Unmitigated Obstinance

Unmitigated Review - Paul

2011-09-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

The timing was damn-near perfect, really. We had returned home from PAX Prime 2011 only a day or two previous, when we decided to sit down with alcohol in hand, in various forms and quantities, to watch a "funny, easy movie." Sometimes you don't want the convoluted plot-structures that are so succulent on all other occasions. Sometimes you don't want to think. You just want to laugh, see big explosions, and some bare-breasted babes. We--our PAX crew, exhausted and loopy from the convention--decided on Paul, and were immediately gratified to see Simon Pegg and Nick Frost stumbling around the San Diego ComicCon. It could only have been better if we'd actually gone to ComicCon.

Slouched back in our chairs, gulping down our beers and harder counter-parts, we settled in for some good laughs.

I need to say up front, Paul delivered. The laughs were fairly constant, though the intensity of each bout varied. Sometimes we couldn't help but bust a gut, sometimes it was just an obligatory chuckle. They were constant though. I have to give the movie that much credit.

However... It wasn't very long before this other side of the movie started to creep in. With the introduction of Kristin Wiig's character, Ruth, the one-eyed, evangelical, bible-thumper who is afraid of her overbearing, Lord's Mercy, Fire and Brimstone father, it became obvious that something other than laughs was afoot.

There's a moment when Kristin Wiig gets into an argument with Paul, who is hiding in the bathroom of the camper the crew is holed up in. I can't quote the argument verbatim, but the gist of it was, for no reason I can remember, they begin arguing about science vs religion. It comes to a head when Kristin Wiig is rambling off the highly abbreviated, although mostly complete list of arguments against the mainstream doctrine of Evolution. Just as she gets to Intelligent Design and Irreducible Complexity, Paul, voiced by Seth Rogan, blows up and yells something along the lines of "Oh ya?! Then how do you explain me!" He then bursts out from the bathroom and Kristin Wiig faints.

As soon as it all happened I cringed and thought to myself, "Really? ....really?" Did this movie really just go from a laid back comedy about an alien on earth, to a propaganda film?

I say propaganda for a reason. Not because I cast my lot one way or the other on the topic of Evolution, Intelligent Design, or all the rest of it. I'm a "truth, in whatever form," guy, so please don't disregard my critique of Paul as the ravings of a "pissed off opponent of Evolution." I say propaganda because that's what it is. As soon as you layer political, religious, or scientific dogma, in any form, behind what is otherwise a light-hearted movie, you've turned it into an exercise in hidden, or for that matter, blaringly obvious agenda.

And, really, I wouldn't be working on this review if that first scene in the camper was the only instance of the debate. But it wasn't. The argument against God and for Science (evolution,) propped up a half dozen or more times throughout the film. The final, mostly predictable scene that I won't spoil for you, actually ends with Ruth's father, having just observed one of Paul's amazing feats, booming "Miracle! It's a miracle!" In response Paul says, "You just can't get through to some people."

I'll cite a direct example from the movie. This is actual dialog, copied from a script review at http://www.tv-calling.com/paul-script-review/.

RUTH How can he be from another world? There is only one world. Out world, created by God the Father.

PAUL sits down next to GRAHAM. RUTH whimpers.

PAUL Look, if it makes you feel any better, my existence only disproves the notion of the Abrahamic, Jude-Christian God, as well as all single earth theologies. Science still hasn't categorically ruled out the notion of divinity, even though evolutionary biology suggests the non-existence of a creator by probability alone.

RUTH How could that possible make me feel any better?

PAUL Jesus Christ, I was just trying to be nice!

Was that little 'joke' necessary? Were any of the stabs and jabs at Christianity and other proponents of ideas like Intelligent Design or Irreducible Complexity necessary? Did they help the movie? Did they make the laughs bigger or better? Did a comedy about an alien trapped on earth, being helped by two nerds on a tour of UFO hot-spots in America, really benefit from the injection of a chunk of dialog like that?

For some people, hells yes. A better example of "Preaching the Choir," would be hard to find. Everyone out there who loves to spit in the face of Christians, everyone who loves to crap all over any alternate theories to Evolution, proclaiming everyone who even talks about them as "uneducated bible-thumpers," were probably laughing themselves silly. I'd bet good money on it.

Let's reverse the roles here. Can you imagine how fast and how loudly a movie would be lambasted and ridiculed by the media, and the majority of the viewing audience, if there were occasional jabs at evolutionary theory with off-hand lines of dialog like, "She actually believes this all came about randomly!" followed by the two characters snickering at how deficient and brain-washed the target of their ridicule was? Imagine if there was actually a line of spoken dialog that was the antithesis of what I used as an example above. Just picture a character, in a blockbuster movie, saying out-loud "... my existence only disproves the modern version of evolutionary theory , as well as the array of supporting scientific principles, such as the Big Bang." We'd never hear the end of it. The backlash would last years.

By the end of the movie, after being bombarded with purposed dialog, I reviewed what I'd just watched, really thinking about it. Upon reflection I noticed that, really, the movie was kind of empty to begin with. It felt a little hollow. The plot structure was generic and by the numbers. All the non-religion jokes were on the forced side, including the obligatory "two male nerds spend all their time together, so they must be gay," compounded by the ubiquitous hillbillies who call the two main characters "faggots."

Even the crux of the movie, when Simon and Nick decide to help Paul was on the this-is-too-easy side. I believe Paul just turned on the puppy eyes and begged with a single line of dialog, then against all better judgment Simon agrees. The antagonists were comically ineffectual, not to the characters, but as the driving force of the movie. The entire supporting cast of characters were blatant archetypes. It just all felt like it had been manufactured to make the pill easier to swallow. Like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost sat down with the question "How do we talk about Evolution without people noticing we're talking about it?" Then they wrote the script for Paul.

It could have been a really funny movie. It could have been another of the Pegg/Frost classics, like Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the Dead. I'm deeply disappointed that they had to make it their 'movie with an agenda.'

Hellboy - blending simplicity with complexity

2011-06-14T14:02:00.000-07:00

Though you've likely seen the movie, or movies--which, I have to admit, are masterworks in their own right, due to the genius of Guillermo Del Toro--you've likely never read the actual comics. Most people don't read comics. It's an odd thing. If you're here, reading this humble blogspot, there's an above 0% chance that you happen to be some brand of nerd. Movie nerd, gaming nerd; maybe you're an internet nerd, whose quest is to visit every web page in creation. And yet, though a nerd you must be, you probably don't read comics.

It's a crying shame. Especially with the likes of Hellboy out there: a sweet morsel of visual and literary artistry, awaiting your fervent ingestion.

Hellboy is a dark, brooding mythology, ripe with reference and careful design. Every single page, every frame, is filled with some form of profundity. The writing is bang on, both for its simplicity and for its weight. Every character feels real. The instances where a character's sole job is to be the talking head for the sake of exposition are few and far between, if even non-existent. The artistry is precise in its design and implementation, devoid of unnecessary flash or pomp, while being rich and profound.

Mike Mignola talks at great length in the afterwords of the collections that I own, about his love of legend and mythology, and the result is obvious: every single moment in Hellboy, the expanded universe of the B.P.R.D., and the other collected works compiled under the banner of Mignola and Hellboy, are heavily laden with credible lore. Much of Hellboy's world is taken from the pages of cultural history from regions all over the world. Ukrainian wives-tales about a spectral demon that preys on young boys who stay out past dark; a mansion in Turkey where a baron dabbled in dark arts and black magic and was rumored to kidnap virgin girls to bleed their life-force for his spells; Vampires holding power as dukes and barons during Russia's feudal era. (I made all those up, because I can't remember specific lore from the comics...) Etcetera, etcetera.

Effectively, though all parts included are fiction, it is a strange and highly attractive mixture of grounded, 'factual-fiction' --that the stories usually include some scrap of truth, and have been told for generations--and the pure fiction of Mignola's world.

What struck me as terribly interesting when I first began to really dissect the elements that endeared me immediately and permanently to the Hellboy world is that Mignola has managed to craft a world where the two disparate methods of storytelling can exist hand in hand without conflict. The action packed BAM, POW, THWOP of comic books, where the villains are the embodiment of evil and the good guys always win, and the richly textured, nuanced use of lore and mythology, intertwine perfectly. Though we follow Hellboy punching and shooting his way through baddies and then beating the final boss in a superhero brawl, those baddies happen to be the animated corpses of long-dead nobility, and the final boss is a blood thirsty baroness who has fed her dark power with the souls of the peasantry for a thousand years.

Contrary to what the movies suggest, Hellboy is dark and melancholy. People die. Often. Mignola's world is not the world of Batman or Superman where the villains are sent away to prison, only to once again escape to provide another plot-line. Nor is it the fanciful world of Marvel where everyone just gets knocked out or smacked around a little, civilians, thugs, and nameless baddies included. In Hellboy, people die. They suffer terrible deaths at the hands of the ghastly horrors that Mignola has summoned from the myths of yore.

The underpinning story-arch of the series, which itself is that all important character-arch that defines good storytelling, is about Hellboy discovering who he truly is, what his purpose in the world is, and what that might mean for... well... everyone. From book one on, talk of Hellboy being a demigod whose sole purpose is to bring about the destruction of Earth and all its peoples so perfectly contextualizes all of the moments that the movies spent too much time on: the good humor and care-free nature of Hellboy; his joviality and constant disregard for danger.

Though the title character is easily the focus, the supporting cast is incredible. To date, I have not found a character I am more obsessed with in a very primal way, than Lobster Johnson, who only appears a handful of times in all of the Hellboy I have read so far. I wish I could break my way into the psyche of Mignola to steal from him whatever genius he possesses for character creation. Not a single face or name is wasted. Characters that exist only to die a few pages later are still better written than any facade of a human being that Michael Bay has included in his movies. And I can't begin to tell you how important it is to my geek-brain that just about every character has some secret origin, some mysterious past that builds into each of them that ticking time-bomb plot device: when the truth is revealed, how much will the character change?

Though many other artists are brought on board to flesh out the imagery of some of the later issues and much of the expanded universe, the core books are practically a one-man effort. Mignola's distinct and incredible style leaps off of every page, while simultaneously embedding a depth to every frame. The only way I can think to describe it, is that he draws the world of Hellboy as if he were inscribing an ancient spell, a terrible binding used to summon demons from the hereafter.

Sharp, bold lines; intense, constant shadowing, comingled with persistent and intelligent use of ambiguity for the sake of leaving a thing to the imagination--leaving a face entirely blank, as in, only a flesh-colored silhouette, or defining only the focus of a location--draws you deeply into each moment. Between those moments, Mignola practices what is easily my favorite nuance in all of media: he will have two or three small frames, roughly a quarter of the size of a normal comic frame, filled only with the close-up of some piece of the location. A tribal mask on the wall; a stack of books covered in the wax of a spent-candle; the bones of some long dead creature in the corner of the stone room; a specific section of the mural painted on the wall.

None of the visual asides are necessarily important. Not in the way a normal close up would be. These are not the close inspections of some critical element or action. It's almost as though Mignola is following the eyes of his characters, seeing the room in that quick, stuttered, meaningful way that you would if you were right there. That pile of bones, that broken vase, that half-charred old tome, are the pieces of a place that define it, in the same way your stack of empty beer cans, movie poster, or half-spilled box of cables define a place as your own.

The rest, I think, I'm going to leave up to you. Though I'm going to compile my own little compendium of suggestions for comic and novel reading soon, I wanted to give Hellboy a standalone post. Mignola's masterwork stands, quite easily, shoulder to shoulder with the masterpieces of the graphic novel realm, such as Gaiman's Sandman or Moore's Watchman and V for Vendetta. Every minute you spend investing your eye-time in Hellboy will be worth its weight in gold-pressed latinum. I guarantee it.

Unmitigated Review - Black Swan

2011-04-13T17:26:00.000-07:00

Wow. That's really where I have to start. I'm going to lay bare my enthusiasm for this movie right here, at sentence one. Wearing my affection on my sleeve. The movie was incredible; Natalie Portman needs to win all acting awards, and Darren Aronofsky needs to stop producing such sleek, precise drama that invades my soul, sets up residence, and digs in for the long haul, because I need my soul for other things!

I've heard a complaint from a couple people who attempted to watch the movie but wound up either fast-forwarding through all the "inactivity," or just plain turned it off. They complained that "nothing happens. It's boring." To be perfectly honest, I understand their gripe. The first hour of the movie isn't exactly a riveting action-adventure. It is a slow but gradual exercise in, like I stated, precise drama. I'm not really sure why I'm using that term. It jumped up into my brain when I was trying to think of how to best describe what Aronofsky does.

I'll try to break it down. Aronofsky, like two of my favorite authors, Patrick Rothfuss and Neil Gaiman, has an incredible ability to have nothing happen at no point, because something is always happening. To qualify: a climax is a moment when all things come to a head. There is a definitive whumpf that occurs. The story leans back, then steps hard into a thorough punch right into your thorax, crushing all the air out of your body. It's a moment in a story that causes you to reel, to wince under the pressure, the ferocity of that moment. The moment has to change everything; adjust the whole picture.

An easy example: when Darth Vadar proclaims, "I am your father." Emotionally speaking, much of the story up until that point was just build up. Set up; foreshadowing; preparation. The moment, in contrast to all others, was profound.

Aronofsky, like Gaiman and Rothfuss, manage to pack almost every single scene with a game-changing element; every scene is the climax. The onslaught of punches to the gut is so steady that you actually become immune to the effect of each blow. The result is that you feel like nothing is happening, that it's boring. That's what I call precise drama. Each moment, each frame, every scene, every facial expression and line of dialog, it's all important. No filler. Nothing sits in between two significant moments, because they're all significant.

However... Another point has to be made. Black Swan and Arnofksy's previous work, The Wrestler, both share a commonality that might prove vexing to a standard audience: they are both almost exclusively Character Arcs. I think it might be safe to argue that there was no definable story in either movie. The plot structure of Black Swan is actually incredibly simple: beautiful girl dancer tries out for part in ballet, gets part, suffers anxiety about keeping part. End. In fact, you could further simplify: girl is a dancer. The same can be said of The Wrestler. Mickey Rourke plays a guy who is an aging, former professional wrestler. End of story.

Yet both films are enthralling. Why? Because they are both exquisite exercises in the execution of a character arc. I have to admit, I find it perfectly ironic that in my previous blogpost, the review of The Man From Nowhere, my fundamental issue with the movie was a severe lack of character arc.

What Aronofsky proves is that drama is only compelling if we care about the characters, by taking it all the way to the extreme: he discards everything but the implicit drama found in a character arc. Then he executes so perfectly, delving so comfortably into the psyche of the characters he thrusts before our hungry, all-consuming eyes, that nothing else is needed. Ergo, I have nothing but respect for him and his blatant talent.

It need also be mentioned that, truly, what Aronofsky does is only possible if the actor/actress is capable. I was going to say talented enough, skilled enough, of the right caliber, but all of those would have been insufficient terms. World class skill, nearly unmatched talent, might not mean you are capable of achieving the task.

Natalie Portman proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she is magnificently capable of being the only thing happening for 108 minutes. One hundred and eight enthralling minutes, I should add. As previously stated: she needs to win all acting awards, ever.

Fantastic movie, worth your immediate and undivided attention. Seek this out as soon as you can allot a two hour block of time where all you're doing is reveling in the combined power of Aronofsky and Portman.

Unmitigated Review - The Man From Nowhere

2011-04-04T19:37:00.000-07:00

Before I say anything, I have to make it very clear that I am a fan of Korean cinema. A big fan. I can honestly say that one of, if not my favorite working director is Chan-wook Park, who is responsible for such greats as Oldboy, Thirst, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and a movie I often forget he was responsible for, Joint Security Area. Whatever's happening over there in South Korea, I dig it. I have deeply enjoyed a number of films from the south half of that peninsula--Memories of Murder, The Good The Bad and the Weird, Mother, and many more. Therefore, please do not disregard any of the gripes I'm about to voice as the uneducated ramblings of someone who "just doesn't understand."

When I read Massawyrm's review of The Man From Nowhere, I was very excited. A South-Korean remake of the Tony Scott movie Man on Fire?! I couldn't frakkin' wait. Man on Fire is easily one of my favorite Denzel Washington and Tony Scott films. Watching Denzel obliterate those bad-guys, blowing them away with shotguns, blowing them up in their own cars, and just generally wrecking every one of those guy's entire day, was one of the more satisfying excursions into the realm of an honorable man dealing out righteous death on behalf of a true innocent.

The Man From Nowhere hits all the same beats, and well. But... It just doesn't hit them as well. It's like the difference between the E chord played by John Lee Hooker or BB King, compared to, say, Green Day or Weezer. It's like Julie London's version of Cry Me a River compared to any other cover of that jazz classic. Not always does the content count towards the profundity. More often it is the delivery; the execution. "If it aint got that swing, it don't mean a thing."

The same goes for The Man From Nowhere. A certain vital element is lacking. There's just something missing, something not there, and it makes it really hard to invest yourself in it. I tried. Believe me I tried. I wanted to love the crap out of the movie.

Upon reflection and careful consideration, I think I'm forced to say that the movie was just too... Asian, for my tastes. I offer that near-blunder of a statement because, like all of the posts I've dedicated to this space so far, I think there's an important discussion hiding inside this review--a vigilant infantryman, holed up inside a concealed fox-hole, waiting until the overwhelming enemy passes by so that he can leap out use the element of surprise to take more down with him than he would have otherwise.

What do I mean by "too Asian"? After watching movies from every oriental nation--Thailand, China, South-Korea, Japan, etc--I've pinned down a very specific, and therefore, I think, largely intentional method of character development and portrayal that we just don't see here in North America. A stale, monotone, stoic indifference; an unwavering adherence to largely one-dimensional character traits. Maybe it comes from traditional theatre, or ancient story-telling traditions. I don't know. But the end result, the visible product, is that you have characters who are assigned a single, immutable persona.

If a villain is assigned the playfully-arrogant, cynically-indifferent trait, than he displays it in every scene. Once a stoic, silent, brooding protagonist, always a stoic, silent, brooding protagonist. There's never an obvious character arc. There's no development. The result is inhuman characters, replaced by single function, single purpose automatons; unchanging, unwavering adherents to their predefined emotional range, which, of course, is only one item long.

I find it absolutely impossible to care about or relate to these caricatures, these walking one-trick wonders. And, of course, without the ability to care about the characters, I find it very difficult, if not equally impossible, to care about what's happening to them.

Therein lies the only--and I have to stress, only--failure of The Man From Nowhere. Every other facet of the film is transcendent. Every department was on the ball. Every set-piece, every frame (cinematography phrase,) every fight or action sequence, delivers in droves. They're all a joy to optically ingest.

I just wish the film had a more profound emotional punch...

Elegance in Simplistic Gaming - Machinarium

2011-03-29T00:45:00.000-07:00

A little while ago I played through a game available on Steam called Machinarium. At first I was struck by the wondrous art style and aesthetic execution: a brilliant blend of matte-paintings used as backdrops for beautifully crafted, mechanical character designs, all moving about in that faux-3d, where by simple perspective trickery you can have a 2d character on a 2d background, appear to move in three dimensions. The sound design matched the simplistic, eccentric world, and the musical score offered the perfect blend of ambiance and thematic drive--you felt the world through the choral hum, broken up by electrical hisses and robotic pops.

I was taken. Enthralled from moment one. It was damn easy to fall completely in love with the game, even before I'd begun solving the puzzles.

And the puzzles? They're of the sort where you don't have to be a fan of point-and-click adventure games in order to enjoy them. They're just complex enough that you usually can't see the solution laying there, visible and bare, so obvious that completing the puzzle isn't satisfying, while not so complex that at every distinct room or area you're pounding your head against your desk and alt+tab'ing to look up a walkthrough.

But then, as I reached the third or fourth section, (maybe farther, I'm not sure,) little hints began to appear, motioning in the direction of the story that anchored the brilliant design elements and the balanced puzzles together, while offering you morsels of motivation through latent curiosity. You see a big, tough looking robot and his dumb looking partner, know they're up to know good, and then wonder what's really going on. Why were you dumped out in the scrap yard, and who are these big galoots that look meaner than the rest of the robots?

It was here that Machinarium finally secured my complete and unwavering approval and affection. It managed to tell me a story without ever relying on exposition. In the classic, simplistic fashion that games used to employ so long ago, the important stuff was placed out in the fore, as obviously as possible, and interpretation of it was left entirely to you. It reminds me of the intro to a game that I simply can't think of, but might have been a riff on the Megaman 2 intro anyway: a slow and steady pan all the way up a skyscraper, where at the top, was a ruffian holding a damsel in distress. Elegant, simple, brilliant. In less than thirty seconds all the motivation you could ever need as a gamer was right there on screen. It wasn't explained, in fact I don't think there was even any dialog or text. A mean looking dude holding a frightened girl was the only thing you needed to know. That sucka was goin' down. Plain and simple.

That simple, elegant method of storytelling was there in all its simplicity, scene to scene, in Machinarium. From time to time the main character would have what appeared to be a day-dream or a memory, of himself and another bot, who appeared to be female, doing quaint things--flying a kite, skipping stones across a pond, or playing a prank on a shop vendor. Those little dreams/memories would always end with the big, rough galoots ruining it in some cruel, bully kind of way. Without ever coming out and expressly stating "This is the story. This is what is happening," the game managed to have a compelling depth to it.

I miss that method of storytelling--simple, inferred narratives. Too many games today take the easy way out, or the safe approach: wearing exposition on its sleeve. Everything is explicitly defined; nothing is left open to interpretation, or vague enough as to be mysterious or interesting. It is never, at any point, a question of who is the bad guy and who isn't. The bad guys usually have glowing, red targets over their heads, or are busily killing innocents and burning down orphanages when you arrive on the scene. The lack of nuance these days is boring; its tedious.

The problem with explicit storytelling, I think, is not that it is explicit. It is perhaps that when you make the point of explaining all elements, your explanations must be incredible; they must be so well-crafted and astonishing, that your audience is slavering and rabid to discover the next, important element. However, sloppy or disinteresting, explicit storytelling can be worse than limited to no storytelling at all. I would rather wonder at the motivation behind Bowser kidnapping the Princess, than be told it's because she's an intregal part of an ancient prophesy that foretells the destruction of the Koopa empire--or some other unnecessarily convoluted and unsatisfying reason.

In an effort to bring this post to a close before I surpass a thousand words, I'm going to end here: get yourself a copy of Machinarium and enjoy. It's a fantastic little diversion from your day, and a marvelous foray into a beautiful world and elegant game design. It has my highest recommendation.

Call of Duty Syndrome - Like Polio for First Person Shooters

2011-03-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

All right, so at this point it's trendy to complain about the bullet-absorbing, super-heroes of the modern FPS. The unerringly chiseled, pumped, machismo machines that can eat lead--literally, they seem to absorb it through their flesh like some kind of bizarre mineral synthesis--that trundle around, spraying an infinite shower of expensive ammo at their enemies. Zero-Punctuation has done it, and I'm sure countless others have as well. I know I've rambled ad nausea to friends about the issue.

But complaining doesn't do anything. It's not constructive. It doesn't address the underlying concern in any meaningful way. I'm going to attempt shining a light on the precise issue with bullet-spongery. (To note, I might be making up words all post long.)

Game Balance. Simple. Plain. Period. That's the problem in a nutshell. I suppose I could have rambled on around the point for a while, doing my customary verbose song and dance until finally springing the revelation on you when you're finally a ripe, plump morsel of malleable intellect in my hands. I decided not to. Getting it on the page at practically moment one suits me just fine.

The problem with the hero, or for that matter, all of the 'good guys,' in a game being able to duck behind anything for a few Mississippi's, and then magically spring from the very same cover as if they hadn't just been shot multiple times, is game balance. That is, how you design the architecture of challenge and difficulty into the experience. How does a game designer, whose sole task on the large staff of a modern game, go about the business of ensuring that the game before him has all of the check-marks--a steady, consistent pace of action that engages the player; a set of objectives and locations that, while daunting, are not insurmountable; and a frequent risk/reward element that is, plainly, enemy baddies that are trying to kill the player--when right there next to him on the Game Design Document, it states in very plain English: "Player Character (referred to as PC from here on,) can infinitely regenerate health after avoiding being shot for a minimum of two seconds"?

Think about it. It's almost like asking someone to balance a game where the player starts with the God-Mode cheat on. You know, back when I used to play FPS games all the time, there was a console-command or a cheat that you had to look up online that said, "Infinite Health and Ammo." Frak! Every game since CoD: MW ships with that all ready enabled!

So how do you balance a game with cheats all ready enabled? You add a bajillion d00ds in to it. You make it so that whenever the player is not in cover, he is being riddled with bullets. Three, four, sometimes a dozen high-velocity slugs will impact the PC at a time. This is from such a myriad of weaponry that it's absolutely laughable. (Next time you have some time on your hands search YouTube for any of the weapons you see in use in a modern FPS, specifically they're penetration power. Most Kevlar body armor that we see marines, (why is it always marines! that's a separate rant,) is designed to stop low velocity fire. That's side-arms. Pistols. 9mm, .35, .45, etc. As soon as you up gun to any long-barreled, high-velocity weapon, the protection a Kevlar vest offers drops significantly.)

It becomes a joke without a punch-line. How many bullets can I absorb? Ridiculous. But what is the game designer supposed to do? In fact, what I find even more frustrating, and therefore inherently hilarious, is that in games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, what they've had to resort to for the harder difficulties, and especially the hardest difficulty, is randomly spawning entire squads of enemy troops at your flank. Not only are there sometimes upwards of fifty guys shooting at you from the front, they then spawn dozens of them behind you so that you have less cover to hide behind-- it's never no cover, just less.

No longer is it about tactics, intelligent positioning, or anything resembling real combat. It's become more like trying to stay dry while it's raining, and every now and again some prick comes along and throws a cup of water at you. It's a joke.

Now... Imagine if some gutsy, brave developer made an FPS campaign, (I'd rather not discuss multiplayer, since it's an entirely different beast,) where if you were shot ONCE, it was the end of your entire day. Game over, man. Game over! Think about how that would affect the job of the game designer. Suddenly a single enemy combatant with an automatic weapon, holed up in a room, becomes a sizable challenge. What about a truck full of guys rolling into the center of a city-square, bailing out and forming a defensive perimeter? That would seem nearly insurmountable, as it should be. And forget about one-man army-ing against tanks/armored personnel carriers/or... my least favorite of ALL, an attack helicopter.

If you switched to a one-shot-one-kill balance, it would suddenly open the door to creative, intelligent, combat-situation problem solving. The player would be forced to really think, to perhaps devise an inventive stratagem, or coordinate with other PC's or NPC's, and no longer would every. single. battle. be a blaze of thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition...

Interesting factoid that I keep in mind for this: the Canadian soldiers who landed at Juno Beach were trained, had drilled into them for all the months of training preceding the landing, the concept that when you hit the beach the only thing you do is keep moving until you are off the beach. You do not stop, you do not return fire, you do nothing but keep your feet moving. Ammo was precious. Any shot fired from the beach was a wasted cartridge. Why I cite this example is because it shows that in a real battle, in actual history, it was in the best interest of the troops involved to not shoot until a specified time. Modern games make it seem like everyone should be shooting all the time at everything, constantly, with no thought given to ammo reserves.

To be perfectly fair, I'm not ragging on every modern FPS game. Something like Halo works, but does so due entirely to the context. The Master Chief is practically a walking tank, whose armor is so advanced that it shrugs off and laughs at anything less than a high-power, anti tank weapon, and who also happens to have an advanced shield generator that can absorb and deflect dozens of energy and ballistic rounds and the energy of most small explosive devices. When the MC dashes into the middle of a room filled with baddies and is shot to hell but survives, I don't complain. There are numerous, well defined and explained reasons why he isn't a perforated steel husk filled with a mushy ex-person after most shoot-outs.

Final thought: I am committing this rant to the virtual page because what irks me most, is that the game-mechanic crutch which is 'regenerate health behind cover,' has spoiled the possibility of any real innovation in the FPS genre. Now, when technology makes all past gaming look like a funny looking, malfunctioning toy, we should be seeing leaps and bounds in game-play innovation. Instead we see a ceaseless tirade of bland, big-budget mimicry; of hopelessly linear, un-engaging, repetitive FPS games that dare nothing, risk nothing, venture no innovation, lest the incredible horde of apparently autonomous gamer-drones, who cannot deal with any other stimuli beyond "shoot everything, a lot," cringe and froth at the mouth, proclaiming heresy, and, of course, not buy the game.

All right, I think I've made my point. I hope I did.

RoboCop - The future of law enforcement!

2011-03-20T18:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's kind of funny being as young as I am, compared to the rest of the world. When RoboCop was released in theatres, I was barely even a year old. Kind of a daunting truth to accept. Alas, that is the plight a self-confessed, proud movie-geek must bear: to be eternally behind the times. The list of classic movies that I've missed out on, or never even heard of, is probably as great as the list of movies I've managed to find and watch.

It's therefore become a small hobby of mine: to educate myself on the classics of cinema, or, for that matter, old movies in general. More often than I believe mainstream culture would like to admit, the nigh-pathetic failures of cinema can affect popular culture as much or more than the vaunted classics. A grand epic like Gone With The Wind, might be world renowned, but a phrase like, "You've got to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky? Well, do you punk?" is remembered and repeated by more people than have ever heard of either Gone With The Wind OR Dirty Harry. (Of course, the phrase is terribly misquoted every time. I believe the repeated version is, "Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?")

And in today's world, when internet memes can spring up and then die in a single week, or even as little as a day, it pays to have fleshed out your Reference Handbook as much as possible.

I even feel as though I owe the creators of these cultural icons the respect they deserve, both for the sake of their work, and so as not to be a horrible hypocrite--when I eventually produce a work of literary, cinematic, or interactive art, I'd prefer if people set aside a part of their day to truly appreciate my efforts.

So. RoboCop. It's one of those movies and characters that everyone knows about. If you're any kind of geek, or, hell, if you watched any movies, TV, read any comics, or browsed the internet for even twenty minutes since the year 1987, the chances of you at least hearing the name RoboCop is fairly high. My first introduction to the character was via the NES game, which I played long before I knew RoboCop's true place in modern culture.

Then, very recently, I was alerted to this very funny and interesting story. Sold. No more excuses. It was time for me to finally watch RoboCop. Now that I have, I can't help but say: Frak. I've been missing out!

I was very surprised! Hot damn was RoboCop a good movie. I'd always assumed it was one of those 80's movies that was built out of about 60-80% cheese and 20% film-making; the kind of movie that teenage boys wearing neon-green shirts, black, patterned pants, and high-top Nike runners would flock to for a Saturday matinee, all of them skate-boarding to the theatre on those old boards with big, rubber wheels, or on BMX bikes ala RAD, white wheels and colored rims and all.

Not so. It's a hard-R movie, that, according to the Wiki article, actually received 11 X-ratings. That means they re-cut the original eleven times, trying to get the MPAA to downgrade their rating to an R. Yes, RoboCop, that movie I thought was for kids, that spawned animated TV series, action figures, and Nintendo games, is a Hard-R film, replete with blood, guts, gore, cursing, and even nudity.

Did I mention that it's set in a dystopian future where a mega-corporation is contracted by the city to run the Detroit police force; where the crime rate is so high that the underpaid, overworked cops are practically fodder for the drug-lords and criminal syndicates; and where the MegaCorp, Omni Consumer Products, is intentionally underpaying and undersupplying the police so that they can replace the human police force with an automated, robotic force that they control, all so that they can build the City of the Future? Did I also mention that the movie is filled--almost over-filled--with black humor and sharp social and political satire of American and Corporate culture?

Oh, oh! And it's directed by Paul Verhoeven, whose other contributions to geek-lore and cinema are Total Recall, Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct, and even Showgirls.

I highly recommend finding a copy of this movie and watching it--that is, if you haven't all ready.

Supplemental thought: don't watch either of the sequels. The second was ok, but nothing to write about, and the third was your typical, Hollywood abortion; a ruinous exercise in treachery and heresy; the blundered death of a brand.

PAX Booth Babes

2011-03-16T23:26:00.001-07:00

While recently at PAX East, and due entirely to the bizarre and wonderful nature of the Penny Arcade Expo, I found myself suddenly talking to two random strangers about the topic of Booth Babes while I was on duty as an Enforcer, watching the entrance of the Console Tournament room. The discussion was more profound than it probably should have been, considering its brevity and setting, not to mention the parties involved. However, it gave me the opportunity to actually talk about, and therefore properly define my opinion of what is really an interesting topic that draws on too many ideas to be simple in any way. It's also damn tough to talk about; that kind of topic where if you express your opinion in just the wrong way, you can easily be sworn off as a sexist, misogynist, or, of course, the "Reverse the polarity!" opposite, a feminist or crying heart liberal. I hope I can get across my thoughts on the topic without accidentally transforming into any of the aforementioned stereotypes.

The first thing that needs to be said is that this can't be a discussion about whether or not Booth Babes should exist in the first place. That's a discussion about the objectification of women, about capitalism, about women's rights, equality, and the truism that Sex Sells--an entirely different discussion that I don't want to get into here. This specific set of words, arranged into what I could argue is cohesive thought, has to be about Booth Babes at PAX.

The Penny Arcade Expo is a big party. It's a place where seventy thousand geeks, nerds, and gamers of every kind can get together in the same space and feel at home. It's a place where you can walk up to just about anyone and know with certainty that this random stranger is probably going to be a helluva lot like you. I read a great quote when I was preparing to go to PAX Prime 2010: "If you're in a line up, you turn to the guy next to you to start up a conversation, and he doesn't respond or tries to ignore you, he's doing it wrong." Another invaluable quote: "PAX is seventy thousand friends you didn't know you had."

Now, as an exaggerative example, I'm going to paint a picture. Imagine you just bought a brand new, fifty-two inch TV. You have it hooked up to it the newest gaming console out there, with the flashiest, ground-breaking game on the market. You call up all your friends and invite them over. "Dude! You've gotta come see my new setup. It's awesome, man. I've got pizza, you bring the beer." All your friends arrive, settle in the living room with their freshly cracked-open beer cans, their greasy slices of pizza, and can't wait to see the new, awesome game on your brand new TV. But then they notice a hot blonde wearing a bikini standing next to your TV, doing the 'look at this' pose. She's just some totally random stranger standing there half-naked--not a friend of the group playing a prank or part of a joke. An unresponsive woman whose enthusiasm is visibly fabricated and insincere. Yes, it's cool that there's a hot girl standing there, but at the same time it would be very weird. Too odd to be anything but uncomfortable and awkward.

More importantly, it would be awkward for a very specific set of reasons. When you have friends over to your house to hang out, you can get away with things you simply wouldn't be able to otherwise. You can crack dirty jokes, burp loudly, fart and be gross, and enjoy a myriad of inside jokes and references. Everyone else there knows the same jokes, isn't offended at your laid back, 'I'm with family,' nature because they're glad they can do the same. There's no outside influence or obstruction. Your house, with your brand new fifty-two inch TV, is a place of sanctuary, safe from the tropes of public life.

The Penny Arcade Expo is exactly the same, and that's why I love it to death. I've proven it to myself time and time again, both for the sake of it, and because in doing so, the result is fantastic: I've struck up conversation with the guy next to me in line, I've joked with other Enforcers as if they all ready understood my sense of humor, and I've approached total strangers and asked if I could join them for a game without being turned down, or invited people I've never met to join me.

Booth Babes don't belong. They're outsiders. They're everything about public life that you don't want in your living room when you're hanging out with friends.

What they represent, more than just a bit of unabashed, sexist capitalism, is the segregation of a populace according to a caste system. What makes PAX so immeasurably fantastic is that everyone is equal. I can't tell you how cool it feels to see Robert Khoo, the main man, the top dog, the guy responsible for the entire event, come into the dirty, over-used, public bathroom with the rest of the 'peasants.' I remember at PAX Prime, walking past Wil Wheaton, who was just chillin' near one of the Rock Band freeplay areas, talking to a few Enforcers, under no threat of a mob of fans rushing him, screaming like raving, thirteen-year-old girls, demanding he sign their memorabilia. The true celebrities received no special attention or treatment.

There was an unspoken, mutual respect. The VIPs didn't treat us like a throng of rabid fans, and we didn't treat the VIPs like they were any different or special than us. The same can be said of the Enforcers, who I can now proudly say I'm part of. Enforcers are respected because they have volunteered their time--they want to be there, doing the tedious, frustrating, arduous tasks like checking badges at doors or managing lineups. Inversely, we Enforcers care about doing a good job. We want to see the event run as smoothly as possible. It is out pleasure to help the lost attendant find the theatre room he just can't seem to locate.

And then... Booth Babes. Attractive women paid to stand next to exhibits. They might care about them, they might not. The issue is that they've been paid to be there. Suddenly the caste system sneaks its way back in. "What's the etiquette for approaching a Booth Babe? Should I ask her any questions? She probably wouldn't know anything, she's being paid to be here. In fact, I'm sure she's been hit on and flirted with by so many bumbling, socially inept nerds today that she just can't wait to go home. I'd better leave her alone." They stop being people and instead become the exhibit. In a truly unfortunate way they descend a rung lower on the social ladder, becoming subservient.

What I fear is that it could become a dangerous trend. Things which are, eventually get taken for granted. If you are accustomed to there being a sub-class of person whose function is to serve you, then you might begin to assume that you fit into an order of ascending social importance where you obviously aren't at the top. If booth babes are below you, then speakers and exhibitors must be above, with organizers and VIPS above them. As it stands there is no caste system at PAX. Everyone is equal. You don't listen to an Enforcer because he is higher than you in the system, but because you both recognize that order is needed to keep the seventy-thousand person event from falling into anarchy and chaos. You can walk right up to the VIP, shake his hand, and talk to him like you would anyone else.

Considering their cost, do Booth Babes even add anything? Are they in any way, shape, or form, important or integral to PAX as an event or experience? If you were to remove the ceaselessly smiling, scantily clad, disinterested women, whose only function is to look good, from the show floor of the exhibition hall, would anyone notice? Can any self-respecting gaming-geek tell me, honestly, that if the Booth Babes weren't there, you wouldn't go to the Expo Hall? We go to see the games, to support the indie developers, to check out the latest and greatest technology, and to be giddy and excited with our friends about the new Duke Nukem game, as if we were 11 years old all over again. It's about the games!

Finally, the obvious: if even one girl gamer finds the Booth Babes offensive, the verdict is out. The case is closed. Ban them. Throw them out. Get rid of them. The thousands of awesome girl gamers at PAX are part of that group of seventy thousand friends you didn't know you had. They're the friends you'd call up and invite over to your house to check out your new fifty-two inch screen, eat pizza and drink beer with, who would get the inside jokes, and feel just as weird about this random stranger standing there half-naked. For no other reason than to honor our double-X chromosome comrades we should oust the Booth Babes.

Obstinate Movie Review - I Spit On Your Grave (Remake)

2011-03-04T19:44:00.000-08:00

In 1978 Meir Zarchi wrote and directed one of the most unintentionally funny movies I've ever seen. The original I Spit On Your Grave shouldn't have been funny, and I guess I can blame a mixture of beer and company on the uproarious laughter that we bellowed at the TV while watching the vaunted forty-five minute rape scene. I know how bad that sounds, and I should therefore qualify: the performances, not to mention some of the dialog, were so accidentally funny during the entire film, that we couldn't help but laugh. To date, my brother and I still repeat and then laugh at the line, "Your breaking my concentration!" I highly recommend you look up the first one to see what I'm talking about.

So, it wasn't with an uneducated innocence that I entered into watching the remake by Steven R. Monroe. More than anything, I was curious if the remake would live up to the list of things that made the first so controversial and abhorred back in its day: full-frontal nudity, unabashed, prolonged scenes of a group of men abusing a helpless young woman, and of course the resulting violence when the woman gets her revenge.

I have to say, I was impressed. This latest version managed to be gut-wrenching even amidst the cinema culture that produces the likes of Saw and Hostel. However, I'm sad to admit--worried that I'm actually a sociopath and true-blue /b/tard is the more likely sentiment--that some of the execution still came off as a little funny. I'm mostly sure it wasn't just me, as I've seen that famous scene in the Monica Bellucci movie, Irreversible, which also involves rape, and I didn't find any part of that the least bit funny. It must have been something about the yokel-thugs referring to the girl as horse, and checking her teeth, even so far as forcing her to expose all of her teeth by pulling open her mouth with her fingers that made me laugh... That's too ridiculous to watch with a straight face.

Over all, I recommend seeing it. If nothing else, it's a good measuring stick for exactly what portion of the audience you fall into and whether or not the topic of rape is a gigantic, glowing red button that triggers your ire and rage as a subconscious, knee-jerk reaction.

---Spoiler Alert - I'm going to talk details from here on out, so avert your eyes if you'd like to see the movie unspoiled---

Now, with my brief and likely insufficient 'review' out of the way, I need to talk about what I Spit On Your Grave summoned in the depths of my socially aware, contemplative mind. The entire thesis of the movie, if you will, the underlying fabric of it, is that a young, innocent woman is raped, is emotionally deformed by the experience insofar as becoming a crazed killer, and then enacts her revenge in an incredibly brutal and vicious series of horribly violent murders--the prolonged, traumatic rape by half a dozen men, so hopelessly skews her psyche, so mangles her fragile sense of self, that she can't help but go clinically insane.

What she does to these guys is horrible. Not necessarily in regards to the audience. I've seen worse. Much worse. Watch any 80's pulp horror film like Hellraiser, or any of the new breed of slasher flicks like Saw or Hostel if you want to see some incredibly disturbing, excessive deaths. For that matter, the Final Destination series has a leg or two up on the gore scale.

Why her vengeance plucked my nerve as much as it did was because until this point, the movie had felt largely realistic; normal, even keel, middle-of-the-road. A full half of the movie feels like it could be in any genre of movie, and yet when the killing starts the dial is cranked all the way over to Slasher. It was too sudden a transition to feel natural. By transition, I mean to say that the characters we observed until this point felt very human. The group of guys were just that: a group of guys. A bunch of bayou buffoons; down-home boys. They fish with each other, they work at the local gas station, own crappy, run-down trailer-park homes and cars, and not a one of 'em has a girl of their own--no ball and chain at home. They were not the empty, clichéd, 'waiting to get killed' faces you normally see in a horror/slasher movie.

That's how these antagonists come off: backwards, uneducated, filled with angst and social, financial, and sexual frustration, but little else. They are not a group of crazed, sociopathic, serial killers who drill holes in the skulls of their victims and construct disfigured, elaborate sex-dolls out of the corpses of their victims. They're just a bunch of guys.

Ergo, while I can very easily condemn their actions and proclaim the woman a true and honest victim of uninvited, unrepentant rape, I can also empathize, in a very small way, with the group of idiot-thugs. They're men. Stupid, unconstrained, substance abusing men who convince themselves to do something horrible. They force themselves on this poor woman, and are violent and abusive when she resists or isn't compliant. It's a morose, disturbing sequence.

The movie then changes gears and digs out of its trunk the big, bulky, obtuse question that I found myself mulling over after the credits started to roll. For the remaining duration of the film, we watch as our young, attractive victim, whose only mistake was choosing to stay in that town and stop at that gas station, hunts down, subdues, and captures all five men, draging their limp bodies (that part you have to assume, as its never explicitly shown,) to a long-abandoned swamp-shack in the middle of the wilderness, then brutally tortures and maims them, resulting in their deaths.

I need to describe each death for this discussion to be complete.

Death one: the fat guy with the video camera. She lures him into a bear trap which snaps shut, practically severing his leg in half--the bones jut out and blood gushes from the wound. She then thwacks him over the head with a baseball bat, rendering him unconscious, duct-tapes his head to a nearby tree, gouges fish-hooks into each of his eye-lids, then ties the line attached to each behind the tree, so that his eyes are kept open. She then guts a fish and smears the goop on his eyes so that crows come and pluck out/eat his eyes. After the birds have done this, he dies of blood loss and shock.

Death two: the slick-haired, short guy. After rendering him unconscious by smashing him over the head with a baseball bat, she suspends him over a bathtub with his hands tied behind his back. He is laying on his stomach, suspended by two support beams, staring down into the tub, which she fills with water. Once it is filled, she plunges his head into the water a few times, nearly drowning him. Then, after terrorizing him to no real effect, she gets a large--probably as big as a 2 kilogram--container filled with Lye. Once the Lye begins frothing in the water, she yanks out the second support beam, which was supporting his chest. He now must keep himself raised above the acid-bath using only his abdominal muscles. As you can imagine, he eventually gives way and falls into the bath. The severe pain causes him to burst back out of the water, but the resulting cycle inevitably ends with him drowning in the mixture.

Death three, the tall pack leader. Bashing him over the head with a tire-iron at the gas station, she brings him back to the shack, strips him naked, then ties him spread-eagle in a standing position, with a stirrup in his mouth. After pulling a few of his teeth and forcing him to give a blow-job to a hand gun, she gets a pair of large shears from another room, and summarily cuts off his genitals. She leaves him in this state to bleed out.

Death four and five, the Sheriff and the dunce. Again, after rendering them unconscious and bringing them back to the shack, she ties the sheriff to a small desk so that he is in a bent-over position, pants down, legs tied to the desk and hands tied behind his back. She has inserted his shotgun deeply into his anus and tied the gun off to a chair so that it is secure. After sodomizing the sheriff with the gun for a minute or two, she ties a string from the trigger to the wrist of the dunce who is sitting across the room, unconscious, facing the sheriff. Of course, when the dunce wakes up, he twitches, pulling the trigger, killing them both.

Why did I explicitly describe each of the deaths, ensuring that all the details were included? Because the question the movie raised was, "Are we, the audience, really being asked to see the two halves of his movie as equal? Was her rape and subsequent abuse really so bad that what she did to the men was justified and... reasonable? Am I supposed to be cheering for her and saying, 'They got what they deserved!'?"

How couldn't I ask that question?! I almost couldn't believe what I had just watched. It wasn't the gore or the method of execution. Like I've said, I've seen worse watching countless horror and slasher films. It was the idea that I was supposed to be cheering for the woman. Was she really the heroine? If the writer/director meant to spin things on the audience, forcing you to decide which side you're on, considering each side is so intrinsically wrong, than kudos to them! A damn good job, if that was the objective.

But if the movie was designed to be what I really think it was, a vengeance story with brutal retribution, then... It lost me, by forcing me to seriously contemplate the scenario. I had to weigh the two halves separately, dissecting the offenses involved. On the one hand we have rape. Rape, by definition, is "the unlawful compelling of a woman through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse." While they did physically assault her, I need to emphasize for the sake of this discussion that none of the physical damage inflicted was severe or permanent. Of course, the emotional trauma is immeasurable and obvious. I can't begin to imagine how dispirited and traumatized that kind of experience would leave you.

Then, on the other side of the I Spit On Your Grave coin, we have horrifically brutal torture and mutilation, resulting in death. The men are beaten, slashed, stabbed, lacerated, burned, drowned, shot, mutilated, and sodomized. Each of them dies a painful, miserable, unspeakable death. I need to emphasize death. She kills them all. Permanent, irrevocable death.

Is that really where we are now? Do we, as a social entity, really think that Rape equals Torture and Death? Is raping and abusing a woman SO horrible and terrible and treacherous and wrong, that the offenders deserve to be tortured, maimed, and killed?

I can't say, because I really don't know. I've never been raped. I've never been tortured, maimed, and killed. Therefore, I cannot, with any certainty, proclaim that one does or does not equal the other. If I were to opine, I'd say that rape isn't as bad as torture and death, and that anyone who thinks the former should beget the latter in regards to justice, is a raving lunatic.

I suppose the root dilemma, the core concern that I wanted to contemplate and discuss, in the notion of fairness; of objective consideration of all parties involved. It reminds me of a true story that I heard about a convenience store owner in Vancouver who had been repeatedly robbed by a petty theft. The thief would take apples, chocolate-bars, flowers; all small and insignificant items, but theft nonetheless. One day the store owner catches the thief with his CCTV cameras, stealing a bouquet of flowers. He chases the thief down, brings him back to his store, locks him in a back room so he cannot escape--the police had been having real difficulty tracking down the thief--and calls the cops: "I've got the thief here!"

The store owner was arrested by the police and charged with Kidnapping and Unlawful Detention, a felony. The store owner faced federal punishment and a permanent criminal record that would have revoked his passport and irrevocably destroyed his public image. The petty thief, who had never stolen a one-time sum large enough to be considered felony-grade larceny, would have only faced a small fee and a slap on the wrist.

Is that fair!? Can any reasonable, thinking person actually say out loud "The store owner got what he deserved! He should never have detained that man in the back of his store."

What binds I Spit On Your Grave and the story about the shop owner together is the notion that we, as a culture, are slowly developing a very perverse sense of justice. It scares me to think that a person could see the painful, unnecessarily prolonged deaths of the five men as "justified," in the same way that some might think the charges laid against the store owner could be seen as "justified." Both examples require the same brand of thought; the same fundamental perversion of reason.

That is what I Spit On Your Grave was to me, and I hope it's the same thing to you: an important discussion, where the crimes involved are only variables in an equation.

Chuck Norris vs Bruce Lee

2011-03-01T02:07:00.000-08:00

I can't help but rip off the perfect comment that currently has the most upvotes for the video I'm going to unceremoniously disgorge here today. It's a video that I must put up, must hype, and must show off to as many people as I possibly can. (Bonus points if you get the half-joke that I accidentally left there at the end of that sentence.)

A face off of epic proportions. A clash of Titans. A battle between masters.
This is WhiteRa vs HuK.
Though I'm sure there isn't any actual rivalry between these two guys, as SC2 players rarely get the chance to play against each other with enough frequency to develop the same kind of tension you'd see between, say, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators or the Vancouver Canucks and the Chicago Blackhawks, (can you tell I'm a Canadian?) they are two of the very best Protoss players in the world, facing off for our viewing pleasure. You have to be short, a little shy, black-haired, and from the seat of Starcraft Culture in the world, Korea, to be as good or better than these two players.

In the Blue Corner, hailing from Ukraine, WhiteRa the 'Beast from the East.' A Protoss force so feared that Day9 dedicated an entire daily to "Dealing with Duckload."

And in the Red Corner, hailing from the Canada, HuK, 'The Incredible HuK.' Some know him as HuK Norris, the only man who can successfully cannon rush with only pylons. They say that he was once so handily defeating someone that he built a Mothership, recalled a better opponent into the game, and then destroyed him instead.

Though that game wasn't as incredibly EPIC as I hoped it could have been, it was a very rare treat. I'm not sure I've ever seen the two Foreigner Protoss masters play against each other. Regardless, it was an incredible display of micro/macro play and a perfect divergence of strategy without compromise. No weaknesses while achieving near-perfect timing. I couldn't have asked for a better PvP on good 'ol, boring Lost Temple.

Oh, and be sure to subscribe to my main man, H to the usky-Husky. Every subscription helps, and the the better he does, the better eSports in North America does. It's all interconnected.

Secret Bonus Link

Minecraft, Music, Maestros

2011-02-27T01:25:00.000-08:00

Before I begin this post, I have to forewarn you: everything you are about to read could lead to you misplacing countless hours of your life. At first it would seem like you were relegating those precious hours to 'entertainment,' or 'playing a laid back game to relax.' And then, suddenly one Sunday afternoon while a fierce autumn shower pelts the outside of your home, the thick rivulets of rain collecting on the outside of the window letting the only natural light into your techie-cave, you will realize that you have become one of these people. Instead of shuddering in horror, mourning the loss of more productive time than such famous and brilliant people as John Keats had in their entire life, you will instead think "Just need to finish off the west tower of my castle!"

Minecraft is not all obsession and cubes. No, no. The additional layer, the necessary second element, is music composed for the game by C418. He, or they--I'm not entirely sure--is a brilliant electronica artist. His compositions range from the subtle, mind-numbing ambient works that add profound meaning to staring into an empty room or into a dark, cloudy night sky, to playfully upbeat melodies, like this.

And because it is impossible to look up one thing on the internet and only learn about the specific piece of information you intended to find, I couldn't help but discover an incredible composer. C418 had a blog post on his website talking about the works of Steve Reich. Specifically his dabbling in the area of 'techno music to be played by people,' or however else you might try to define it. Think a techno song--repetitive, simple, deriving its power and musicality from the addition and modulation of layer upon layer of sound--performed live on stage by people playing real instruments. Eighteen of them, in fact.

It is an overwhelmingly interesting thing to see.

Does Steve Reich have anything to do with Minecraft? Only if you count bizarre, internet correlations. But that's what I love doing: delving into one thing only to discover another, often more interesting thing than the first. Speaking of which, this is awesome:

Kaki King, via Tycho Brahe

2011-02-26T20:34:00.000-08:00

Entirely thanks to Tycho of Penny Arcade, I recently became aware of an artist out of the States by the name of Kaki King. The song Tycho linked to via twitter, which was the first song by her that I had heard--Playing with Pink Noise--didn't quite sell me on her. Yes, it did sound a helluva lot like one of my favorite guitar masters, Don Ross, but it wasn't the kind of song that kicks you in the groin and demands you listen. Then I found Death Head.

I've since listened to most of her album, Junior, which someone has graciously posted on their YouTube account, and it's all very good. Damn good! As it stands, I have Death Head and Falling Day favorite'd on YouTube, and they see play almost daily.