So it's summer (well, at least it is in places that have actually seen the sun in the past...10 months...not Seattle...) and rather than doing a bunch of individual posts about the upcoming summer movies and whether they are worth seeing, I thought I'd just post one BIG one and update it as time goes on. So without further pomp and/or circumstance... the summer movies:
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PRE ARTICLE QUESTION: How many times have you noticed "strobbing" in a movie? (hold on to that to thought)
I've been struggling for a while about what to write about next. Sure I could tell you how you should go out and see Rango or Source Code, but rottentomatoes could have told you that much. So after weeks of pondering, I think I've finally found it, and who would have guessed it, it's thanks to everybody's favorite, beard-rocking Kiwi, Mr. PJ Hobbitbottom. (that's Peter Jackson... to the lay-man)
Well, it wouldn't be fair to give PJ all the credit, but he's certainly the first to cast the die in what could the most consequential change to film & television in a century!!!! To paraphrase a once famous jazz singer, "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You ain't seen nothin' yet."
]]>The chances are by the time anyone reads this, the results will already be in, but rather waiting to analyze this year's Academy Awards, or simply join in the cacphonous blog-shout of the winners, I prefer to weigh in my opinions without the added, and pointless, baggage of passing judgemet on Hollywood's actual decisions.
Why 'The Social Network' shoud win best picture
The truly amazing thing is not that director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin managed to make a spectacular movie -- in fact it might be more suprising if they didn't -- but what's truly remarkable about The Social Network is that by all accounts this should have been a disaster of film.
As much as books and literature love a good anti-hero, film in general does not. In movies, we like to see our Daniel Plainviews succumb to madness, our Michael Corleones die alone and broken, or even better, our Riddicks turn out to be not such a bad guy afterall. Sorkin's Zuckerberg was neither of these. While it should be clearly stated that part of brilliance of this film was way Fincher & Sorkin constructured a brilliant drama via extraction and embellishment, the Zuckerberg of their story is this perfect balance between admirable genius and geniune asshole, and in the end, he can't really be seen as suffering too much for his crimes or being redeemed by his triumphs.
This duality hits home in a really discomforting way, as I think we can all see a little bit of ourselves in Jesse Eisenberg's scrappy portrayal of the Facebook founder. Without that unnerving flashlight into the human condition this movie very well could have been just another Pirates of Silicon Valley. But what elevates this film is despite being set against the advent of the 21st century's most influential contribution to culture to date, Facebook is not the star of the movie. Instead it is that honest, if somewhat magnified, duality of human nature that is brought to the forefront in the character of Mark Zuckerberg.
Fear of this kind of honesty, fear of a youth cultural Hollywood doesn't quite understand, fear of movie without out a clear happy or sad ending, all of these things could be reasons why The Social Network might not walk away with its deserving title, but whatever happens there is little doubt in my mind that of the ten nominated movies for best picture, this movie was the year's greatest, and one of worthy of counting itself amongst history's best.
Inception was a fun, good film. It was not a great film.
Why 'The King's Speech' could win best picture
The simple answer is that it's a great film. A really great film. The story of a stuttering king could have easily been Sunday night PBS fodder, but director Tom Hopper and writer David Seidler managed to take this period docu-drama and make it one of the most uplifting commentaries on the admirable qualities of mankind. Colin Firth's Oscar winning performance (see what I did there) wrenches every seat-squirming ounce of pain from watching a man struggle with his own ability speak, and for anyone who's ever experienced stage fright, it will tie your stomach in knots. And let's be honest, who doesn't want to hire Geoffery Rush to be their awesome uncle after watching this film? The movie is sweet without being sacchrine, it deftly avoids mellodrama, and it has by far the most entertaining use of profanity I have ever seen in a movie. And I've watched Snatch.
Should you definitely go out and watch this film immediately? Yes. Does it subversively unravel the complex grays of human nature? No.
So why does The King's Speech stand so good a chance at taken home Oscar gold?
Well, like all competitions, momentum is a serious thing to contend with. Despite my own personal opinions on best movie of the year, The King's Speech has walked away with two of the most predictive prizes in the business when it comes to forecasting the Academy. The director's guild and the producer's guild both awarded The King's Speech top honors over The Social Network, and this could represent a swing vote amongst the production heavy Academy membership. Now of couse The Social Network did walk away with the Golden Globe, but so did Avatar, Atonement, Babel, Brokeback Mountain, and The Aviator. For those keeping count, that's 5 wrong in the past 6 years.
Besides The Social Network being cursed with a Golden Globe, and this may sound cynical, but The King's Speech is a just a safer choice. It's a feel good movie that puts into the most positive light its hero. It doesn't come wrapped in the controversy of an embellished tale that somewhat besmirches a young billionaire who's influence reaches to more people than the members of the Academy could ever dream to compete with. Not mention Aaron Sorkin is already mired in political opinion from his work in The West Wing, and despite what George Clooney's smug cloud might tell you, the Academy does not like to get openly involved in "opinions." Remember, Crash beat Brokeback Mountain. Crash.
So we'll see what happens at Sunday's 83rd Annual Oscar-palooza, and there's a good chance whatever happens, no one will really care. I mean, how many of you actually watched The Hurt Locker?
Here's hoping that Banksy does something crazy.
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It's interesting. I'm sure I can't entirely blame the infrequency / total despondency of my once regularly updating blog to the seductive ease of the tweet, but it's amazing how easy it is to become satisfied with the occasional shout into the void when inspiration comes 140 characters at time.
I think it's clear based on my life/work schedule that the once lofty idea I had of this blog being a bustling factory of entertainment reviews and commentary was two parts naivety and ten parts pipe dream, but I have languished long enough that the urge to write in long form, as well as meticulously craft JQuery & CSS into something that's never quite good enough, compel me to start whittling away at my former hobby.
I think I may take a different tact with my blog, and you will probably see the look & feel of the site change accordingly. I was thinking today about the blogs I like to read, and I came up with two different categories: Blogs I read for breadth and blogs I read for depth.
My morning routine consists of the Pulse app for my iPad brimming from top to bottom with game, movie, and tech blogs. This is my USA Today, my Wall Street Journal. I've selected what I feel are the best producers of news in their respective fields and by reading several in each category, try to get a complete picture of the latest goings on in each particular field of interest. Now I'm not saying that these aren't well produced or well written blogs, on the contrary I find them to be the best of their breed, but the reason I consume them in an app like Pulse is so I can quickly ascertain all that is important and worthy of future follow-up before my bus reaches its destination. These are my breadth blogs.
Lets face it, Daily Monotony will never have 50 new posts a day. Daily Monotony will never be Kotaku. I am ok with that fact. :)
So if my morning routine apes the newspaper-reading subway jockeys of yesteryear, I guess my evening blog reading sessions would be akin to enjoying a fine glass of cognac while furtively deciphering the tomes of great philosophers. Well, I guess if cognac equals beer. Some might not find Penny Arcade's Jerry Holkins worthy of "great philospher" status, even in overtly facetious comparison, but I find his sometimes rambling, often insightful script mesmerizing to read. I often think "this is how my mind sounds before it gets ruined by my fingers." (trust me, that sound a hundred times better in my head). His candor on life and games and the overlap of two is exactly the kind of "depth" reading I enjoy, and maybe, from time to time, will attempt to recreate for your reading pleasure.
I know I will probably never attain the ease at which greats like Holkins pen thought into delectable morsels of Helvetica, but it seems like good trajectory to set. And when I get the urge to comment on the latest game or movie in a format where proper vowel use and double spaces after periods won't doom you to that cruel, red negative number, I figure more depth and more voice will help Daily Monotony on its way to improvement.
As the slogan at my place of work goes: "Do less, better."
As the slogan in your head goes: "tl;dr"
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Saturday, being a day usually free of the obligations of work, is always the busiest of all PAX days. And since each succeeding PAX grows in size, this Saturday was the busiest PAX day of all time. And despite being riddled with dangerous pathogens, awkward psycho-social disorders, and occasionally a somewhat "musky" odor, there is definitively no better way you could have spent Saturday September 4th, the-year-of-our-lord-two-thousand-and-ten, than bustling about with PAX's teaming masses.
While each year has seen an increase in attendees, it has also seen a consistent expansion of the Expo hall, where now nearly every major gaming label attends to share their upcoming work with their target audience.
The Expo hall of PAX represents a tremendous strength for the fan-based convention, though it also could and is seen as potential threat to what makes PAX so unique from the rest of the commercially driven cons.
Letting gamers have a hands-on, unfiltered by marketing, unfiltered by media experience with upcoming content is tremendously important to PAX. It provides legitimacy to the its place in the industry, as well as providing a unique chance for consumer and producer to meet together. Long lines to play demos, especially ones like the ill prepared-for Portal 2 line fiasco this morning, as well as the de-emphasizing of the community aspects of PAX (the table top, the Bring-Your-Own-Computer LAN, the exquisite panels, the indie diamonds in the rough) is a potential danger to preserving the heart & soul of PAX.
PAX should house the opportunities to connect gamers to games and to provide stages for developers to make big annoucements, just like E3. But PAX should not become E3. If anything, PAX has become almost E3-enough, and could stand get a little more GDC. Bring the IGF here. Bring more indie & struggling developers. PAX is a love fest, and let's balance it with games that need love as much as ones that take it for granted.
Sorry, that waxed a little philosophical. I'll summarize all the cool games I saw when I wrap things up later this holiday weekend.
Short version of Saturday: Portal 2 coop is cool, Force Unleashed 2 is fun, where the @#$% is the Nintendo 3DS
I attended an interesting panel on Friday where community managers for company's like Naughty Dog, Harmonix, and several other notable studios tried to glean from fans what it is they want from a gaming community experience. Connecting with other humans, fan & developer alike, was the resounding response.
PAX panels provide that experience. I am an avid follower of podcasts and other net based communities of like-minded individuals, and there is nothing like feeling apart of group than getting together face to face. From Garnett Lee's always entertaining Weekend Confirmed to the Totally Rad Show to Lucasarts, letting fans & content providers get together in the space physical space is something that, barring holodeck technology, we will never be able to substitute. I only wish there was more time to attend them all (sorry Rebel FM, Giantbomb, GFW, & all the rest).
Man, there I go all philosophical again. Sorry about that.
Check the tweets for more, but here's the brief findings from each panel I was able attend Saturday:
Weekend Confirmed
Good words about Hothead studios new game The Swarm. Need to check that out.
Tepid words about Gearbox's surprise showing of the unicorn-like Duke Nukem Forever.
Similar worries about the future of PAX as the Expo Hall grows bigger.
Crowd singing the Patrick Leahy song was a highlight of my day.
TRS
Big announcement: TRS will be moving from a weekly show to daily shows starting sometime in September (20th I think?)
Better words about the Duke from Alex & Danny (I'll give you my personal opinions after I play it Sunday)
Alex keeps his hair so awesome via use of Children's tears & Unicorn Urine.
(That last one was an inside joke, by the way)
Lucasarts
New level shown off for Force Unleashed 2: Kato Nemodia. Interesting "God of War"-like boss fight in it.
Establishing that The Old Republic MMO will indeed have all the goodness (or not in my opinion) of MMOs.
Darth Revan will be important to TOR's story somehow, and HK-47 returns at long last to mingle with we "meatbags."
I have I hard time coming up with new superlative statements each year, so let me see if I can describe my unbridled joy from the traditional PAX Saturday Paul & Storm & Joco concert in a different way:
I came into PAX feeling a little under the weather, and despite managing it with a strong regimen of vitamins and various other "stave it off" remedies, even when I've been enjoying the heck out of PAX, I've a little crappy, healthwise, this weekend.
Once the concerts started, I was temporarily removed to a plane of existence where my fatigue and ailments seemed not to exist. It was as if the happiness being generated by the indescribable kinship between musician and geek simply did not allow for things like exhaustion or bodily pain to exist. Of course now I feel like sh#t, but during those few wonderful hours, I forgot that I had ever been feeling bad today.
Saturday concerts are something special. If you are of the geek persuasion in the slightest, I highly recommend attending one in your lifetime.
And with that, I will let the utter exhaustion and early onset PAX Pox settle in, and let delirium drift into dream. Talk to you again Sunday.
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First and foremost: AT&T. What the frikking heck (words sanitized for family viewing).
Despite my claim of being a fountain of unceasing tweets, the lack of a function network foiled, for the most part, my plan to keep the tubes crammed full of my latest PAX experiences. Let's hope for a better tomorrow.
Warren Spector is practically the grandfather of gaming. He boast more clout and additionally more wisdom than any other American game designer. He's seen his share of highs (Wing Commander, Deus Ex) and equal parts incredible lows (Ion Storm...shudder). While his speech was less tribe-building and gamer self-adulation than previous PAX keynote speakers, he brought exactly what gamers need for the times we live in: Sound, wise, advice.
To put it in his own words "Geeks have inherited the earth. Now we need to figure out what to do with it." I'm confident under Warren's watchful gaze, we'll do right by the world.
Unfortunately, I had important business to attend at work, and had to skip out on some afternoon sessions, but I did get a chance to get back with time enough to scope out my Expo plans for tomorrow. Expect much, MUCH more info tomorrow.
My first time to attend the Friday Night concerts, and despite nearly killing me with head-banging exhaustion, what a ridiculously amazing evening. Four incredibly talented, hard rocking bands, performing everything from rock operas about MegaMan, to 8-bit chip tunes from Scott Pilgrim, to shredding reduxes of Metroid & Excitebike.
At last my long hair was put to good use :)
And with that (and before Chrome crashes and loose everything again) I will be you good night.
Coma time.
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I'm sure I've said this all before, but the three days of the year known as the Penny Arcade Expo are some of the happiest of my life. It's like someone moved E3 into my backyard and turned it into this weird geek woodstock (or "w00tstock" if you will). My story is the same as many others, growing up watching E3 happen from behind closed doors, dying to know what it must be like to be surrounded by a sea of gaming ecstasy. I dream that dream no longer. PAX is better than that dream.
Don't worry, there will more schmaltzy musings on the awesomeness of PAX to come, but let's get down to business:
I plan to keep a continuous stream of PAX experience flowing via Twitter's magical internet tubes. Follow me, friend me, come to the site, all will be Spike Jonze-ian portals into my over-stimulated PAX existence.
I have a list of things with which I've been dying to get some hands-on time, and when I can pull myself away from PAX's many interesting discussion panels, here's a few things I will patiently wait hours in line to play:
The PAX concerts are some of the best around, and this year is particularly awesome. Friday will feature a night of hard-rocking game inspired rhythms courtesy of Metroid Metal, Anamanguchi, The Protomen, and The Minibosses.
Saturday is, of course, the holy grail: Joco (Jonathan Coulton to you lay folk). And where one goes the other follows, so naturally the panty-collecting folk duo Paul & Storm will be there as well. Also, though I've never had the pleasure of seeing one of his concerts, MC Frontalot, the godfather of nerdcore, will be opening Saturday's concert.
I've got my iPad zippo app primed and ready to go :)
Gamers are fun-loving bunch, but they are also carrier for many diseases, including such lovely pathogens as Pax Pox, Nerd Flu, and H1Nerd1. Hopefully I still have antibodies left from my last run-in with these dreaded diseases, but needless to say, I will go forth armed for bear.
So be on the look out for new posts, pics, maybeevensomevideomaybe, and a torrential deluge of tweets as I jump head first into the world's most ridiculously radical festival of nerddom: PAX.
