Thursday, December 31, 2009
Goodbye, Double-Oh Decade
Hey everybody, I just want to drop in here and say a few words before the year is up.
First off, the vacation is going great. I was nervous about the baby but it turns out he loves America and everyone in it. Strangers and family alike delight him, he is being spoiled with toys and clothes at every turn, and he is sleeping here like he never sleeps back home. Not necessarily at night, mind you, but a happy, well-rested baby is a hell of a lot easier to manage than a cranky, crying baby.
In professional writing news, Wired Game|Life has been posting best-of lists recently, several of which I got to vote for and contribute towards. While I recommend all of their fine work, readers looking specifically for my words should direct their attention to Top 5 PlayStation 3 Games of 2009, The 10 Best Videogames of 2009 and The 15 Most Influential Games of the Decade. I'm particularly proud of that last one because I got to write about two of my favorite games of the last ten years, both of which will be appearing in my love/hate 00s countdown.
Speaking of which, the countdown is on hold but not over. I haven't had much time to write on this trip, so I'll finish my thoughts about my favorite and most disappointing things of the past decade after it is complete.
In the meantime, enjoy this final day of the 00s. For those of you in Japan, the year is nearly finished, but here in the US we've got nearly an entire day to get through. Wherever you're at, have fun and I'll see you in 2010 (digitally speaking).
つづく...(Click here to read more)
First off, the vacation is going great. I was nervous about the baby but it turns out he loves America and everyone in it. Strangers and family alike delight him, he is being spoiled with toys and clothes at every turn, and he is sleeping here like he never sleeps back home. Not necessarily at night, mind you, but a happy, well-rested baby is a hell of a lot easier to manage than a cranky, crying baby.
In professional writing news, Wired Game|Life has been posting best-of lists recently, several of which I got to vote for and contribute towards. While I recommend all of their fine work, readers looking specifically for my words should direct their attention to Top 5 PlayStation 3 Games of 2009, The 10 Best Videogames of 2009 and The 15 Most Influential Games of the Decade. I'm particularly proud of that last one because I got to write about two of my favorite games of the last ten years, both of which will be appearing in my love/hate 00s countdown.
Speaking of which, the countdown is on hold but not over. I haven't had much time to write on this trip, so I'll finish my thoughts about my favorite and most disappointing things of the past decade after it is complete.
In the meantime, enjoy this final day of the 00s. For those of you in Japan, the year is nearly finished, but here in the US we've got nearly an entire day to get through. Wherever you're at, have fun and I'll see you in 2010 (digitally speaking).
Labels: family, number one son, site news, travel, video games, Wired, writing
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
En Vacances until 2010
By the time this post goes live, I'll be on my way to New York with my family in tow. Maybe Go will fall asleep on the plane and maybe he won't. Either way we will be spending the next two weeks in the United States.
I am, understandably, nervous about this trip. Even taking the airplanes out of the equation there's going to be a lot of traveling and I have no idea how Go will respond. Will he become jet lagged and sleep all day while keeping us up all night?
Ultimately it's up to me whether this trip is enjoyable or not. Go is going to do what he's going to do - it's out of my control. We're taking him to America so his grandparents and extended family can see him in person. It reminds me of last March when we took Mako's parents to New York. Their needs trumped ours, because they could not function without our assistance. Did I still enjoy myself? Hell yeah.
The key difference this time is that Mako's parents are, once provided with food and shelter, self-sufficient. We could bring them food and leave them in their hotel room for an evening. Go would not enjoy that.
So I don't know what to say. Am I excited? Of course? Am I nervous? Very much so. Am I scared? Nope. Worst case scenario, I go without sleep for two weeks while surrounded by friends and family. That beats spending another New Year's in Japan in front of the damned television, forced to watch an endless parade of celebrities sing and congratulate each other.
Also, I cannot predict my availability online. I'm bringing my netbook but I can't say how much time I'll be able/willing to sit in front of it. I hope to keep writing my list of my favorite and most disappointing things of the decade, as I'm only a third of the way finished.
So please forgive me if I miss out on Twitter or Facebook chatter. I'll see many of you in person soon. To everyone else, I'll catch you right here next year. FEIT...out
つづく...(Click here to read more)
I am, understandably, nervous about this trip. Even taking the airplanes out of the equation there's going to be a lot of traveling and I have no idea how Go will respond. Will he become jet lagged and sleep all day while keeping us up all night?
Ultimately it's up to me whether this trip is enjoyable or not. Go is going to do what he's going to do - it's out of my control. We're taking him to America so his grandparents and extended family can see him in person. It reminds me of last March when we took Mako's parents to New York. Their needs trumped ours, because they could not function without our assistance. Did I still enjoy myself? Hell yeah.
The key difference this time is that Mako's parents are, once provided with food and shelter, self-sufficient. We could bring them food and leave them in their hotel room for an evening. Go would not enjoy that.
So I don't know what to say. Am I excited? Of course? Am I nervous? Very much so. Am I scared? Nope. Worst case scenario, I go without sleep for two weeks while surrounded by friends and family. That beats spending another New Year's in Japan in front of the damned television, forced to watch an endless parade of celebrities sing and congratulate each other.
Also, I cannot predict my availability online. I'm bringing my netbook but I can't say how much time I'll be able/willing to sit in front of it. I hope to keep writing my list of my favorite and most disappointing things of the decade, as I'm only a third of the way finished.
So please forgive me if I miss out on Twitter or Facebook chatter. I'll see many of you in person soon. To everyone else, I'll catch you right here next year. FEIT...out
Labels: family, predicting the future, site news, travel
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
I Love the 00s: Three from Tarantino
Next on my list of my favorite things about the 00s is Quentin Tarantino. When the decade began he was MIA, curiously quiet after the lukewarm response to Jackie Brown (1997). Once he got back into the movie-making business, business was good. Very good.
His first film back from hiatus was Kill Bill (2003, 2004), an epic kung-fu/revenge picture that was forcibly split into two films by the studio. The end results made me wonder how Volumes 1 and 2 were ever part of the same picture, because the two films felt so very different.
Vol. 1 was a raucous splatterfest of swordfighting and rage, while Vol. 2 was a more restrained look at the characters left standing from Vol. 1. The final showdown between The Bride and Bill is emotional, not physical, and when she takes her revenge there is real sadness in the air.
One of the unsung triumphs of the movie(s) is the soundtrack. Cobbled together from other films and even a few television series, the music in Kill Bill is different than the pop-heavy mixes of Quentin Tarantino's earlier movies. Even though I couldn't recognize most of it, the use of instrumental music accentuated the film's numerous homages. When you hear Ennio Morricone, whether you can place its exact origin or not, you're going to think of spaghetti westerns.
It was three years before we saw another Tarantino movie, but it was worth the wait. Death Proof was the second half of the double-feature Grindhouse (2007), two films shown back to back with intentionally cheesy trailers preceeding each picture. I noted on my blog at the time that it was one of the best moviegoing experiences I've ever had - and that still stands. While the first film, Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, was just as over the top as those trailers were, Death Proof opened quietly by focusing on four friends just hanging out. It's a slow burn, teasing the audience with glimpses of Stuntman Mike before eventually revealing that he's not just an over-the-hill stunt driver. The car chase at end of the film was one of the most exhilarating ones I've ever seen, right on par with classics like Bullitt and The French Connection. More so, perhaps, because those movies didn't have a woman strapped to the hood of the car during their chases.
Finally there's Inglorious Basterds (2009), a movie I've already written about several times since I saw it last month. I don't know if it's my favorite Tarantino film but it's certainly my favorite of the last ten years, as the opening conversation between the Colonel and that dairy farmer was so tense I almost couldn't stand it. That extended showdown of two men talking for I don't know how long was more tense than any clash in Kill Bill or crash in Death Proof.
I suppose it's selfish of me to wish that Quentin Tarantino could work faster. In the last ten years he made three films, while during that time we've had seven Coen Brothers movies, five Christopher Nolan movies and, ugh, five Michael Bay movies! Please, Quentin, don't rush things but don't leave us hanging for six years again. It's just cruel.
This represents Part 7 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
つづく...(Click here to read more)
His first film back from hiatus was Kill Bill (2003, 2004), an epic kung-fu/revenge picture that was forcibly split into two films by the studio. The end results made me wonder how Volumes 1 and 2 were ever part of the same picture, because the two films felt so very different.
Vol. 1 was a raucous splatterfest of swordfighting and rage, while Vol. 2 was a more restrained look at the characters left standing from Vol. 1. The final showdown between The Bride and Bill is emotional, not physical, and when she takes her revenge there is real sadness in the air.
One of the unsung triumphs of the movie(s) is the soundtrack. Cobbled together from other films and even a few television series, the music in Kill Bill is different than the pop-heavy mixes of Quentin Tarantino's earlier movies. Even though I couldn't recognize most of it, the use of instrumental music accentuated the film's numerous homages. When you hear Ennio Morricone, whether you can place its exact origin or not, you're going to think of spaghetti westerns.
It was three years before we saw another Tarantino movie, but it was worth the wait. Death Proof was the second half of the double-feature Grindhouse (2007), two films shown back to back with intentionally cheesy trailers preceeding each picture. I noted on my blog at the time that it was one of the best moviegoing experiences I've ever had - and that still stands. While the first film, Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, was just as over the top as those trailers were, Death Proof opened quietly by focusing on four friends just hanging out. It's a slow burn, teasing the audience with glimpses of Stuntman Mike before eventually revealing that he's not just an over-the-hill stunt driver. The car chase at end of the film was one of the most exhilarating ones I've ever seen, right on par with classics like Bullitt and The French Connection. More so, perhaps, because those movies didn't have a woman strapped to the hood of the car during their chases.
Finally there's Inglorious Basterds (2009), a movie I've already written about several times since I saw it last month. I don't know if it's my favorite Tarantino film but it's certainly my favorite of the last ten years, as the opening conversation between the Colonel and that dairy farmer was so tense I almost couldn't stand it. That extended showdown of two men talking for I don't know how long was more tense than any clash in Kill Bill or crash in Death Proof.
I suppose it's selfish of me to wish that Quentin Tarantino could work faster. In the last ten years he made three films, while during that time we've had seven Coen Brothers movies, five Christopher Nolan movies and, ugh, five Michael Bay movies! Please, Quentin, don't rush things but don't leave us hanging for six years again. It's just cruel.
This represents Part 7 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
Labels: Grindhouse, I love the 00s, Inglorious Basterds, Kill Bill, movies, Quentin Tarantino
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Monday, December 21, 2009
I Love the 00s: Chuck Palahniuk
I wasn't much of a reader as a child, a bad habit that continued well into adulthood. Thankfully I've begun reading a lot more books this decade and at least part of the reason why is my fondness for one particular author: Chuck Palahniuk.
Like a lot of people, I first heard of Chuck's work when I saw the movie Fight Club (1999) which was based on his 1996 novel. I didn't actually get around to reading it until 2004 though, shortly after I saw him speak at my university. I thought the book was terrific, even if I felt the movie had a better ending. I later read Survivor (1999) which was, frankly, an even better tale about the lone survivor of a cult trying to assimilate into (but ultimately recognizing the absurdity of) our society.
But those are 90s books and this series of mine is about the 00s. Chuck may not churn out books at Stephen King's pace but he's been busy in the past ten years, presumably thanks to the tremendous publicity a Hollywood movie can bring.
The first book I read after Fight Club was actually the one Chuck came to UAlbany to promote, Haunted (2005). It's a short story collection bound by a creepy main story about a group of people who attend a secluded writer's workshop inside an old auditorium. The doors are locked and the windows are sealed under the assumption that cutting themselves off from the world will allow them to concentrate on their work, but the situation quickly deteriorates as they intentionally spoil their surroundings so that the ordeal can be more dramatic. I can't say I found all of the short stories to be engrossing but most of them were superb, as was the master story about the lengths to which humans will go to draw attention to themselves. For a book about writers I suspect he was also taking a shot at reality television in tha regard.
Other books written by Chuck that I enjoyed were Choke (2001), the story of a man who pretends to do just that so people can save him, Lullaby (2002), about a poem that can kill, and Snuff (2008), a cringe-inducing story set inside the waiting room for participants in a gang-bang. I can't say I really thought much of Rant (2007), for while it was well-written the science-fiction angle just never grabbed me. I have yet to read Diary (2003) or his latest work, Pygmy but I hope to pick one of them up when I'm next in the States.
It's not easy to explain what it is about Chuck's books that I find so fascinating, but I guess it's in the details. His books are packed with little factoids, such as the recipe for napalm in Fight Club. That one happens to be false as his publisher insisted that the real ingredients not be disclosed to the public, but he's always slipping in little things like that into his stories.
Furthermore, he routinely describes things that are positively disgusting and that I would never want to contemplate let alone witness, yet his stories draw me and make me feel closer to that grime than any other writer. While I read Snuff I could picture that room as if I was standing in it, so much so that I felt like I desperately needed a shower. And I defy anyone to read "Guts" in Haunted without laughing out loud or gagging, depending on your tolerance for awful stories about masturbation.
If you've never read his work, I'd recommend either of his 90s works above as a starting point, but I'm certainly a fan now and I look forward to more. Supposedly all of his books have been optioned for films at this point (I didn't see Choke) but as great as Fight Club was on-screen, I think his stories lose their urgency in the adaptation process once his writing style is removed. It's a contradiction: his books deliver such vivid descriptions that I can vizualize myself in them and I would love to see more of his creations in theaters, yet I am aware that any film version will ultimately be compromised because it will not be delivered in his distinctive prose.
I guess that's what books are for.
This represents Part 6 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Like a lot of people, I first heard of Chuck's work when I saw the movie Fight Club (1999) which was based on his 1996 novel. I didn't actually get around to reading it until 2004 though, shortly after I saw him speak at my university. I thought the book was terrific, even if I felt the movie had a better ending. I later read Survivor (1999) which was, frankly, an even better tale about the lone survivor of a cult trying to assimilate into (but ultimately recognizing the absurdity of) our society.
But those are 90s books and this series of mine is about the 00s. Chuck may not churn out books at Stephen King's pace but he's been busy in the past ten years, presumably thanks to the tremendous publicity a Hollywood movie can bring.
The first book I read after Fight Club was actually the one Chuck came to UAlbany to promote, Haunted (2005). It's a short story collection bound by a creepy main story about a group of people who attend a secluded writer's workshop inside an old auditorium. The doors are locked and the windows are sealed under the assumption that cutting themselves off from the world will allow them to concentrate on their work, but the situation quickly deteriorates as they intentionally spoil their surroundings so that the ordeal can be more dramatic. I can't say I found all of the short stories to be engrossing but most of them were superb, as was the master story about the lengths to which humans will go to draw attention to themselves. For a book about writers I suspect he was also taking a shot at reality television in tha regard.
Other books written by Chuck that I enjoyed were Choke (2001), the story of a man who pretends to do just that so people can save him, Lullaby (2002), about a poem that can kill, and Snuff (2008), a cringe-inducing story set inside the waiting room for participants in a gang-bang. I can't say I really thought much of Rant (2007), for while it was well-written the science-fiction angle just never grabbed me. I have yet to read Diary (2003) or his latest work, Pygmy but I hope to pick one of them up when I'm next in the States.
It's not easy to explain what it is about Chuck's books that I find so fascinating, but I guess it's in the details. His books are packed with little factoids, such as the recipe for napalm in Fight Club. That one happens to be false as his publisher insisted that the real ingredients not be disclosed to the public, but he's always slipping in little things like that into his stories.
Furthermore, he routinely describes things that are positively disgusting and that I would never want to contemplate let alone witness, yet his stories draw me and make me feel closer to that grime than any other writer. While I read Snuff I could picture that room as if I was standing in it, so much so that I felt like I desperately needed a shower. And I defy anyone to read "Guts" in Haunted without laughing out loud or gagging, depending on your tolerance for awful stories about masturbation.
If you've never read his work, I'd recommend either of his 90s works above as a starting point, but I'm certainly a fan now and I look forward to more. Supposedly all of his books have been optioned for films at this point (I didn't see Choke) but as great as Fight Club was on-screen, I think his stories lose their urgency in the adaptation process once his writing style is removed. It's a contradiction: his books deliver such vivid descriptions that I can vizualize myself in them and I would love to see more of his creations in theaters, yet I am aware that any film version will ultimately be compromised because it will not be delivered in his distinctive prose.
I guess that's what books are for.
This represents Part 6 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
Labels: books, Chuck Palahniuk, I love the 00s
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Thursday, December 17, 2009
DoFuss and the Wave
Can't believe I'll be in New York in less than a week. This trip is either going to be a nightmare or an extremely good time, and a lot of that is up to Go. Will he sleep on the plane? Will he adapt to the time shift? We'll all find out soon enough.
I was fortunate enough to be a guest on Alex's podcast The Dofuss Show again, although due to this being my third straight show he jokingly dubbed it "The DanFuss Show." I liked what we talked about but my voice sounds tired and I made a far too many pauses when I spoke. I don't know if it was the late hour or just nerves. Last time we did this I had just come home after a few drinks, so maybe I should make it a habit of loosening my lips with a spot o' booze in the future.
The show notes are on Alex's site this time, after we worked on them together using Google Wave. Have you heard about this thing? I got a random invite a few weeks back and let the service sit because I didn't know what to do with it. Now that I have friends on there as well as an entire community of Bitmob writers, I'm checking my waves daily to see what's going on.
In this case, Alex wrote the notes before we talked as an outline for our discussion. After we recorded I edited them, adding specific topics we brought up or articles we referenced. then put those into a wave that he and I could view. I added links to each item as needed while he was editing the show. When he was done, he looked at the notes and edited them to better reflect what made the final cut and what didn't. In the end, he was able to copy and paste the material from the wave, links and all, right onto his site. And unlike last time, the wave allowed us to collaborate and get the notes ready to be posted alongside the show. It's pretty cool.
Sure, I haven't seen anything in Google Wave that couldn't be done over e-mail, but the online nature of Wave makes collaborations like this a lot easier. Some of the stuff we're doing for Bitmob would be way too much of a hassle to attempt via e-mail, as dozens of different people are reading and responding in a single conversation would become an illegible mess of quoted text.
If you're on Google Wave, look me up. You can already guess what my username is. If you're wondering what it's like, you can ask me for an invite. Please note that you need a Google account to use Wave, but if you have Gmail that should count.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
I was fortunate enough to be a guest on Alex's podcast The Dofuss Show again, although due to this being my third straight show he jokingly dubbed it "The DanFuss Show." I liked what we talked about but my voice sounds tired and I made a far too many pauses when I spoke. I don't know if it was the late hour or just nerves. Last time we did this I had just come home after a few drinks, so maybe I should make it a habit of loosening my lips with a spot o' booze in the future.
The show notes are on Alex's site this time, after we worked on them together using Google Wave. Have you heard about this thing? I got a random invite a few weeks back and let the service sit because I didn't know what to do with it. Now that I have friends on there as well as an entire community of Bitmob writers, I'm checking my waves daily to see what's going on.
In this case, Alex wrote the notes before we talked as an outline for our discussion. After we recorded I edited them, adding specific topics we brought up or articles we referenced. then put those into a wave that he and I could view. I added links to each item as needed while he was editing the show. When he was done, he looked at the notes and edited them to better reflect what made the final cut and what didn't. In the end, he was able to copy and paste the material from the wave, links and all, right onto his site. And unlike last time, the wave allowed us to collaborate and get the notes ready to be posted alongside the show. It's pretty cool.
Sure, I haven't seen anything in Google Wave that couldn't be done over e-mail, but the online nature of Wave makes collaborations like this a lot easier. Some of the stuff we're doing for Bitmob would be way too much of a hassle to attempt via e-mail, as dozens of different people are reading and responding in a single conversation would become an illegible mess of quoted text.
If you're on Google Wave, look me up. You can already guess what my username is. If you're wondering what it's like, you can ask me for an invite. Please note that you need a Google account to use Wave, but if you have Gmail that should count.
Labels: Alex, Bitmob, friends, Google Wave, podcast, The DoFuss Show, writing
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
I Hate the 00s: Video Game Movies
No doubt, the last ten years have seen some wonderful movies come and go. You know one thing that all the great movies of the 00s have in common? They sure as hell weren't based on any video games! Yes, today's disappointment of the decade is the state of game-based movies: not only do they suck, they're getting worse.
I'm sure it's very, very hard to make a successful film from a critical or financial standpoint (to say nothing of both). One easy way to get people in the seats is to make a movie based on a known property. In the 1990s Hollywood dabbled in movies based on popular video games. The results were pretty abysmal; I'd argue that the only one of the bunch worth a damn is Mortal Kombat (1995) because it gets most of the characters right and they spend most of the film fighting each other. Then they tried to make a sequel and pissed away what little momentum the series had.
However, it takes time to get these things right. Movies and games are two very different mediums for storytelling, and the latter has only really begun to dabble in that department in the last twenty years or so. As games develop their narrative chops and, in this era of high-resolution graphics and performances from actual actors, crib more cinematic techniques as they go, movies and games should slowly converge, right?
Looking at the past ten years, the answer is a resounding "fuck no." Video game based movies seem to be the dumping ground for any and every cliched action script that only the hackiest of hacks can spit out. The process seems to be: [A] acquire rights to video game license [B] hire somebody to write a script based purely on the title of said game [C] release the resulting mess into theaters and watch it end up on DVD six weeks later. [D] Profit, I guess, because they keep doing this shit.
Look at Uwe Boll's first outing into game cinema, House of the Dead (2003). I'm hardly a fan of the original series of games, but I've played/seen them enough to know that they center around secret agents shooting zombies. Somehow the movie is about a group of teens who take a party boat to "Death Island" and wind up being attacked by the undead. Eventually there is one scene of shooting zombies and it's nothing but a long Matrix-inspired sequence of low-budget bullet time. Curiously, clips of the real game are actually edited into the movie, almost as a reminder as to what the story should be about, but isn't.
By all accounts, House of the Dead was a failure but Uwe Boll got to make another video game movie which managed to out-suck his first one. Alone in the Dark (2005) is the kind of film that routinely shows up on "worst movie ever made" lists and has been thoroughly mocked by the Agony Booth and The Nostalgia Critic, among others. Yet someone made their money back because Uwe Boll kept making movies, quickly cementing himself as a crap merchant dealing exclusively in video game properties. When video game companies license negotiate movie rights now, they demand a say in picking the director solely to avoid this guy (it's known as the "Uwe Boll Clause" and I'm sure they're only half-joking).
It wasn't just Uwe Boll though. Look at the Resident Evil trilogy of films which range from mediocre to OMG-awful yet a fourth film is on the way. Those games are extremely cinematic in their presentations, relying heavily on voice acting and camera angles from the beginning. It should have been an easy adaptation to make, but someone decided to gut the story and just turn it into another zombie movie and not a particularly good one. There's also a litany of forgettable movies based on fighting games like Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, D.O.A. with more on the way. No, I won't mention them by name because they make my brain hurt.
The future of video game movies is bright, at least in comparison to what we've got now. The Prince of Persia movie seems to have a lot of money behind it and a decent leading man, but I'm not holding my breath. It's not like Jerry Bruckheimer hasn't disappointed in the past. Even if that movie fails, I hope someone eventually figures out that games have stories worth telling because a good video game movie would be spectacular. If a fan-made zero-budget short like Turbo can at least approximate the excitement of a fake video game, why can't a multi-million dollar production even come close to a real one?
This represents Part 5 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
つづく...(Click here to read more)
I'm sure it's very, very hard to make a successful film from a critical or financial standpoint (to say nothing of both). One easy way to get people in the seats is to make a movie based on a known property. In the 1990s Hollywood dabbled in movies based on popular video games. The results were pretty abysmal; I'd argue that the only one of the bunch worth a damn is Mortal Kombat (1995) because it gets most of the characters right and they spend most of the film fighting each other. Then they tried to make a sequel and pissed away what little momentum the series had.
However, it takes time to get these things right. Movies and games are two very different mediums for storytelling, and the latter has only really begun to dabble in that department in the last twenty years or so. As games develop their narrative chops and, in this era of high-resolution graphics and performances from actual actors, crib more cinematic techniques as they go, movies and games should slowly converge, right?
Looking at the past ten years, the answer is a resounding "fuck no." Video game based movies seem to be the dumping ground for any and every cliched action script that only the hackiest of hacks can spit out. The process seems to be: [A] acquire rights to video game license [B] hire somebody to write a script based purely on the title of said game [C] release the resulting mess into theaters and watch it end up on DVD six weeks later. [D] Profit, I guess, because they keep doing this shit.
Look at Uwe Boll's first outing into game cinema, House of the Dead (2003). I'm hardly a fan of the original series of games, but I've played/seen them enough to know that they center around secret agents shooting zombies. Somehow the movie is about a group of teens who take a party boat to "Death Island" and wind up being attacked by the undead. Eventually there is one scene of shooting zombies and it's nothing but a long Matrix-inspired sequence of low-budget bullet time. Curiously, clips of the real game are actually edited into the movie, almost as a reminder as to what the story should be about, but isn't.
By all accounts, House of the Dead was a failure but Uwe Boll got to make another video game movie which managed to out-suck his first one. Alone in the Dark (2005) is the kind of film that routinely shows up on "worst movie ever made" lists and has been thoroughly mocked by the Agony Booth and The Nostalgia Critic, among others. Yet someone made their money back because Uwe Boll kept making movies, quickly cementing himself as a crap merchant dealing exclusively in video game properties. When video game companies license negotiate movie rights now, they demand a say in picking the director solely to avoid this guy (it's known as the "Uwe Boll Clause" and I'm sure they're only half-joking).
It wasn't just Uwe Boll though. Look at the Resident Evil trilogy of films which range from mediocre to OMG-awful yet a fourth film is on the way. Those games are extremely cinematic in their presentations, relying heavily on voice acting and camera angles from the beginning. It should have been an easy adaptation to make, but someone decided to gut the story and just turn it into another zombie movie and not a particularly good one. There's also a litany of forgettable movies based on fighting games like Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, D.O.A. with more on the way. No, I won't mention them by name because they make my brain hurt.
The future of video game movies is bright, at least in comparison to what we've got now. The Prince of Persia movie seems to have a lot of money behind it and a decent leading man, but I'm not holding my breath. It's not like Jerry Bruckheimer hasn't disappointed in the past. Even if that movie fails, I hope someone eventually figures out that games have stories worth telling because a good video game movie would be spectacular. If a fan-made zero-budget short like Turbo can at least approximate the excitement of a fake video game, why can't a multi-million dollar production even come close to a real one?
This represents Part 5 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
Labels: House of the Dead, I hate the 00s, movies, Resident Evil, Uwe Boll, video games
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Listus Interruptus
Sorry to break the flow of this 00 retrospective, but I figured this would be of interest.
I've often communicated my enthusiasm for the PixelJunk brand of games on the PlayStation Network. Every since I bought a PS3 last year, I have found myself drawn towards their distinctive, addictive little games. When they finally released PixelJunk Shooter last week, their first completely original product of 2009, I was incredibly excited. I played through it as quickly as possible so I could write a review.
That review is on Bitmob right now, but after posting it last night I was stunned to see another writer had posted his own thoughts on the game and they were already splashed across the front page. It was an awkward moment for me, because while I was disappointed that someone else got the front-page treatment over me, I was really impressed by what he wrote. Bottom line: we both love the game, so you should consider buying it. Even though I've "finished" the game I've still got things to go back and collect.
Look for my list to continue very soon, although some year-end writing opportunities may cause additional delays. But hey, either way I'll be writing something, so be sure to stay tuned.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
I've often communicated my enthusiasm for the PixelJunk brand of games on the PlayStation Network. Every since I bought a PS3 last year, I have found myself drawn towards their distinctive, addictive little games. When they finally released PixelJunk Shooter last week, their first completely original product of 2009, I was incredibly excited. I played through it as quickly as possible so I could write a review.
That review is on Bitmob right now, but after posting it last night I was stunned to see another writer had posted his own thoughts on the game and they were already splashed across the front page. It was an awkward moment for me, because while I was disappointed that someone else got the front-page treatment over me, I was really impressed by what he wrote. Bottom line: we both love the game, so you should consider buying it. Even though I've "finished" the game I've still got things to go back and collect.
Look for my list to continue very soon, although some year-end writing opportunities may cause additional delays. But hey, either way I'll be writing something, so be sure to stay tuned.
Labels: Bitmob, PixelJunk, PS3, video games, writing
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Monday, December 14, 2009
I Love the 00s: Dystopian Laugh Riots
Let's transition from the the disappointment of the Dreamcast by highlighting two brilliant movies that predict a less-than rosy future for the human race. These are two of my favorite movies of the past ten years but even though they're both comedies that doesn't mean they don't also carry a message: we're on the wrong track.
WALL-E (2008): Pixar has been on a real roll in recent years, but WALL-E was a particularly remarkable achievement. This is a movie starring a barely-humanoid garbage-sorting robot with minimal vocal capacity and it manages to be more charming than all the "celebrity-voiced cute animal movies" put together. The eponymous WALL-E looks a little like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit in that he has a "head" and "arms" but tire treads instead of legs. He can't crack jokes or wax philosophically about "no disassemble" but he doesn't have to. Through pantomime and the occasional recitation of his own name, he communicates exactly what's on his mind to the audience.
WALL-E is almost two movies in one. The first is WALL-E sorting trash on our planet centuries after we high-tailed it into outer space. The second is WALL-E's encounter with a bio-seeking probe which leads him back to the robot-driven ship that initiated the search. As amazing as this sounds, laughs and tears permeate both halves of the story. While the ending may be a little too happy for the children's sake, I'll be damned if I wasn't stirred a little bit in my cold, cold heart when that musical cue from 2001: A Space Odyssey pops up during the climax.
Idiocracy (2006): Here's a movie that went criminally unnoticed in theaters, something made all the more insulting when you realize that director Mike Judge's previous feature Office Space met the same unfortunate fate. At this rate his next film will open in two theaters in North Dakota on a Tuesday night before finding a cult audience on DVD.
Idiocracy is a grand satirical comedy that shares a few traits with Woody Allen's hit Sleeper: both films center on a regular guy who wakes up in the distant future, alone in a world he barely recognizes. But while Woody awoke to an advanced society with robot butlers and orgasmatrons, Luke Wilson in Idiocracy finds himself in a world where the lowest common denominator has taken over. Famine is widespread because no one knows how to raise crops, the blockbuster of the era is an exclusively fart-driven epic called Ass and the main news source is, of course, Fox News. One wonders whether 20th Century Fox, the producers of Idiocracy, found that particular plot point offensive or good corporate synergy. Neither would surprise me.
Both Wall-E and Idiocracy take place on an Earth that has collapsed under the weight of our society's worst habits and corporate indifference to their own wicked deeds. The good news is that despite that bleak premise, both films are guaranteed to cheer you up: WALL-E for its robot love story and the eventual redemption of the human race and Idiocracy for its dead-on, hilarious take on our celebration of ignorance. Personally, I don't think an Ass-like movie is more than forty years away, tops.
This represents Part 4 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
つづく...(Click here to read more)
WALL-E (2008): Pixar has been on a real roll in recent years, but WALL-E was a particularly remarkable achievement. This is a movie starring a barely-humanoid garbage-sorting robot with minimal vocal capacity and it manages to be more charming than all the "celebrity-voiced cute animal movies" put together. The eponymous WALL-E looks a little like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit in that he has a "head" and "arms" but tire treads instead of legs. He can't crack jokes or wax philosophically about "no disassemble" but he doesn't have to. Through pantomime and the occasional recitation of his own name, he communicates exactly what's on his mind to the audience.
WALL-E is almost two movies in one. The first is WALL-E sorting trash on our planet centuries after we high-tailed it into outer space. The second is WALL-E's encounter with a bio-seeking probe which leads him back to the robot-driven ship that initiated the search. As amazing as this sounds, laughs and tears permeate both halves of the story. While the ending may be a little too happy for the children's sake, I'll be damned if I wasn't stirred a little bit in my cold, cold heart when that musical cue from 2001: A Space Odyssey pops up during the climax.
Idiocracy (2006): Here's a movie that went criminally unnoticed in theaters, something made all the more insulting when you realize that director Mike Judge's previous feature Office Space met the same unfortunate fate. At this rate his next film will open in two theaters in North Dakota on a Tuesday night before finding a cult audience on DVD.
Idiocracy is a grand satirical comedy that shares a few traits with Woody Allen's hit Sleeper: both films center on a regular guy who wakes up in the distant future, alone in a world he barely recognizes. But while Woody awoke to an advanced society with robot butlers and orgasmatrons, Luke Wilson in Idiocracy finds himself in a world where the lowest common denominator has taken over. Famine is widespread because no one knows how to raise crops, the blockbuster of the era is an exclusively fart-driven epic called Ass and the main news source is, of course, Fox News. One wonders whether 20th Century Fox, the producers of Idiocracy, found that particular plot point offensive or good corporate synergy. Neither would surprise me.
Both Wall-E and Idiocracy take place on an Earth that has collapsed under the weight of our society's worst habits and corporate indifference to their own wicked deeds. The good news is that despite that bleak premise, both films are guaranteed to cheer you up: WALL-E for its robot love story and the eventual redemption of the human race and Idiocracy for its dead-on, hilarious take on our celebration of ignorance. Personally, I don't think an Ass-like movie is more than forty years away, tops.
This represents Part 4 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
Labels: I love the 00s, Idiocracy, movies, sci-fi, WALL-E
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Saturday, December 12, 2009
I Hate the 00s: My Dearly Departed Dreamcast
We've had some fun so far in my look back at the 00s, but now it's time to start with the bad news. Leading off my top disappointments of the past decade is the demise of the Sega Dreamcast.
I've already written an essay looking back at the Dreamcast with fondness that appeared on Bitmob to celebrate the console's ten year anniversary. Even though it famously launched on 9/9/99, I doubt I played it much until the year 2000. It was a slow starter for me, something I bought out of obligation or boredom (perhaps both) but then left to gather dust because I was busy with other games. I'm sure The King of Fighters '99 was occupying most of my spare time that fall - that or KOF '98.
Of course, those 2D fighters ended up being my favorite thing about the Dreamcast. There were plenty of other wonderful games for the system (Chu Chu Rocket, Crazy Taxi, Jet Grind Radio and Seaman leap to mind) but the ones my friends and I latched onto were the stunning ports of our favorite arcade fighters. Even games we owned in flawless Neo Geo form (that is to say, arcade-perfect) we ended up replaying on the Dreamcast due to the 3D backgrounds and extra characters.
That love of 2D arcade ports is what kept us playing the Dreamcast long after the rest of US gave up. Whether it was the less-than-stellar sales or the looming specter of the PlayStation 2 (probably both), Sega of America threw in the towel in early 2001. Japan kept going for a little while and I was absolutely the type of gamer who paid big bucks in Chinatown for imported software. Don't forget, I own a Neo Geo. Those cartridges cost more than most consoles, so a $80 disc is peanuts by comparison.
The Dreamcast is typically labeled as "ahead of its time" due to the built-in modem, online gaming functionality and the free web browser that came with the system. Unfortunately, they didn't think ahead to include a DVD drive like the PS2 did. Instead they went with a proprietary disc that, while not an odd shape like the GameCube discs, probably cost them customers who might have taken the plunge if they got a movie player as well as a game machine. But that ultimately was precisely what the Dreamcast was: a game machine. A really, really fun game machine that catered to people who loved video games. Who would have guessed that in the 21st century, that wouldn't be good enough?
Well, Sony did. And Microsoft. And Nintendo, eventually.
This represents Part 3 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
For more on the Dreamcast, I highly recommend comprehensive overview of the console's life and death by Jeremy Parish.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
I've already written an essay looking back at the Dreamcast with fondness that appeared on Bitmob to celebrate the console's ten year anniversary. Even though it famously launched on 9/9/99, I doubt I played it much until the year 2000. It was a slow starter for me, something I bought out of obligation or boredom (perhaps both) but then left to gather dust because I was busy with other games. I'm sure The King of Fighters '99 was occupying most of my spare time that fall - that or KOF '98.
Of course, those 2D fighters ended up being my favorite thing about the Dreamcast. There were plenty of other wonderful games for the system (Chu Chu Rocket, Crazy Taxi, Jet Grind Radio and Seaman leap to mind) but the ones my friends and I latched onto were the stunning ports of our favorite arcade fighters. Even games we owned in flawless Neo Geo form (that is to say, arcade-perfect) we ended up replaying on the Dreamcast due to the 3D backgrounds and extra characters.
That love of 2D arcade ports is what kept us playing the Dreamcast long after the rest of US gave up. Whether it was the less-than-stellar sales or the looming specter of the PlayStation 2 (probably both), Sega of America threw in the towel in early 2001. Japan kept going for a little while and I was absolutely the type of gamer who paid big bucks in Chinatown for imported software. Don't forget, I own a Neo Geo. Those cartridges cost more than most consoles, so a $80 disc is peanuts by comparison.
The Dreamcast is typically labeled as "ahead of its time" due to the built-in modem, online gaming functionality and the free web browser that came with the system. Unfortunately, they didn't think ahead to include a DVD drive like the PS2 did. Instead they went with a proprietary disc that, while not an odd shape like the GameCube discs, probably cost them customers who might have taken the plunge if they got a movie player as well as a game machine. But that ultimately was precisely what the Dreamcast was: a game machine. A really, really fun game machine that catered to people who loved video games. Who would have guessed that in the 21st century, that wouldn't be good enough?
Well, Sony did. And Microsoft. And Nintendo, eventually.
This represents Part 3 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
For more on the Dreamcast, I highly recommend comprehensive overview of the console's life and death by Jeremy Parish.
Labels: Dreamcast, I hate the 00s, Neo Geo, video games
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Thursday, December 10, 2009
I Love the 00s: Chappelle!
Today my series on the 00s continues with one that's both a favorite and a disappointment, in a way: Chappelle's Show (Comedy Central, 2003-2006). It was easily my most revered show on television at the time and my friends and I watched it together with great joy, but then it suddenly fell apart and its star has all but disappeared from the Earth. Are you out there, Dave? We miss you, please come back!
I've always been a sucker for stand-up comedy (hey, I grew up in the 80s) and Dave Chappelle was certainly one of my favorites. He made frequent appearances on The Howard Stern Show and his movie Half-Baked (1998) was really funny considering it was basically a movie about smoking pot. Dave also had a habit of playing bit parts and stealing scenes in popular movies like The Nutty Professor (1996), Con Air (1997) and Undercover Brother (2002). So when I first saw ads on TV and in the subway for Chappelle's Show, I remember being really psyched. As ridiculous as it sounds, it felt like someone I knew was getting his big break after years of toiling in the shadows.
The show (and Dave) did not disappoint. Sketch comedy shows are notoriously slow starters with a low hit-to-miss gag ratio. Chappelle's Show opened strong with a lengthy sketch in the first episode about a blind member of the KKK who is completely unaware that he is black. One of my favorite lines was when he angrily denounces a group of white teens as "niggers" because they are listening to rap music. Initially confused, the boys decide he was actually paying them a compliment. The sketch played on traditional stereotypes and didn't pull any punches when it came to racial epitaphs, foreshadowing the direction the show would take.
Consider another famous sketch from the third episode, "Reparations." Presented as a newscast on the day that the United States pays out billions of dollars to the descendants of slaves, all of the jokes hinge on familiar tropes. KFC reaps huge financial rewards, tens of thousands of new rap labels are created and a friendly black weatherman is suddenly decked out in "bling" and mocking the white news anchor (both roles, of course, played by Dave in heavy makeup).
The show wasn't just slinging racial barbs around, it was actually toying with these prejudices for laughs. A favorite sketch of mine from the first season was "The Mad Real World." After pointing out how reality shows like The Real World tended to feature a single outrageous minority surrounded by white people whom lament his or her behavior, "The Mad Real World" reverses it by having a lone white man living with six black roommates. His behavior is singled out as weird from the start even though the others are absurdly confrontational and violent. In other words, when seven caricatures live together, the odd man out is humiliated no matter what he does.
The show only got better in the second season, highlighted by the now-infamous "Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories" segments and an outrageous guest appearance by Wayne Brady. As its popularity soared and its new-found catchphrases began spreading across the country, the sky seemed to be the limit. When Dave signed a gigantic contract for two additional seasons of Chappelle's Show, I again felt oddly vindicated as if a friend had won the lottery.
And then...what happened? I guess no one will ever know the entire truth. Somehow Dave ended up in Africa for either a head-clearing vacation or a trip to a mental institution, depending on which magazine you believed at the time. The show went on an extended hiatus but even when Dave returned to the US, he never went back to the set. Eventually the network took what footage they had and cobbled together three pathetic "lost episodes" that were just painful to watch. It wasn't that they didn't have comedic value, it was the context that made them unwatchable.
In the five years since, I haven't heard of anything Dave Chappelle has done. The internet suggests he went back to stand-up, but is that entirely by choice? Maybe he retired, soured from the entire show business experience. Maybe he was blackballed for walking away from a $50 million payday. All I do know is that his departure stings, like having a friend move away without leaving a forwarding address.
At least we'll always have "I'm Rick James, bitch." *sniff*
This represents Part 2 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
つづく...(Click here to read more)
I've always been a sucker for stand-up comedy (hey, I grew up in the 80s) and Dave Chappelle was certainly one of my favorites. He made frequent appearances on The Howard Stern Show and his movie Half-Baked (1998) was really funny considering it was basically a movie about smoking pot. Dave also had a habit of playing bit parts and stealing scenes in popular movies like The Nutty Professor (1996), Con Air (1997) and Undercover Brother (2002). So when I first saw ads on TV and in the subway for Chappelle's Show, I remember being really psyched. As ridiculous as it sounds, it felt like someone I knew was getting his big break after years of toiling in the shadows.
The show (and Dave) did not disappoint. Sketch comedy shows are notoriously slow starters with a low hit-to-miss gag ratio. Chappelle's Show opened strong with a lengthy sketch in the first episode about a blind member of the KKK who is completely unaware that he is black. One of my favorite lines was when he angrily denounces a group of white teens as "niggers" because they are listening to rap music. Initially confused, the boys decide he was actually paying them a compliment. The sketch played on traditional stereotypes and didn't pull any punches when it came to racial epitaphs, foreshadowing the direction the show would take.
Consider another famous sketch from the third episode, "Reparations." Presented as a newscast on the day that the United States pays out billions of dollars to the descendants of slaves, all of the jokes hinge on familiar tropes. KFC reaps huge financial rewards, tens of thousands of new rap labels are created and a friendly black weatherman is suddenly decked out in "bling" and mocking the white news anchor (both roles, of course, played by Dave in heavy makeup).
The show wasn't just slinging racial barbs around, it was actually toying with these prejudices for laughs. A favorite sketch of mine from the first season was "The Mad Real World." After pointing out how reality shows like The Real World tended to feature a single outrageous minority surrounded by white people whom lament his or her behavior, "The Mad Real World" reverses it by having a lone white man living with six black roommates. His behavior is singled out as weird from the start even though the others are absurdly confrontational and violent. In other words, when seven caricatures live together, the odd man out is humiliated no matter what he does.
The show only got better in the second season, highlighted by the now-infamous "Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories" segments and an outrageous guest appearance by Wayne Brady. As its popularity soared and its new-found catchphrases began spreading across the country, the sky seemed to be the limit. When Dave signed a gigantic contract for two additional seasons of Chappelle's Show, I again felt oddly vindicated as if a friend had won the lottery.
And then...what happened? I guess no one will ever know the entire truth. Somehow Dave ended up in Africa for either a head-clearing vacation or a trip to a mental institution, depending on which magazine you believed at the time. The show went on an extended hiatus but even when Dave returned to the US, he never went back to the set. Eventually the network took what footage they had and cobbled together three pathetic "lost episodes" that were just painful to watch. It wasn't that they didn't have comedic value, it was the context that made them unwatchable.
In the five years since, I haven't heard of anything Dave Chappelle has done. The internet suggests he went back to stand-up, but is that entirely by choice? Maybe he retired, soured from the entire show business experience. Maybe he was blackballed for walking away from a $50 million payday. All I do know is that his departure stings, like having a friend move away without leaving a forwarding address.
At least we'll always have "I'm Rick James, bitch." *sniff*
This represents Part 2 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
Labels: Chappelle's Show, I love the 00s, television
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
I Love the 00s: Aughties Animation
It's funny that anime helped fuel my interest in Japan and the Japanese language, but now that I live here I hardly follow the field at all. That's not my fault though, that's just a statement on where anime has ended up. To kick off my 00 retrospective, here are four animated works (two Japanese, two American) that I hold near and dear to my heart.
Futurama (FOX, 1999-2003, plus four DVD movies): I consider it a cosmic tragedy that this brilliant sort-of spin-off of The Simpsons was run aground after four short seasons while that painfully unfunny juggernaut of a show continues to amuse no one every Sunday night.
Unlike The Simpsons which slowly found its way from overly sentimental, crudely animated fluff to comic genius, Futurama hit the ground running. The premise was surprisingly simple: take a know-nothing delivery boy and catapult him a thousand years into the future. While the show was happy to make occasional fish-out-of-water jokes (i.e. Fry's ignorance that "Christmas" had been replaced by "Xmas" and Santa was now a terrifying killbot) they also allowed Fry's simplicity to let him adapt to the future in a hurry.
I don't think it's simply my love of science-fiction that got me hooked on Futurama, I think the show nailed that delicate balance between absurdist humor and genuine character development and interaction. One moment the crew of the Planet Express ship is hopping through boxes into alternate universes, the next they're reflecting on how different their lives could have been if only that coin had come up heads...or tails.
The Venture Bros. (Adult Swim, 2003-present): It's funny to me that The Venture Bros. seems totally out of place among the Adult Swim lineup of barely-animated stoner humor and FOX reruns yet I couldn't imagine it running on any other network. Many shows on AS are rated TV-M for "mature" while they are anything but; the rating simply allows them to use gratuitous violence, pixelated nudity and beeped-out curse words. The Venture Bros has its share of violence, sexuality and profanity to be sure, but it's actually presented as part of a comprehensive story that's getting more complicated by the week. I swear the fourth season premiere delivered more exposition, laughs and intrigue in thirty minutes than most major network programming, animated or otherwise.
Summarizing The Venture Bros. is probably impossible. At the heart of the story is a failed "super-scientist," his washed-out special agent bodyguard, and his delusional twins who fancy themselves detectives, adventurers or anything other than the sheltered naive boys that they truly are. The family is tormented by a madman who dresses like a butterfly while they are occasionally assisted by an oddball "necromancer" and two scientists who live in a trailer park. In short, everyone on the show is a complete mess, yet after watching an episode or two I defy you to not care about every single one of them. When a relatively minor character died at the end of season three, I was stunned and more than a little dejected. He felt more human than either of the dead doctors on House.
Millennium Actress (2001, Japan): I first heard of director Satoshi Kon when I watched the credits after his stirring, twisted thriller Perfect Blue (1997). I never would have guessed his next film would be stirring, twisted love story nor that it would actually make me cry. I'm not normally the type to do that but even on repeat viewings I have to restrain myself during the final montage.
Millennium Actress tells the tale of a filmmaker who tracks down a reclusive, long-retired actress Chiyoko Fujiwara for an in-depth interview. As he sits down with her to talk about the past, he and his cameraman find themselves embedded in her flashbacks and fluctuating between Chiyoko's life story and the movies she made. It's just as disorientating as it was in Perfect Blue, only this time the technique is used to delight rather than horrify. The music is wonderful as well, particularly during the rapid-fire sequences where the characters run from era to era and movie genre to genre across Chiyoko's memories/fantasies. Much like Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress is an adult movie that is perfectly suited for animation because it allows the director to seamlessly blend together what's real and what's not.
Paranoia Agent (WOWOW, 2004): Another Satoshi Kon creation, Paranoia Agent is a thirteen-episode mini-series that originally aired on Japanese satellite TV before being horribly dubbed and shown on Adult Swim. While many characters come and go, the central story revolves around a young woman who is attacked one night by a boy with a bat on inline skates. As the police investigate, the story of Shonen Bat (literally "bat boy" in Japanese) spreads across the country. Hung onto the main story are several smaller tales of individuals whose lives are spinning out of control, only to come into contact with Shonen Bat. Soon reports of bat attacks and potential suspects dominate the public's attention.
I saw this series shortly before spending an entire year in Japan as an exchange student That experience really enhanced my enjoyment of Paranoia Agent because I saw first hand how quickly news can spread in this country. A single violent crime, diet fad or comedy punchline can captivate millions of people in a hurry. Even if you've never lived in Japan, this is an easily relatable and highly entertaining tale of media frenzy and its effects on a frightened populace. I certainly didn't see the demented twist coming.
This represents Part 1 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Futurama (FOX, 1999-2003, plus four DVD movies): I consider it a cosmic tragedy that this brilliant sort-of spin-off of The Simpsons was run aground after four short seasons while that painfully unfunny juggernaut of a show continues to amuse no one every Sunday night.
Unlike The Simpsons which slowly found its way from overly sentimental, crudely animated fluff to comic genius, Futurama hit the ground running. The premise was surprisingly simple: take a know-nothing delivery boy and catapult him a thousand years into the future. While the show was happy to make occasional fish-out-of-water jokes (i.e. Fry's ignorance that "Christmas" had been replaced by "Xmas" and Santa was now a terrifying killbot) they also allowed Fry's simplicity to let him adapt to the future in a hurry.
I don't think it's simply my love of science-fiction that got me hooked on Futurama, I think the show nailed that delicate balance between absurdist humor and genuine character development and interaction. One moment the crew of the Planet Express ship is hopping through boxes into alternate universes, the next they're reflecting on how different their lives could have been if only that coin had come up heads...or tails.
The Venture Bros. (Adult Swim, 2003-present): It's funny to me that The Venture Bros. seems totally out of place among the Adult Swim lineup of barely-animated stoner humor and FOX reruns yet I couldn't imagine it running on any other network. Many shows on AS are rated TV-M for "mature" while they are anything but; the rating simply allows them to use gratuitous violence, pixelated nudity and beeped-out curse words. The Venture Bros has its share of violence, sexuality and profanity to be sure, but it's actually presented as part of a comprehensive story that's getting more complicated by the week. I swear the fourth season premiere delivered more exposition, laughs and intrigue in thirty minutes than most major network programming, animated or otherwise.
Summarizing The Venture Bros. is probably impossible. At the heart of the story is a failed "super-scientist," his washed-out special agent bodyguard, and his delusional twins who fancy themselves detectives, adventurers or anything other than the sheltered naive boys that they truly are. The family is tormented by a madman who dresses like a butterfly while they are occasionally assisted by an oddball "necromancer" and two scientists who live in a trailer park. In short, everyone on the show is a complete mess, yet after watching an episode or two I defy you to not care about every single one of them. When a relatively minor character died at the end of season three, I was stunned and more than a little dejected. He felt more human than either of the dead doctors on House.
Millennium Actress (2001, Japan): I first heard of director Satoshi Kon when I watched the credits after his stirring, twisted thriller Perfect Blue (1997). I never would have guessed his next film would be stirring, twisted love story nor that it would actually make me cry. I'm not normally the type to do that but even on repeat viewings I have to restrain myself during the final montage.
Millennium Actress tells the tale of a filmmaker who tracks down a reclusive, long-retired actress Chiyoko Fujiwara for an in-depth interview. As he sits down with her to talk about the past, he and his cameraman find themselves embedded in her flashbacks and fluctuating between Chiyoko's life story and the movies she made. It's just as disorientating as it was in Perfect Blue, only this time the technique is used to delight rather than horrify. The music is wonderful as well, particularly during the rapid-fire sequences where the characters run from era to era and movie genre to genre across Chiyoko's memories/fantasies. Much like Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress is an adult movie that is perfectly suited for animation because it allows the director to seamlessly blend together what's real and what's not.
Paranoia Agent (WOWOW, 2004): Another Satoshi Kon creation, Paranoia Agent is a thirteen-episode mini-series that originally aired on Japanese satellite TV before being horribly dubbed and shown on Adult Swim. While many characters come and go, the central story revolves around a young woman who is attacked one night by a boy with a bat on inline skates. As the police investigate, the story of Shonen Bat (literally "bat boy" in Japanese) spreads across the country. Hung onto the main story are several smaller tales of individuals whose lives are spinning out of control, only to come into contact with Shonen Bat. Soon reports of bat attacks and potential suspects dominate the public's attention.
I saw this series shortly before spending an entire year in Japan as an exchange student That experience really enhanced my enjoyment of Paranoia Agent because I saw first hand how quickly news can spread in this country. A single violent crime, diet fad or comedy punchline can captivate millions of people in a hurry. Even if you've never lived in Japan, this is an easily relatable and highly entertaining tale of media frenzy and its effects on a frightened populace. I certainly didn't see the demented twist coming.
This represents Part 1 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
Labels: anime, Futurama, I love the 00s, Millennium Actress, movies, Paranoia Agent, Satoshi Kon, television, Venture Bros
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Monday, December 07, 2009
Let's Put a Bow on the 00s
I'm not normally a "count your chickens before they hatch" kind of guy, but I've got this idea that I want to let you know about it even before I really figure out how feasible it might be.
It has been brought to my attention that not only is 2009 coming to an end, but the entire decade of the 00s will soon be behind us. I've been reading the various lists over at The Onion AV Club and Insult Swordfighting and found myself thinking "I want in on that action" so I've quietly compiled two lists of my own. Unfortunately, I am not a professional critic so I do not have the requisite experience to truly lay down a gauntlet and declare something the "best" or "worst" of anything, let alone an entire decade.
Rather, I'm going to pick out and praise fifteen things that I absolutely loved and bemoan ten things that profoundly disappointed me over the last ten years. Actually, there's a lot more than twenty-five items on my lists because many of my entries will cover two or three different media creations that share a common theme (i.e. zombies). I didn't really do much research other than confirming that something I loved/loathed actually came out in the 00s as opposed to the 90s. Looking over my collection of favorites/blights I see a lot of movies, a fair number of television shows and video games, a few books and even a website. There's no music on my list, partly because I don't know how to write about music but mostly because I've all but abandoned listening to the radio or buying CDs so my tastes have stagnated.
I take some small comfort in the realization that I had a lot more things I wanted to herald than I wanted to bury, although that's also a reflection of my amateur status. As a consumer I tend to make pretty informed choices when it comes to media, so I steered clear some truly awful films/shows/games over the years. Professional critics don't have that luxury so while they got stuck watching Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever or playing Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, I certainly didn't. Most of the "bad" stuff on my list were disturbing trends in entertainment or movies that just let me down personally. So while I'm sure there were much worse things unleashed on the public in the past ten years, I either didn't see/play/read it or I saw it coming.
Also, I'm not numbering or ranking these. I've tried to order them in a way that will make for an entertaining read so the items are broken up by medium. Otherwise there might be a whole week of video game posts which would leave a few readers cold. I suppose I've tried to save the "bigger" ones for last, but I stress that I'm not trying to come up with a "number one" anything. I just want to tell you about things I remember fondly...and things I wish I could forget.
Assuming I write and post all of these in a timely fashion (and that's a big if) this project should conclude just as 2009 wraps up. I hope you'll enjoy it and possibly sound off in the comments section. That's right, you can click the bottom of every post I make and write what you think about it, remember?
Anyone?
Bueller?
つづく...(Click here to read more)
It has been brought to my attention that not only is 2009 coming to an end, but the entire decade of the 00s will soon be behind us. I've been reading the various lists over at The Onion AV Club and Insult Swordfighting and found myself thinking "I want in on that action" so I've quietly compiled two lists of my own. Unfortunately, I am not a professional critic so I do not have the requisite experience to truly lay down a gauntlet and declare something the "best" or "worst" of anything, let alone an entire decade.
Rather, I'm going to pick out and praise fifteen things that I absolutely loved and bemoan ten things that profoundly disappointed me over the last ten years. Actually, there's a lot more than twenty-five items on my lists because many of my entries will cover two or three different media creations that share a common theme (i.e. zombies). I didn't really do much research other than confirming that something I loved/loathed actually came out in the 00s as opposed to the 90s. Looking over my collection of favorites/blights I see a lot of movies, a fair number of television shows and video games, a few books and even a website. There's no music on my list, partly because I don't know how to write about music but mostly because I've all but abandoned listening to the radio or buying CDs so my tastes have stagnated.
I take some small comfort in the realization that I had a lot more things I wanted to herald than I wanted to bury, although that's also a reflection of my amateur status. As a consumer I tend to make pretty informed choices when it comes to media, so I steered clear some truly awful films/shows/games over the years. Professional critics don't have that luxury so while they got stuck watching Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever or playing Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, I certainly didn't. Most of the "bad" stuff on my list were disturbing trends in entertainment or movies that just let me down personally. So while I'm sure there were much worse things unleashed on the public in the past ten years, I either didn't see/play/read it or I saw it coming.
Also, I'm not numbering or ranking these. I've tried to order them in a way that will make for an entertaining read so the items are broken up by medium. Otherwise there might be a whole week of video game posts which would leave a few readers cold. I suppose I've tried to save the "bigger" ones for last, but I stress that I'm not trying to come up with a "number one" anything. I just want to tell you about things I remember fondly...and things I wish I could forget.
Assuming I write and post all of these in a timely fashion (and that's a big if) this project should conclude just as 2009 wraps up. I hope you'll enjoy it and possibly sound off in the comments section. That's right, you can click the bottom of every post I make and write what you think about it, remember?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Labels: I hate the 00s, I love the 00s, site news, writing
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Sunday, December 06, 2009
On The Road
First things first: I never would have heard of The Road were it not for this engaging Bitmob article by Tyler Miller on connecting games with other media. He compares The Road to Fallout 3 as both are set in a dreary post-apocalyptic United States. It was this recommendation that brought the book to my attention, and just in time too as the film version has been released in theaters.
Living in Japan as I do, I will not be in a position to see the movie for quite some time, but I did recently complete the book and I found it to be quite moving. I was impressed with how basic the narrative really was, even though the book provoked a lot of philosophical musing about how we define morality and why we live as we do.
The Road is certainly one of those books that, despite its exceptional quality, you can't simply recommend to people with the usual "I enjoyed it." It's a horrible book and by that I mean the story is full of horrible things, not that the story itself is horrible. Frankly, the story is kept to a bare minimum. The reader never learns what exactly caused the apocalypse, only that this man was alive to see it and his son was born afterwards, so the boy's only source of stories about the way things used to be is his father.
That last sentence reminds me of one thing about The Road that got on my nerves: there are no names or quotation marks in the book. There's the man and the boy and since both are male, there's copious amounts of just "he." When they talk their dialogue is not marked with quotes. While it's always obvious when someone is talking as opposed to the narration of the story, the speaker is often ambiguous. This often sent me back a page to re-read conversations to double check who exactly is talking, especially when the man meets other men who are also left anonymous. I can understand the stylistic choice, seeing how names no longer matter and part of the story is about the boy growing up to become his own man, but I'm not thrilled that clarity was a casualty of that choice.
An ambiguous element that I loved was how the story handled morality. The man frequently tells the boy they are "the good guys" and how they need to avoid "the bad guys." While they certainly encounter some outright monstrous people in their journey, there's seldom a stark difference between good and bad in their world. Everyone loots and guards what they have taken as if it is rightly theirs, often with deadly force. The man discourages the boy from helping others, a logical decision (since they have so little) but a harsh one that no doubt means they have inadvertently caused others to die through their neglect.
The world is a very complicated place. We all make choices everyday that could be viewed as right or wrong by others. I eat meat, for example, no doubt to the disgust of vegetarians and vegans around the world. I spend money on frivolities like video games and cable television, funds that would be better spent on my debts or given away to charity. However, these actions as a consumer benefit those businesses who provide these services, and those businesses have employees with families of their own who get paid with a portion of my money.
The Road removes all those abstractions from the equation and still presents a world where every choice is laden with hidden implications. Every morsel of food they scavenge is potentially taken from the mouth of another. The man always tells the boy that the things they find don't belong to anyone, but he has no way of knowing that. He presumes all unclaimed objects as ex-property of the dead, yet when someone takes their shopping cart one night he furiously tracks the culprit and makes him pay a high price for a crime he himself has committed countless times. When the boy tearfully objects, he defends his actions with a limp "that's what he did to us" argument.
The message that I took away from The Road is this: when the apocalypse comes there will be no good guys or bad guys among the survivors. There will only be survivors. The man and his son have no mission and no goal, only a vague notion that they should head south towards warmer climates. There is no MacGuffin in this tale, no object they need to deliver, no task they might fulfill to save the world or themselves.
The man tells the boy they are "carrying the fire," a statement that is never fully explained. My first thought was of Prometheus from Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. The gods condemned him to an eternity of suffering for his crime. I also pictured the Olympic flame as something which is carried great distances by a select few individuals.
While comparisons could be made to those ancient Greek concepts, particularly since the entire planet is suffering in the wake of a cataclysm, I think "the fire" they speak of is the will to live as humans and cling to whatever social order they can. The concept of personal property may have lost out to the rule of Finders Keepers, but the man and his son do abide by certain standards. They do not prey upon the weak, (knowingly) steal from others, nor do they engage in cannibalism. Not everyone in their world adheres to those rules, so the man takes it upon himself to raise his son to respect minimal ethical guidelines while still surviving.
It's hard to picture survival as a "choice" in our world, since I live my life each day without ever questioning the need to continue my existence. Yet in the world of The Road, that choice comes up and there is an argument against life. Why torture yourself to scrounge for every last scrap of food just so you can die a little bit later? It's not a famine or a long winter that can simply be endured until it ends, the world has been destroyed and no one is there to help. Often the man looks at his handgun and wonders if he should end their suffering, especially when they are starving or in immediate danger. I can't possibly imagine putting myself in his position and making that choice, but reading The Road was a way to contemplate such a painful decision.
Lest this sound like a depressing book, I assure you it is the exact opposite. I've had my struggles with depression from time to time. Reading a book like The Road is a head-clearer, a reminder that anyone in a position to read novels in their leisure time is living a life worth preserving. No matter how unpleasant things were for me, it never got as bad as this situation. I'm guessing anyone with the ability to read this blog is in the same position.
So the next time life has you down, grab a copy of The Road. It's not a long novel and by the end you'll be psyched to eat dinner, watch TV or do any number of casual activities. As for me, I think I'll take comfort in knowing that my son has all the food, clothes and love he could ever want.
For a slightly different version of this piece with some thoughts about how The Road might make an interesting video game, check out my Gamer Book Report on Bitmob.com.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Living in Japan as I do, I will not be in a position to see the movie for quite some time, but I did recently complete the book and I found it to be quite moving. I was impressed with how basic the narrative really was, even though the book provoked a lot of philosophical musing about how we define morality and why we live as we do.
The Road is certainly one of those books that, despite its exceptional quality, you can't simply recommend to people with the usual "I enjoyed it." It's a horrible book and by that I mean the story is full of horrible things, not that the story itself is horrible. Frankly, the story is kept to a bare minimum. The reader never learns what exactly caused the apocalypse, only that this man was alive to see it and his son was born afterwards, so the boy's only source of stories about the way things used to be is his father.
That last sentence reminds me of one thing about The Road that got on my nerves: there are no names or quotation marks in the book. There's the man and the boy and since both are male, there's copious amounts of just "he." When they talk their dialogue is not marked with quotes. While it's always obvious when someone is talking as opposed to the narration of the story, the speaker is often ambiguous. This often sent me back a page to re-read conversations to double check who exactly is talking, especially when the man meets other men who are also left anonymous. I can understand the stylistic choice, seeing how names no longer matter and part of the story is about the boy growing up to become his own man, but I'm not thrilled that clarity was a casualty of that choice.
An ambiguous element that I loved was how the story handled morality. The man frequently tells the boy they are "the good guys" and how they need to avoid "the bad guys." While they certainly encounter some outright monstrous people in their journey, there's seldom a stark difference between good and bad in their world. Everyone loots and guards what they have taken as if it is rightly theirs, often with deadly force. The man discourages the boy from helping others, a logical decision (since they have so little) but a harsh one that no doubt means they have inadvertently caused others to die through their neglect.
The world is a very complicated place. We all make choices everyday that could be viewed as right or wrong by others. I eat meat, for example, no doubt to the disgust of vegetarians and vegans around the world. I spend money on frivolities like video games and cable television, funds that would be better spent on my debts or given away to charity. However, these actions as a consumer benefit those businesses who provide these services, and those businesses have employees with families of their own who get paid with a portion of my money.
The Road removes all those abstractions from the equation and still presents a world where every choice is laden with hidden implications. Every morsel of food they scavenge is potentially taken from the mouth of another. The man always tells the boy that the things they find don't belong to anyone, but he has no way of knowing that. He presumes all unclaimed objects as ex-property of the dead, yet when someone takes their shopping cart one night he furiously tracks the culprit and makes him pay a high price for a crime he himself has committed countless times. When the boy tearfully objects, he defends his actions with a limp "that's what he did to us" argument.
The message that I took away from The Road is this: when the apocalypse comes there will be no good guys or bad guys among the survivors. There will only be survivors. The man and his son have no mission and no goal, only a vague notion that they should head south towards warmer climates. There is no MacGuffin in this tale, no object they need to deliver, no task they might fulfill to save the world or themselves.
The man tells the boy they are "carrying the fire," a statement that is never fully explained. My first thought was of Prometheus from Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. The gods condemned him to an eternity of suffering for his crime. I also pictured the Olympic flame as something which is carried great distances by a select few individuals.
While comparisons could be made to those ancient Greek concepts, particularly since the entire planet is suffering in the wake of a cataclysm, I think "the fire" they speak of is the will to live as humans and cling to whatever social order they can. The concept of personal property may have lost out to the rule of Finders Keepers, but the man and his son do abide by certain standards. They do not prey upon the weak, (knowingly) steal from others, nor do they engage in cannibalism. Not everyone in their world adheres to those rules, so the man takes it upon himself to raise his son to respect minimal ethical guidelines while still surviving.
It's hard to picture survival as a "choice" in our world, since I live my life each day without ever questioning the need to continue my existence. Yet in the world of The Road, that choice comes up and there is an argument against life. Why torture yourself to scrounge for every last scrap of food just so you can die a little bit later? It's not a famine or a long winter that can simply be endured until it ends, the world has been destroyed and no one is there to help. Often the man looks at his handgun and wonders if he should end their suffering, especially when they are starving or in immediate danger. I can't possibly imagine putting myself in his position and making that choice, but reading The Road was a way to contemplate such a painful decision.
Lest this sound like a depressing book, I assure you it is the exact opposite. I've had my struggles with depression from time to time. Reading a book like The Road is a head-clearer, a reminder that anyone in a position to read novels in their leisure time is living a life worth preserving. No matter how unpleasant things were for me, it never got as bad as this situation. I'm guessing anyone with the ability to read this blog is in the same position.
So the next time life has you down, grab a copy of The Road. It's not a long novel and by the end you'll be psyched to eat dinner, watch TV or do any number of casual activities. As for me, I think I'll take comfort in knowing that my son has all the food, clothes and love he could ever want.
For a slightly different version of this piece with some thoughts about how The Road might make an interesting video game, check out my Gamer Book Report on Bitmob.com.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Thursday, December 03, 2009
December? I Miss November.
Holy crap, it's December already. If time weren't already flying because I'm getting older AND having so much fun all the time, it's definitely quickening with every diaper I change. Seriously folks, if you want to completely warp your perception of time, have a kid.
For example, little Go is just past five months old already. He doesn't look any different, but each time we weigh/measure him the numbers don't lie: he's growing by leaps and bounds. Just take a look at the first week's worth of pictures we took and contrast them with these recent Twitpic shots (With Snoopy / With Mom and Cake / On a Scale). Now you see it, sure, but change like that is hard to spot when you see his li'l face everyday.
There's been a minor (major?) development in Go's, um, development. We've been waiting for him to start rolling over for quite some time now. According to some of the books Mako has, he should have done so by now. He certainly kicks a lot and can squirm his way around the bed when he's excited, but so far he hasn't rolled.
On Tuesday night we tried a little experiment. We rolled him onto his stomach to see if he could roll himself back into position. He did, more than once, though our attempts to record the feat have met with limited success. I've been told we should make a habit of these rolling sessions, as it apparently teaches him the coordination skills he needs to start crawling. As much as I'm looking forward to that particular stage, I'm less thrilled about all the cleaning up I'll have to do. There's a whole mess of wires and plugs in this apartment that should never be handled by a baby.
In very different developmental news, my writing was on a roll last month. Besides having four stories posted on Game|Life, my work on Bitmob got a lot of attention. The month started off great with my story about grinding in video games which got a lot of feedback and is, by far, my most popular Bitmob submission to date. More people have read that story in the last thirty days than have visited this entire website in the last three months!
Next, I was pleased to see that my suggestions of cheap/free games completely dominated their Bitmob Budget Games feature. I honestly thought they were only interested in games less than $10, otherwise I would have happily promoted the hell out of the PixelJunk series and given a shout-out to Bionic Commando: Rearmed, still my favorite game of 2008.
I was a little disappointed that no one took an interest in my thoughts on failure in cinematic games. I thought the Uncharted 2 angle would draw readers' attention but I guess all the hype surrounding that game was in October. I'm perpetually playing catch-up when it comes to video games that people are talking about because I progress through them so very slowly. It doesn't help that I have a choice of playing games or writing after Mako and Go fall asleep, and lately I've been choosing writing.
Not that I regret making that choice! I felt so jazzed after seeing Inglorious Basterds that I wrote two different posts on my blog about it as well as one item on Bitmob about how the movie made me want games that rely less on violence to provide conflict. That piece ended up on the front page earlier this week, much to my delight, and I was happy to hear that I'm not the only one out there who wants more non-violent games to play.
You can expect my thoughts on The Road very soon, both here and on Bitmob. I'm not sure what book I want to read next. Atlas Shrugged is just sitting around waiting to be picked up, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for another mega-text from Ayn Rand so soon after The Fountainhead. Frankly, all this fiction has given me a craving to return to non-fiction. I think the last one of those I read was The Chris Farley Show.
One more thing: in case you forgot, the family going to New York later this month. In fact, we're leaving in less than three weeks. Like I side, time is rocketing past my face these days. Slow down, life! I'm trying to enjoy the ride!
つづく...(Click here to read more)
For example, little Go is just past five months old already. He doesn't look any different, but each time we weigh/measure him the numbers don't lie: he's growing by leaps and bounds. Just take a look at the first week's worth of pictures we took and contrast them with these recent Twitpic shots (With Snoopy / With Mom and Cake / On a Scale). Now you see it, sure, but change like that is hard to spot when you see his li'l face everyday.
There's been a minor (major?) development in Go's, um, development. We've been waiting for him to start rolling over for quite some time now. According to some of the books Mako has, he should have done so by now. He certainly kicks a lot and can squirm his way around the bed when he's excited, but so far he hasn't rolled.
On Tuesday night we tried a little experiment. We rolled him onto his stomach to see if he could roll himself back into position. He did, more than once, though our attempts to record the feat have met with limited success. I've been told we should make a habit of these rolling sessions, as it apparently teaches him the coordination skills he needs to start crawling. As much as I'm looking forward to that particular stage, I'm less thrilled about all the cleaning up I'll have to do. There's a whole mess of wires and plugs in this apartment that should never be handled by a baby.
In very different developmental news, my writing was on a roll last month. Besides having four stories posted on Game|Life, my work on Bitmob got a lot of attention. The month started off great with my story about grinding in video games which got a lot of feedback and is, by far, my most popular Bitmob submission to date. More people have read that story in the last thirty days than have visited this entire website in the last three months!
Next, I was pleased to see that my suggestions of cheap/free games completely dominated their Bitmob Budget Games feature. I honestly thought they were only interested in games less than $10, otherwise I would have happily promoted the hell out of the PixelJunk series and given a shout-out to Bionic Commando: Rearmed, still my favorite game of 2008.
I was a little disappointed that no one took an interest in my thoughts on failure in cinematic games. I thought the Uncharted 2 angle would draw readers' attention but I guess all the hype surrounding that game was in October. I'm perpetually playing catch-up when it comes to video games that people are talking about because I progress through them so very slowly. It doesn't help that I have a choice of playing games or writing after Mako and Go fall asleep, and lately I've been choosing writing.
Not that I regret making that choice! I felt so jazzed after seeing Inglorious Basterds that I wrote two different posts on my blog about it as well as one item on Bitmob about how the movie made me want games that rely less on violence to provide conflict. That piece ended up on the front page earlier this week, much to my delight, and I was happy to hear that I'm not the only one out there who wants more non-violent games to play.
You can expect my thoughts on The Road very soon, both here and on Bitmob. I'm not sure what book I want to read next. Atlas Shrugged is just sitting around waiting to be picked up, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for another mega-text from Ayn Rand so soon after The Fountainhead. Frankly, all this fiction has given me a craving to return to non-fiction. I think the last one of those I read was The Chris Farley Show.
One more thing: in case you forgot, the family going to New York later this month. In fact, we're leaving in less than three weeks. Like I side, time is rocketing past my face these days. Slow down, life! I'm trying to enjoy the ride!
Labels: Bitmob, books, number one son, video games, writing
つづく...(Click here to read more)
