forgetting about its existence.

Chrono Trigger - The most charming RPG ever, make that the ultimate RPG, there is nothing not to love here.

Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes - An illegal unfinished fan-made sequel to "Chrono Trigger" made by hacking into the original game, "Crimson Echoes" was surprisingly decent and still inferior to the original.

Kingdom Hearts I - If this game wasn't amazing, do you think there would be so many sequels?

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories - A little too complicated thanks to a card-battle system, but still a great 2D action game.

Kingdom Hearts II - A game almost as good as the original, and it has the best boss fights of the entire series.

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days - Despite the worst title for any game ever, this game has a great storyline even if the gameplay is seriously repetitive.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep - The AAA Kingdom Hearts game for the PSP, it may not be as good as "Kingdom Hearts I" or "Kingdom Hearts II", but it was a lot of fun, even if the entire storyline depends on the heroes being incredibly stupid.

Kingdom Hearts: coded DS - A lazy game slapped together for cheap cash, skip it.

Dragon Quest IV - The "Final Fantasy III" of Dragon Quest, an amazing, simple, charming game.

Dragon Quest V - The only RPG I've played where you can choose a wife and have kids, who all matter to the plot, that makes it great.

Dragon Quest VI - Currently playing, but kinda bored with it already.

Dragon Quest VIII - Classic Dragon Quest gameplay and art style brought to a 3D game with such incredible results that its easily the best game of the series.

Dragon Quest IX - Yet another decent Dragon Quest game, this one doesn't have random encounters, but has a great episodic storyline, even if the Job Class system was a bit frustrating.

Ogre Battle - I tried to like this game, but I really do not like the RTS gameplay.

Ogre Battle 64 - Same as above, sadly, but this one has a better storyline.

Tactics Ogre PSP - A game just as good as "Final Fantasy Tactics" and easily as epic, I'm waiting for a sequel.

Valkyrie Profile - I gave up on this game pretty quickly because it played like a Metroidvania platforming game, only with a completely unnecessary RPG battle system thrown in for no apparent reason.

Paper Mario - I had the same problem with this game as with "Valkyrie Profile", instead of the RPG crap I just wanted a simple, fun Mario game so I never finished.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon - Fire Emblem games are a bit too linear for me, and a bit too cruel, but this epic strategy game was a lot of fun.

Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones - Even better than the other one in terms of storyline, but even though this was apparently the easiest Fire Emblem game, I couldn't beat it - Fire Emblem games are too hard core for me.

Jeanne d'Arc - This is the most underrated game on this list; a cartoony tactical RPG for the PSP that may have been low-intensity in terms of difficulty, it was still a lot of fun.

Disgaea 2 - A lot of people like the Disgaea series, I really do not: the art style is creepy, it isn't funny, and the gameplay is boring when the storyline sucks so bad.

Persona 1 PSP - The game had the best music of any RPG I've ever played, and I still listen to the soundtrack years later... the gameplay however was - to use a single word - unplayable.

Persona 3 PSP - One of the most interesting RPGs I've ever played thanks to simulating the entire life of a high school student, unfortunately the storyline was disappointing, the lone-dungeon system was stupid, and like in real high school, I was seriously bored by the end.

Terranigma - An interesting action RPG for the SNES, unfortunately the storyline was so bare-bones that I wound up losing interest and giving up halfway through.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - You may not know this, but this is actually the hardest game ever made, and I can't beat the first boss.

Pokemon - (All these games are essentially the same, so just one sentence will do.) Everybody loves Pokemon, I am a subset of everybody, therefore I love Pokemon.

Resonance of Fate - Didn't I just review this?

Skies of Arcadia - Currently playing, review on way.

******Now, just for giggles, here's a small list of JRPG games I really want to play.********

Chrono Cross - I need to know why SE abandoned this series, and I think I'll find out the truth by playing this.

Digital Devil Saga - X-Play loved this game, and its counted as a great game.

Persona 4 - Yeah, I didn't like "Persona 3", but maybe this game will fix the flaws of the last one, which was still very interesting and memorable.

Ni no Kuni - Studio Ghibli: the GAME.

The Last Story - The trailers make this look like a stunning action-RPG, but who knows if Nintendo will ever release it?

Xenoblade - Nintendo will release this one, considering all the stress this game gave me over the summer, I have to play it.

Kingdom Hearts 3D - Um... its a Kingdom Hearts game, so that legally binds me to play it.

Final Fantasy Type-0 (AKA "Agito XIII") - The only Final Fantasy game that has been released in the last few years that legitimately looks like a great game, sadly God knows when or how it will be released in the US.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 - I think I only want to play this game to write a scathing review, honestly all hope that this game will be good evaporated for me when I found out about the game's ending - there isn't one. This game is a scam, filler for the inevitable "Final Fantasy XIII-3".

Dragon Age: Origins - I guess I have to try a WRPG at some point, right?

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* I actually walkthroughed this game in another life. If you're looking for the FFIX walkthrough, don't bother. I was deleted due to overwhelming levels of high school stupidity.

Resonance of Fate - Part 1

2012-01-20T00:46:00.003-05:00

"Resonance of Fate" is easily in the running for one of the most difficult RPGs I've ever played. You can tell this is an RPG for the hard-core only just by the first hour. Because during that first hour, unlike every RPG made since roughly 1996, there is no tutorial of any kind. You're just thrown straight into a deeply confusing and complicated battle system unlike any other game ever made. The developers just assume you know what to do immediately.

I'm not sure what kind of creature has innate skills in "Resonance of Fate" - they're probably more machine than man - but I know for sure I am not a member of that superior race. I'm up to the fifth section of this game, and I have spent every one of the chapters desperately trying to keep up with one of the most unforgiving games I've ever played. Most RPGs, let's be honest, are very easy and you'd consider a boss "hard" if it manages to beat you once. That's part of their appeal, to me at least, they're very low intensity experiences. "Resonance of Fate" isn't a game that spends twenty-five hours teaching its players how to play, its a game where you will be thrown straight in the maelstrom and desperately find a way to hold on. And that's the easiest part, it only gets more difficult from there. As deep as I am in this game, which is sadly maybe only a quarter of the way through, I have no illusions of dominance. If I actually am able to beat this game, it will be an achievement beyond achievements, because this is the hardest RPG I've ever played*.

Perhaps because of that immense difficulty, I am fully addicted to this game. But I actually don't think its the mind-breaking toughness. Its that "Resonance of Fate" is cool. Its a cool game. All three of your characters are gunslingin' badasses that perform ridiculous John Woo-style leaps that spray bullets all over their enemies. Its a strategic game as well, allowing almost real time free movement to place your characters and take down your enemies. The characters aren't bad, the gameplay is really good, its just really hard. Really really hard.

What's immediately going to make or break your experience playing "Resonance of Fate" is your ability to learn how to play it. Unfortunately, this game has no tutorial, and it really needs one. There is a short intro level where you wander around a bit, that level doesn't actually teach you how to play the game, that comes from a series of rather uninformative text screens and a manual. Now, I don't know about anybody else, but I really can't learn how to play a game just by reading text on a screen, I'm going to need to see a visual demonstration. So if you really want to learn how to play this game, go find a Let's Play on Youtube and watch how the experts do it.

I'll try to give a brief rundown here, because all reviews need a gameplay explanation. Unfortunatley, that's going to take some paragraphs to do:

At its core "Resonance of Fate" took the traditional RPG style and immediately decided it was going to try something totally different. Instead of swords, you fight with guns. In fact, I don't think a single character has a sword in this whole game. There also is no magic, no Limit Breaks, no Summons, and no special skills. What you do have is super fast flipping gun action. Tri-Ace seems to have watched the cutscenes from "Dirge of Cerberus" realized like I did six years ago that the game was smelly ass but the cutscenes were awesome, and then made a game around that idea. Or you want a comparison to a better game, its kinda like "Valkyria Chronicles". So you can rush an opponent and fire something like one hundred bullets into them in the span of one attack. Instead of turns, everything seems to happen in semi-real time, and you can automatically switch between character's turns. If you want, one guy can shoot three times in a row before your other heroes do anything.

Tri-Ace, however, are obsessed with complexity for complexity's sake**. For reasons that are entirely unclear to me, there are two different ways to attack. You either do regular damage with handguns, or "scratch damage" with a machine gun. Basically regular attacks suck, and you'll do piddling ammounts of damage unless you lower the enemy defenses. So first you have to have your machine gunner run in, blast the enemy with huge scratch attacks, which will turn their HP bars blue. Then the handgun user can fire one bullet and take them out. Now this might sound like an utterly stupid idea that needlessly complicates battles are already going to be very difficult to follow, but it does have a benefit. Because of the scratch damage system, your main characters cannot be harmed directly until their shields fully drop. So if you play well (or even play mediocre) you can easily finish entire dungeons without a single point lost of HP. However, when your shields do drop, that's just about death. Unless you're lucky, you're finished. You can also use items, and explosives, that's the entirety of your battle options. Its simple, but cool.

By the way, when I mean finished, I am serious. "Resonance of Fate" features a "Critical Mode" that occurs when you either run out of Action Charges (I'll get to that in a paragraph) or when your shields break. In Critical Mode, you can no longer do your crazy action jumps, you just have to shot regularly. And all your heroes move like they just shit themselves, crouching down and shaking in fear. Now every attack does damage, you can barely move, your shots can miss, and you're basically screwed. You might as well restart now. You have as much chance of survival as a naked woman wandering through a maximum security prison at shower time.

Action Charges, or "Bezel Charges" to use Tri-Ace's extremely unhelpful terminology, is the way you do your crazy fake gunslinging jumps. You use one of initially three Charges to make one of your characters perform a fast blitz on the enemy attacking numerous times and dealing high damage. Unfortunately, you only get a small number of those attacks, and if you run out of Charges, its Critical Mode... logically followed by death. Luckily you get Charges back by simply killing enemies or breaking off one of their body parts. So you just need to be sure that your charge is going to work. Action Charges are also the only way to pause battles and let you actually take note of the tactical situation. They're also the only reliable way to move quickly and deal damage. Yeah, regular attacks work as well, but it takes a lot of time to get those moves ready, sometimes they won't work (especially at low levels), and they don't deal very much damage. Finding the right use of Action Charges is the only way to win. Low level enemies can be beaten with just regular attacks, but they're in the small minority.

Other quick things to know:

Try to pay attention to the battle terrain. If you can hide weakened characters behind walls, that's going to help considerably.
Death is not screwing around in this game. He's serious. If only one playable character dies, its GAME OVER. No revives ever.
Luckily though, you can instantly restart any battle you lose with a small fee. So while Death is strict
This game uses a "Dirge of Cerberus"-style method of customizing your guns. You can eventually buy new guns, but before that you have to add all kinds of little scopes and grips and extra thingies. The stores don't seem to sell anything good at all, so you need to find them in dungeons and stuff.
Blow up all barrels, immediately.
Grenades are rare, so only use them on bosses and really tough enemies.

So that took awhile to explain. Onto other things.

The storyline of "Resonance of Fate" is very underplayed during the early chapters. In fact, there doesn't seem to be much of a storyline at all, instead you just have three main characters doing odd-jobs and living in their steampunk world. They're bounty hunters or something in a giant Megastructure tower that now houses all of humanity on open-air levels that are as large as an American state. Also, God is a Computer that rules when all people live or die. The probably corrupt Church controls the upper levels while poor people live in the Midgar Slums. Usually the odd jobs include finding random fetch quest items, but for some reason these items are hidden deep in monster-infested dungeons and guarded by giant bosses that will make you cry.

However, there is clearly something more sinister going on, because there are repeated cutscenes to two moody Clearly Evil Dudes who are planning to overthrown the Computer God of this game. But before any of that starts to really affect the story, we first have to have episodic Chapters of the main characters playing around and world-building. Personally, I think this method of storytelling is pretty effective, because it allows you to get to know the characters and the strange SciFi world that they live in before shit inevitably hits the fan. Hopefully it will all turn into a grand epic struggle for the survival of the human race.

There are three playable characters. Only three. However, you play the entire game as these three, so their relationship is a big part of the game. Unfortunately, if you don't like these main characters, that means you're going to hate this game. Its not even a "Final Fantasy X" situation where you can throw Tidus into the menu screen and never take him out. These are your boys - and girl. So let me break them down for ya:

Vashyron is the older male character with a ponytail. I think he's the really main main character, because he seems to be the one in charge and he has a lot of connections with a lot people, including one of the Sinister Evil Dudes. He's voiced by Nathan Drake, he's a pervert, he's kinda awesome all in all. Also, inexplicably, he's an incredible artist with face paint. Some of his lines do get annoying though, especially the bizarre "guys don't make passes for girls who kick asses". WHAT? Vash doesn't seem to actually be all there, inside his brain he likes to Disco Dance when he sees sexy women.

Zephyr is the closest thing to a traditional RPG hero, which makes him by far the worst character of the three. I'm afraid he'll take center stage in the plotline, which I really don't want to happen because Zephyr is a dick. Using "Resonance of Fate"'s extremely detailed clothing customization system, I gave Zephyr a pair of sunglasses that match his moody personality. In an opening scene, he was a vampire and Vash killed him. I don't know what that meant.

Leanne is the Warner Sister. As the token chick, Leanne has to take a lot of shit from her male partners, mostly on the points that she's not very good at fighting and she has tiny boobs. Apparently wearing reasonable clothing*** and having a realistic body type makes you freakishly underdeveloped in RPG world. Also, even though Leanne and the Warner Brothers say that she's a rookie at combat, she's easily as good of a fighter as the other two, and maybe only slightly more delicate. I don't think Tri-Ace thought that all the way through.

So I just wrote something like ten novels worth of text on this game. I'll leave it here. "Resonance of Fate" so far has been very addictive and a lot of fun. I'll come back to this game in a few weeks once I either get much further in it, or am eventually defeated by the game's heartless difficulty. We'll see if the game manages to stay as good, or things will get really bad.

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* In what is now second is "Final Fantasy IV DS", a game that was not content to merely be difficult, it also decided to be pure evil. That's the RPG where your party is repeatedly destroyed by the plot for no good reason, usually right before a really difficult dungeon. And it has random encounters with enemies that can destroy most of your party with a single attack. Just a truly hateful game, don't ever play it.

** This was a major flaw of their other RPG, "Valkyrie Profile". I don't think I reviewed that one, mostly because I gave up caring very very quickly. Tri-Ace has yet to make an RPG that has really caught the imaginations of the public.

*** "Resonance of Fate" has some of the best character designs I've seen in a long time in an RPG. For some reason that has never been adequately explained to me, RPG characters have to have ridiculous over-the-top outfits that make no sense in the real world and don't even fit the characters or the storyline. In this game, however, the cloths the characters wear seem like something you would actually buy at a store. There aren't fifty-five belts or chains or weird fetish gear, its simply normal cloths. Why is that so bad?

Then the game almost seems embarrassed to not have ridiculous outfits. So it gives you a huge clothing option, allowing you to dress the characters in any ridiculous style that you want.

SOPA Can Lick My Balls

2012-01-18T00:32:00.000-05:00

Contact your local Congressional representative and tell them that. Also promise never to vote for them ever again. Some Congressmen like to lick balls, but no Congressman likes losing their job.

My Best Movies of 2011

2012-01-14T21:26:00.000-05:00

2011 was a wretched year. This was a year in my life where everything that could go wrong did, and quite a few things that couldn't go wrong went wrong too. Honestly, there isn't all that much that happened this year that I'd consider worth celebrating and I really just want 2012 to happen already. Somewhere between "Dance With Dragons" and "Captain America" and most depressingly "Skyward Sword", I think I have to officially declare this the Year of Broken Dreams. But luckily the movies weren't so bad. On a cursory glance, you might be fooled to think 2011 was an awful year because Hollywood made a lot of really bad Blockbusters and failed to make a single good comedy.

Last year I just listed off nine movies that I particularly liked and ranked them by some arbitrary standard of quality. I'm not doing that this year. Its a pointless pain in the ass deciding which movie is better than another when I loved all nine of those movies in different ways. Did I enjoy "Winnie the Pooh" more or "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"? Its completely ridiculous to try to compare them together, since they're such different movies working on such different emotions. When you start quantifying how much you liked something, then you aren't really still enjoying it. So let's instead give all the movies by how they managed to be completely genius in their special categories. (All categories are made up with a wacky title.)

As I mentioned before, I don't actually see every movie made every year. So if you don't see one of your favorites below, please tell me about it and maybe I'll review it. There are still a couple of movies left that I want to see in 2011, so maybe you can motivate me to see more. These twelve movies I list here aren't the limit, I would like to see this list grow:

The Lil Bro Award for Best Children's Movie: "Winnie the Pooh" - 2011 was not a great year for Western animation, especially considering the grave shocking disaster that was "Cars 2". "Winnie the Pooh"'s newest movie isn't exactly a groundbreaker, it plays the story up exactly as it was shown in its first cartoon form more than fifty years ago. Its a classic revival of the cartoon friends we've had for years, its just a happy movie that anybody can enjoy. Winnie the Pooh and friends have a short adventure in the Hundred Acre Woods with a series of interlocking stories. Pooh Bear wants Honey, Tigger wants to show off, Eeyore is depressed because his tail is missing, everybody is running away from an imaginary monster. The characters interact with their letters and talk directly to the narrator, its just a fun movie. And Zooey Deschanel sings the soundtrack which is memorable in its catchiness and its sweetness. And that's what this new "Winnie the Pooh" is: a sweet little song you've heard all your life. Isn't it so lovely to hear it one more time?

The Instrumentality Award for Best Anime Movie: "Evangelion 2.0"* - On the more gritty scale of animation, we have "Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance", the second in the planned four-part film remake of the Evangelion series. The first movie was a straight remake of the first part of the classic anime series, but "Evangelion 2.0" is something new, a radical departure in the story, a wild twist to the left when everybody saw a turn to the right. Evangelion always has been one of my favorite anime series, and I loved the action-packed and bizarre finale film "End of Evangelion". This new series, however, is letting Shinji finally do something heroic, an finally is taking a stand to protect somebody he loves. In the old version, he was a pathetic wretch that never really accomplished anything. But the tone isn't lighter, "Evangelion 2.0" goes off the rails quite badly towards the end, with an explosive finale that you wouldn't expect in the second part of a four-part series. I can only wait for the next two to come out. I have no idea where this series might go, and that's exciting.

If you love Eva you'll love this movie. For non-fans, watch the first one first and this should still be a damn good anime film. For people who don't like anime, well, there's no hope for you. Luckily I have ten other movies to recommend.

The Dodge Charger Award for Best Stupid Action Movie: "Drive Angry" - This is easily the most ridiculous movie I have on this list. There were a lot of stupid action moves in 2011, and not a lot of them were very good. But "Drive Angry Shot in 3D" was the only one that seemed properly honest with itself: this movie knew it was a stupid action movie, and so set off to be the stupidest action movie. That's certainly a hard task in a year with both a "Transformers 3" and a "The Fast and Furious 5", and its debatable if "Drive Angry" actually succeeded. But it did succeed in being a really awesome action movie. I'm going to admit that this movie isn't really perfect and its definitely not for anybody, but if the idea of Nic Cage killing bad guys while having sex with a barmaid while drinking a Jack Daniels appeals to you, then this is your movie. Also, the Accountant character is probably the most awesome person to appear in a film in the entirety of last year.

Still, this is a Nic Cage movie, so every professional critic on Earth hated this movie. I'm not going to say its perfect, Nic Cage is pretty bad in this movie, but everybody else is so good.

The Groovy Mutation Award for Best Superhero Movie: "X-Men First Class" - Can you believe it? A good Superhero movie actually came out in 2011! And it wasn't just a barely serviceable Superhero movie, it was actually a really really good X-Men movie, probably the best of the five. Something about the stylized world of the swingin' 60s fits perfectly for a crazy SciFi concept like mutants and nuclear submarines. There's also Kevin Bacon in the most awesome turtleneck. More importantly, even though "First Class" wasn't afraid to be a fun movie and take advantage of its time period, it also took itself very seriously. This is, above all else, the story of how Magneto turned became Magneto, starring an extremely badass Michael Fassbender. Magneto's personal crusade against Nazi war criminals is a good enough movie on its own, then throw in the great supporting cast and the excellent storyline, and you have a really good movie.

Unfortunately, the latter parts of the movie do seem to fall apart in a few respects, I must admit. Its like the director stopped caring after awhile, leaving a lot of messy scenes and a couple of atrocious visual effects. The Beastman outfit would have been laughed at fifteen years ago. But those are minor issues, the whole is a very good movie.

The Drunken Irishman Award for Best Comedy: "The Guard" - After two movies that actually got a wide release, I'm back to the obscure films! Right where I belong, huh? "The Guard" was actually a movie I almost missed, having only seen thanks to sneaking into it after seeing the unspeakably awful "Another Earth" (which now occupies a very proper spot on my "Worst Of" list). "The Guard" is the Irish Big Lebowski, a hysterical odd-beat comedy starring a corrupt Irish cop in his battle against drug smugglers and every single sense of decency. Brenden Gleason is clearly loving every second of his role while he mocks his superiors, hires prostitutes, and eventually defeats evil. (The evil group includes the incredible Mark Strong.) Don Cheadle is an exasperated American law officer lost in the strange world of Ireland, having to deal with Brenden Gleason's Captain Boyle because ironically, the most corrupt cop in Ireland is the only one not on the take.

I could not think of a single complaint for "The Guard" when I reviewed it, and I still can't. If any movie this year deserves to have a sequel, its this. Captain Boyle is a true original, an amazing character that I'd love to see again.

And this was the only comedy to not suck last year.

The New Coke Award for Best Movie with an 80s Robot: "The Muppets" - Disney managed to hit two home runs last year, one was the revival of "Winnie the Pooh", and the other was the revival of "The Muppets". And much like "Winnie the Pooh" this is a great movie to watch if you ever want to feel really happy about life for an hour and a half. The classic Muppets meta humor is back along with all the other great characters (except Rizzo for some reason), along with a few human hangers-on. However, unlike so many tragic remakes in the last few years, the humans actually have a purpose in this movie, instead of standing around wondering what happened to their careers. Jason Seigel, who both wrote the script, the music, and stars in this movie, wisely let the Muppets take center stage, and I have nothing but respect for that decision. There a lot of great songs, a lot of great laughs, just a wonderful movie. Perfect for anybody, especially if you already love the Muppets.

The Sad Trumpet Award for Best Spanish Clown Movie: "The Last Circus"** - Oh wow. "The Last Circus" is definitely the strangest movie on my list, and it was the only movie I watched with subtitles. I still don't really know what to make of "The Last Circus", it was an experience unlike any I've ever seen. Its a movie almost impossible to describe. Based in Franco's Spain, its the story of two maniac clowns fighting for the love of a beautiful and masochistic ballerina. Then things get darker and darker. I can't tell if this movie was a straight horror movie or some kind of black comedy or a true drama, maybe it was all three. Its a world absolutely gone mad, a tragedy of psychopaths. I may not be able to understand "The Last Circus", but I can recommend it as a great little deranged movie.

The Tumbling Tumbleweed Award for Best Western Movie: "Blackthorn" - As the sole person on the face of the Earth who saw "Blackthorn" last year, I have to say you guys are seriously missing out. This is a classic Western movie starring an aged version of a classic cowboy hero, Butch Cassidy. "Blackthorn" is the story of his final adventure across the unspeakably beautiful Bolivian landscape as he travels home. When he runs into an outlaw, Cassidy has to choose: will he go back to his old criminal ways or will he find a new way through life? I was very impressed to watch a version of this movie that was properly bilingual, almost a third of dialog was in Spanish, without any subtitles. With basic context clues you should be able to understand the movie anyway. And this is the most beautiful movie of the entire year.

The Spy vs. Spy Award for Best Thriller Movie: "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"- "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is the movie that kept me from putting up my 'Best Of' list until just today. I actually had this entire post mapped out, outlined, and ready for viewing... but I just couldn't release it until I was sure about this movie. And "Tinker Tailor" belongs here, definitely. Like a whole lot of films on this list, its a period piece, taking place in the paranoid world of British espionage in the early 70s. Gary Oldman, playing a detatched robotic machine of spying, has to find the mole at the top of British intelligence. Along the way he runs into a complex web of disinformation, multiple motives, and Mark Strong, who is as awesome as ever. "Tinker Tailor" also features the greatest cast of British actors I've ever seen. If you're a lover of great actors, or just a person who really likes to watch them act without it getting physical, you'll enjoy this movie. If you want a strong intellectual thriller without being bored to the point that your eternal soul flees your body, this will be it as well.

The Broken Robot Award for Best Oscar Bait Movie: "Hugo" - Unfortunately, out of all the truly incredible movies I've seen in 2011, "Hugo" is the only movie that has any chance at all of winning Best Picture come March. And even then, it isn't going to win.

I should admit properly that I didn't actually see "Hugo" in its entirety, having missed the first twenty to thirty minutes because of Mapquest's complete and total ignorance of Hudson County. (If I were in charge of the directions we would have arrived ten minutes early, let me tell you.) But even so, what I did see was a movie that was very special. Part the story of a lonely orphan boy's journey to find his place in the world, part a love letter to early cinema, "Hugo" is the kind of touching remarkable movie that Pixar would usually make every year. Instead, Martin Scorsese took up the flame, and what a wonderful job he did. The 3D effects are utterly pointless, and the movie is an ugly blue and orange contrast, but otherwise "Hugo" is a beautiful movie that should not be forgotten any time soon.

The Dead Baby Award for Best Worst Movie: "Twilight 4"- HAHAHAHA! What a super troll, I am, putting one of the worst movies of 2011 on my 'Best Of' list. I hope somebody out there is getting really pissed about that, just like I hope somebody got really pissed that I called "The Tree of Life" 'the worst movie ever made'. But anybody who didn't enjoy "Twilight 4" just can't enjoy bad movies, and that's unfortunate for them.

"Twilight 4", as I noted on my 'Worst Of' list (yes, its on both lists), is easily the worst of all four Twilight films. And since I come into those theatres hoping to see clownish embarrassing disasters, this was exactly what I wanted - and more. First of all, "Twilight 4", for all its preposterousness and idiotic plotting, was the first movie to actually have that most beautiful feature of storytelling: a plot. Something actually happened instead of characters just running around for no real reason all movie. Bella has a vampire baby, that's a funny enough concept, but then Jacob falls in love with it! You have an utterly impossible plotline that really makes no sense compounded with the most unintentionally disturbing and hilarious plot twist ever. I think I laughed more times watching "Twilight 4" than I did watching "The Guard". I had so much fun watching this turd of a movie. Its amazing. If you must watch any Twilight film, make it this one.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, the No. 1 movie of the year:

Best Movie of the Year: "Drive" - I knew "Drive" would be the best movie of the year when I wrote the review for it. In fact, I knew this movie would be one of my favorites in the theatre. I sat in awe of this movie while watching it, knowing that what I was seeing was an amazing piece of art, possibly one of the best movies I've seen in my entire life. "Drive" may be the best movie I've reviewed on this blog, though "Toy Story 3" is a very close contender***. The last movie I've seen that I loved so completely was "Coraline", which was years ago. This was a unique feeling, my entire life evaporated away as I sat down and was engrossed in pure cinema.

I hate to talk down about the other movies on this list, but "Drive" easily shines far and above beyond them. This movie really was something very special, something incredible. If every movie were as good as "Drive", I would die of an overdose of bliss. Its just a movie where every detail seems to work: from the 80s pop soundtrack, to that BADASS Scorpion coat, to every actor's performance, to everything. It was a stunning film. I can't gush about it too much.

Ryan Gosling's main character is a dark stranger, a lonely creature brought to the limit trying to save the family he's met. Albert Brooks is the frightening villain, still funny but brutally efficient and chilling. The driving scenes aren't just explosive stupid action, they're strategic, tense chases. The violence is real, every move a true punch to the audience, all of it absolutely essential for the movie. None of the violence is out to glamorize this lifestyle, nobody is proud of what they're doing, they're breaking down and doing horrible things. This isn't an escapist male fantasy, you don't want to be Gosling's Driver, this movie is tragedy. All these amazing characters crash into each other and tear each other to pieces. That jacket, which I love so much, gets drenched in blood by the end.

I know such a thing is impossible due to the sheer number of movies that I love, but if I ever had to make a list of the Best Movies I've Ever Seen in my entire life, "Drive" would definitely be on it. I want to see this movie a million times more.

Goodbye 2011, thanks for the film memories, if nothing else. Happy 2012, everybody.

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* Technically "Evangelion 2.0" was first released in Japan in 2009, but it never saw any of American release until two years later in 2011. Thus, its on this list. I don't think I'm ever going to write a "Best Of" list for 2009, so its either here or nowhere.

** Technically this is a 2010 film. If you're wondering why its on this list: FUCK YOU that's why. Its too awesome to be ignored, and I think the DVD release was only this year in America.

*** I now have to accept that I was wrong last year to place "Toy Story 3" as No. 2 behind "Scott Pilgrim". I was a different person back then, what I can I say?

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2012-01-14T00:05:00.002-05:00

I've been waiting to see "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" for months now. Just the cast alone is enough to make my mouth water. We got some Gary Oldman, some Tom Hardy, a helping Mark Strong, some John Hurt, a pinch of Colin Firth, and a small bit of Toby Jones. That's an excellent blend of acting spices, mixed together into a Cold War spy movie.

Now I loved "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", it was definitely one of the best movies of the year. But coming to this conclusion was a few days in the making. Sometimes I can watch a movie, drive home, jump on my laptop and immediately being drumming my keys to make the brilliant observations and beloved humor that has made me a millionaire celebrity in the blogging circles. Unfortunately sometimes its a slower process, where I have to take a few days to properly digest my thoughts*. And I have, and those thoughts were particularly delicious this time. Now "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" was really good, and I liked it. But it was also a slow contemplative movie with a humorless protagonist and a grim atmosphere... kinda exactly like "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Only this movie was fun, I sat gripped to my seat for its entire time, not bored for a second. With the dragon-tattoo girl, I checked my watch at one point and almost wept knowing there was a full hour remaining before I could escape that horrible movie.

Part of the story obviously has to be acting. "Tinker Tailor" is full of amazing actors, some of the best men in the business, all of whom really do seem to be giving their best. Daniel Craig slept through his movie and Salamander alone could not save that movie. But the other issue is that I just don't care about Sweden's misogynistic issues or whatever the central theme of that movie is. As for a grand spy mystery, I can get behind that. Finally "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is definitely the best mystery movie of the late-2011, it was just really really good.

At its core, "Tinker Tailor" is a resurrection of 60s-era spy fiction like "The Prisoner" or "Mission Impossible". The English spy agency is referred affectionately as "The Circus", their first boss is known only as "Control". The main character's name is "Smiley", which I thought was an ironic code-name but that's actually his real last name. However, unlike say, "James Bond", this movie presents itself as a serious depiction of the real world of Cold War espionage. Which is fitting because its based on a book of the same name by John le Carre, a pseudonym for an actual former British spy, who ran into a double agent situation very similar to that seen in this movie. "Tinker Tailor" revels in recreating the fashion - especially the interior decorations - of the late 60s/early 70s in Britain, and the result is a very authentic movie. The paranoia, the pressure, and the insanity of the Cold War period is fully on display here. And this movie is good, I'm not a small bit sad that I - thanks to an ill-timed birth - entirely missed those good old days of "good vs evil" Super Power duels.

The central plot of "Tinker Tailor" is a search for the mole that now inhabits the top of the Circus. Somebody within the inner circle of directors is working for the Russians, and every move the Circus makes is hounded by the Reds. The title is the series of code names given to all the possible suspects, based on a British nursery rhyme I've never heard of until now. At the start of the movie, Mark Strong is gunned down in Hungary, causing the fall from grace of Control and Gary Oldman's George Smiley. Smiley lives a quiet life alone (while his wife has numerous affairs) before he's called back into service to find the mole and save the West from losing the Intelligence Front. To solve the grand riddle that dominates the entire movie, George recruits a long officer in the Circus to spy against his superiors, and then works to unravel the grand web of lies, misinformation, and affairs that dominate the spy underworld.

Gary Oldman, I must mention, is probably the most brilliant actor alive today. He can play any role, any role, and he's awesome in just about everything. The last movie I saw him in was "Red Riding Hood" where he immediately realized that the movie was intensely stupid and so set out to make the most ridiculously entertaining performance you'll ever see. He might have actually worn clown make-up in that movie, I don't remember. But in "Tinker Tailor", he's playing exactly the opposite, totally cold-fish. George Smiley never lets the audience in, he never lets anybody in. All you have is his classic 70s glasses and a wry smile on his face. At first I though George Smiley was constantly neutral, but he always stayed cooly professional, seeming to know everything at once even while knowing nothing. Smiley is a machine of spying, and that seems to be all he's good at. His wife cuckolds him, he lives alone without much in his life, he doesn't seem to have any friends, and he's such an emotionless creature. But Gary Oldman makes it all very compelling, even if his character is weak as a functional protagonist.

The characters the audience has to really sympathize with are the other spies working around Gary Oldman. In several portions of the movie other figures take large roles and tell their backstories, and these men manage to bring easily reachable humanity to the movie. Even the mole, for all his unknowable motives, was more flesh and blood than Smiley. I thought it all worked for this movie, and I would like to see Mr. Smiley in more films.

Speaking of other characters, as I mentioned before, the cast is fantastic. Do I need to list off the names once again? Just a film with Gary Oldman and Mark Strong together would be enough, but through in faces like John Hurt and Colin Firth, you have something really special. Mark Strong, as I've mentioned several times, is such a great actor that he's the only person in the entirety of "The Green Lantern" production who seemed to actually care to make a great movie. The acting is impeccable in this film, I could fawn over these guys for years.

Unfortunately, "Tinker Tailor" is a boy's club movie, there are barely any women in it. Gary Oldman's wife never shows her face. The most prominent woman is Tom Hardy's Russian girlfriend, and even she is not in the movie long enough. A less intelligent movie would feature some kind of sexy rival spy for George Smiley to meet with a dry martini and then drag into bed. However, Smiley is definitely not wooing any super models in this film, he's a bureaucrat detective, not an adventurer. If you're looking for the action-packed silly spy movie, I'm sure "Mission Impossible 4" is playing in your theatre nearby. Though if you really want mindless fun, just hunt down the old arcade machines and play some "Gunblade" for an hour.

By the way, "Tinker Tailor" is not without its own entertainment. Its mostly a somber movie, but you can tell that people actually were able to find enjoyment out of life here, unlike "Dragon Tattoo". In a flashback to a Circus office party, the entire spy agency gleefully sings the Soviet national anthem to a Santa Claus with a Stalin mask. People are actually able to crack jokes in this movie, its not all Teutonic misery like that other movie. Plus, more importantly, this movie is actually extremely tense. Things are constantly moving, you keep moving deeper and deeper into the mystery until finally the face of the mole is right around the corner. But who will it be? That's the kind of tension that a mystery movie needs. It was exciting, which is amazing for a movie that's largely about stuffy old British men.

Some people have complained that "Tinker Tailor" is difficult to follow without reading the book. I had some difficulties myself watching it, because for about half the movie I thought "Karla" was the name of one of the Circus execs, not the main Russian spy leader. Most of the film is presented in the order of what George Smiley learns, not in the actual order of events. So there are a lot of flashbacks, and sometimes its hard to tell just when some scene is taking place. One scene of Mark Strong as a schoolteacher left me wondering if this was the past or present or some kind of bizarre alternate reality caused by a time traveling walrus. Though that might have been deliberate, I don't know.

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" was just released last Friday to a wide release. I really do have to recommend this one, its incredibly good. And I'm waiting for the sequel.

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* I find thoughts are most digestible in the car or in the shower. Those are the only times life gives us for true solitude.

My Worst Movies of 2011

2012-01-12T15:26:00.003-05:00

So now that 2011 is quite truly dead, let's remember the year that has passed. Last year I didn't do a 'Worst Of' countdown, though easily I could have, trust me. But 2011 just seemed special because, man, there were a lot of shitty movies this year. I didn't see all of them, its impossible for me to see every movie. It was the real critics that suffered this year. You got to admit, when you have to sit through things like "The Smurfs", and then have to write a whole review about it, that's a hard job. That's brutal. They don't get paid enough. There are plenty of movies I see every year that I don't review, because it would just be too much of a pain in the ass to be entertaining while talking about such mediocrity.

I, luckily, only ever have to see and review the movies I want to. But even then, I managed to see nine whole horrible movies that have each made me a more unhappy person, a more sad person. However, I probably would have committed suicide if I had to see every movie. I mean, 2011 was the year that brought us such gems as "Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star", and "Jack and Jill"*. We got "Alvin and the Chipmunks 3", "The Zookeeper", and "Spy Kids 4". Ouch, man. Hollywood, what is the matter with you? By the way, readers, there's a pattern here: all of these movies are stupid comedies. 2011 was the crowning year for bad awful comedies made for retards, retards both adult and child-sized. If you're getting ready to be offended because I said 'retard', let me explain my special definition of retard for you: if you're a person who saw the trailer for "Jack and Jill" and said to yourself 'wow, that looks like a funny movie!', then you are a retard. You're not mentally retarded, you're creatively retarded. You are unambitious in your choice of entertainment, you do nothing but the same old thing every day, and your empty life makes me sad.

I know the proper etiquette for any list is to include a mentally pleasing number of items like ten or twenty, but this time I only could find nine movies I really hated enough to list here. I searched far and wide for #10, looking at such disappointments as "Priest", "Thor", "Captain America", and "Sanctum", before finally giving up. Nine is the number you're getting:

9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - I feel bad putting this movie on this list because just about everybody on Earth whose opinions on movies I trust loved it. Its unprecedented for me, personally. Like, I understand the critical establishment loving "The Tree of Life"**, but I don't understand "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". I hated it, my friend hated it, we were miserable watching this thing. I get the feeling I'm missing something here, something fundamental. I probably would have liked this one a lot more if I hadn't read the book and spoiled the mystery, but the mystery was never all that great to begin with. It was a mediocre book all in all, and a dreary BORING movie. "Dragon Tattoo" is at least an hour too long, with half the movie being semi-bored characters flipping through archives and talking about minor details of a crime mystery. There's truly horrifying rape scene, a great revenge scene, and that's about it. Here's the real problem with "Dragon Tattoo": David Lynch should have directed it. He could have brought a weird playful twist to the entire film, instead of David Fincher's dead atmosphere.

Out of respect for the idea that I'm actually a blistering moron who can no longer appreciate good cinema, I'll put this at the top of the list.

8. Twilight 4 - This is more of an honorable mention than anything else. I loved this movie, to be honest, and its going to make it onto my 'Best Of' list for being so wonderfully entertaining. But its still a 'Twilight' movie, the acting is still all over the place, the storyline is still ridiculous. By all regular standards of a movie, this is a disaster. However, I've made this clear repeatedly, really bad movies can be a lot of fun, especially the ones that are hilariously awful. And "Twilight 4" is just about perfect if you're looking for a bad movie to chuckle at. Its the 'best worst movie', definitely the only movie on this list that I would recommend for anybody, but its still bad. Really bad. The worst of the worst, and I love it.

7. Another Earth - "Another Earth" is the most dreary movie of the year. While "Dragon Tattoo" was pretty cold and had extremely unhappy characters, it at least gave me something to smile at every so often. There is no humor at all in "Another Earth", being a sad art movie about a girl falling in love with the man whose family she killed in a hit and run. Usually I wouldn't have seen a movie like that at all, I know to avoid miserable art films - I didn't see Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" for a reason. But "Another Earth" promised a doppelganger story about two Earths, with the main character finally meeting her alternate universe double. After what feels like three hours of bitter drama, that does actually happen... followed immediately by credits. You get no further details on that plot point. Biggest cock tease of a movie ever. The movie I wanted to see was exactly the issue that the filmmakers had no interest in. Why make a SciFi movie at all if you're simply going to ignore the SciFi elements?

6. Cars 2 - Okay, "Cars 2" isn't actually that bad of a movie on its own merits. However, the clear failure of this movie is magnified infinitely thanks to "Cars 2" being the most lazy and unpleasant movie that animation masters, Pixar has ever made. Pixar could make any movie they want, on any subject, no matter what. They could probably get away with making a porn movie for kids at this point. Their artistic canvas is completely unlimited. And they made this instead. We could have been watching the next "Toy Story 3" or the next "WALL-E", instead they created a worthless movie starring Larry the motherfucking Cable Guy for money. Pixar betrayed us all, making exactly the kind of movie they have promised repeatedly over the years that they would never make: a cash in. "Cars 2" is a cash-in. When the DreamWorks rival movie, "Kung-Fu Panda 2", a movie every bit the lazy cash-in as "Cars 2" is better in just about every way, that's sad. That's pathetic. I'm putting "Cars 2" on this list as a warning for Pixar. This movie isn't simply mediocre or subpar, its a total failure. This is a movie for retards, and Pixar should be able to do better than that.

And this movie made my Lil Bro cry at the end. You get special hate for that.

5. In Time - "In Time" gets a special mention on this list for inspiring me to write what I suspect is my most thorough movie review yet for a film that isn't 'Twilight'. On the surface, "In Time" is simply a mediocre SciFi thriller starring Justin Timberlake and my dearly beloved Amanda Seyfried in a wig I really liked. But its premise turned out to be so poorly thought-out so incredibly stupid that it needs a special mention here. Me and my friends had a good laugh just trying to figure out the premise, it was so ridiculous. This movie was long, idiotic, and nobody nobody seemed to notice the downright embarrassing failures in basic, common sense economics. I'm no Business Major, but even to me, nothing about this movie's premise makes any sense. It was hilarious. "In Time" is so stupid that the villains cannot even figure out the simplest tasks to defeat Justin Timberlake: like hiring a security guard or giving the police walkie-talkies.

Yeah, movies like "J. Edgar" are less fun to watch and other movies on this list are less entertaining. But "In Time" was obviously a movie that nobody gave much thought to, made all the more embarrassing because it was trying to make some kind of commentary on class warfare... and failed. It failed bad. Any movie that manages to be this monumentally stupid much be represented on the 'Worst Of' list. And of course, it just wasn't a very good movie at all, being entirely mediocre with an incoherent plot.

4. Sucker Punch - Here is where the list gets really bad. There are a few pretentious movies here, but only "Sucker Punch" managed to fool no one. Can you believe that such a slummy fetishistic movie was actually reported by director Zack Snyder to be about female empowerment? Cue the laughter. "Sucker Punch" at least on the surface claims to be about the escapism fantasies of a girl trapped in either a corrupt mental asylum or a Twenties bordello. But all of her fantasies are obviously a Frankenstein-esque patch up of nerd pandering genres like anime, video games, and god-knows what else. These aren't the character's fantasies, they're Zack Synder's! Worse, this movie is just plain terrible in about every way, the acting is awful, the action scenes are too ridiculous to take seriously, and the entire thing is a waste.

The worst detail, however, is the movie's entire concept. Because every single one of the action scenes are just fantasies, you never really get any reason to care. Even if the characters were to lose in their implausible battles against WWI zombies, it doesn't matter because none of it is real. You're left horribly bored during the scenes that on paper sound incredibly awesome: like big action scenes with dragons and space trains and whatever. "Sucker Punch" is the only movie of the year that managed to be less interesting than the empty chair to my left. This should have been a movie that I loved, or at least was entertaining in its pure silliness. Instead, I liked the chair more. By the way, that chair was amazing, it had this diagonal patchwork pattern of all the colors of the rainbow. We had blues and reds and purples and greens, its was beautiful. Zack Synder should make a movie about that chair instead of his masturbation fantasies.

3. Green Lantern - Oh boy... You knew this one was going to make it, didn't you? Few movies have made such a singularly negative impact on me than "Green Lantern", the single most embarrassing mess of a superhero film that I have ever seen.

"Green Lantern" is a once-in-a-lifetime film experience. Its the only time you'll ever see a movie where every working on it, from writing to director to CG wizards to actors, did not care. This was a movie that nobody believed in, nobody loved, and it shows. Ryan Reynolds gives his most obnoxious performance yet as a completely unconvincing hero. He plays an awful douchebag in what I think is supposed to be a male escapism fantasy. Well, if Hal Jordan's life is what all men strive for, then I'm glad their dreams are ruined, because this 'Superhero' proves to be the most despicable person in his own movie. He uses women, he crashes massively expensive fighter planes, he quits being a Superhero over and over again. Meanwhile, the villain is a loser nerd played by a very playful Peter Sarsgaard, who is unsurprisingly the most loveable character in the movie. Oh wait, he was the villain? Who wrote this shit? Aren't comic book fans mostly nerds, who is this movie trying to pander to? Why is the other big villain, Sinestro, played by Mark Strong, the only man in this entire production who actually seems to care?

This is a movie where nothing works, not even the special effects. Mountains of money were spent on effects that look so friggin bad. It is a catastrophic disaster of a movie, the worst Superhero film I've ever seen.

2. Transformers 3 - Yeah, I saw it. My only excuse is that I didn't spend money on it. Michael Bay doesn't need a single dollar more. I didn't review "Transformers 3" because I had no interest in ranting like a lunatic for what would probably have been seven novels worth of text. There are no amount of words in this world that can possibly fill up the sheer volume of hatred I have for Michael Bay's Transformers series.

Most of the movies I listed above are failures. The creators had a vision for a film, and it didn't quite work out for some reason or another. "Green Lantern" is the greatest failure of them all this year. But "Transformers 3" is a movie that is expertly made by a brilliant filmmaker. It is a movie that was crafted by a master, every detail working exactly as planned. And that's what makes Transformers so horrible. I mentioned movies for retards earlier, well, look no further than this. This is the top of the heap, the No. 1 retard film. Even in "Green Lantern" I found a character or two to like, that's not the case with "Transformers 3". There is nothing to like here, it is a movie made to be so loud, so stupid, and so explosive that all a retard can do is glaze his eyes over and clap his hands in the wonderment of it all. But I am a person with a brain, I enjoy the art of cinema, and there is nothing to like here.

Every human character is a comic relief. And that's bad enough. Its a world full of mincing caricatures that do not even begin to approach real humanity or real comedy. For a movie so full of gags, its never funny. Only a retard could find such things humorous. All the robots are psychopaths with no sense of morals. Optimus Prime - the hero supposedly - ruthless executes a prisoner at the end of the movie, and the crowd is supposed to cheer. In stark contrast a villain does the same thing twenty minutes earlier, and the crowd is supposed to boo. For a movie so full of action scenes, it has no thrills. Every woman is a supermodel existing only to show off sexual characteristics. For a movie so full of hot chicks, its never arousing. Some movies can be funny and entertaining and sexy and still have all the proper ingredients of a good story with characters you care about. "Transformers 3" is none of those things, its nothing at all. You're only fooling yourself if you think you like it. If you want a fun, awesome movie that can do all those things, watch "Drive".

"Transformers 3" is a bad fast food product. Its like eating a burger that's been in the deep fryer for two weeks. Yeah, its greasy and salty and has all the artificial ingredients that some people would call delicious. And guess what happens when you take a bite into it? It sits in your stomach for a few hours, the grease boils your insides, and you puke it out. Michael Bay isn't a storyteller, he doesn't make characters, and he can't direct anything more than a pretty shot. He feeds on the willful ignorance of morons. And if you enjoyed "Transformers 3", then I doubt anything I've ever said has made any sense to you. I don't see much reason for you to keep on reading.

1. The Tree of Life - Now some people might be horrified to see what is repeatedly hailed as one of the best movies of the year on this list. Some of them might be appalled to see "The Tree of Life" right next to the despised "Transformers 3", but these two movies belong together. Terrence Malick and Michael Bay have more in common than either would ever care to admit. They're both directors who in 2011 made movies that made mockeries of the concept of characters and emotions and meaningful dialog. In the sense that "Transformers 3" was an auteur filmmaker bringing his deranged vision to the screen, it was a perfect art house film. Neither director can be bothered to tell much of a story and the concept of following a plot seems to be nothing but an annoyance to both. These are directors who don't like making movies, I feel, but they do enjoy explosions, montages, or pretty pictures. You could make a movie with those elements, you can make really good movies with those elements, but if that's all you have, the movie will be an untold disaster.

Yeah, Terry Malice would never put bad high school jokes and racist characters into his movies, but neither would Michael Bay put in slow boring montages of characters growing up in his movie. They're roughly equal in how little they speak to me. However, Michael Bay's creation is a celebration of pure stupidity, meaning that its at least designed to keep an audience entertained. "Tree of Life" has no such ambition. Terry doesn't care about any other human being then himself, he can't even be bothered to try to entertain, and his film is torturous. For being the single most boring movie ever made in the history of cinema, "The Tree of Life" is hereby crowned the Worst Movie of 2011.

But is it the Worst Movie Ever? That's a special place in my heart. Previously my go-to answer for the worst movie I ever saw was "Southland Tales", Richard Kelly's catastrophic 2006 arthouse epic of previously hot-button political issues and failed sketch comedy actors. It was a movie that didn't even pretend to make sense. But as bad as "Southland Tales" was, it was so weird in the end that it was almost kind of fun. I have never had less fun than when I saw "The Tree of Life". There is no movie less enjoyable.

"The Tree of Life" isn't a movie, I've made this point repeatedly. Its very beautiful in its own way, but so is Michael Bay's Transformer series (at times). Its a lovely series of pictures. There are a lot of shots in this movie I really like, some of which I'd put up on a wall in my house to admire. But that still doesn't make a movie. And even then, the entire "experience" is two and a half hours long. If every shot in this movie were a picture in a museum, no museum on Earth would have enough room to fill Terry's egotism. I wish it were a photo montage, that way it would rightfully be cut down into a manageable whole. No museum would give this man the space that the film format gives him. How long are you supposed to sit around looking at this stuff? This movie has one trick, very good cinematography. Even if it was the best cinematography on the face of the Earth, it would get boring after awhile. You can't make a movie about just one element, you need a story, you need characters.

And the special message of the movie isn't even all that deep or difficult to comprehend. The first and last monologues give away the entire message: there are two ways to go through life, either selfishly demand more, or selflessly accept what you have and bring joy. The other thing is that every life is framed by the positives and negatives of your parents. As for the entire space montage and the dinosaurs and the weirdness with Sean Penn, its all unnecessary for the movie. Terry Malice put it in to look deep and confuse people.

You might miss that message because the monologues are in whispers, so even if you're trying to listen in its almost impossible. Also, there's almost no dialog in the entire movie, and maybe three or four scenes, so you're entirely left disconnected from the characters. You may not know this, but the way most human beings connect with each other is through talking. So when the movie characters never talk, they remain strangers to you forever. I know long scenes of characters not talking is more "artistic" or whatever, but it just makes the movie worse.

In my review, I guessed this movie was a lazy indulgence on Terry's part, because he just didn't want to make a movie. I've since learned from none other than MovieBob himself (thanks!) and from disgruntled reports from Sean Penn that the movie actually was written and shot like a real movie. Only later did Terry go back and chop it into little bits, mix the scenes together, and leave us with the longest continuous montage in all of history. Sean Penn was left pissed, because his role, which originally was the main character, was cut out. All that's left are odd shots of him looking confused. You have to feel bad for an actor that signed onto a project to be the lead, and is left with maybe ten minutes of screentime all in all. You also have to feel bad knowing that "The Tree of Life" could have been a real movie, maybe even a really good movie.

But that's gone forever now. All that's left with is this: the world's biggest turd. There have been bad movies made, there always will be bad movies. But you can enjoy them, if purely on the basis that its funny to see somebody fail so badly. Bad movies are a lot of fun that way. "The Tree of Life" did exactly what it wanted to, and the result is horrifying. A nightmare of self-indulgence and semi-coherent poetic ramblings of the greatest scale. The Worst Movie Ever Made.

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* According to Red Letter Media, "Jack and Jill" is in fact the worst movie ever made.

** By the way, I'd like to point out the irony here. The established sacred cows of the film discussion world all absolutely love a radical departure from the fundamentals of cinema with "The Tree of Life". And I'm the conservative here pointing out that their Emperor has no cloths. "The Tree of Life" isn't as advant-garde as it thinks it is if every single critic feels an obligation to love it. Maybe the 21st century definition of art just means something that the average person on the street will instantly be unimpressed with.

War Horse

2012-01-09T17:00:00.001-05:00

Of the Oscar Bait movies I've seen from the 2011 Oscar Fishing season, "War Horse" is easily the best. And luckily for you readers, that means there's only one movie I need to see before I'm ready to announce my glorious 'Best of 2011' List. This will not be on it, unfortunately. But fortunately, compared to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" this was not a movie that made me want to stand up out of my seat, tear my cloths off, cover my body with popcorn butter, and run naked and screaming out of the theatre.

Let's meet Stephen Spielberg. Ever hear of him? Probably not. He's something of an obscure director, coming from the far-away land of Ohio, which I believe is a nation in the Middle East. Surprising for such a minor figure in movies, he's made tons of movies, none of which the average person has ever seen. Those include such bits of arcane filmmaking like "E.T.", "Jaws", "Jurassic Park", "Saving Private Ryan", and a whole series of movies about some dude named "Indiana Jones". I haven't seen those movies, you haven't seen those movies, let's just assume they were decent enough for the small Indie off-brand movies of this small scale. A few of them, I think, have actually been lost to history entirely. Making movies has always been a hobby for Mr. Spielberg, I think he works at a gas station in between his tiny productions to pay for his bills. "Jurassic Park" was a cheesy B-movie about dinosaurs, and "E.T." in fact was a porno, that's a real tell of what kind of movie maker we're dealing with here. But for once, "War Horse" is finally making an impression of the larger world, and is probably on its way to getting nominated for Best Picture in a few months.

Shockingly for such a small name director, "War Horse" is actually really good. If you're looking for a feel-good movie about a horse and a lot of people who love it, here you go. If you're a cynic who doesn't want to ever be happy, I guess you can point out that Spielberg is obviously pulling your emotional strings and that WWI really sucked. Its not a perfect movie, its a little too long and a little too sappy, but it is a beautifully shot, stars a beautiful animal, and is probably the best war movie of 2011. This is a perfect movie to show an elderly relative.

The basic plot of "War Horse" is the tale of a Colt named "Joey" that is initially bought by a drunkard farmowner and raised by his teenage son, Albert. Albert and Joey fall desperately in love, work the farm together, ride along the beautiful Shire fields, and so on. Then of course, World War I hits, and Joey has to be sold to the Royal Army as a cavalry horse. Naturally, because this is the Western Front of WWI, the cavalry has a nasty run in with the Maxim Machine Gun. So Joey passes from owner to owner, moving between all the sides of the war in small episodes before finally being separated by the horrific waste of humanity that is the trenches. Then, to spoil the ending, he finds his owner again, the music swells, and everybody can walk home satisfied in a simple uplifting story.

If you don't like horses, I guess this won't be the movie for you. I, naturally love horses. I used to have a horse a while ago. Her name was Epona, and we together rode the fields of Hyrule fighting orcs and saving Princesses, those were good times. I miss Epona, I don't know where she's been the last few years, its been hard without her. Joey kinda looks like Epona, and like Epona he responds to a very specific call of musical notes.

Now as for "War Horse" filmmaking, I have to say that this Spielberg guy, where ever he came from, is a true expert in the art of making movies. "War Horse" is simply beautiful, its a film where every actor shines and the horse is the main star. The best part, by far, is the moment that Joey finally says "fuck this" to all of WWI's endless cruel bullshit and dashes across No Man's Land. Spielberg is also very good at directing war scenes, particularly the moment when the men go 'over the top' straight into the hellish landscape that four years of conflict helped create. There are few places in all of history that I'd rather visit less than the space between the Allied and German lines in WWI, and Spielberg creates it beautifully. Its almost as if the man has been a director of amazing movies for decades now, like he's a master of his craft. But that's obviously not true, now is it?

One problem with "War Horse" has that other war movies do not is the rating. Unfortunately, this is PG-13, and that was a really stupid idea. In an early charge scene, the cavalry rush towards machine gun nests, the guns fire, and... all you see are horses without riders jumping over the guns. At no point do you ever get to see the kinetic impact of those guns taking down the riders or the horses. Its jarring. At times Spielberg does it well with a pretty artistic effect of a spinning windmill covering up some violence, but at other times I'm like 'why can't I see this?' The last battle scene (which is oddly the only real battle scene) is done very well, but its really just a retread of the opening of "Saving Private Ryan", done without blood.

Wait a second... I never saw "Saving Private Ryan" it was an obscure movie that... Oh screw it. I'm done with that weird gag. I don't even know what I trying to do there. Let's move on.

Another issue is that even though the acting, writing, and cinematography are all top-notch, the episodes of Joey's life are all very disconnected and often disjointed. They really do not mold into a singular movie. Like, I think the story of the little French girl with some unknown bone disease was very well done, but it just didn't match up with Joey's life on the English farm or the WWI story. The little girl, despite her accent, was probably my favorite character in the movie, which makes it all the weirder when its revealed in the last five minutes that she died off-camera sometime in the last half hour when we haven't seen her. The fact she's one of two female characters in this entire movie makes her more distinctive as well. Then there's a really short episode with two German child-soldiers deserting with Joey*, which lasts all of seven minutes and should have been cut entirely I think. So "War Horse" is like watching three or four different short movies, all of which are decent enough, but they do not really coalesces into a single whole. Not to mention, the timeline of this movie seems to have a few issues, I don't know how four years passed, from what I can tell at most a year could have occurred all in all.

It might have helped if Joey were a more charismatic leading man, but unfortunately he's a horse. He can't talk. I don't know what I'm expected out of a horse, its not like the creature could ever make an Academy Award winning performance, as intriguing as the idea is.

By the way, everybody speaks English in the movie. The English, the French, the Germans, they all speak perfect English just with an accent. This leads to a funny moment late in the film when a British soldier meets a German and to avoid the language dispute, the German mentions that "I speak English very well". Of course he does, nobody speaks a language other than English in "War Horse"! I guess the average Americans just can't deal with a movie that's halfway subtitles.

The final scenes I think are a little overdone, just a little too sappy. Spielberg is the ultimate crowd-pleasing director, he's a director for the people, so it can be a little easy to be turned-off by the fantastic reunion of boy-turned-man and horse, but I'd prefer a movie be overplayed than underplayed. After "Dragon Tattoo", I'm sick of subtly and slow intellectual filmmaking. I feel bad for hating on a movie that everybody on Earth seems to love, including all my favorite critics for being too boring. Maybe I've become a blistering idiot who just wants instant gratification... I have no idea who I am anymore. At least I still hate Michael Bay, so I haven't completely fallen to the dark side. But anyway, if you just want a fun movie, "War Horse" is the movie to see.

Fanwank Corner: In all honestly, "War Horse" is taking place on the wrong side of Europe. In the chaos that came with the collapse of the Romanov Empire, Eastern Europe was home to true chaos as the whole of society came apart into tons of factions where the most brutal side held the advantage. It was also the last war in which mounted cavalry played any major strategic importance, so that would make Joey even more important to the movie. Also, there aren't enough movies made about the Russian Revolution.

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* One of the German kids was played by David Kross, best known for appearing in "The Reader", one of the worst Best Picture nominated movies I've ever seen. Like "Dragon Tattoo" it was a really slow humorless movie, but even worse in that the characters are even more miserable. Kross has a weird nose, so he's impossible to miss.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2012-01-08T13:18:00.010-05:00

Last night I gave myself a nice double feature of two of the biggest Oscar-bait films to come out in 2011. The plan originally was to see "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", but ultimately I left so profoundly annoyed with David Fincher and his slow humorless movie that I had to find myself a cure with some proper Stephen Spielberg sentimentality with "War Horse". "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is two and a half hours long, and it feels that long. You'd think a movie with three rapes and at least one attempt at rape wouldn't be boring, but yeah, its boring. I have no idea why this movie is being so badly courted for Oscars, or why everybody else seems to like it.

However, as a positive, I could have watched "The Tree of Life" again. So "Dragon Tattoo Girl" will always be superior to that, at least.

Honestly, I don't get why the late-Stieg Larsson gets as much praise as he does. His novels aren't particularly revolutionary, he just wrote three mystery-crime novels starring a glamorized version of himself and a goth chick. I read "Dragon Tattoo" this fall, was entirely unimpressed with it. Mostly the book was a detective story with characters I didn't particularly like with way more padding than I needed. I won't speak ill of the dead, so I'll just say that Stieg Larsson's books aren't for me. I expected something more substantial from these books, especially with all the buzz they've been getting*. He's a good writer, his subject matter just isn't all that meaningful.

And I expected more out of David Fincher. What happened to you, man? You used to make movies that kicked ass like "Fight Club", "The Game", and "Seven". Heck, even "Alien 3" was incredibly stupid and a disaster by all accounts, but it was entertaining. Then he did "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", a slow dreary cynical Oscar Bait movie of the lowest order, and suddenly Fincher realized he could win Best Picture. That's become his obsession now. Its no longer cool R-rated thrillers you could sink your teeth into, its slow humorless movies. And "Dragon Tattoo" is as slow and humorless as you can ever get in a movie.

I didn't love "The Social Network" last year because I thought its main character was a douche and Mark Zuckerberg (who is even more of a detestable douche in real life) didn't need the ego boost that would come with a Best Picture win for a movie about himself. But I could appreciate the movie making, it was a funny movie. There were fun characters in it and the dialog was constantly clever. David Fincher is a good director... when he wants to be. I don't know what the heck he was doing here in "Dragon Tattoo". Is Sweden really such a grey sullen place where nobody smiles and people have sullen depressing sex? Republican pundits constantly list Sweden as a liberal wasteland that America can never turn into. I figured that such a crazy country would have people that knew how to smile a few times.

"Dragon Tattoo" isn't much more than a thriller movie with a long-running mystery plot. So I have no idea why this counts as Oscar Bait, but David Fincher and his corporate overlords, Sony made this movie entirely for the purpose of courting the Academy, so it is indeed Oscar Bait. Its like "Black Swan" last year which was a huge Best Picture contender even though it was really a basic horror movie. The difference is that "Black Swan" was amazing, legitimately creepy, and a lot of fun, while "Dragon Tattoo" is plotted with all the excitement of a funeral to a profoundly boring person nobody particularly loved. Everything is so subtle, so muted, nobody seems like they're having fun at all - even when they're fucking. Even the serial killer and the sadist psychologist don't really seem to be enjoying themselves.

There's something to be said for subtlety in acting, sometimes the most understated performance can be the most amazing. But if you're making a thriller with a villain trapping the main character down in a torture dungeon, you can let the actor overact a bit. I was wishing somebody would cut loose and go nuts. If you're a maniac psychokiller, you can play it up a bit. "Hostel" was an extremely violent movie full of people doing horrible things to each other, but at least that movie managed to have a few moments that made me smile.

"Dragon Tattoo" opens with a bizarre sequence of CG black oil rolling over black robotic people dancing around to a techno remix of 'Immigrant Song' while being set on fire. The black oil people fuck, they hit each other, they fuse together, its all very weird and sadly, the best part of the movie. Its like some kind of intense torture-themed acid trip, it was awesome... and had nothing to do with anything. Did they mix up the opening credits to this movie with the new James Bond? My friend next to me asked "are we in the right movie?" I don't care what anybody else says, this opening sequence is awesome. David Fincher wasted all his talent in these two minutes, the rest of the movie is dull. Its like a delicious appetizer to a meal of cold noodles and crackers.

Daniel Craig is the hero of the story, a reported who double-crossed the wrong corrupt industrialist and now has no choice but take on a forty-year-old mystery from a less corrupt industrialist. Christopher Plummer plays that guy, and his niece disappeared decades ago. Eventually Craig teams up with the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a goffic bisexual autistic hacker chick named Lisbeth Salander (who I'll now call Salamander). Salamander earlier in movie was raped by her court-appointed guardian, so she paid him back by shoving a three-foot metal dildo up his ass and then tattooing on his body "I am a rapist pig". That is the most entertaining part of the movie, by the way, its only downhill from there. The rape scene is especially brutal, but it all makes up for it when Salamander gets her payback. So since this is a mystery plot, you don't know if the killer is the Butler, the Brother, the Nazi Dad, the Sister, or Mother. It doesn't matter, because you don't know the characters well enough, the mystery, honestly, isn't very good. Even in the book the mystery wasn't very good.

It really doesn't help that the girl playing the disappeared niece is played by an actress that looks almost exactly the same as Salamander. This is a hugely distracting design choice, and it bugged me all movie. These girls don't exactly look the same, but with Lisbeth wearing all her stupid goffic piercing and shaved eyebrows, I couldn't tell.

Now Daniel Craig in this movie acts like he just woke up from a two-year nap. He could not be less of an interesting main character, which is a real shame. Craig always has been the most understated James Bond, but that was a good thing there, it was a good contrast to the Pierce Brosnan pointless arrogance. Here Craig is so understated that he is dozing off between his lines. Salamander isn't much better either, she's too quiet for her own good. Sadly, these characters do sometimes have a decent banter, but it doesn't happen nearly enough. Fincher should have just let their personalities bounce off each other instead of having endless scenes of characters flipping through photographs and records. As somebody who has done historical research in dusty basements, I can tell you with all certainty: its soul-crushing in real life, and even with a talented director at the helm, its boring in a movie. Even the main villain, for all his love of soft 90s New Age music, is boring. PLEASE, SOMEBODY ENJOY YOURSELF. LIFE IS NOT THIS DULL. WE LIVE IN A BEAUTIFUL WORLD FULL OF POSSIBILITIES, THERE IS SO MUCH TO LOVE ON THIS EARTH. STOP BEING SO FUCKING DULL.

Salamander at least wears the funniest T-shirt I've ever seen in a movie: "fuck you you fucking fuck". That was fun, little else in this movie is. She gets naked a lot too, so if you like skinny girls (like I luckily do), this movie will make your sexual organs entertained at least.

I desperately wanted to leave the theatre by the hour and a half mark. My seat was uncomfortable, the moving was dragging endlessly, and Daniel Craig was acting like an idiot. He basically solves who the killer is, then wanders into the guy's house, all alone and unarmed. So suddenly I'm eight-years-old again and I'm talking out loud to the screen telling Daniel Craig to stop being so stupid. Its like in any bad horror movie when the big-titted murder victim wanders into the haunted house that is obviously full of serial killers with chainsaws. That's when I realized this movie wasn't just boring, it wasn't very bright either. Craig even manages to leave, then walks back into the house when the killer invites him in. Guess what? Craig's now in a torture chamber, genius. Then the killer mocks Craig by pointing out how the hero broke every horror movie rule. What is this a "Scream" movie now?

Why can't anybody get their accents right? The entire film is in English, but there is no consistency in the accents. Some people might be Swedish I wouldn't know. Others just sound vaguely Eastern European, Salamander is doing a great Russian accent - only her character is supposed to be a Swede. Daniel Craig isn't even trying. I bet Craig told Fincher at some point: "I'm a James Bond, Sean Connery never did a damn accent in his movies, neither do I!!" Craig didn't care about this movie one bit, and neither do I.

Worse this movie is friggin' long. At two and a half hours it is brutal to its audience. A lot of details have been cut from the novel, like all the pointless scenes of Daniel Craig's character getting laid and cooking duck. But more should be cut! A lot more! This movie should have been a lean 90 minutes, if that, at its current length it is beyond abusive. If it had been an hour shorter I might have actually liked it.

With movies like "The Tree of Life", I have no idea why people like them. I suspect its so that they can fool themselves into thinking that they're so sophisticated they can like obviously fake arty crap, so that they can be the top 1% of movie fans. With "Dragon Tattoo", I really have no idea what the appeal is. This isn't a very good thriller, and that's all it is: a thriller. This isn't an ambitious or even particularly smart movie. I really hope this gets snobbed by the Academy because "Dragon Tattoo" really was a giant waste of time. Yes, David Fincher is a good director and the movie is very pretty. The rape scene is really horrifying. This isn't one of the worst movies of the year, but its definitely boring. I just wish the actors could have come alive at some point. "Dragon Tattoo" could have been decent, and it wasn't. And that's the biggest fault of this movie.

So afterwards, I was really pissed about life, the universe, and everything. Luckily "War Horse" was opening, so I went over to see that. And that was much better.

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* I also judged the book by its title. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" sounds like some kind of grand epic drama or a fantasy novel of some kind. I was hoping the girl could transform into a dragon or ride dragons or breath fire or something that I would like to happen. Or even be a stirring story about a girl with a dragon tattoo overcoming all kinds of odds in a dark world. Instead it was just a well-written James Patterson-style novel from Sweden, nothing amazing. The hero is obviously Larsson's idealized version of himself, and the main heroine is an obvious sexual fantasy the author had, that the entire story comes off as extremely forced to me and really made me dislike the book.

Most Anticipated Movies for 2012

2012-01-07T16:25:00.001-05:00

Yeah, I'm still not ready to count down my favorites of 2012 yet. Sorry about that. Hey, at least I'm going to be more timely than the Academy Awards, huh? So instead of looking back, let us look forward: to the new year... that's already a week old. Movies are already coming out in 2012! I'm really behind. Last year, I did a list just like this one, and only half the movies I wanted to see panned out. Oh well.

Looking forward to 2012, I'm going to be honest, things are looking up. But first, because its funny, let me point out the big low marks for what's to come: "Journey to the Center of the Earth 2" (they made a 1?), "Ghostrider 2", "Clash of the Titans 2", "Men in Black 3", "Underworld 4", "Ice Age 4", and "Scary Fucking Movie 5". Then there's a wretched-looking "Battleship", the utterly wretched "Mirror Mirror", the equally wretched remake of "21 Jump Street", and the most unbelievably wretched reboot of "The Three Stooges" starring that whore from "Jersey Shore". I know "that whore from 'Jersey Shore'" isn't being specific, but aren't they all the same anyway? We got the "Spiderman" reboot coming, if only to make people wonder why it exists at all. Apparently there will be a "Halloween 3D", but nobody knows or what is directing it. And to crown out the mediocrity, every comic book nerd in the world will go crazy for "The Avengers", a movie I guarantee you will suck. But that's not the real low point for 2012, I got a good one for you: "The Expendables 2". Oh God, its happening. Man, I hate living on this planet sometimes...

But let's ignore the negative, and look to the positive, shall we? Here are the movies I actually want to see:

The Dark Knight Rises (July 20th): Fish in a barrel on this one. "Batman 3" is going to kick ass. Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is coming to a close, that alone is shocking enough to warrant viewing. When do Superhero stories ever end? The idea is practically unheard of. Usually a Superhero franchise will just keep churning out inferior sequel after inferior sequel until finally the studio gives up, retires the property for a few years, and then tries again: check out the "Spiderman" reboot that's coming this summer. But Nolan is finishing the story, that means that all bets are off. Will Batman die? Will Gotham burn? Its going to be hard to top "Batman 2" (or "The Dark Knight" as most people call it), and I honestly doubt "Batman 3" will do it, but that doesn't mean this won't be a great movie. This also features a football field being destroyed, that's awesome.

A lot of people are mocking the new villain, Bane for being incomprehensible. I know I have my Bane impression perfectly down: just cover your mouth with your hand and breath a lot. Insta Bane. I still think he looks pretty menacing.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (December 14th): Yeah, this movie is getting the "Harry Potter 7" treatment and being split into two films. That's really the one downer. Otherwise, its more Lord of the Rings! Who can complain about that? I tried to read "The Hobbit" back in 2010 before finally get bored with it, that book is really a kids' storybook. When I have kids I'll have to read it to them, but "The Hobbit" isn't really my thing. This movie version, however, seems to be following the adult tone of Peter Jackson's original Lord of the Rings Trilogy. there's a smal chance this could suck, but I'd say this is a sound bet if you're looking for entertainment later in the year.

Brave (June 22nd): Pixar is back! ...We hope. Here Pixar seems to basically be making their own version of "The Secret of Kelles" (or their own version of "How to Train Your Dragon" for those in the cheap seats). Unfortunately, the trailer for "Brave" is underwhelming to me, it looks like yet another story of a girl overcoming fantasy sexism and becoming a badass. That's kinda been done to death. Not to mention every joke in that trailer is painfully unfunny. Maybe in the modern world, you have to make all family movies look awful to get the idiot parents into the theatre. It worked for "Tangled".

Also, the production behind this one was troubled. The old director, Brenda Chapman, previous director of the impressive "The Prince of Egypt", was kicked out for Mark Andrews, who is currently untried. I would naturally assume that Pixar knew what it was doing here, but then again, we live in post-"Cars 2" world. Has Pixar truly sold its soul to mediocrity? That's the question we're going to have to find out later this year.

World War Z (December 21st): I love this book. It was a really great zombie book and a decent parody of our entire civilization. The movie could hit or miss, I accept that, but that's fine. I also briefly met the author, Max Brooks, so that one tiny little brush with minor stardom is enough to convince me to see this movie. "World War Z" was basically a series of short stories all detailing various happenings in the zombie war around the world. So that includes huge failed military attacks, a Chinese Civil War, and a blind samurai. It this movie follows the book well enough, this could be great.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D (February 10th): HAHAHAHAHAHA! You wish, Lucas.

Django Unchained (December 25th): Quentin Tarantino arrives with a sack of Christmas presents in the form of a new kind of Spaghetti Western that he calls "a Southern". It stars an escaped slave a roaring rampage of revenge against his slave owner, trying to save his wife. So after Tarantino made a movie glorifying the slaughter of Nazis, he's now making a movie glorifying the slaughter of Antebellum racists. He's hitting everybody on the Acceptable History Targets list.

Unfortunately, I didn't like "Inglorious Bastards"*, I thought the plot was uneven, the Bastard characters wasted in their own movie, and the end was stupid. Why are we revising history to show Hitler dying early? Didn't we win the war anyway? What does that mean? If "Django Unchained" features Jefferson Davis getting blown up in a theatre in 1862, I will walk out of that theatre.

The Secret World of Arrietty (February 17th): Its this year's Ghibli movie. 'Nugh said. This movie was actually already released in the UK with a totally different dub than the one Disney has commissioned in the US. Now, I'd like to see this movie in theatres to show my support to Ghibli, but I also want to see the UK dub. When I finally find a steam online that works, I'll probably be able to review this movie early. (If anybody can give a brother a link, they would be much appreciated.) Now, I could watch this movie immediately, but as I've mentioned previously, I like my anime dubbed. Please don't turn this post into a dubbing vs. subbing debate, by the way.

Red Tails (January 20th): I don't actually have any hope at all for this movie. But it is a WWII film, and it is really George Lucas' last chance to show that world that he's still relevant as a movie maker. Yeah, the Star Wars Prequels were disasters, we all know that, but the good thing about "Red Tails" is that its not being directed by George Lucas personally! And he didn't write the screenplay, and he's not doing anything other than producing it. The raw special effects power of Lucasfilm can be used to make great movies, just as long as Lucas learns to delegate and let other people into the fold.

Now "Red Tails" can of course wind up being the fifth Star Wars Prequel in terms of horror, but I'm going to hold out hope. Its about the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American pilots who flew in a segregated division but fought with distinction. If anybody deserves a good war movie to be made about them, its these heroes. Let's hope Lucas is able to tell their story properly.

John Carter (March 9th): At first I thought this movie was the yet weirdest turn in the Terminator franchise. Turns out they actually said "John CARTER" not "John CONNER", big difference. I don't have much hope either for this one, honestly. But as for a stupid action movie, I guess you could do better than a fantasy movie: ON MARS. This is also the first live action Pixar movie, so I kinda got to support it. Technically its a Disney production, but its being directed by Andrew Stanton, the genius who made "WALL-E" and "Finding Nemo".

The trailers are a bit weird too. I like the use of silly green aliens, I like seeing Mark Strong in anything, but it all looks likes a strange SciFi Conan the Barbarian, only with the women wearing more cloths. Damn Disney interference! An R-rating would really help me get more excited about this movie.

The Hunger Games (March 23rd): From what I've heard of the book, its basically "The Running Man" turned into an entire society. So this movie could be really brutal and awesome. But since this one will probably be going for the preteen crowd, that means a lousy PG-13 rating. Its a mixed chance, all in all. Like "John Carter" above, this movie is a pretty cynical attempt to start a franchise. With "Twilight" coming to close this fall, Hollywood is going to need another big teen movie series. So this movie could either wind up being great, or be brutally raped, beaten, and finally emptied of all its blood like the disastrous "Golden Compass". By the way, they never made any sequels to "Golden Compass", be warned Hollywood.

And if "Hunger Games" really is going to be the next "Twilight", maybe it can be an epic disaster and prove to be entertainment for years to come.

ParaNorman (August 17th): This one comes from the people who made "Coraline", one of my all time favorite movies. Its about a kid obsessed with horror movies ending up in a real life horror movie. The trailers aren't giving much away, so I really don't have much to say here. Didn't I talk about this movie already? Look through my archives if you want more.

Twilight 5 (November 16th): OHYEAH! THIS MOVIE WILL ROCK! "Twilight 4" is going to end up on both my Worst Movies of the Year List and my Best Movies of the Year list. Yeah, it was a wretched example of movie making and an embarrassment to entire world of storytelling, but it was also hysterical and entertaining as all Hell. "Twilight 5" is the other half of "Breaking Dawn", the Twilight book so incredibly awful that even the Twilight fans hate it. So I being a Twilight Anti-Fan would of course, love whatever is coming. I hear the ending to the series is utterly and truly awful. So we will be in for plenty of delicious fun. I'm going to be honest here, with the exception for "Batman 3", this is the movie I'm most excited for.

So that's the entire list, I hope you were inspired to look forward to some movies. Obviously these aren't the only movies I will see this year, and obviously these will not be the best movies of the year. But 2012, I think, will be a good year for us all. Let us enjoy it.

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* Learn to spell, Tarantino. I have my own share of embarrassing typos on this blog, but I least get the titles correct. By the way, it was my total confusion with "Inglorious Bastards" that eventually inspired me to start this blog. I needed to write something about it, I just didn't know where or how.

Sonic Generations

2012-01-07T00:43:00.006-05:00

"Sonic the Hedgehog" once upon a time was a major force in gaming, easily one of the biggest names in the entire world. Every kid on Earth knew his name, he was the fastest hedgehog on Earth. Sonic was a cynical creation designed specifically to be a proper 90s kid's hero - a cartoon hero with attitude. Whatever happened to "attitude"? Back in my day, every kid's hero needed that bizarre indefinable quality of authority-mocking coolness. Oh well, the world moved on, and so did Sonic.

The years were not kind to Sonic. While his Italian plumber rival would go on to high glory in the 3D realm, Sonic sat out the entire lifespan of the Saturn*. When Sonic did finally come out in 3D, it was "Sonic Adventure", a buggy game that many people consider to be inferior to Sonic's classic 2D outings that made him a star. Sonic only had further troubles in the 3D realm, including as missteps as "Shadow the Hedgehog", a bizarre attempt to make a dark mature game with a guns and drivable vehicles like "Grand Theft Auto". Things finally came to their lowest point with "Sonic 2006", a rushed, broken, miserable game that would inspire the greatest Let's Play of all time from Pokecapn and company. "Sonic 2006" may be the one of the worst things ever made, because not only is it horribly shattered as a game, it also features a frightening love plot between Sonic and preteen human girl. "Sonic 2006" is the real deal, the "Plan 9 From Outer Space" of video games.

Things have gotten better in the last few years. "Sonic 2006" such a low point that the the series could only improve. The next installment, "Sonic Unleashed" finally managed to master 3D Sonic gameplay, and "Sonic Colors" continued from that point. "Sonic Generations", the game I have here, is the ultimate conclusion of the series, a celebration of everything that made Sonic great. It mixes classic 2D Sonic controls with 3D modern Sonic gameplay, letting players decide which Sonic they want. And it is amazing.

Since 2011 was apparently the 25th anniversary of every video game franchise ever, "Sonic Generations" opens with Sonic's birthday party, full of the gaggle of strange furry cartoon characters he's met over the years. I've played quite a few Sonic games myself, about five all in all, including all the Sega Genesis masterpieces, but even I don't know who all these characters are. This is the game for the hardcore Sonic fan. So thanks to a much of timey-whimey stuff, Sonic ends up in a white realm beyond time. And then he meets his past self.

On the first trailer, I thought Sonic had a kid, thus the smaller blue hedgehog. Maybe a video game version of Baby Godzilla. Nope, that's actually classic Sonic, the old sprite turned into a full 3D character without all the artistic evolutions that Sonic had undergone over the years. So "Generations" in the title is completely literal, you travel through all the many console generations Sonic has seen during his long lifespan. I guess when cartoon video game animals grow older they get taller, get spikier, go through a strange phase of sexual confusion with little girls, change voices repeatedly, and finally reach a nice place of maturity on the PS3. So on the overworld, you can switch between Neo Sonic and Retro Sonic with a button and play through all nine of the game's levels with either character. You have to use one or the other for boss fights, but for the most part, if you hate modern Sonic, you never have to use him.

The storyline, is of course, completely meaningless and pure functional. Dr. ~~Robotnik~~ Eggman** is back, has teamed up with his past self, and has stumbled upon some kind of time devouring monster beyond the end of the universe and well... who cares? Race through the levels and beat the bosses, THE END. The game is peppered with small cameos from all the Sonic folk, punctuated with Sonic looking really depressed that weirdos like this are his friends. Personally, I love the Eggman scenes, because he's definitely the best character in this franchise.

The main meat of the game is the eighteen main levels. They're all recreations of old Sonic levels, from Green Hill Zone to City Escape to finally "Sonic Colors"' Planet Wisp. Of course, Sega wasn't lazy, they didn't just remake the 2D or 3D levels, they completely reworked the levels for this game. Not only that, you can play the modern games in 2D and the old levels in 3D, which is always a cool twist on perspective. In a strong sign of developer's bravado they remade a level from "Sonic 2006" and its actually good. Ironically its the buggiest level in the game, but its a lot of fun, especially when you can quote medibot and Kung-Fu Jesus all level. Sega still hasn't gotten the 3D business completely right just yet, but its a lot of fun.

My major issue with this game is that for whatever reason it isn't properly a fifty-fifty split between 3D and 2D. Modern Sonic can't help but spend a lot of time in the second dimension, which is kinda annoying when the 3D portions are so exciting and fast. I mean, I like Modern Sonic's controls in 2D, but I when I sign on for a 3D level, I want a 3D level. Planet Wisp in 3D is something like 80% 2D, what the heck? The other problem I have is the huge differences between 2D and 3D Sonic. They control similarly, but they have major issues, so it really is like two completely different games in one, switching back and forth between very different physics and moves. Modern Sonic has a small double jump, Old Sonic doesn't, that's tough to get used to.

For whatever reason, I found the 2D levels to be much easier. Maybe my brain only works properly in the second dimension.

One thing I find vaguely shocking is the massive drop in ambition for Sonic developers. "Sonic Generations" is a nice short game, with only nineteen levels and about seven boss fights. If compared to say, "Sonic 2", that's impressive, but remember, this game is on the PS3. For all its faults, "Sonic 2006" tried to make a huge overworld game with an epic storyline. Soleanna was an - admittedly shitty - attempt to make a living breathing city like "Super Mario Sunshine"'s Delfino Plaza. Yeah, it didn't work, but I don't get much tension from "Sonic Generations". The game's entire plot is basically explained in the cutscene right before the last boss, before that you're just finishing levels without any context or reason. (And surprisingly few bosses, that's just lazy, yo.)

Well, on the other hand, its clear that Sega has finally made more sense out of the Sonic franchise. They cut out all the stupid stuff and went to pure gameplay. All that's in this game is levels, a few challenge levels, and a couple of awesome challenge fights against Shadow and Silver. Its simple, its cool, and its a decent game. You can probably beat the entire thing in just a day. And that's fine, its a great platforming game. I'd say its 90% perfect.

Except for the Final Boss, that was, to coin a phrase, a load of dick shit.

But ignoring that. 90% perfect. At the end of the game, Modern Sonic promises Young Sonic that he's "going to have a great future". Well, Mr. The Hedgehog is clearly lying there, Young Sonic is going to have to go through a long fifteen-year rough patch. Nobody whose life will eventually take them to "Sonic 2006" has much to hope for when it comes to future events. But maybe, just maybe, its the current Sonic that is bound for a great future. One can only hope.

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* The lone attempt to bring Sonic to the 3D realm resulted in total embarrassing failure. No less than two entirely separate visions for a 3D Sonic, using the ultimate 90s title, "Sonic X-treme" were made. One was version was a basic 3D running game, with a fixed camera and Sonic charging down a thin strip of terrain. The more finished model was very exciting, and still looks great to this day. It had a very distinctive fish-eye lens, and apparently got very far in development because there are extensive gameplay videos all over Youtube. Unfortunately Sega could not have fucked up worse on the "X-treme" project. The main designer almost died, the execs rushed production, it kept changing hands from dev team to dev team, then they refused to let them use the "NiGHTS" graphics engine, then they just canceled everything because they realized the Saturn was an awful failure. Sega was seemingly staffed by nothing but idiots in 1996, so this very interesting game was never made.

I actually want to play "Sonic X-treme".

** Now, I didn't get into this franchise until "Sonic Rush" on the DS, but why the heck would you change his name from the awesome "Robotnik" to the truly bizarre "Eggman"? Dr. Eggman is about the least threatening name of a villain ever. Imagine if Ganondorf's name was "Lord Fuzzydoodles". And don't bother telling me what Robotnik's name in Japan is either. If the Japanese prefer Eggman, they obviously are wrong. As a people, they are accountable for this crime.

Hugo

2012-01-04T22:13:00.002-05:00

2011 was, actually, not all that bad of a year for movies, I think. Now that its 2012, everybody else on Earth is looking back at the year that passed, and some of the opinions were really negative. I, personally, was ready to call 2011 an unmitigated disaster, but honestly, there were a lot of good movies this year. In fact, my final 'Best Of' list will probably have more movies than 2010, there were plenty of great films, you just needed to know where to look. I won't make my final list until I've seen a few more movies, but its coming soon, trust me on that.

After "The Tree of Life" I was feeling really depressed about movies. A lot of people, including several critics I actually trust, loved this movie, including MovieBob, who called it the best film of the year. Its a real punch in the balls to see the Worst Film Ever and then see it heaped with high praise, and an eventually Best Picture nomination. When a movie that subverts the entire medium's purpose and makes mockery of the work of filmmakers for decades is beloved by so many critics, you have to wonder what its all for. Then "Hugo" comes around and well, this is exactly what its all for. "Hugo" is a beautiful movie, as good as everybody is saying. I bet somebody at Pixar right now, briefly ignoring their pots of ill-gotten "Cars 2" gold is watching this movie right now, kicking themselves in the foot for having not made this movie. This is the Pixar movie the world was conned out of in 2011, only brought to us by the most unlikely director, mobster movie director, Martin Scorsese.

Unfortunately, for me, "Hugo"'s praises have been sung already by just about everybody. I mean, what the heck do I have to add? Its amazing, plain and simple, as good as a movie can be. A great family movie that connects beautifully-created characters to the very genesis of the movies themselves. So its really good, and you should see it, preferably immediately.

I should qualify this review with one bit first: I missed the first twenty minutes of "Hugo". Unfortunately, in order to reach the only theatre in Hudson County playing "Hugo", we had to traverse across something like half a dozen towns in rough urban traffic. And the Mapquest directions were crap, giving an unbelievably optimistic twenty minutes of drive time when the truth is at least double that. But luckily this story does have a hero: me. I have a near perfect sense of direction and so was able to lead our little group all the way to Edgewater, using nothing but the good fortune of a grid-street layout and pure instinct. However, we still missed the first twenty minutes of the movie, which luckily isn't super important to understanding the other hour and a half. Thank God that movies these days open with at least a dozen commercials or we might have been really lost.

We also saw the movie in 3D, because there was no other choice. It was either see "Hugo" in 3D or watch "War Horse" or something. The 3D effects clearly have a lot of work put into them, just about every shot has 3D, and the movie is very lovely. But as always, 3D adds nothing to the experience. Maybe just a superficial shine of extra dimension, but if the screen were flat, this movie would still have been great.

Set in 1931 Paris, the film stars child-actor, Asa Butterfield, the result of years of mad science experiments to clone Elijah Wood circa "The Good Son". Like young Elijah Wood, Asa Butterfield (who has the most poetic name of any actor ever) is a brown-haired boy with shining blue eyes, who brings a mixture of innocence and intense shyness to his role he's fantastic. Asa Butterfield (its as fun to type as to say!) is great as the title Hugo Cabret, an orphan boy living in a French train station all alone because his father and uncle have both died. Not knowing where to go with his life, Hugo keeps on running the clocks, and keeps fixing the machines like he's always done. He also has a broken robot that Hugo is trying to fix in order to find a secret message from his deceased father.

I love the robot's face in this movie. It has a deep soulful face like the robot from the famous silent film, "Metropolis"*. Is it sad, is it happy? You really can't tell. The robot is nothing but a plot device to embody the running mystery plot but instead of simply putting a piece of paper in a box, they created a beautiful set piece. And yeah, they had robots back in 1931, and even years before, ones that ran literally like clockwork because you just wound them up and did their functions. The robot in "Hugo" is able to draw a very complex piece of art, and the filmmakers really did build this machine to actually work. No CGI.

The broken robot is also an allegory for Hugo's own place in the world. Nobody knows what the robot is going to do if fixed, and Hugo himself doesn't know what his place is. To Hugo, the entire world is a giant machine, and all things in it are parts serving a purpose for the final whole. But what is Hugo here to do? What is any of us? The entire movie continues to reinforce this theme, as the entire cast is basically answering this question for themselves.

During the movie, Hugo finds a girl, Isabelle, who works at the train station's toy store with "Papa George". The girl is the second lead of the movie, working to break through Hugo's antisocial personality and eventually join together to solve the mystery of the robot and her adopted father, George Melies. Isabelle, by the way, is played by Punch Girl or whatever her name was from "Kick-Ass", and she's still a great actress. The George Melies character is played by Ben Kinglsey, who despite his recent disastrous career choices like "BloodRayne", "Prince of Persia", and "The Love Guru", managed to get one more great film into his storied resume. George Melies, of course, is the legendary silent film director, one of the first men to make a film with a plot. He directed "Le Voyage dans la lune", the first ever SciFi film, and hundreds of other primitive movies. Melies was a pioneer in a new art, one of the key men who made movies movies. Of course, Melies was unsung in his own time, and he went through a very dark period in unknown poverty. Hugo and Isabelle have to work together to make George Melies realize that he is indeed a brilliant artist beloved by many.

(By the way, this leads to an interesting first thing for me: I've actually taught classes on George Melies to my students, and showed them Le voyage dans la lune. They hated it, by and large. Sad ending.)

Sacha Baron Cohan adds the comic flair to the movie, working as a bizarrely aggressive train conductor, Inspector Gustav. I couldn't help but think that this guy has wandered out of a Studio Ghibli movie that has yet to be made, he's such a cartoony character with his wild mustache and French arrogance. I'm reminded of Donald Curtis, the American flyboy from "Porco Rosso". Inspector Gustav limps around on a lame leg, captures little orphans, and clowns around trying to woo a flower girl with a nasty smile. Sacha Baron Cohan is an actor who can create very funny and memorable characters, but his movies overplay those characters. They work better as supporting roles in bigger, more serious movies. This is easily his best role yet. And despite the odd cartooniness, he added some color to this film. He might seem out of place, but he gave great dimension.

If I must complain about anything, its the color pallet. Once again, its a blue and orange contrast. EVERY FUCKING MOVIE uses this contrast. At least Terrence Malick avoided this one annoying trope. I have no idea why Scorsese would do this, other than to be trendy. In "The Aviator", Scorsese It definitely doesn't fit as an homage to old silent movies, they, ironically, often had much more sophisticated pallets because the directors painted every frame. I don't get why the blue-orange thing is so beloved, it makes no sense, and it detracts from the movie.

Oh, also Christopher Lee is in this movie. That's always awesome.

So in the end, "Hugo" was seriously good. Easily one of the best movies of 2011, and the best movie that everybody seems to be considering for Oscar Season**. If you need further convincing: this movie is too good to win Best Picture. Movies with this level of pure quality and manage to take us away to a far off land are not Best Picture winners. And we should be glad that Martin Scorsese made such a huge gamble late in his career to make what is basically a family fantasy film, so far away from his typical genre. It was a great gift, that everybody can love.

And its the perfect cure to the post-"Tree of Life" blues.

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* I really need to see "Metropolis" one of these days. Its the granddaddy of all SciFi films, so I should have some kind of reaction to it. I saw the anime remake, which was okay, but definitely not Fritz Lang.

** "Drive", the true best movie of 2011, is apparently going to be snubbed by the Oscars if the pundits can be believed.

Let's Watch: The Tree of Life

2012-01-04T00:21:00.007-05:00

For tonight, we at Planet Blue have something very special. We have Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life", well known for being the most pretentious movie of 2011. Some people smell Oscar noms for this thing, even though it apparently makes no sense on any level and it nothing but a giant soup of symbolism. Now, I love weird movies (check out my "End of Evangelion" image), but I also hate weird art films. Just this summer, I had the worst theatre experience of my entire life sitting in "Another Earth", perhaps the most boring film ever made. Terrence Malick is well-known for being a darling of pretentious film makers, he's in that circle of untouchable art house directors like Lars von Trier* or David Lynch**. I happen to like my movies to be good, to have stories, to have characters, and to make sense. But limiting art to being good is fascism, we live in a postmodern age! Irony is the new good. The more pretentious a movie can be, the better, apparently.

"The Tree of Life" is movie about everything, so says the press, everything from 1950s family issues to dinosaurs. Its almost certainly getting nominated for best picture, I keep hearing it listed as one of the best movies of 2011, but I also keep hearing its beyond horrible. Like, if you actual like watching movies, its supposed to be really bad. What kind of great movie would not be enjoyable for somebody who watches movies? Do these people even know what the Hell they're talking about!? It sounds like the worst movie ever made, and everybody loves it?

So my film nerve is telling me that "The Tree of Life" is going to be bad. And bad films, strangely are fun in a lot of ways. I actually enjoy being angry, its fun. One of my favorite films of 2011 is - no joke - "Twilight 4". Since SOPA still is not in effect just yet, I'm able to watch Terrence Malick's creation on the Internet entirely for free and probably illegally. I would never dare pay money to see this movie though, Terrence Malick doesn't need my support. So I'm going to watch this movie, and in real time write down the notes for everybody to enjoy. This way, my dear readers can journey with me through the Seven Circle of Arthouse Gibberish. I have no idea what my reaction will be, and I have no idea where we're going. Here there be dragons, get prepared.

So let us begin:

00:48 - The movie begins with a Bible quote. This is actually a bad sign, unless your film is a Western. And its from the Book of Job, everybody's favorite.

03:13 - Opening narration now. Over scenes of a vaguely happy suburban family headed by Brad Pitt, a woman (the mother presumably) narrates about 'the Way of Nature' and 'the Way of Grace'. Nature folks are total dicks, unable to be happy and endlessly selfish, Grace folks are vaguely wonderful and wise and holy. Think 'the needs of the many outway the needs of the few', I guess. I'm guessing we just got the main symbolism of the movie handed to us. I am thankful, because maybe with these key rules I'll be able to follow the Malick philosophy. By the way, I have a funny feeling people are more complicated than just 'selfish' and 'vaguely positive'.

07:00 - Bad news comes in the mail. Momma freaks out and calls Papa Pitt, because presumably one of their sons is dead. All this is said without dialog, and I'm going to admit one thing: Terrence Malick can make a very pretty movie. We now learn this film takes place in 1950s, because of Brad Pitt's massively dorky glasses with crew-cut combo. And even though previously there were random shots of cows and stuff, the unnamed family lives in the suburbs. Odd.

08:18 - The first line of true dialog is spoken by Papa Pitt. Momma is still narrating, and her narration is getting on my nerves. She's whispering. Now, my computer has excellent speakers, but I can't get the sound up high enough to understand whatever the Hell she's saying. Let's hope its not important.

11:14 - The movie still doesn't seem to have started. Like, we haven't had anything I would call a "scene" yet. Its all been very pretty and very sad, but now we got a black-out, which I hope means that we'll enter into the main plot... if Terrence Malick can allow plots. Plots might be passe, who knows?

11:51 - Its Sean Penn! Hi, Sean Penn!

13:45 - We're in the present day now. Sean Penn lives with his wife in a super modern house where they apparently live in quiet desperation because they never talk to each other. Sean Penn is the future-version of one of Brad Pitt's kids, and he's remember his older bro who died in the prologue. He lights a candle on the kitchen table and stares at it. Still no plot to speak of.

14:32 - Good news, the first conversation just took place. Unfortunately I couldn't hear what was said because everybody is whispering, but I give Terrence Malick a point for the attempt. Sean Penn is at work in a very visually-interesting office building and he looks over some architectural plans with some dude. And......scene! Now to move on. I see this movie is no hurry to get anywhere. When you got nowhere to go, take the scenic route, I guess.

16:30 - I am just about ready to diagnose Terrence Malick with ADD. None of the shots in this movie make any sense. Its like 'oo! That's a pretty picture, let's film that!' But what does any of it mean? Half the shots are establishing shots... when we've already established that Sean Penn is in an office! I get it! I bet there are like twelve hours worth of random images that Terrence Malick shot for "The Tree of Life" sitting in a bin someplace. Worse, the dialog is too soft and the scenes (what few there actually are), trail off mid-sentence. The only real information I learned: Sean Penn is apologizing to his dad for something. And he likes to remember his brothers.

17:18 - Sean Penn went to the beach... somehow. And now he's back in his office... somehow. He's now narrating the movie, saying cryptic things like "how did I lose it?" and "forgotten...". Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe Sean Penn did acid before coming to work today, that would explain all the flash backs and random trips to pretty nature areas. He's also whispering, so I can barely understand what he's saying. I fear this is going to last the whole movie.

19:44 - Blackout again. Nothing is happening. Every time the movie blacks out, we see some fiery... thing. I don't know what its supposed to be yet. So far this whole movie has been nothing but random shots and characters whispering random things. Tragically Terrence Malick isn't awesome enough to have Sean Penn say "Dune... Arrakis... desert planet..." or "The Spice must flow...". No joke, every character talks like that.

24:48 - Terrence Malick ultimately gives up pretending to make a movie at all, and instead just shows us a lot of random images of nebulas and space stuff. Unfortunately, since I'm not currently baked, none of this makes any sense to me on any level, and it could not feel more random. At first there's some lovely opera music, so I could at least pretend this was a weird music video, but then Malick stops putting in even that much work and the last two minutes have been silent and boring as Hell. So I filled in the void personally by doing a one-man a capella version of "Also Sprach Zarathustra". "2001: A Space Odyssey" was two hours of exactly this kind of crap, one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Note: I need a beer.

27:50 - So that was three minutes of nature images. This is not a movie, its a joke. I hate to say it, but Terrence Malick has to be pulling my leg here. None of these shots have anything to do with anything! What am I watching? You have to giggle at the sheer audacity of this guy. A studio paid Malick millions and millions of dollars to put together basically a moving photography collection, and then they pretended to make a movie. Its all an act - a lazy act at that one, to make really pretentious people watch it, suffer through it, and make themselves think they're so intellectual because they were able to "enjoy" not-movies like this. All in all, I gotta say, they deserve this movie. If your head is so far up your ass that you think this is a movie, you should watch nothing but "The Tree of Life". Personally, I wouldn't force "The Tree of Life" on my worst enemies, but I'm a nice guy. Still, purely in terms of that natural admiration you have for the biggest scam artists and scoundrels on Earth, I gotta say, Terrence Malick is an evil genius.

We're done pretending this movie has any kind of message, or actually means anything, its clearly bullshit.

31:08 - I'm getting ready to bail on this... Oh wait, DINOSAUR!! Dinosaurs! That explains why this piece of nothingness got good reviews! I'm already feeling happier.

31:35 - Nope, the dinosaur is gone, as quickly as it came. Back to random scenes of... things. Basically this is all a rip-off of "Koyaanisqatsi", a 1982 film that used the same style but for a purpose. It was meant to show the impact of human civilization with nothing but analytical shots of our own society. "Koyaanisqatsi" is like watching America through the eyes of an alien scientist, trying to figure out humanity and our own insanity, its an interesting movie. Hell, even "2001" is at least an exhibition of mankind's future steps out into the stars, or something. Terrence Malick has no such purpose, as far as I can, its all very pretty, but what's the point? What does any of this have to do with either Brad Pitt or Sean Penn's plotline? Who gives a shit??

32:25 - Wait, a new dinosaur! I hope he eats somebody soon, maybe Sean Penn. This movie does have a chance of being good if it tries to create some kind of storyline using the dinosaurs, instead of just fucking wasting my time. You can make a pretty damn interesting movie about dinosaurs, even without dialog. Maybe be a wordless nature documentary on the day of a velociraptor, I don't know. I'm just trying to help Terrence Malick out here. "The Tree of Life" doesn't need to be a total turd.

34:40 - We're back in space again. Its a total turd. Can I at least get some music, please?

34:45 - Thanks, Terence. Can I call you 'Terry'? I think I will.

36:43 - Sweet salvation, Sean Penn is back! Maybe that fifteen minute interlude of nothing was just a weird misstep. Maybe the rest of the movie will actually be about... something. And maybe Tifa from "Final Fantasy VII" will pop out of my PlayStation and marry me. About equal chances of happening.

50:00 - Well... hello again. The last fifteen minutes have been a seemingly endless montage about Brad Pitt and his wife having kids and raising them... slowly. Its like watching the home videos of a family you've never met. If you've never done that, then you're a smarter person than me, because this movie is horribly boring. Actually its the most horribly boring movie ever. I still got over an hour of this thing! This is going to be a controversial call, but I gotta say it, I'd rather watch Michael Bay's movies than this. I know Michael Bay is a hack and he's everything wrong with cinema but... he at least makes movies. I don't know what this is... It isn't anything. Nothing is happening! I can at least get offended at Michael Bay, there's something to work with there. "The Tree of Life" is nothing. Fifty minutes into this so-called "movie" and there hasn't been one scene. Not one.

This may be one of the worst movies ever made. And the critics loved it.

53:54 - Well, holy shit! I just saw two scenes! Remember scenes? When characters interacted and had dialog and moved forward a story? Remember back in the good old days when there were characters with emotions and had things to say to each other? Dialog, what an innovation! Terry finally did, because I just saw two. I know scenes with dialog are hard to make, and Terry's fans don't want him to work hard and actually make a movie, but come on! We people who like movies to be movies should get least get little scraps of something.

So here are the scenes: Brad Pitt and his family ate dinner, and then Brad Pitt said goodnight to his son. During both of these scenes, I guess Brad Pitt was supposed to be unlikable and overly strict, but I didn't see much of a bad person in him. Everybody else seems to be a bit uncomfortable though. This is miles ahead of the first fifty minutes of this movie. So now, fifty minutes in, "The Tree of Life" finally started. The first part was just all bullshit.

54:40 - Nope, spoke too soon. Back to weird shit. Momma is floating by the tree, all kinds of random meaningless shots. I hate this movie. We're not even halfway done.

60:33 - Through a montage (what else) we learn about Brad Pitt's character. He wanted to be a musician, and instead works in a 50s job of some kind. He also plays a mean organ, which reminds of me the Final Boss of "Final Fantasy VI". Nobuo Uematsu basically wrote a symphony for the final battle there, it was incredible. The entire suite of music is easily the man's masterpiece, a stunning composition for what is ultimately just a video game. The level of dedication and love for such a "minor" medium stands out. Video games aren't loved by avante garde art critics that love shit like "The Tree of Life", nobody is going to list Uematsu among the best composers ever because he did video game music. But his work speaks for itself. It sounds like you're ascending into heaven... only to reach the most foul demon the series had yet created. "Final Fantasy VI" is incredible, its the little details that make the whole thing. Some people might consider those musical talents wasted on a video game, but they're full of shit. But every note of Uematsu's composition has more beauty and love in it than this entire film, which is just a fraud.

Its so bad, I'm talking about "Final Fantasy VI". I don't want to be watching this movie anymore. Name any thing, I would do it, just to not watch this movie.

66:25 - Brad Pitt tries to teach his kids to fight. I wish my dad had done this with me before I got my ass kicked a few times in high school and had to learn with my blood oozing out of my broken lip. However, for some reason this is like the worst thing in the world in the viewpoint of this movie, and the kids are total pussies about it. The kids keep on glaring at Brad Pitt too, but then sometimes they play with him. I don't know. Still, nothing is happening.

72:19 - A kid drowned at the pool, Brad Pitt tried to save him. It really says something for Terry's brilliant filmmaking skills that I thought it was one of the sons for about three minutes. These characters really leave an impression. Now we're back to these same boring montage with whispering narration this whole movie has always been. I miss the dinosaurs. I have no idea why there were in this thing, but they at least were dinosaurs.

You know what this movie needs? A sad clown flipping a pancake. It would make about as much sense as anything else. But good news! We're past the halfway mark! Thank god!

81:57- Over an hour into this movie, I finally found something I like. Brad Pitt is at the dinner table and says to his kid: "for the next half hour, don't speak unless you have something important to say". That's awesome. I hate everybody in this movie, by the way. I know that's a monstrous thing to say to your son, but these characters have it coming for being so boring. Later in the scene, Brad Pitt gets pissed off, when the kid, of course, talks. He has a tempter tantrum, he fights with his wife, its awesome. I hope Brad Pitt kills them all with a hatchet. Of course, I don't understand why he doesn't want the kid to talk, nobody ever talks!! This is like a fucking silent film!

85:40 - Brad Pitt goes a trip, the rest of the family celebrates his absence. They mock him behind his back, they frolic in the fields, they could not be more happy to see him gone. And since Brad Pitt is the only character in this movie, and thus my favorite, they come off as a little bit despicable. Not to mention I'm pretty sure those kids are fucking their mom. At this point, incest would only improve this movie.

And will they stop fucking whispering! JESUS CHRIST! Any sane person would have turned this movie off long ago, but well... I don't know. Its for the blog, I suffer for my art. Art is pain. And since this movie is apparently art, I should further inspire Terrence Malick by punching him really hard in the face.

100:00 - As an experiment, I skipped ten minutes further into the movie to see if anything of importance might happened during that time. This is supposed to test if every moment in this bloated Holocaust of an art film is needed. In a real movie, lots of things would happen in ten minutes, and missing it would mean losing major plot points and scenes. "The Tree of Life" does not have scenes, and does not have plot points, so I think this will be fine. Hilariously, I first see a shot of random nature, which is unsurprising considering this movie.

105:00 - Nope, I didn't miss anything. The story is still as slow as ever. Brad Pitt keeps getting more angry as the film goes by, so he has my sympathies. My own grip on reality is breaking as this movie continues. By the end I'll probably strangle the first living thing I see. Brad Pitt and I are tandem souls. We both don't want to be involved in this movie any longer, we're stick of these fucking kids, and we hate the awful turn our lives have taken.

What did I do to deserve "The Tree of Life"? What have done to bring this upon me? I gotta make a change, I can't keep living like this. Where did it all go wrong? I could have starred at a wall for the last one-hundred and five minutes and been equally entertained.

115:00 - Nothing happened for the last ten minutes. Who cares? But in "Dragon Quest VI", it turns out that the king of Somnus was actually a woman! A woman who might be my mom! See, I found the Mirror of Ra and brought it to the king, and he looks into it, and boom! Gender bender! And also, the game's resident Satan is actually the King of Somnus, somehow transformed. This game is very strange, there are a lot of issues about dreams and dual-worlds. This is certainly the most shocking twist a Dragon Quest game has yet created.

Yeah, I know I should be watching the movie, but literally nothing is happening! Its just things... on screen. They don't connect, they don't mean anything. Brad Pitt lost his job, that happened, I guess. Why watch this movie when I have a DS in front of me? This whole movie could have been five minutes long - and that's keeping the dinosaurs.

And there's twenty minutes left. I can't feel my brain...

125:00 - i am a Bluehighwind and i am a badass. i watch movies for fun and make fun of smartiepants like terry malice. people lik it wen i go crazy and get stupid for the site. i used to be smrt but now its gone. please kill me.

i want people 2 lik me. i want to make them lauf and b my frend. i am so sorry i watched this movie, it is so awful and awful awful and awful and awful and awful.

please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard.

131:08 - Its over. The ending totally did not explain anything. Basically all the movie was a giant overwrought metaphor about how our parents' dual personalities come together to shape our lives, or something. The kid explained it all in a narration, so the whole movie could have just been that one speech. Not that it matters, the ending makes no sense. Of course it wouldn't make sense! This movie was just thrown together out of random shots to begin with, Terry couldn't have even bothered to write a story. The most mystery he makes in his fake movie, the more pretentious people will think its deep. Even for a symbolic art film, this movie is intolerably long. It didn't need to be over two hours long, it didn't need to be even ten minutes long. This movie was horrible.

I'm feeling better. The last ten minutes were again random images that might mean something in Terry's head. But who cares? Movies are a method of expression, you can tell a story, you can leave a profound impression in people's mind. But Terry didn't do that. He just babbled to himself for an extricating length of time. Maybe this movie was so bad that it literally drove everybody who saw it into gibbering buffoons, so they wrote a positive review. For now, I just skip ahead thirty seconds to see if anything interesting will happen. And big surprise! It doesn't. Nothing interesting ever happens in this movie!

In all honestly, I don't want to meet the people who like movies like this. They must be the worst people on Earth. What do they eat? People who like this movie don't eat food like I do, they must eat only calcified tree bark. They don't breathe air, they breathe the gas that seeps out of leather tanning plants. They don't drink water, they drink bacon grease mixed with donkey sweat. And they don't have sex, they just kinda rub against velvet furniture for an hour while humming atonally. What is this species of humanoid that is so close to man? They are the true enigma. Terrence Malick is just a classic con-man taking their money and making awful movies. I can respect that. As for his "fans", they are disasters. Walking wretches. And if you let them talk long enough, they'll probably infect you with the virus too. The only way to solve the damage this movie is doing to the human race is to grab a shotgun and kill off the zombies. We must fight for our freedom as human beings. Movies like this must be stopped.

(Okay, maybe that's taking it a bit far... but this movie is seriously bad. Don't kill its fans with shotguns, but please, do break any copy of it that you find. Do them a favor. If you see this movie in somebody's DVD collection, just destroy it for them. Don't ask if its okay, just do it. If they never talk to you again, it will be worth it, you're doing them the best service a friend can do.)

136:05 - It takes a special movie to have end credits that are exactly as entertaining and thought-provoking as the actual content of the film. A bad movie. "The Tree of Life" is a disaster. I have never seen a movie this bad before. And its not funny. There's no enjoyment to be found out of watching it. Maybe if you're a critic online, and you have a blog, you can at least enjoy the movie because it lets you write really silly things and go all-out against it. But, as for just a regular viewer, for anybody who simply likes watching movies, "The Tree of Life" is hideously boring. You could do anything else with your life, anything at all, and have more fun. Hell, you could stage a better movie in your mind just by slamming your head against a wall until you pass out. The visions you see will be more coherent, more entertaining, and better quality works of art than this... thing.

When you make a movie worse than Transformers, you've accomplished something. This is beyond horrible. I am out of words. Name a movie, any movie at all, and I'd watch that before "The Tree of Life". There is nothing in this world that is a worse experience. I could not have imagined it would be this bad. I am sorry to have seen it.

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* Easily one of the worst directors working today. The Cinema Snob said it best: "Lars von Trier is a piece of shit."

** Oh look, another terrible storyteller! David Lynch is really hit or miss. When we wants to make sense, his movies will be okay like "Blue Velvet". When he doesn't, they'll just be infuriating, like "Mulholland Drive", which has the single worst kick-in-the-balls ending of any movie ever.

Super

2012-01-02T14:56:00.002-05:00

Happy 2012! For our first review, we have "Super"! "Super" is the first film in the long-running Super franchise, which recently this year reached its zenith of popularity with its eighth installment, "Super 8". Wait no... that's not right...

"Super" is actually the other movie to come out in the last few years to ask the big question 'what would happen if a real person became a Superhero?' Last year's heavily overrated "Kick-Ass" came out and did the same thing, entertaining audiences with its ridiculous action and high school humor. I hated "Kick-Ass", I could not have thought it was more stupid, and honestly at this point I'm really tired of the idea of deconstructing the Superhero genre. The idea of an average person putting on a Superhero mask and cape and fighting crime sounds like the stupidest thing I've ever heard. If you want to help your community, just become a cop, or join the neighborhood watch, or find a radioactive stone from space that gives you super strength. You don't need to make a fool of yourself. And people making fools of themselves is precisely the kind of comedy I don't like.

So this is really tired ground, but I have to say that "Super" does the whole 'real life superhero' idea better than its many competitors. Because unlike "Kick-Ass" and "Watchmen", I can actually believe that this movie takes place in the real world with real people. "Watchmen" brought up the idea that its heroes except for Dr. Manhattan were all regular humans... then they did ridiculous superhuman stunts and jumped thirty feet in the air. "Kick-Ass" gave up half-way through to be grounded in reality, and instead tried to pull the Silly Action Comedy Meter Up to 11 (and failed, by the way). "Super" instead points out that a real Superhero would basically be Travis Bickel from "Taxi". They aren't going to be positive role models, they will be badly lonely and psychologically broken characters. It also doesn't concern itself much with Superhero tropes, its not really much of a meta-comedy, and I think that's an improvement.

Most importantly, "Super" is the only movie you'll ever see where Rainn Wilson beats people over the head with wrenches. And then he gets raped by Ellen Paige. So on that level alone, "Super" is movie I'd recommend.

"Super" is a film directed by James Gunn, a director you may not have heard of if you live in the civilized parts of the cinema world. He is most notable as the man who had the grand creative vision to make "Tromeo and Juliet", which I believe is the only adaptation of Shakespeare to have incest, transformations into futa cows, and um... this. James Gunn has definitely toned himself down for Super", because the plot itself is not entirely insane. In fact, this movie actually turns very very sad, and has several dark turns, telling a strong character study in the nature of loneliness and escapism.

The main character, played by Rainn Wilson, is a desperately lonely person, trying to get his wife back with whom he has no chemistry at all. When you need an actress to create no chemistry with her co-stars, hire Liv Tyler, her lack of acting skills are perfect for that. Rainn Wilson's life has been nothing but a long series of humiliations, leading up to his wife leaving him for an extremely greasy piece of Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon was formally the amazingly 60s villain in "X-Men First Class". He's less awesome here, but then again, this whole movie is less awesome than "X-Men First Class"*. So Rainn Wilson sits and watches his TV, and gets inspiration from "The Holy Avenger", a right-wing Christian Superhero show where the cheesy effects and ludicrous plots give us all key Conservative messages, like don't have sex before marriage. And don't pierce your nipples.

I'm going to interrupt the summary for a moment, to explain what I just said. If you aren't in the know, "The Holy Avenger" is a parody of the even more ridiculous real life TV show, "Bibleman". Yes, that show exists. James Gunn did not make any of this up, and the real thing is as insane as it sounds. In fact, in more sane universe, "Bibleman" would be the parody of "The Holy Avenger". But "Bibleman" doesn't star Nathan Fillon, who comes equipped with HAIR OF RIGHTIOUSNESS! I don't care how how badly the Christian message is perverted by your political beliefs, if you got Nathan Fillon with those heavy metal locks, I will watch every episode of your TV show and buy the DVD box set. You know, forget the "Super" plotline, I want to see a "Holy Avenger" movie.

Returning to the review: At this point, Rainn Wilson has a vision. Hentai tentacles come out of his walls, wrap around his body, pop our razors, and they scalp him. Then the finger of God comes down from the Heavens, and strokes Rainn Wilson's exposed brain, giving him the idea to become a Superhero. Now if the entire movie had been like the scene I just described, "Super" would have been the best movie ever made. Unfortunately the rest actually makes sense and is grounded in reality. "Super" kinda roller coasters from desperately sad to over-the-top insane, and really, its hard to love the entire whole.

For example, at one point, Rainn Wilson has a horrifically depressing scene where he prays to God to bring his wife back, and also fix his face and personality and boringness. This is all very tough and very touching, I think we've all had moments - usually in our childhood - where we've begged the universe to do the impossible. When the worst happens to us, its hard not to blame God for making our lives so awful. Then Rainn Wilson mentions that he's worse-off than "Starving African children, because their parents at least love them", and suddenly the scene is hilarious. But still, the fact that Rainn Wilson is such a pathetic little man completely delusional, fighting a hopeless battle for a woman who doesn't love him, that makes it hard to sit back and have fun with this movie. At least for me.

The movie hits its stride when Rainn Wilson has been superhero-ing for awhile. He's a lot more competent at the Superhero business than Kick-Ass, because unlike Kick-Ass, the main character here isn't a scrawny loser teenger, he's a six-foot-five man with a wrench slamming into your forehead. "Super" actually is able to use its main character in action scenes, it doesn't need to conjure up real Superheros to save the day like in "Kick-Ass". Naturally the new amateur Superhero, "The Crimson Bolt", becomes something of a media sensation, and Rainn Wilson attracts Ellen Page into the movie. She works at a comic book store and has always wanted to be a Superhero to live out her psychopathic fantasies. In a long series of events, Ellen Page becomes The Crimson Bolt's "kid side-kick", basically a Robin to the Batman. She's Boltie!

I need to interrupt again to mention that Ellen Page is very hot in this movie. Seeing her in yellow spandex is probably alone worth renting this movie. Ellen Page may not be the most ridiculously hot supermodel actress in Hollywood, in terms of pure physical perfection she's inferior to say, Megan Fox or her lippy replacement in "Transformers 3". But Megan Fox isn't really hot, she's too perfect, she's so fake its not even attractive anymore. Like, you're not going to have sex with Megan Fox, you have as much chance with her as you do with the Queen of England, (though maybe if Megan's career keeps crashing we may one day be able to afford her "services"), but you might have sex with a girl like Ellen Page. Seeing Ellen Page in spandex is like seeing a girl you went out with from high school stripping. And that's hot. Plus Ellen Page clearly massively turned-on when she's acting as Boltie, and it gets to the point that she rapes Rainn Wilson towards the end of the movie. And that's even hotter. Ellen Page was actually my favorite part of this movie, which is a shame because... well, I'll avoid spoilers here.

Still, I can't say that "Super" is entirely a good movie. Every actor does a great job, even actors who only have one scene. Even Rainn Wilson's feisty co-worker, who has only like thirty seconds screen time is awesome. But for a black comedy, I didn't laugh enough. Just about everything works in this movie, but its slightly disappointing. Like, right after the darkest turn in the entire film, I'm feeling really low. It was a punch in the balls, to be honest. Then James Gunn has an action scene punctuated with comic-book sound effects like "BLAM!" and "POW!" like we're watching the old Adam West Batman TV show. At any other moment in the movie, that would have been funny, after the last scene, it just feels inappropriate. And that's really part of this movie's problem.

I'd say, ultimately, it just wasn't insane enough for me. The ending should have been a bit more nuts, it reached a logical conclusion, had a few dark turns, and it all fit the characters. What I think "Super" really needed was a bit of "The Last Circus"-style madness. Rainn Wilson should have gone more insane, the ending should have been completely out of its mind. It had some craziness, but not enough.

To conclude: "Super" isn't a movie that's good all the time. Its a movie you can best enjoy at three o'clock at night, just around the time that every movie, no matter how weird, looks awesome. You know the feeling, when you're all alone in the dark and you lower the shades because you're afraid that Slenderman might be waiting outside your window? When you're in the mood to enjoy movies like "Lord of the G-Strings" or "Return of the Living Dead", that's when you need to see "Super". Slightly delirious from being really tired, with a few beers in you, you need to be in a specific state of mind. I watched it at 7 o'clock at night with a bowl of popcorn, that's too focused. Too intellectual. You can't watch "Super" as a movie critic, you need to watch it as a movie-lover.

So... here's a movie you've never heard of, and its not a movie you'll completely enjoy, I guess. What was the point this review?

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* Amazingly "X-Men First Class" was actually directed by the guy who made "Kick-Ass". Its a small world after all.

Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol

2011-12-31T23:00:00.002-05:00

Who here is a huge fan of the Mission Impossible series?

Oh... I don't see all that many hands. I supposed somebody out there is a rabid fanboy of Mission Impossible, waiting happily for every single release. I bet somewhere out there a whole gang of people debate all the films on line, and decide which one is the best, and whatever, but I don't see it. There have been four Mission Impossible movies so far, and even though they've all been moderately successful films, its never felt like a franchise that has really caught the public's imagination. It definitely never caught mine, every single time I see a new Mission Impossible film I can barely remember what the other ones have been like. There isn't any deep mythology or complex characters with long histories or anything. None of the movies even feel similar, they're all just the next Tom Cruise spy-action flick. Mission Impossible movies are really only the James Bond movies we watch in-between the real James Bond movies.

"Mission Impossible 1" was really good, I thought it was a solidly decent action film. It has exciting moments, has dark turns, but still was a lot of fun and is worth a rent. And that's really been the height of the series in ambition and reaction, none of them are classics of the medium. "Mission Impossible 2" was pretty and flashy, but it didn't feel like even the same franchise. Inferior, but made exciting by director John Woo at his Woo-iest. As for "Mission Impossible 3"... that sucked. J.J. Abrams made a dreary humorless movie that ultimately was really boring. It felt like Abrams was ramping up the emotions of the series, adding some level of completely flat dramatic relationships and a lot of false emotions, and in the end, the villain gets punked out in an amazing anticlimax. "Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol" is yet another shift in tone, being a big huge action film, and that's about it.

So ultimately "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon" isn't all that monumental of a film. Its an unambitious action movie and it isn't trying to be much more than that. It is, however, Brad Bird's, Pixar master director of "The Incredibles", first live-action movie. So its a solid action movie, good for a night at the movies and exactly not one more thing else. The action scenes are impressive, the character banter is mildly humorous. Brad Bird shoots straight down the line to exactly "good".

Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, Superspy extraordinaire. In "Mission Impossible 3" Tom Cruise had a wife, she's gone, along with the entirety of the supporting cast, except for Simon Pegg's Comic Relief Hacker Guy. Joining Simon Pegg is The Chick, played by the delicious milk chocolate bar, Paula Patton*. And Jeremy Renner is Jeremy Renner. Together this team is caught in a plot by a mad supervillain professor trying to cause World War III, which will create world peace. The logic behind that isn't well explained, don't worry about it. So the Kremlin has been blown up, the Superspy agency has been shut down, and the four remaining agents have to stop the mad supervillain from setting off a nuclear missile that will ignite WWIII.

The movie opens with Agent Sawyer getting murdered by Young Mystique. I should point out that Sawyer from "Lost" makes a very good action star, until he opens his mouth and talks, when his dull Southern drawl ruins it. Young Mystique is supposed to be a super assassin, but she really only exists in this movie to have a chick fight with Paula Patton. Now there are a lot of cocktail dresses in this movie, so a cat fight could have lots of male gaze-pleasing potential. What's this rated?

PG-13! Fuck! Brad Bird, you ruined the only chance we'll get to see Young Mystique from "X-Men First Class" and Paula Patton tearing each other's dresses off and in the throws of violent passion suddenly kissing and fondling. When did you lose the creative spark that made "The Incredibles" great?

"Mission Impossible 4", despite its lack of lesbian material, does have a rapid plot that jumps from one good action sequence to another in constant momentum. The plot and characters may not actually have any depth, but the story keeps moving and the action keeps up. So the movie is exciting. The trailers really show up the scene where Tom Cruise climbs the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, and that was awesome. I really want to climb that building now, I don't know about you people. Yeah, it was tense and slippery, but it was cool. So "Mission Impossible 4" will keep you engaged at least. This is unlike the recent "Fast Five", which was equally a dumb action movie, but had only a fraction of the excitement.

There's also a decent running gag of spy gadgets malfunctioning. I like to imagine that all the spy gadgets are actually alive and live in their own secret society unknown to humans - the basic Pixar plot. But the spy gadgets just hate Tom Cruise for some reason. (Also, one magnetic glove would up being the most expressive character in the whole film.)

I was only bored whenever the movie tried to have emotions or "be about something". They try to give Jeremy Renner a tragic backstory, and connect him to Tom Cruise's disappeared wife, but I could not care less. Movie, you're here to make booms, don't pretend like you have a plot. Or if you wanted a plot, you missed your chance during the hour of interconnected action sequences. During Jeremy Renner's monologue, I could not have been more bored, and I finally looked down to check my watch. The ending scene is a bit over-long too. The movie should have ended the second the Evil Professor Dude died.

The only weird plot hole I found was an odd shot mid-movie. In the middle of Dubai, the main henchman character is chased by Tom Cruise, and then you discover he's wearing a mask disguise. Every Mission Impossible movie has these ridiculously perfect masks that characters wear to turn into anybody. So now you don't know who the henchman really is. I was hoping he was Tom Wilkinson, who had only been in the movie for exactly one minute beforehand, but no. It was just the Evil Professor pretending to be his main heavy. Why? What did that mean? Neither of these characters have any real purpose beyond being evil, so why would one pretend to be the other? They are the least memorable villains I've seen in a long time. In a movie like this, its moments like this that bug me. Especially since I was really hoping Jeremy Renner would be a double agent so that at least we'd get a decent third act twist.

So I guess I'll recommend "Mission Impossible 4", but its really my least pressing recommendation. Its barely good, a less talented director would have made this movie intolerably boring. Its a fun movie, but that's it. Its the least a good movie can be.

(Oh, Happy New Year, by the way.)

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* Paula Patton, will you marry me?

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

2011-12-31T15:19:00.001-05:00

2011 had one final gift for me: food poisoning. So despite all the movies I need to review and all the posts I should be making about my new video games, I was instead in bed or almost in bed all week, and I don't feel much better now. This is also putting the kaibosh on my dreams of getting ridiculously drunk tonight and completely failing to hit on girls. But there was on light spot on my miserable week:

While thumbing through my room on Christmas Eve, I found the most magnificent thing: a model one Game Boy. This beautiful portable machine was the first ever true Nintendo handheld console, the beginning of a glorious tradition of great machines full of great games that has lasted over two decades. Speaking of lasting two decades, this Game Boy itself has survived four Presidencies to see 2012, and its still working! Nothing from 1989 still works, but this does, I love this machine. Its an amazing find. The Game Boy is the epitome of pure gaming praticality and engineering brilliance. It is well-known to be completely indestructible, has impressive memory space for its cartridges, and most amazingly, perhaps unlimited battery life. I've been playing this thing since Sunday on the batteries I found it with, and it is still running! Not even the Wiimote will last that long!

The Game Boy really is singularly the most perfect example of pure gaming. It was a system designed with only that in mind. It didn't waste resources on graphics, it didn't waste resources on silly bells and whistles. There's no touch screen, no Internet connection, no 3D, no microphone, no DLC, only the games doing what they do best: gameplay. Its spartan simplicity shows exactly what modern gaming has lost, purity. The Game Boy wasn't made to show off Nintendo's so-called "revolutionary" control methods or 3D, it was just a handheld platform to play games, that's all it ever was and that's what it did better than anybody else. One can't help but think that the Game Boy's great-great grandson has completely forgotten that philosophy.

And what a better way to show off the brilliance of the Game Boy than "The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening"? A game I never played until recently and beat just yesterday.

At the end of my "Skyward Sword" review, I got really angry with that game for ultimately being the wrong direction for Zelda. At first, "The Legend of Zelda" was designed entirely with the idea of giving players the experience of wandering around the woods exploring freely. Its that sense of going hiking without a map, walking down a trail with nothing but your sense of direction guiding the way, never knowing how horribly lost you can become. "Skyward Sword" has completely lost that design-philosophy, it could not be more directed and controlled*. So that left me really depressed, "Skyward Sword" was the biggest disappointment in a year full of disappointments: "Dragon Quest X" is going to be an MMO, "A Dance With Dragons" didn't have an ending, "Captain America" sucked, "Okamiden" was vastly inferior, the list goes on. However, at least the last game of 2011 can be really good, even if the game is from 1992.

"Link's Awakening" is a huge game, which is very impressive considering how old it is. This is a classic 2D Zelda game, the style of games that hasn't been properly made since "Minish Cap"**. Its clearly graphically inferior to "A Link to the Past", the previous Zelda game on the Super Nintendo. But the Game Boy is an amazing system, and so the game is huge. For the first ever handheld Zelda game, for a game twenty years old, it holds up brilliantly. Eight dungeons, an impressive overworld that is easily as big as "Skyward Sword"'s - only connected. And if you're looking for challenge, this game is tough. It is nothing but an endless stream of challenge from beginning to end, I must have died fifty times during the entire game. The enemies are ruthless, and its all skill. Plus, this game is actually really sophisticated. "Link's Awakening" easily had the most complex plotline of any Nintendo video game at the time, and the plot is still impressive even today. There are great characters, funny moments, and a real world to explore.

The first ever Zelda game I played was "Oracle of Seasons" on the Game Boy Color when I was eight years old. It took me something like five years to beat. Zelda games are supposed to be hard. I don't know where this concept of "just tell the player what to do" came from, but it needs to go away. Yeah, its 2011 and now everybody believes that every time they buy a game they automatically deserve to beat it carte blanche, but that isn't how it should be. Zelda games should be tough, they should stump you, they should take real effort to learn and solve. And if people can't do that, they have walkthroughs. The games themselves don't have to be a walkthrough.

What I'm saying is: "SHUT UP, FI. SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH. You are the worst character of 2011! You are the worst thing to ever happen to my life! Go back to Hell and never come back."

"Link's Awakening" is not a game that holds you hand. The most advice it gives you is Mr. Owl coming down occasionally from the sky telling you where on the world map you vaguely need to go. He isn't going to solve the puzzles for you. The dungeons themselves are huge labyrinths. If you even want hints as to what to do, you need to find a secret item from a treasure chest. What I really love is that the hints are clearly placed and are entirely optional. There isn't an annoying beeping noise from Fi basically forcing you to talk to her. You enter a room, and you often will have no idea what you need to do, you can pass right by a big secret without any knowledge. Old-style Zelda dungeons required you to go back and feel around the walls, make sure you haven't missed anything. That's great.

Another thing that's interesting about "Link's Awakening" is that it does the backtracking Metroidvania-style gameplay that "Skyward Sword" half-assed, but it does it well. Ultimately every item you find in "Link's Awakening" is a key to overcome a barrier. At the beginning of the game, you see bushes in your way, you need the sword to cut through them. You need a magic bracelet to lift a rock, you need Roc's Feather to jump over pits. All the items can be used in battle, but they also break through the barriers and help open up the world map. So every time you get a new item, you want to go back to every place you've been to make sure you find every secret hidden all over the place, and maybe just find that one pathway you need to make it to the next dungeon. "Skyward Sword" doesn't make you actually want to go back to the old areas, it forces you to go back there to do stupid quests. You aren't exploring, you're doing busy work.

The plot of "Link's Awakening" is pretty bare-bones, but its impressive even today. Link is traveling the world after "A Link to the Past" and he's caught in a storm. He awakes on a strange island, helped by a girl named Maron and told by a mysterious owl that he has to go on a quest to awake the Wind Fish. If he can't wake up the Wind Fish, he'll never leave the island and never go home. But there's a catch: the island itself doesn't exist, it all exists inside the Wind Fish's dream. (Yeah, I'm spoiling this game but its twenty years old, get with the program.) So effectively by finishing the game, you're ending the lives of all the friendly people you've met, including pretty Maron. This leads to a surprising moral ambiguity to a classic Nintendo video game. All the villains, the Nightmares, are just trying to survive, if you wake up the Wind Fish they all die.

The ending is a pretty sad moment as well. Not only do you get that somber moment at the end of every video game when you realize that this part of your life is over, but you're literally ending the existence of all the characters within the cartridge. "Twilight Princess" had a sad moment when Midna trapped herself in the Shadow Dimension, but you know Nintendo can always bring her back whenever they want. But "Link's Awakening" is pulling such a downer on the player, making you kill so many people. I guess they'll all die anyway because I guess the Wind Fish will starve to death after sleeping forever. (I, of course, am a world-leading expert of Wind Fish biology.) I wish the Wind Fish was ever properly explained, like it was shown to be important somehow. Maybe if it stays asleep the world ends or something, it doesn't have to be complicated.

I'd also have liked to have seen if Link ever actually got back to land. At the end of the game, during the credits, Link wakes up hanging onto some logs, staring into the sunset happily. But... that's it. You never see anything past that, he's in the middle of the ocean alone. I guess what happens next is a bit too much for the kiddies. I, however, was inspired to write a new screenplay: "Open Water 3: Link's Awakening". There was a "Perfect Ending", of some kind, but to unlock it you need to beat the game without dying once. I died fifty-three times, so that wasn't going to happen for me.

On a brighter form of the game's plot, it is a mostly a light-hearted adventure. Link has a pathological need to lift things he finds over his head dramatically, so when Marin joins him to travel to Animal Village***, he lifts her over his head too. "You got Marin!" Also, since she's wearing a skirt, the implications are pretty clear. Marin might have been erased from existence, but she can live forever in Link's memories - as spank material. I also really like how a lot of item descriptions go a little insane. You find a Fire Rod and it says "burn baby burn!" You find a Yoshi and the game mentions how he's showing up everywhere these days (remember its 1992). And how the game is populated with all kinds of random Mario enemies for no particular reason, but its adorable. Oh character when you meet him mentions how later in the game he's going to get lost in the hills. Guess what? He does.

So I guess what I'm saying ultimately here is that I don't hate everything, despite what you might think after my less-than-stellar "Skyward Sword" review. I do hate bad things though. Zelda is a great series with tons of great games, including at least one classic I haven't beaten ("Majora's Mask"). "Skyward Sword" just sucks. "Link's Awakening" is great and it shows exactly why "Skyward Sword" fails. And the old Game Boy is great. I'm so glad these ancient gaming devices have survived for me to keep on playing.

As for more traditional end of the year comments on 2011, wait till next week. I still got a couple of movies to see until I declare 2011 over, but I will make a post on the worst of the year. That's coming up.

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* Honestly, "Twilight Princess" isn't particularly better at the sense of overwhelming freedom than "Skyward Sword". However, it at least does a good job of covering that up by being really epic and awesome throughout the entire game. Yeah, there isn't all that much to explore, but you can ride Epona and kick ass. There is just so much awesome in that game, the Double Clawshots, the bridge jousting, the bomb arrows, its amazing! "Skyward Sword" just isn't as flashy, it doesn't have as much pure cool, and its not as good.

** "Phantom Hourglass" and "Spirit Tracks" get close to the old 2D Zelda formula, they definitely have 2D dungeons, but they still have the weird issues of divided world maps. And for some reason, you have to use the fucking stylus, you can't just use a D-pad and the four fully functional buttons the Nintendo DS has. Again, this is Nintendo forcing its stupid "innovative" control schemes on the players, why not give us a choice? WHY NOT?

*** Hey look, more than one town in a Zelda game? NO WAY! Not only that, but the world is populated with people all over the place, many of whom are not comic reliefs, unlike "Skyward Sword".

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Part 3

2011-12-23T14:07:00.004-05:00

TO PART 2.

I've basically stopped playing "Skyward Sword" at this point. I didn't beat the game, I reached the Final Boss, and lost. Clearly I need more little bottles with Potions, but I just don't care. I don't, I'm at the bottom here. I could go back up to Skyloft, go through the tedious and pointless flying segment, talk to all the shopkeepers with their needlessly long and stupid unskippable dialog, buy all the Potions. Then I could wander the world and find all the bugs and stupid little bits of crafting items and upgrade the Potions, and maybe do a sidequest or two to get more bottles. But... I don't care. I've so wanted to love this game, so wanted to enjoy it. I could probably finish the whole thing in about three hours with just a single determined push, but my will is sapped. I'm beaten. I think I need to finally face the very awful truth about "Skyward Sword": this game sucks. Its not fun.

Yesterday I booted up "Wind Waker" for the Gamecube. Immediately I was stunned by the amazing beautiful perfection of its art style, a true labor of love to make a gorgeous unique game. "Wind Waker"'s entire experience is so charming, and the game is so warm and inviting to its player. And then I started exploring an area of combat. To no surprise at all, I found I did not miss the motion controls. I was able to play this game, which is now almost ten years old, with a level of control balance and secure knowledge that the commands I give Link will be exactly what he'll do on screen in a way that "Skyward Sword"'s motion controls do not allow. And there's a free-roaming camera! I can spin the camera all around Link, what an idea! Sailing is free and adventurous, you just want to keep on going to the ends of the universe on your little red boat. I actually started to tear up, "Wind Waker" is so amazing and so lovely. I want that feeling again in "Skyward Sword", but isn't there. Why can't I love this game? I want to love it so badly. I loved every other Zelda game I played, this is the first one that is truly plain bad.

Now, I know nostalgia is clearly ruining my objectivity here, but there is a point to be made. "Wind Waker" is a far more innovative and exciting game than "Skyward Sword" will ever be. "Skyward Sword" is the same game as Nintendo has been making for ten years. I've always believed that Nintendo can keep making the same game over and over again and it will be fine as long as its fun... but "Skyward Sword" isn't fun. Maybe it is for you other people who enjoy the game, don't let me stop you. As for me, however, its pretty clear that this game is a dead-end for the series. This is the not the next big step forward for Zelda. For the first time ever, this series has gotten stale.

I've been reviewing this game for weeks, and none of the segments so far have exactly been positive reviews, have they? I've been racking my brain as to why I'm not enjoying this game. First I blamed the flying segments, which were annoying and pointless because Nintendo didn't give you anything to do on Claus Valca. Actually, late in the game they do give you a corkscrew attack... which you use in exactly one mandatory minigame and one boss fight. That's it. So, some sky combat, not enough, and not the kinds of awesome things I imagined this game would have. Then I blamed the filler quests, thinking that perhaps it was stupid game-lengthening fetch quests Nintendo constantly gives you. This is part of the story, but its not there either. To be honest, the dungeons themselves felt fairly flat to me. I can only name three parts of this game that I think worked: Link and Zelda storyline cutscenes, sailing in the sandsea, and some of the boss fights. Everything else... just isn't fun. Not even the dungeons.

I could blame the awful segmented design of "Skyward Sword" and the needless hand-holding. Too many Zelda games are too easy these days, and "Skyward Sword" brought some very needed challenge to the series. The sky is the Designated Sidequesting Area, where you do everything that's not the main story stuff, and the land is the Designated Main Questing Area, where you do everything that is main story stuff. So the only shops are in one area, all the people you meet who need help are in one area, and all the upgrades to all the items are in one area. Its very constraining. Not to mention that I have to say that Nintendo's decision to turn the entire game world into a giant dungeon wasn't exactly an idea I'd agree with. You never get the "Twilight Princess" sense of grand free epic scale, the whole world feels like a huge artificial obstacle course. Its not an adventure, its a colorful play ground. There are too many tutorials, Fi is annoying as an itch on your balls, the text scrolls too slowly, for some reason shopping takes forever, when you pick up an item the game gives you a thirty second explanation as to what it is, even though every item is basically the same - just a thing you need to craft. The annoyance builds up.

However, here's the real issue with "Skyward Sword": the controls. Now the controls work... 90% of the time. Its that 10% that drives you crazy. "Twilight Princess" and "Wind Waker" used Gamecube controllers, and those controls worked 100% of the time. Stabbing is hopeless, you will never get it to work, Link often does the wrong thing you tell him, and you can never be sure if the controls aren't working because its not responding or if you're just getting frustrated and moving too fast. In a high pressure situation, I swing that sword like a maniac, I can't help it. I've died so many times because I needed to swing the sword just one special way, and Link kept not doing what I needed. Not to mention all the little frustrations that come because Nintendo decided for some stupid reason that every thing in this game needed to have motion controls involved, even when it makes no sense. Why the Hell do I need motion controls to swim?? How does that help anything? But even this isn't the real problem with the controls.

The controls are the whole game. "Skyward Sword" has nothing new to contribute to the Zelda formula. It has no innovations to offer other than the controls. Basically Nintendo finished the Wii Motion Plus stuff, put a passable Zelda dungeon system around it, and called it a day. They aren't doing anything new here. Controls are just a way to play a game, ultimately their purpose is entirely subservient to the game itself. If you're going to make a game, you need a radical interesting new idea to base it around. "Majora's Mask" had the three day loop cycle. "Wind Waker" had the sailing and free exploration. "Twilight Princess" had the dark epic storyline and massive scale. "Skyward Sword" has... new controls. That's it. This is why this game feels stale and pointless, because it isn't actually a new Zelda game. Its the same Zelda game, but without a Gamecube controller.

This should be obvious from the art style, honestly. I have no idea what the art style is supposed to be. Both "Twilight Princess" and "Wind Waker" are games that are completely defined by their art style. Their tone is perfectly clear from every single scene in the game. "Skyward Sword" has no tone. The art style doesn't say anything as far as I can tell. Yeah, the storyline is great, and I like the character designs, but I don't get the art style. I don't get "Skyward Sword". Its that simple. Some other people do, but I don't.

So with that, we're moving on. In the course of three posts, I just went through the first four stages of grief: first was denial, when I refused to believe that I didn't like this game. Then anger, when I screamed at my TV for days whenever this game would make me do something stupid like escorting a dick robot. Then bargaining, when I decided that at least I liked parts of this game, just not all of it. "Oh, this might suck, but the other things will save this game for sure." This current post is clearly depression. Now we're moving on to the final phase, Acceptance. "Skyward Sword" is a game I will never love. It was not the game I wanted. Now let me give a few pointers for Nintendo for the next time, so that perhaps they won't fuck up so badly:

Number 1: Controls. Motion controls are fine for some people, not for other people. I have give them more than their fair chance to woo me, and they did not. I want to play a Zelda game with a regular controller, a controller with enough buttons that the designers do not have to sacrifice a free-roaming camera. This is my personal choice. Its my orientation, Nintendo needs to accept it. Whether or not the player uses Motion controls should be a choice for the player. We're in a modern world, the Wii can take any number of imports for any number of controllers. Not all games need to be played the same way by everybody. Just ask the player at the start: do you want motion controls or not? They will decide, and they enjoy the game more because they had the choice to play the way they wanted.

Now if it turns out that nobody will actually pick motion controls, that means perhaps that motion controls are not the way forward for video games. You should find out what people want. I know you love motion controls, Nintendo, and I respect your passion. But please, don't try to convert anybody to that religion. Because religion is a touchy subject, and if you force your religion on anybody, it results in bad things. Let's try to be open to people of all faiths, and all control schemes.

Number 2: Handholding. This needs to stop. Did Fuuka from "Persona 3" direct this game? "Skyward Sword" is an embarrassingly slow game entirely because it never lets go of your hand. There's a reason people hate Fi and Navi and the other companion characters, because they are the physical avatars of a game developer not having faith in his players to figure it out. I know there are little kids playing "Skyward Sword", but little kids aren't this stupid. Nobody is this stupid, actually. If Fi is telling me to find a key for a locked door in the sixth dungeon, clearly something has gone wrong. If the player can't figure out a locked door by that late in the game, they haven't earned the right to win.

Here's what needs to happen at the start of the next Zelda game. Right after the control option question, the game should ask: 'do you need your hand held?' If the player is a five-year-old kid, they might just say 'yes'. They can't even cross the street without an adult holding their hand. If they are anybody else on the planet, they will say 'no'. Then Fi can shut the fuck up for the rest of the game until I ask for her to talk. In today's world, there are more ways to find out how to get through a difficult part of the game than ever. We have GameFAQs, online forums, me, tons of people you can ask on how to beat to beat a game. I don't actually need the game itself to tell me.

Also, if you can possibly make the text scroll faster, that would be great. And don't tell me the item description every fucking time. Its a crafting item, they're all the same. "Final Fantasy XII" didn't tell me the description of every Pebble. And please, have the NPCs shut up! I just want to shop, it should take thirty seconds, it shouldn't take ten minutes to fill up on five sets of arrows for my bow. Speed everything up, please.

Number 3: Story. "Skyward Sword" has amazing characters with great interactions and incredible scenes. But there are only about a dozen of those scenes, in a fifty hour game. That's not enough. I know Nintendo is afraid of story in their games for some reason, maybe they learned the wrong lessons from "Other M". The lesson they should have learned from that game is to keep your game franchises true to what the fans have loved for decades, not what hauteur directors with bizarre problems with women believe they should be*. The lesson Nintendo seems to have learned is just not have all that much story in a video game. This is a mistake. Keeping the plot moving is the best motivation for a player to finish your game.

"Skyward Sword"'s plotline moves at speed that even little Asian women on the New Jersey turnpike would honk at. Nothing happens for hours and hours while you're out questing. Maybe the dungeons will each have a unique place in the plotline, not just be big McGuffin Cans. "Twilight Princess" and "Wind Waker" did a good job at that, "Skyward Sword" is a step backwards.

Number 4: Exploration and Scale. "Skyward Sword" is a smaller game than its predecessors. It has a tiny game world, with only three areas that you repeat constantly. Nintendo tries to pass this off by claiming it was some kind of grand Metroidvania kind of game where you constantly backtrack and discover new corridors in Dracula's castle. You don't actually do that, you just go back to the same areas and do annoying filler quests. Here's "Skyward Sword"'s complete game map:

Unfortunately, this isn't big enough. Its tiny, honestly. Look at all the wasted space! Add to it the depressing the fact you have to go through the annoying sky part to go anywhere... you'll see how many mistakes were made in this game. Allow me to show Nintendo what the world map should have looks like, with forgiveness to my inferior Microsoft Paint skills, of course:

That big green thing in the middle? That's Hyrule Field. The sky serves absolutely no purpose in this game, so unless Nintendo wants to try again with Link and Claus Valca, they should give it up and go back to a traditional interconnected World Map. Also, since there are six dungeons in this game, there should naturally be six large-scale areas to explore, not three. "Skyward Sword" does not feel like a labor of love that took five years to make. It feels like a half-finished game using cheap tricks to pad itself out.

Zelda games should not lack in grand scale. They should be massive, they should be glorious! You should be dwarfed by the almighty power of the ultimate legend while playing them. "Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" is the game that has caught the world's attention and is the beloved classic of 2011. "Skyward Sword", in comparison is a game from the past, too restrictive, too structured, and too small. Weak!

Here's what the next Zelda needs: caves. Once upon a time Zelda had caves, odd little holes in the walls that could have led to anything. You never know what could be inside them. A new item? Just a Piece of Heart? A Fairy Fountain**? Maybe a giant labyrinth that is actually the next full dungeon. You never knew. and that was exciting. You wanted to push forward in all direction, knock down the boundaries and conquer the world. That was freedom, that was fun. Zelda games have lost that sense, instead its like a Final Fantasy game. Go to Point A, Point B, Point C, all according to some Japanese developer's scheme, not your own natural rhythm. You can't sequence break anymore, you can't do anything anymore. Everything is locked out and the fun is gone.

Also, I miss having a choice in how you killed enemies. "Skyward Sword"'s items are used only for puzzles, not for combat. Once upon a time the hookshot could kill things, not it just kinda annoys them. Only three items actually can kills things: the bombs, the arrows, and the sword, nothing else. Maybe you'll blow a Moblin off a cliff with the wind blower, but that's it. What happened to discovering the upgrades to weapons through natural exploration, not annoying RPG crafting systems? Whatever happened to finding a huge arsenal of weapons and spells that you may or may not ever use? I want to find a hole in a cliff face, walk in, solve a puzzle, and find the Fire Rod. Will I ever use the Fire Rod? Who knows? I want to find a boss, and decide whether I want to smash his face in with the hammer, cut him with a sword, or blow him up with a bomb. What happened to playing the game your way?

Number 5: Link and Zelda Should Kiss. Nintendo, grow a pair. If you're going to have a romance be the centerpiece of your storyline, the players are going to want a pay-off. Kids see people kiss all the time, presumably their parents are kissing. They watch Disney movies, people kiss there. Get over this bizarre sexual repression. If you think a little kiss is too much for your story, perhaps your head is up your ass. I imagine the smell is awful, I'm just trying to help you.

Number 6: Have an Idea. Before you make "The Legend of Zelda: And the Wii-U Controller", make sure the game has a point. Make sure there's an idea behind it. Before you create a game, make sure you have an original idea in which to make the series better. Maybe a game where you cross between the three branches of the Zelda mutliverse. Maybe "The Legend of Sheik". Maybe something that is something new. You can't just stick a bunch of setpieces together the same way as always and think that it will work forever.

Be bold. Be innovative. Be awesome! That's what made Zelda great in the first place. BE GLORIOUS! That is what Zelda deserves. Not... this. This isn't half of what Zelda deserves.

As for your people you love this game, keep on loving it. I don't care if you're having fun. Have fun with it. Play it again, play it a million times. I wish I could be one of you. But I want more out of my games. Maybe I've become a person incapable of experiencing joy. I don't believe that for a second, because there are tons of games I love, in this very franchise. This is not one of them. This is not enough for me.

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* The other lesson Nintendo seems to have learned is to can the Metroid series. Which is clearly a mistake. Can the asshole who wrote and directed "Other M", not Samus. Samus is as a hardass bounty hunter was great, Samus as a whiny deadpan bitch was awful. This isn't hard, Nintendo.

** The new Fairy Fountains in "Skyward Sword" are stools. Slightly less epic.

Blackthorn

2011-12-22T18:18:00.002-05:00

The Western movie might be an undead film genre, but that's certainly not stopping filmmakers from creating a great cowboy movie every so often. 2010 had the grandly memorable "True Grit", 2008 had "3:10 to Yuma". 2011 needed a great Western movie, and two movies came forward to answer the call. One was "Cowboys & Aliens", an utterly forgettable silly SciFi movie with a gaggle of movie stars and a ridiculous budget. The other was "Blackthorn", a slow beautiful movie that you've probably never heard of. And that's a shame, because "Blackthorn" is easily one of the best movies I've seen all year, melancholic and gorgeous with the heart of a true classic.

"Blackthorn" is kind of an unofficial sequel to the famous Robert Redford-Paul Newman masterpiece "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Bizarrely for somebody who pretends to be a film fan, I haven't seen that movie, but its sitting on my Netflix queue now. The main concept between "Blackthorn" is that Butch Cassidy survived the famous outlaw duo's death and has been living quietly in Bolivia under the name of 'James Blackthorn' for twenty years. During his attempt to travel home to America, he runs into a Spanish outlaw and goes on one final adventure in the fantastic wilderness of the Andes Mountains. The plot may be a basic chase adventure, but the results are a stark movie that takes it time, builds a great atmosphere, and becomes a walking landscape painting.

All in all, I'd say that "Blackthorn" is arguably the most beautiful-looking movie of 2011. This is the quintessential Western classic, all of which is made extremely unfortunate because I know for a fact you've never heard of this movie before. Its a Spanish production (though shot 80% in English) that was released first on iTunes of all places, and got a minor theatrical run in October. Even I missed it, which is a tragedy, because this is a great movie that deserved better. So I guess its up to me, little 'ol me, to sing "Blackthorn"'s praises. I'm not the singer this movie needs, my range is pitiful, and I'm frequently out of tune. And I drive metaphorical conceits straight into the grave. Let's hear the music.

"Blackthorn" is notable for being perhaps the most bilingual movie I've ever seen. Perhaps it might be the semi-legal bootleg version I watched online, but none of the Spanish lines were subtitled. There are whole scenes in full Spanish without a single word exchanged in English. Luckily I have at a marginal understanding of the Spanish language, so I was able to follow most of those scenes. I really do have to respect a movie to have that much faith in its viewers that they'll be able to follow full non-English conversations. However, even I got lost a few times, and somebody with no knowledge of Spanish at all would be get really frustrated. Some people are so pigheaded they can't even be bothered to read subtitles in the first place, assuming that when you watch a movie you're not supposed to use your brain. Since all the most important conversations and lines are in English, you don't have anything major to worry about. Luckily if you have a real legal DVD, I'm sure you can get it properly subtitled. I'm just being punished for my moral failings.

To beef up the recurring plot line, the movie is broken up with half a dozen flashbacks to the young versions of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These pieces exist mostly to explain the backstory of Butch and his great outlaw status. Disappointingly for me, these aren't actually scenes taken from the 1969 original, however, they are very well acted. Young Butch is actually played by the same actor as Jaime Lannister from the HBO series. I wish the flashbacks were a bit more detailed - they leave out the explosive final charge from the movie - but they're necessary to understand the story and why Butch is such a sad old man. Even his Pinkerton foe from the past is full of sadness over the awful waste that is banditry, he just wants to live his life quietly and forget old wounds.

Sam Shepard plays old Butch, and is the main character of the movie. His gruff old badass cowboy persona is a lot like Jeff Bridges from "True Grit", only a lot less drunk and actually comprehensible. Jeff Bridges' main acting technique in "True Grit" was to fill his mouth with straw, damned be the audience who cannot understand a word he says. Even though he's lived outside of history for years, he wants to go back home to America to his lone living relative - who may or may not actually be his son. "There are only two moments in life, when you leave home and when you return. Everything else is just 'in between'." Since this movie is mainly a character study in Butch Cassidy himself, the movie is mainly a choice for him. Will he go back to his old life of banditry or find a new path? What has he learned over these twenty years in the mountains? I do have to wonder how much better this movie would have been with Paul Newman playing the main role, but Sam Shepard so rules his part that I cannot imagine anyone else as Butch Cassidy.

However, the true star of "Blackthorn" is Bolivia itself. From the hills to the salt pans, this movie relishes in engorging itself on all the natural scenery of South America. The pace of the movie is designed specifically to take in everything there is to see, which is definitely a plus because these are easily some of the most amazing places on Earth. Any true Western is less about the people than world they inhabit, and this movie plays it beautifully. I am totally mesmerized by the cinematography here; "Blackthorn" makes you fall in love with its subject matter.

Man, I really want to go to Bolivia now...

The movie has its dark turns here and there, but there actually aren't many gunfights. This is a movie whose action is from the characters themselves, not with guns. Basically its the polar opposite to "Cowboys & Aliens", a movie which was entirely action and barely any character at all. Its clear which one I'd choose for a Western. "Blackthorn" is a great underrated movie in a year full of great underrated movies. Its a perfect cowboy movie.

Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows

2011-12-21T13:25:00.000-05:00

"Sherlock Holmes 1" was easily one of the best movies of 2009. "Sherlock Holmes 2" is one of the most okay movies of 2011. For a year full of various disappointments and failures, to me 'pretty good' is the new great. It was properly entertaining, not a new classic, not as good as the original, but certainly worth seeing. Compared to many other movies with the number '2' in the title, "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" manages to keep the franchise fresh, entertaining, and fun enough for me to get happily excited for a "Sherlock Holmes 3".

At the start of this year, there were a lot of movies I was looking forward to: "Rango", "Captain America", "Sucker Punch", "Harry Potter 7.5". Are we noticing a pattern here? These movies were all either mediocre or utterly horrible. There have been lots of unhappy surprises this year, even now I still can't call it a good year for movies. This is a year where there wasn't just a Transformers movie, there wasn't just a Twilight movie, but there was also "Jack and Jill". Aside from a few bright spots like "Drive", "Winnie th Pooh", and "the Guard", 2011 generally sucked. But now there are less than week left, and 2011 has to work overtime to convince me that it wasn't a complete disaster. "Sherlock Holmes 2" is not a movie that will change my entire opinion of the year, but it was a pretty decent. This is as good as any movie should be, movies should never get worse than this.

I actually went out last night with the initial plan of seeing "Hugo", but the universe didn't allow for that. So instead I went to this. The first "Sherlock Holmes" was clever, entertaining, exciting, and Robert Downey Jr-ey. This one is much of the same, but I don't think director Guy Ritchie really knew how to make a sequel. So he just ramped everything up, turned it all into an action movie, and stopped flirting with the idea of Holmes and Watson having sexual tension and turned them into forlorn gay lovers. The results are clearly inferior, and if I were a crueler person, I wouldn't give it a pass. But Robert Downey Jr.! What am I to do?

In the first "Sherlock Holmes", I loved the Sherlock Watson relationship, I loved the mystery plot, I loved Robert Downey Jr. and the entire cast, but there was one thing in particular I did not love: Rachel McAdams. She was supposed to be like a femme fatal thief action chick... but mostly spent the movie looking cute and getting kidnapped. She really only seemed to exist to desperately prove to the audience that Sherlock Holmes is not gay. Guy Ritchie apparently read my review back in December 2009 (making him one of my few readers back then), and so in the first five minutes of this movie unceremoniously kills off the Rachel McAdams character. She dies with barely a word, Sherlock Holmes spends like a minute brooding over it and then spends the rest of the moving exchanging soulful looks with Jude Law's Watson. You know, I didn't like Rachel McAdams in these movies, but I was still surprised to see her dumped with such venom. It does prove that the main villain has venom, at least.

If you've seen the trailer, you can probably guess that the 'gay' part of the new Sherlock Holmes series is right there in the forefront. Watson is getting married (to a girl!) and Sherlock Holmes could not look more sad about it. Heck, Watson himself seems like he's trying to convince himself this whole movie that he's straight. Holmes, now without his McAdams beard, immediately jumps into this movie dressing in drag, dancing with Watson, and saying lines like "Watson, come lie with me...". "Watson, who taught you to dance?" "You did, Holmes." Then they make out right in the middle of the party.

Wait, they don't. But they might as well have.

There's a new female character in this gypsie chick. She really doesn't do anything all movie, and is kinda a living plot device. As for Watson's new wife, I thought she was a great character, but Holmes literally throws her off a train in the first half hour, so we don't see much of her after that. We do get to meet Sherlock's big brother, a maniacal evil genius that is a half cyborg. ...Wait, that was a different, more insane movie, sorry. Actually Sherlock Holmes' brother is a big gay British man played by Stephen Fry. And just to warn anybody who is about to see this movie, you see Stephen Fry's ass. That's a sight I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

While "Sherlock Holmes 1" was a fairly contained mystery film, "Sherlock Holmes 2" is a completely off-the-rails action thriller without any mystery of any kind. I am utterly stunned to find that a Sherlock Holmes movie offers no mystery of any kind for its audience. From the start you know that its the work of a bearded criminal mastermind, Professor Moriarty, Holmes's arch-nemesis from the original books and everything else. Sadly Mark Strong died in the first movie, so he's not coming back despite being universally awesome in everything. The new villain isn't as strong, but he plays it up as an equal genius to Holmes. They're such a match that Moriarty can even use Sherlock Holmes's trademark slow-motion strategy fighting style. The movie ends with a totally awesome psychic duel between Holmes and Moriarty, which alone is worth the price of admission.

Unfortunately, the movie tells you what Moriarty's plan is from the very start: he's starting World War I early. I guess the good Professor saw "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and so has stolen the main villain's scheme for that movie. Ultimately this scheme is much less compelling than Mark Strong's creepy voodoo wizard plot to conquer England, which actually had some hidden schemes behind it. In this movie, you know that Moriarty is using terrorist bombings to make Germany and France hate each other (as if they needed more reason back in 1891), basically the only unknown factor is why he's doing it. Well, guess what? He's a war profiteer, that's it. At least he could have tried to establish his own megalomaniac Moriarty Empire, you know.

Since the detective part of the series is over, what we have instead is a collection of action set-pieces. Most of these work, but the constant run from one explosion to another makes this movie every uneven. This is Guy Ritchie's least sophisticated movie ever, and easily his most simplistic plot. Holmes and Watson and some gypsies go to point A to point B, beat up henchmen, and keep following Moriarty across Europe. The pacing doesn't really start to work until at least the second half, when the movie hovers from slapstick to entertaining to exciting to, God help me, boring. But it all comes together ultimately, and the movie is a fun ride.

Except of course, for a truly lousy chase scene in the woods. This scene in real time probably took thirty seconds, but because Guy Ritchie briefly transformed into Zack Snyder during this part of the movie making process, its filled with downright abusive slow-mo shots. You know that "300"-thing where the shot goes from slow-mo to super fast to slow-mo again? Its that over and over and over and over again, forever. I believe this scene was roughly six days long in time length, and it is absolutely impossible to follow.

So ultimately, "Sherlock Holmes" is flawed but entertaining. Guy Ritchie seems to be losing the formula for what makes a good Sherlock Holmes movie. We need less action, all in all, maybe a bit less silliness, and more actual detective work. Honestly, if this movie didn't have Robert Downey Jr. playing his Sherlock Holmes role to complete perfection, I don't think I could recommend it. But it does, so I can. "Sherlock Homes 3" will make a great double-feature with "Pirates of the Caribbean 5" now. They're both now zombiefied franchises surviving only on the talent of their leading men. Hey, but I'm not complaining. It was still lots of fun.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Part 2

2011-12-18T11:39:00.004-05:00

TO PART 1.

Okay, so I finally decided this would be a three part review. Actually, I think this is a much smarter way of doing video game reviews. You can't review an experience that is so long and so variable as a fifty-hour video game in just one shot. If you write the review too early, before you even finish the game, you can't quantify your emotions by the end of the game. Yeah, the beginning might be great, but who knows if the game might outstay its welcome or be a load of crap by the end? However, if you write a review after the end credits, you lose track of everything you've experienced. It all becomes a confusing blur too full of details to really explain properly. So I like this way best, honestly.

Anyway, last time on my "Skyward Sword" experience, I was feeling some doubts as to whether this game would shape up to meet Zelda par. Unfortunately, those doubts have turned into certainty: this game is not as good as "Twilight Princess" or "Wind Waker". Now I know everybody uses "Ocarina of Time" as the bar, but they are mistaken. "Ocarina of Time" is fourteen years old and feels ancient to me playing now, the game is really showing its age compared with its Gamecube sequels. But that's besides the point: "Skyward Sword" is probably the weakest of all the 3D Zelda games. I won't go ahead and declare it to be a bad game, we're not down there at any stretch of the imagination. However, it is a massively uneven game.

Now this is a shame. Obviously whenever I buy a Zelda game I expect it to be the greatest experience of my life. I was super-hyped for "Twilight Princess", expecting an epic grand game that would be the largest and most powerful Zelda yet - and it was! Everything I wanted and more, "Twilight Princess" is the greatest video game ever made. I had similar hopes for "Skyward Sword", and it just has not delivered. Yeah, there are stunning moments in this video game, and it has probably the best characters of any Zelda game yet. However... its everything that happens in between the story sections that weakens this title.

As I mentioned last time, "Skyward Sword" is the Zelda game that isn't going to bullshit around whether Link and Zelda are in love, the game spends the first hour setting this up. Now, I've heard a lot of people complaining that during the first hour of the game you're basically stuck in an on-rails tutorial* with too many text screens. But I got to say, it was possibly the first hour that was most compelling to me. Link and Zelda are simple characters, basically one-dimensional shades, but their honest simplicity is charming. Also, apparently Zelda smells nice... Creepiness aside, it was the opening of this game in Skyloft during peace time that built a strong foundation for me to care about these characters. Think back to the Destiny Islands portion of "Kingdom Hearts", possibly the game with the single best storyline of any video game ever. In two minutes the game establishes three great characters, Sora, Kairi, and Riku with a believable relationship, the same is accomplished in "Skyward Sword". You actually do want to save Zelda, it isn't just an esoteric goal like in many of the games.

Unfortunately, after Zelda falls to the big bad surface full of monsters, you don't see her again for almost thirty hours. You get little glimpses here and there as rewards for completing the dungeons, but these aren't satisfying because Zelda runs away with Impa the second you see her. (Impa is looking pretty hot in this game, by the way.) It takes six dungeons for another scene between Link and Zelda, and that's a long goddamn time for the plot to just stall.

Now, "Kingdom Hearts" had a similar issue, Kairi disappeared for like 90% of that game. But you had other companions, you had Donald and Goofy to chill with. Riku showed up a few times in the midst of a really great antihero character arc. In "Skyward Sword" you really are completely alone on the ground. In other Zelda games while looking for Aryll or Ilia you meet various companions and friends and help them out, the world is a huge place full of people who need help. In "Skyward Sword", this doesn't really happen. Most of the characters on the ground are weird annoying creatures that really only are flat comic reliefs, if that. You don't meet anybody as interesting as Tetra or even any important side characters. Colin never saves Beth from the Orcs, Princess Ruto never promises to marry you, and you don't make Medli or Makar sages.

"Skyward Sword" does give you a fairy companion for most of the running time, but... this where I start to get a bit pissed. In the last two Zelda games, the companion characters were amazing. In "Twilight Princess" you teamed up with Midna, a sarcastic imp that bosses Link around to get her revenge that I'd easily crown as one of the best Zelda characters ever. And in "Spirit Tracks", you teamed up with Zelda herself as a ghost in what I thought was a brilliant twist on the Zelda formula. In Skyward Sword, you're with Fi. Fi is the spirit of the Master Sword. She has no arms, she does interpretive dance when translating messages from the Gods, and she likes to pick random percentages for everything. "I predict a 90% that the next McGuffin is in this volcano." That sounds like an interesting character, but Fi actually has no character. She is an utter robot.

Also, I would be able to tolerate Fi a lot more if she didn't interrupt the game to tell me that my health is low during intense boss fights. Fi, you can trust me to know that I'm low on hearts. That's one thing I'll fucking notice. You shut the fuck up and get back into my sword. Unless you have hearts to give, SHUT UP.

There is one good side character though. Actually, a great side character: Groose. Groose is awesome, trust me on this. He starts the game off acting like Gaston and trying to steal Zelda from you. But later on, his character really grows, I am amazed by how awesome he gets. Groose, you are the man, I have nothing but respect for you. I'll buy you a beer when the ultimate evil is slain. Heck, I'll buy you a case of beers. Unfortunately, Groose is the exception rather than the rule.

Because all of the side characters are flat and non-interesting, it means that the actual game part of the game is very... slow. In fact, it gets slightly boring. I noticed this by the second dungeon, but it was all good. What isn't good, however, is the annoying filler portions of this game. "Skyward Sword" has only six main story dungeons and presumably a final dungeon of some kind, which is a pretty significant drop from "Twilight Princess"'s nine. "Twilight Princess", for the most part, had every one of its dungeons take place in all new areas, the map was constantly expanding. "Skyward Sword" really opens its entire game world up by dungeon three. So to make the game longer, Nintendo had to get creative. Creativity usually is a good thing, but... the Triforce quest in "Wind Waker" is what happens when Nintendo gets too creative with padding out a game**.

Here's a cruel example of filler in this game. Between dungeons three and four, you learn you need to power up your sword to create a time portal that leads to Zelda who is hiding in the past from Captain FABULOUS. So you need to get three magical flames which are all at the bottom of three dungeons. Here is how complicated the sequence of event is that you have to go through to get to dungeon #4:

1. The Awakened awakes and you have to seal it again in a mediocre boss fight. (This is okay in my book.)
2. You need to go to a magical temple to learn the music that opens up Trials of the Goddess, which you need to pass to get into the dungeons that hold the magical flames.
3. Nobody knows where that temple is, but you learn that you need to turn two windmills to create a magic laser beam that points to it.
4. Unfortunately, one of the windmills is missing a fan. That fan has fallen into the volcano region, and you can't lift it with your arms.
5. The mechanic guy has a broken robot that can lift the fan. You have to bring him back to life with a Desert Flower, which I hope you picked while you were in the desert, or else you're going to have to go look for one.
6. You need to find the fan in the volcano, this is a tedious search quest.
7. Now you make the laser beam, you can go the temple and learn the song.
8. Now you can finish the Goddess Trial, which is a very intense searching puzzle.
9. You learn how to swim, but you still don't know where to go. You climb up a giant tree because Fi says so.
10. You meet a hermit who tells you to find a dragon in Lake Hylia, you go there.
11. The dragon is sick, and she won't open up the dungeon you need for your sword, so you need to get her magical water.
12. That magical water? Its in the back of dungeon #1. So you run back there, fight another miniboss at the end, get the dragon water. And - finally - now the dungeon is open.

Like, is that enough? Look at all that crap! Only two portions of that thirteen step process are actually remotely fun, the rest are all tedious fetch quests. Look, Nintendo, if you wanted there to be a long break between dungeons #3 and #4, you should have just made a new area for the player to explore. Not repeat the first dungeon for no reason. (By the way, you never replay a dungeon again, this is the lone exception as far as I know.) This is not fun. "Twilight Princess" created epic moments between its dungeons. Remember the joust on the bridge with the Orc King? That was amazing. Later on in "Skyward Sword", to make more filler, they include an ESCORT MISSION***. Oh my god...

Ironically enough, "Skyward Sword" actually does include an example of questing between dungeons done right. Before dungeon #5 you discover a sand sea. This is a huge area that basically creates a mini-"Wind Waker". To travel around this sand sea, you find a boat with a magical crystal that sends a small portion of the area back to the past, recreating the ocean that was here and returning life to a robot pirate captain. The pirate captain is the only interesting character in this game that is not a human, by the way. (Also, I know the time travel thing makes no sense, but just run with it.) The ocean effects in this game by the way, are amazingly beautiful. I know this is the Wii, and supposedly its graphics suck, but the water in "Skyward Sword" took my breath away. I loved this part of the game, it was incredible. Robot pirates, oceanic adventure, a roller coaster, lots of use for your double hookshots, kickass.

I'm amazing how uneven this game is. How is it that the section before dungeon #4 is utterly awful, yet the section before dungeon #5 is as good as anything any Zelda game has ever delivered? Why can't the whole game have the gold star quality? Nintendo spent five years making "Skyward Sword"... clearly they should have spent six.

So finally after you complete all the three dungeons and all the filler, you finally reach Zelda again. This cutscene is nothing short of incredible. "Skyward Sword" is proof - not that I personally needed any - that you can stage great emotional scenes without voice acting. Link and Zelda together are the things that make "Skyward Sword" work. If there wasn't this frame behind the adventuring, I might have turned the game off and played something else.

I probably would have turned the game off if the gameplay wasn't so consistently good. Motion controls lead to all sorts of odd niggles and haggles here and there, but "Skyward Sword" is a game that is better for them, I think. Nintendo went a bit overboard, like you don't really need to use the Wiimote to control flying Claus Valca or swimming, but the two main areas where it works, it works great: swordfighting, and first person shooting. Using the bow is better than ever. My hands just kinda naturally tremor, its a thing I inherited from my father, sadly, so it can be a bit difficult for me, but I overcome it. I love how fast hookshotting is because you can move the cursor so quick.

Anyway, final thoughts on "Skyward Sword" are coming in part three.

PART THREE HERE.

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* I agree with the tutorial bit, this game really does need an option to skip those portions. I know there's at least one little kid who is playing this game somewhere that doesn't know how to jump over a gap... but he isn't me, so why do I need to play the same game he is? What is this lowest common denominator crap?

** Honestly I didn't mind the Triforce Quest that much looking back. I thought it really made the most of exploring "Wind Waker"'s huge and vibrant Great Sea. My only real issue was with that swindler Tingle, who I wish had been cut out of the game entirely. 2500 Rupees to translate a map!? You fruitcake son of a bitch! No wonder why he never game back after that...

*** The escort mission is as bad as it sounds. Actually, its worse. What happens it that your robot, who hates you because he's in love with Fi, needs to carry a pale of water up to the top of the volcano to open up dungeon #6. He can fly, so this sounds simple. However, for no reason, he lands at the base of the volcano, so you have to lead him all the up with orcs everywhere shooting arrows at him. He's a whiney bitch, so he won't take much punishment before going back down. All this could be avoided if he just flew over the enemies but he's a lazy entitled fuck so the logical solution is locked off. Nintendo, what the Hell were you thinking? This is the worst quest in any Zelda game ever.

Used Games Debate

2011-12-16T19:42:00.004-05:00

Gamers can be annoying sometimes. But they're lovable in their own little insane way, and anybody who is willing to spend 400 hours catching every single Pokemon is a certified badass in my book*. No, the thing I really hate about the game industry are gaming devs. Pack of crooks as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I know they're are a lot of people who legitimately love the medium and are trying to make fun experiences for their players. But there are also a lot of people being really creative in ways to screw me over royally. Just how much dick can they shove up their consumers' collective ass? Western game developers are the worst at this, by the way, constantly finding new ways to screw you and make you buy new crap that you don't need. Remember the days when you walked into a store and bought a game? And it was the full game. Remember that? Those were good times.

But game developers hated those good times. Because simply paying for a cartridge or a disc, taking it home, putting into your system, and playing it as long as wanted, that wasn't enough for them. They wanted to bleed their consumers dry with all sorts of needless crap. I don't need to put in a monthly fee or pay fifty more bucks for DLC or suck Bobby Kotick's dick in order to play the game. I don't want a constant Internet connection or any other crap. I just want to play. Well, those days are ending, my friends, gaming is going to purely digital now, no discs at all.

You see, I happen to be a cheap person. I'm Jewish, so maybe it comes from that, but it also comes from my basic responsible attitude towards life. I know every dollar I spend more than I need to on a game is one dollar less that I'll be able to spend on something else - which includes things I really need like food. Do you know how many video games I bought for new at full price this year? One, "Skyward Sword", and I'm beginning to think I paid too much for that**. Apparently this means that I'm a horrible person, becase none of the dollars I spent actually went to game developers - who, by the way, were selling the games at a higher price. In fact, lots of crooks at nightmarish dictatorships like Activision and EA are planning to include all sorts of locks and codes on games so that the used gaming market will die out all together.

Clearly, that would be bad for me. It would also be really bad for you. It would be bad for everybody. Yet I still hear blowhards on the Internet saying that used games are a "scam" and should end. Well, folks, allow me to show you why you're wrong.

First of all, I don't care if I'm a bad person. I do have morals, but only up until a point, all things are flexible in this universe. If I don't have to be a bad person, I won't, but if I do, I will. Simple as that. So when I played "Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes" this Fall, I actually broke a variety of copyright laws. But I couldn't play the game any other way, so I don't care. I'm going to eventually download and play "Earthbound" and "Mother 3" for free on my computer, because Nintendo doesn't want to sell those games to me. Should I import a version from Japan? Yeah, I guess. But why should I? I don't have a SNES, and I don't speak Japanese, so Nintendo can go cry about it someplace away from me.

But anyway, even if my morals are flexible, buying a game used is not morally reprehensible on any level. Let me explain: this is what is called "Capitalism", children. A person makes a product, and you want that product. You can buy it directly from the source, or you can buy it from somebody else who will offer it at a smaller price. Buying it at a smaller price is the logical thing to do. Yeah, maybe the guy who sold you the product didn't pour sweat and tears into making it, but as long as he bought it legally, there's no moral problem at all. A game is a product like any other. You can buy used books at your local library for as long as fifty cents sometimes, that doesn't mean you're stealing from the author or the publishers. Whoever says buying a game used is wrong, is a blowhard. They're probably pissed that they spent too much on the game.

If you like to directly support a game company, that's wonderful for you. When I bought "Skyward Sword" at full price from Nintendo, it was my little way of saying "thank you" to a series that has been a constant friend to me for almost a decade. However, I don't think I need to give THQ charity. I certainly don't want to give Kojima any extra Yen after he completely failed to make "Metal Gear Solid: Rising". And EA and Activision are so obvious evil that I want to directly ask every one of my readers to not buy any game from them ever. You aren't hurting anybody by buying a used game, because if the game is used, that means somebody already bought it. The game developers already have their money, they should be happy with that.

Even if I wanted to give charity to multi-million dollar corporations that swim in seas of more money than I'll ever see in my entire life, I can't afford it. I'm not a rich man, I'm not even a wealthy man, I'm a college student. Worse, I'm an education major. I'm going to be poor for the rest of my life, so don't go crying to me when I don't give your favorite game designer my ramen noodle budget.

And even if I had millions of dollars, I still wouldn't pay top dollar for no reason. If the video game company's business model is not resulting in enough profit, that is not my problem. This is America, make more fucking money. Don't strongarm me to bleed enough twenty bucks out of my wallet. Maybe the current shape of the video game market is unsustainable, has anybody thought of that?

Here's the difference between a used game and a used car: a used car is noticeably worse than new, slowly but surely every part on the car begins to degrade and fall apart. A used game however, will probably work at exactly the same efficiency as a new game. My used copy of "Bayonetta" worked as well as anybody's new copy of "Bayonetta". Ironically that game ran like a car with 500 thousand miles on it, but that's another issue altogether. So if anybody has a problem with me buying a game used, they can go cry someplace else about it. Because its my choice, I'm not hurting anybody, and its the best price.

This is why digital distribution worries me. As long as I have a physical copy of a game, its going to work for as long as the matter holding it together lasts. When you buy a digital game, who knows how long its going to last? You may not be able to transfer your digital copy to another system, the people who control the game networks can easily disable your ability to play it, and any other issue can occur. Quite frankly, I don't want my game collection to be at the mercy of greedy executives. These are people so greedy that they aren't simply content with stopping piracy, they need to attack perfectly legal forms of secondary market transactions like used games.

If you want digital distribution to take over the market, game developers, you got to make the prices smaller. And you got to give me the same freedom with the digital information I buy from you that I get from a disc. I should be able to download the game and own the data on top of it to manipulate in any way I want. Your copyright rights extend only as far as me not selling your characters and stories for my own profit. Buying a game is buying it, it is not a long-term rent. When its mine, its mine. When I buy a car from Toyota, I can sell it to anybody I want for any price I want, and I paint it pink with orange stripes if I want. Toyota does not get a say in the matter, neither do you.

Hey, do you what way I can get all the options I listed above? Pirating! And it is an option, game developers, don't think I'm going to play fair if you won't. Remember, we only buy games at all any more because we choose to, everybody on Earth could get games for free if they wanted. And you're not going to be able to stop that. Technology is against you, game devs. So I suggest you start being more friendly, because you're not in charge any more. Yeah, its wrong, but its also satisfying as Hell to burn a greedy asshole.

As for anybody who disagrees with me, feel free to comment below. I'll be laughing at you.

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* My biggest accomplishment is catching over 300 Pokemon in "FireRed". Never could finish it, because of Nintendo's inherent pure evil. Because about a dozen or so Pokemon simply are NOT in the games, in any version. You'd have to play the GameCube games or go to conventions or some other crap. Not happening. So yeah, I never finished it, and I weep every day I look at my unfinished "FireRed" cartridge. Greatest failure of my life.

** Review Part 2 is coming as soon as I beat the sixth dungeon. Also, I just reached an escort mission, so no, the game does not get better.