Feb 19 2010
1995 / sierra on-line
one of the first graphic adventure games i played. been in love with this one for over a decade now.
lush environments and at moments genuinely creepy. the setup is a haunted museum dedicated to odd and mystical things — death ceremonies, greek gods, aliens, spirits. trumps any haunted house. finish off the setting with a fully fleshed out background story and you get a game where concept marries execution perfectly.
i think there’s an unspoken rule that most people willingly suspend belief when playing a game. continued suspension however, depends on how well the designers tied up all the bits — from story to visuals to game puzzles. even though you’re clicking through a bunch of static screens in shivers, you never lose that feeling of wandering about in a huge mansion. by making the setting a museum, the designers got away with creating a unique theme for each room — yet all themes are cleverly tied together by a singular design style. add to that a straight-forward goal of “collect the missing pieces”, forcing you to explore the envirnoment. the result? total immersion.
to match the variety of themed rooms, there’s also plenty of thematic music and sound effects. one of the best background “noise” mixes is found in the theater — the sound designer duped a line from hamlet in a garbled bass. (i read that in the manual that came with the game.) a neglible detail in gameplay but a treat for nerds like me who’re a sucker for layered meaning.
loved that the puzzles ranged from organic (you can’t get to the other side until you move that pile o’ wood, eh) to actual puzzles like chinese checkers. a nice variety to satisfy the puzzle-nut in me.
and, ah, the creepy! every once in a while, while yer just wandering about minding yer own business, things will randomly…move. a shadow flits in and out of the corner of your eye. or shit, something’ll just jump out at you in the dark. BAM! unexpected fun in a graphic adventure game. corny but done to great effect. part of the delight in wandering about the game environment.
shivers is out-of-print these days. you gotta trawl the ebay to find a copy — and even then it doesn’t play on all xp machines. what would be awesome is if the game designers got a pass to remake this one again. in 3-d. oh my, wow.
Feb 12 2010
2005 / kiera knightly / matthew macfayden
macfayden is totally mute-button hot in this flick. (the hair, oh that lovely lock of hair falling across his troubled brow…!). emphasis on the mute though. i can well mute my way through this entire flick. someone (who? hollywood?) decided to lower the sunshine and make this a moody romance. which, you know, is a logical interp considering that darcy’s the original emo hero. but then it’s like the decision-makers chickened out and half-clung to the book’s exact dialogue in hopes of also catering to the die-hard austenites. except you can’t mix classic austen diction with modern words and concepts. it just comes across as Trying Too Hard. ew. touching his leg?? EW. who thought that one up?! the pre-screen UK audience rightly got the heebeejeebies when they objected to this scene. just totally out-of-character for an austen story, much less the hugely iconic pride&prejudice.
who decided that lizzie should be an angerball? a puzzling deviation. taking away the essence of lizzie’s attraction — why should darcy be intrigued by a woman gets angry like any other female? he likes her exactly for her cheek and her ability to cast herself in a humorous light. lizzie is the delightful contradiction to society’s notion of “good female form”. i’ve no doubt that women get angry and get mad. but making lizzie mad at being slighted just cheapens her character. misses the point entirely.
so we have this new type of lizzie who openly expresses anger. then there’s the darcy who doesn’t emote much. no visible development of character — he’s just hot eye candy. also eye candy is wickham. not a villain here. he stands arouund and steals a lydia that we can’t even bother to hate cuz her character is, quite simply, too thin to carry weight. i get that it’s difficult to transfer a novel into a two hour feature film, much less a novel of such length and historic popularity. but to lose the essence of story in that translation begs the question — why bother in the first place?
Feb 11 2010
joss whedon
it’s, like, cool — but then also awkward. cowboys in space is a fab concept (part of why i love trigun, pew pew!). the awkward comes from the ill-fitting dialogue cadence. it’s not written badly, just badly delivered. like the actors haven’t wrapped their tongues around the rhythm of it yet (despite having filmed an entire season of firefly). and since i speak chinese fluently, i have a hard time buying the occassional mandarin word/phrase they toss about. cuz the pronunciation is like, ew.
on the other hand, excellent story execution. a film that takes sci-fi seriously as social commentary, and not just a vehicle for showing off flashy spacecraft and glowy blue lasers. the story device isn’t unique (i think most sci-fi nerds are familiar with the experimentation gone wrong twist), but what makes it carry weight is that it’s not used as a gimmick. it’s presented in a cause-and-consequence context — resulting in a well-fleshed out story-verse. add to that non-linear characterization (trademark of mister whedon) and it’s compelling story-telling. well worthy of soaking up.
and yieah, ok, summer glau? more please. all action stars should be required to study ballet. srsly.
someone should hand mister whedon a wad of cash so he make sequels to this. having the story just stop after such a setup is so damn depressing.
Feb 10 2010
edward speelers / jeremy irons / john malkovich
casting? quite spot on for most of the roles. speelers as eragon is especially notable — he had the right combo of innocence and not-quite-annoying idiocy that fit the written characterization exactly. and my girlie side loves the crush-worthy casting of garrett hedlund (in black! whee!). i mention the casting first because, if not for speelers, malkovich and hedlund, the film doesn’t carry interest. not even with a big-ass blue dragon.
i had the benefit of watching the film before reading the books. this first viewing wasn’t too off-putting — corny but watchable due to the aforementioned casting. the film was interesting enough that i decided to read the books.
wow. what a difference.
for a newbie storyteller, paolini is excellent. he does traditional fantasy superbly. plenty of details to enrich plot and characters. how in the world did this stuff get lost in translation to film? pity. i’ll never understand the mind of the film producer who decides to cut up what wasn’t broken in the first place. much of what made the book engrossing (such as the witch character angela or the politics between the varden and the dwarves) were not developed properly in the film. what’s stupid is that the stuff dropped are what make up a lot of the plot in the later books. if they ever decide to make a sequel film (is that even possible since the first did so badly?) the producers’ll end up with a princess diaries 2: what a mess of lame-osity since we murdered part one.
watching the film after reading the books is just a cringe-y experience. a two-hour fest of involuntary wincing from me. and holy crap, did they ever under-use djimon or what. the only things that kept me watching were speelers, hedlund, and baby saphira.
damn idiot producers.
Jan 08 2010
2009, guy ritchie, robert downey jr. / jude law
so it doesn’t exactly adhere to canon. (never got the impression that holmes was an especially…action-y…chap.) wannabe gun fu aside, all the wacky genius of holmes got excellent screentime (drug abuse? yes. anal-retentive attention to detail? oh yieah.) the focus was on holmes the man, frailities and all. not that the wannabe gun fu or camp-heavy “mystery” didn’t thoroughly entertain.
really though, the meat is in the performances. juicy, juicy performances. loved that they didn’t make watson the usual bumbling idiot — i mean, seriously now, anyone welcome to holme’s company for a lengthy period must have been whip smart in his own way. i can’t see the sherlock having patience to hang around someone who can’t keep up with the mental pace. jude law makes the best sarcastic, smart-ass watson ever. watson and holmes exchanges were just so damn fun to watch.
whoever wrote the script: thank you for not treating the audience like a dumb-ass. sure the dialogue’s peppered with dramatic movie one-liners — but hey, it’s full of SAT words too. in a non-pompous way. delivered by actors who breathed the characters so well that it established atmostphere without heavy-handed exposition. this is a world inhabited by overly-smart people. if you can’t get that, tough. the plot’ll move on without you. and that’s just awesome.
Nov 20 2009
2009
an instance where the music and visuals so captured my imagination that i’ve succumbed to the ride whole-heartedly. not every movie can achieve this — all parts have to be just so, from pacing to acting to cinematography. when done right, oh my, what a great emotional rush.
my first viewing was more of an artistic appreciation. a clinical view even. none of the plot twists were particularly engaging despite my brain registering the uniqueness of it. by the third viewing, this time at home, all the heavy-handed drama sunk in — helped along by the amazing soundtrack and main theme. i’m lost in it now. i love the sweeping wide-shots of bombay, dev patel’s intensity, the amazing dance choreography at the end. by the time the graphic credits roll, i’m sitting on the couch mulling over destiny, love, and all the itty gritty bits that make up life. definitely not a popcorn flick.
the hand of the director and storyteller is so blatant in this film so i know my emotions just got played like a banjo (yes, a banjo). but it’s cool. i don’t mind. if only all films can play me so well.
luis j. rodriquez
he grew up in the city right next to mine. that’s always my first thought when i think of always running. we grew up in the same area but came away with totally different sets of experience.
i’m a minority too. but i never, ever suffered. no racism, no broken families, no need to gangbang just to belong (well, being an introvert helps on that last count i suppose). so really, i don’t share much other than the purely superficial with mr. rodriquez. reason says that i should not be able to empathize. but i do. i don’t know why but i do. i’m attracted to all stories of minorities who struggle despite never having to jump that hurdle myself. it’s not so much needing to understand the minority struggle or feeling solidarity with my fellow peers. it’s really about the story of the guy who conquers society’s expectations of him simply because his will is that strong. mr. rodriquez takes all the crap that flows his way, takes all the crap he created through his own mistakes, and still, through all that crap, finds his way out to know who he is as a person and to stand by who he found himself to be. i think there are a lot of people who think they know who they are but when it counts, second quess themselves because they are hindered by society beating down on them. to have lived through what he did and still be able to write honestly and eloquently about all his ups and downs is what makes rodriquez a worthy hero.
so many re-reads later, the one scene that sticks out in my mind is when the counselor(?)/teacher(?) goes to his little bedroom shack in the backyard and finds that the inside is plastered from floor to ceiling with rodriquez’s art. he poured his heart out for himself and himself only despite the insanity of his lifestyle. art for the artist’s sake. not for seeking laurels. that bit has stayed with me for many, many years.
i would love to sit in on one of his lectures. he has quite a way with words — somehow weaving a rolling rhythm with just everyday speak.
sophie kinsella
have never loathed a character more. can’t even stand to flip through this book to find the main character’s name…because i then run the risk of possibly stabbing something, anything, at hand. stabbing it really, really hard. several times.
there’s anger at a character because the character was written to be villainous and therefore deserving of the reader’s hatred. then there’s hating a character because, oh my god, for whatever reason the author thought exaggerated stereotypes of women can build an endearing heroine. exaggerated stereotypes, especially stereotypes that go against the grain of common sense, shouldn’t be a basis for anything. why is that so hard for society to comprehend?! kinsella writes this book about a woman who shops endlessly because she’s an idiot (not even because she’s full of insecurities, she’s just STUPID) — and the public eats this shit up. why, for god’s sake, why? because shopping is what girls do and so it’s acceptable to shop till you’re piss-ass broke cuz, hey i’m a cute and modern girl who can dig myself out of the hole!? how about we just NOT perpetuate girl+shopping stereotypes already.
what makes the character extra annoying is that she has no personality whatsoever other than shopping. and drooling after a guy who is a total ass. in fact, i don’t recall any multi-dimensional characters in this book. everyone has one distinguishing characteristic and that’s it. possibly the only non-annoying character is the best friend. at least she’s honest about her shortcomings and doesn’t gloss over apologies to herself or her friends.
unfortunately, this was one of my first encounters with chick-lit. that was about five years ago. i still haven’t picked up another chick-lit novel. this crap has put me off the genre so much that i have no clue when i’ll even glance at another such book. i prefer not to engage in stabby feelings.
Nov 06 2009
blizzard entertainment
after seven years, i’m finally, finally, starting to get bored of this game. i’ve maxed out my sorceror as much as i can stand to grind and i don’t bother beating diablo anymore because he’ll never drop anything good.
and that there, is the allure that kept me clicking through many a night — A Good Drop. what is it about leveling up a character that’s so damn addicting? seriously, all i’m doing is pillaging monster corpses in hopes of picking up a bigger and better trinket for my little pixel guy to wear. i don’t co-op and i don’t pvp. just me and my lil sorcerer buddy walking around the dungeons for ages.
it is nice to know that i’ve leveled up a character so that he’s well-nigh invinceable. one-hit kills are teh awesome. i never play barbarian or rogue because i like the magic and i like range attacks. my favorite quest is the warlord in dlvl13 because damn that loot is always fun to shuffle through. blood knights are totally fun to wack. fireball and chain lighting are my good ole standbys.
a few years ago i got my first ipod courtesy of john romero. he had all soundtracks from diablo on it. thank you john. i listen to it in my car but i’ve long turned off the soundtrack during actual gameplay (repetitive themes much? ew!). still, the music is indicative of how lush the gameworld has been wrought. there’s not a lot of stuff to go through (except for the sixteen dungeons) and the objectives are way simple. but the graphics, the music, the voice-acting — all did a lot to create the medieval mood. loved it the minute i started walking about tristram.
recently replayed this again because 1) i never uninstall diablo and 2) part three is coming out soon (as per blizzard time). have a feeling i won’t be uninstalling this any time in the future…it’s a comfy, familiar retreat i can run to when people piss me off. as aforementioned, one-hit kills are teh awesome.
2008, michael berg
it could have been so much more. what it is emotionally shortchanges the audience. the snarky take on a disenchanted superhero (who has to pay public damage fees no less) is a fun premise — but when the majority of the scenes are played with an undertone of dark satire, cliche comebacks that supposedly add humor come off as a cheap undercut. it’s like the film can’t decide if it wants to be serious or if it wants to be teasing superhero movie cliches. it didn’t do the latter very well. should’ve just stuck with dark emo because there was So Much to work with — the pathos of the lonely hero, the lovers who can’t ever be together, near death experiences. those hamfisted attempts at humor just rocked the plot flow.
something else that rocked the plot flow was charlize suddenly showing up with dark eyeshadow and dressed in low-cut black. well that’s stupid. for a woman who’s trying to escape the past by hiding behind suburbia, you’d think she’d stick with jeans. but no, the movie makers just had to pander to what they perceive the audience wants and dress her in hot, sexy black. because us audience just watch movies for hot chicks and badass heroes. have them doofus heads ever wondered why certain fantasy/scifi films make it big and some don’t? lord of the rings and star trek get the big bucks because they don’t treat the audience as slobbering, idiot fanboys.
and maybe in the end, that’s where hancock fell short. the producers took a good story and mucked it up with their hollywood bullshit. if not for will smith and charlize theron’s performances, i would drop the ball on this one. but i like what they did with their characters.
Oct 16 2009
2005, future games
so, um, it took me about two years to finish playing this game. the story just didn’t hook. no character evolution, no great revelation of mystery, no amazing insight into, well, anything. just the usual humdrum of clicking your way through locations till the game ends. which is sad y’know when all else (graphics, gameplay, dialogue, voice-acting) were top notch. to be fair, the plot setup was conventional but interesting. adventure gamer nerds dig foraging for ancient lost treasures and nazi intriques. but from there, the plot went, urrr, nowhere. the hero is just so mundane and vanilla that i didn’t really participate in his adventures so much as stand around and observe his comings and goings. made the ending emotionally-detatched and feel rather perfunctory in execution.
at least the numerous locales were pretty. lots of atmostpheric effects like in syberia (but for some reason, not a lot of rippling water). i like me lots of grand interiors so i wasn’t all that moved by the swamps and mines i had to trudge through but hey, great sets anyway. no details lost on visuals. rust, drips, peeling paint, lots of dank and dusty corners. plus, no funky glitches! martin didn’t step into any walls or steps. having had to sludge through paradise, non-glitchy nibiru is much welcome.
excellent details into environment building. there’re lots of objects to click on. items to be picked up are not obviously displayed. which is cool. adventure gaming is about exploring after all so it’s nice to actually get to do so. other realistic details? the fact that when you enter a dark room, any dark room, you better find a light switch. i think there were at least four light switch moments in the game. how can you click around if you can’t see anything?! doh!
the non-realistic part? sticking a red-hot iron in yer pants. because yer pants is where all inventory items are stored. rocks, crowbars, wrenches, dynamite…yieah. there’s a party in your pants alright!
favorite dialogue sequence? when martin’s trying to get isabella out. isa’s mom’s a hoot. any and all dialogue with pedro’s also a riot.
gripes? why oh why does everyone seem to think that mayans would ever put so many fricken puzzles in their temples?! i would like to think that we’ve arrived at a point in adventure game design where colored-ball puzzles randomly popping up in a mayan temple would be construed as wtf mayans aren’t gameboard puzzle fiends. i much preferred shoving drums in and out of statue noses as a puzzle to sliding around damn tiles (damn tile-sliding, dammit it to the eighteenth circle of hell!). and oh yieah, puzzles should not consist of me traipsing back and forth to procure an utterly plot-irrelevant item in order to get to an item of actual relevancy. hotdog and bottled wine puzzles, i’m looking atchu. grrr. arrrgh.
nibiru’s a very classic adventure game. if only it had a gripping plot. then i wouldn’t have uninstalled it right after i finished it.
Oct 12 2009
2008, bekmambetov
i would really like it if angelina ate something. like, she and i can sit down and share a big mac. we can work through our aversions to greasy meat together — i get to broaden my palette and she gets to, you know, fucking eat.
but other than her disturbingly skinny arms (swear man, she didn’t look this skeletal in tomb raider), angie was super fab. thank god for that face and those smoky eyes. i spent the first twenty minutes laughing at the absolute tongue-in-cheek absurdity of having angelina jolie show up outta nowhere, inform the total geek that his dad was an assassin, then kick gun-fu ass as only angelina jolie can. she’s one of the few people that i don’t mind not stepping into make-believe land for. i know i’m watching angelina and not the character. and that’s fine. cuz it’s angelina(!). who still needs to eat. seriously now.
the premise and settings were full-tilt looney. in a good way. who doesn’t enjoy a good old guild of assassins? with a thousand year history and all! the textile factory was completely unexpected. but cool. really cool. loved that heavy-handed loom of fate bit. binary in weaving? sure. why not. like hidden messages in the koran. the brain-fluff in me loves that kinda crazy mish-mash of unreality, precisely because it makes reality that much less grim. having morgan freeman deliver the fluff sure helps the digestion too. but. having morgan freeman say bad words is just…odd. i can fully embrace all the ridiculous bull this flick pulls, and even sit through the unnecessarily bloody montages that Go On Forever (okay mr. artistic director, i get it, let’s move on now), but damn if morgan freeman dropping the f-bomb didn’t kill my suspended belief like a skunk on the highway. wtf man. totally didn’t make sense.
one other annoyed gripe. that oh-so-angerful “what the fuck have you done lately” bit at the end was, how you say, errr, dumb. i get it, i get it, he’s finally beating his oppressors. hooray for you, mr. geek turned Dark Emo Hero. then he turns the anger onto us for not doing the same so awesomely as he has? is this the writers’ way of saying all us drudges are drudges because we won’t viciously turn on our existence and blast our own demons? that line smacked of the mousy kid who used be nothing, then showed up at the high school reunion with a filthy load of cash and condescended to those who couldn’t reach his heights. maybe i’m just being overly sensitive and paranoid. but it sure made me want to slap Dark Emo Hero a couple on the head. he lost cool points with that. it turned what was a fun ride through lala land into glorifying violence. because with that one line, the writers are telling you that those in control of their own destiny are the ones who viciously kill in the name of vegeance. they are awesome. they are cool.
NOT.
if i don’t watch that last bit though, i like the rest of the flick just fine. drooling over mr. tumnus and all.
Oct 07 2009
1999, stephen sommers
love movies. yet every once in a while i get glutted on the overflow of tedious crap (thank you, formulaic hollywood “creatives”) and need a reminder of Movie Fun. how fun a reminder was the mummy? why, so fun that even the script crackled with snarky, witty energy. reading about the rick o’connell character setup in the script still gives me the chuckles.
the magic ingredient is all sommers. i know this is a popcorn flick — stereotyped characterizations (american cowboys love shoot-outs!!), over-blown special fx (i can see heees eyeballz!!), good ole monster villains (zeh mummy eez aliiiive!!!). sommers polished off all the cliches with clever dialogue. really clever dialogue. cuz the dialogue did its job — you remember each character not because they were running around all heroic. you remember the characters cuz each one was alternatively the right amount of snark, smart-ass, dumbass, or dead-pan sarcastic. every bit of the story, characters, and sets winked a homage to old-fashioned hollywood monster movies. i think the popcorn works because the story and the characters are all earnestly and sincerely portrayed. in paraphrase, the mummy is about some undead voodoo guy who comes back to reign havoc on a slapstick band of heroes. hardy har har. but you get sucked in because cast and crew believed in every characters’ journey, villain to hero. each character had his/her own story. the multi-layers balanced out the deliberately silly sequences.
but that’s not all! you start off with the cliches and you end up with the cliches (we ride off into the sunset with the girl y’know), yet somewhere in the middle you get a convincingly ditzy librarian heroine who screams like a man (gotta love the non-girlie squeals) and gets the hots for the admittedly super hot villain. sommers flips the switch on the cliches so smoothly. the mummy is a romcom in disguise folks. most everyone i know is rooting for the guy and girl to hook up. you know they will and it is still so very fun to watch.
oh yieah. the delicous, yummy actors. john hannah made me cry in four weddings and a funeral but dammit if i don’t love him forever more as the not-quite-sleazy (but definitely greasy!) brother. right spot on in every scene. the movie wherein i was first introduced to the hotness that is rachel weisz. and the hotness that is brendan fraser. because i like my heroes ruff, gruff, a bit bad, and a whole lotta clean-cut hawtness.
Oct 01 2009
1992, rob reiner, aaron sorkin
have never been in the armed forces — so aside from wishing i could learn how to do that flashy gun drill in the flick’s intro, i also always end up getting mentally slam-dunked by the insular world of the military. there’s actually no such thing as conduct unbecoming a marine but that’s how we glorify our soldiers, the guys whom we want to do what they do with the utmost honor and love for country and countrymen. that they can’t always walk the straight line makes for excellent drama, way to suck you in.
the super snazzy dialogue doesn’t hurt either. tom cruise can be so excellent sometimes, delivering lines with nary a hiccup that i don’t even hear the over-crafted writing. i love his daniel kaffee more than i love jack nicholas’ jessup. jessup is straight-up a hard-ass military man, unbending and rock-solid. which is cool cuz he’s the foil. kaffee is all layers under the smirk. you can see the fierce in his eyes. redirect on the mess hall sequence is just so much fun to watch. other standouts i love are low-key pollack (who’s morals satisfyingly strike the final chord) and the guy who played dawson to such perfection. my favorite character is dawson. my favorite moment is when he salutes kaffee. in the end, the story goes back to him, the solidier on the line. he may not be on screen all that much but his character is relentlessly drilled into your emotions through kaffee. so even though the obvious journey is kaffee’s, the one that lingers in my mind is always dawson’s. master story crafting.
only occasional awkward moments sadly belong to demi moore. it’s great to see a female role not tethered by romantic themes and it’s great to see demi moore bring it to life. just kinda uncomfy at those angerball moments when there were a lotta words to get out (this is sorkin afterall). she didn’t always carry the wordy rhythm too well. she does good when it counts though so i overlook the rickety parts cuz it’s real fun to watch her nerdy j.a.g. attorney. plus, bonus(!), random noah wyle and cuba gooding jr. appearances. like finding a dollop of chocolate when you only had enough to buy vanilla.
i’m not a courtroom drama junkie but this one i don’t mind repeat viewings. a good story, a great delivery, and i dig moral dilemmas muchly.
Sep 29 2009
1996, rodriquez & tarantino
so much fun it should be part of every family’s friday night get-togethers. unapologetically gruesome, fierce deadpans, and a corpse guitar that has brendan fraser’s head (swear!).
it starts off rather mundane. yieah yieah, a pair of bank robber brothers take a family hostage. a lot of swearing, tension between bad guys and cops, blah blah blah. the only things that kept me awake were clooney rattling off lines like he actually was a hip bank robber and the teasing tail wisps of a tentacle tattoo that graced his neck. even harvey keitel’s emo couldn’t keep me glued.
then BAM. fucking vampires. wtf? wtf fucking vampires!? completely left-field. sure salma did a hot dance number but, hey, imma girl. i could care less about seductive female jiggling. i do care about vampire juice gushing outta rotting orifices and the undead going up in flames. awesome. pure camp, pure undistilled pulp. the second half of the flick is the best fight-to-stay-alive rush ever. ever.
and surprisingly enough, you get character development without any soulful close-ups or them dreaded heart-to-heart dialogue exchanges. cuz it’s so obvious — when faced with a situation wherein your entire belief system gets one-upped by wtf vampires(!!!), then yer ass changes tune whether the writer puts it in the script or not. i liked that clooney’s over-the-top perfomance made for a nice contrast with juliette lewis’ low-key vibes.
and oh yieah. mayan ruins. Best. Idea. Evar. dusk till dawn is the type of gruesome camp i lurves. the gorey imagination of my youth come alive. ja baby.
Sep 23 2009
1984, robin mckinley
possibly the only story where beating the big bad is not a super-major plot point; when the big bad shows up, he still manages to stay sidelined and then zips out after just a few cuz he got his ass whupped over-easy. and it’s ok(!). the hero and the crown is about the hero (aha!) and her crown (way!). her journey is why you stay reading through till the end.
possibly the only novel where run-on sentences are okay and, in fact, add immensely to the flow and tone of story. dialogue is not the primary vehicle for character development so the author uses a lot of exposition. run-on sentences then become so fun to read — a stream-of-thought view into each character’s brain. each eventual dialogue exchange then becomes loaded with meaning. makes for excellent immersion.
i love me a good description (which means i oughta love dickens but man he can be a chore sometimes). hero and the crown has exactly enough description to give you oohs and ahhs but not enough for you to lose sight of the plot. a black dragon so hawtly evil that dust from the earth eddies around his corpse. a lake that’s not quite a lake and reminds me of the abyss.
non-perfection is endearing — even for a big meanie like me. aerin is clumsy, nerdy, obstinate, without much self-confidence. by the end, all her success is hard-earned. she walks into walls to learn things. however uncomfortable to admit, that is pretty much me. it could be one reason i keep re-reading this novel. i just don’t like to, urm, actually admit that.
Sep 21 2009
1998, simon & schuster (!?)
sole influencing factor in purchasing this game — shiny 3d done in art deco. all 500 yards of art deco. from linear repititions to shiny smooth metal to glorious muted color palette. pretty much the lure of wandering about a luxury spaceliner done up in deco was the only excuse i needed to buy starship titantic. i figured that, even if it sucks in gameplay, the visuals will more than make up for the lack.
thank goodness doug adams was deliciously wonky. not only did gameplay not suck but the plot dripped with dark humor. to this day, i don’t understand why people think the story fell short. the setup to starship is just like myst — you get dropped in the middle of nowhere so you start figuring stuff out. plot unfolds as you dig around. and there is totally a plot just in the middle of your face. one that’s so reeking of simple human greed that it spills out into the ship itself. i love the slightly off-the-edge insanity that pervades. every few minutes or so, the ship announcer rattles off inanity (attention all passengers! afternoon prayer has been cancelled until further notice!) that pushes the boundaries of laughing with the ship and being laughed at by the ship itself. at least, that’s what my over-active imagination tells me. balance the off-kilter silliness with the fact that your game mission is to wander about and pick up the dismembered body pieces of the main computer, which, creepily enough, has a female name and is totally just a glowing blue female form in the ship control room. a bright-blue lawnmower man type of body.
my favorite bot? the succ-u-bus. damn that thing is so cute.
this game is fantastic. storytelling through game immersion. not all graphic adventures achieve that even though there are, you know, graphics to help a body out. it’s all in the presentation and starship titanic does that whole staging thing pretty damn well.
Sep 18 2009
1986, christopher pike
so-called convential wisdom tells us that teenagers will always be teenagers. which is why when a guy writes a story and actually Gets It about human emotions, it’s a restorative for my faith in humanity. the tachyon web pits the all-too-familiar teenage angst against a fantastic, futuristic plot. you get sucked into the story because you, like, either are a teenager or, odds on, you were even actually once a teenager.
what makes tachyon web such a great read is pike’s genius in never once belittling the teenage angst. yes they’ve crushes, greed, and an abundance of self-entitlement. yet. they are also simultaneously curious, caring, resourceful, and ultimately, honorable in a way only the young can be. the open-ended conclusion still satisfies because you know that this group of teenagers will be okay — they have proven themselves to be Good People.
pike doesn’t skimp on details for the adult cast either. the general in particular is understandably more complex after having lived through tragedy. this contrasted with eric’s naivete makes for some amazingly tense scenes. that eric’s untried sense of nobility ultimately affects the decisions of the adults around him is a wonderful message. a reminder that teenagers can present those disarmingly honest observations about life that we old fogeys may have forgotten.
i’m not a science nurd so i’ve no clue if the scientificky terms and technologies throughout are realistic. fun to read about though. particle streams, tachyon travel, holograms, centrifugal gravity. sounds fabulous. i wouldn’t mind living in the world that pike dreamed up.
this story screams to be made into a film. just the world-building alone is enough to warrant a lavish cgi budget. novas, space ports, and alien motherships are tossed about without a blink to the eye…would love to see that splashed onto a giant screen. with a non-stop pace, humor, and that amazing heart-twist of an ending. drool-worthy.
Sep 16 2009
translated from arráncame la vida, ángeles mastretta
had no expectations whatsoever with this book. i’d bought it during my must-expand-my-reading-to-more-contemporary-fiction phase. out of the New Fiction (!) shelf, i selected tear this heart out because 1) the cover art was pretty and 2) it was tradeback. i’ve an inordinate love for tradebacks.
first time through i really didn’t get anything that happened. i’m rather slow at picking up the point sometimes and this was certainly one of those times. it took me about three times through before i found the rhythm of the plot and prose. mastretta doesn’t write the way i’m used to reading, she definitely has her own pace and lyric. it’s unique, and now i can’t see this story written any other way. changing the words and phrasing would completely alter the weight of the storytelling, diminish how i’ve come to so admire the heroine.
our modern culture is prone to simplying complexities so the greater audience can grasp a concept. feminism in the popular media is girl power, women who one-up the men in her life, women who physically fight for her right to be powerful. it’s not a bad message per se, it’s just not a good enough message. one-upping anyone doesn’t mean you earn the right to equality. how did you get to your position of power? is it power by force or power stemming from self-worth? the journey there should be what girl power perpetuates.
tear this heart out is one long journey. i can’t relate to the historical background because i’ve yet to read up on mexican history, but it’s not necessary to know the politics in order for the story to take hold. catalina is altogether brutally honest about life and love, capable of seeing humor in the dark and in herself. her sense of self-worth, from birth to nurture to maturity, is a heckuva ride to witness. always, at the end, i cry her same tears of joy and hurt. because i’ve also been there, done that, and know women who have too.
susan kay
can’t recall where i bought this book. i keep thinking it was a cheap purchase ($5 bin) and that i picked it up only because its one-worded title and gilded victorian cover tugged at the part of me who slaves for romantic drama.
drama in its current incarnation is So Damn Annoying because writers tend towards melodrama but call it drama. you get emo stories that consists of men who brood about the injustices of mankind and/or women who weep inconsolably over lost love. add some tragic twist and this is mostly what is considered attractive dramatic storytelling these days. it’s shortchanging the listener/reader is what it is. presuming that we are not capable of understanding dramatic themes unless it’s thrown into our face. maybe that’s true in a one-hour telly show but not so if you have at your disposal the breadth of a novel. kay’s phantom is not a novel of harry potter length and yet it delivers within an amazing cast of characters exquisitely varied in disposition, motive, and (in several) emotional growth. the title leads you to believe that it’s only about erik (the phantom of the opera), yet in attempting to fully explore the background of this one person through the eyes of people he meets, kay has so fully fleshed out the so-called “supporting” characters that this novel becomes their story too.
a first person narrative may seem easy (i’m just writing exactly how my character thinks!) but it’s not. switching from one point of view to the next, examining the same scene but from different angles — consistency is the key to keeping believability. phantom has no flaws in consistency, at least none i’ve detected and i’ve read this book umpteen times. that no character is flawless is another touch of reality. superficially, phantom is a romantic tragedy. but kay has turned erik’s story into an examination of humanity and all the heartaches and bittersweet triumphs that come with living as we do. this is the kind of story that stays with me because i crave emotional depth, love at its most elemental level twined through the complexities that come with mature self-knowledge. stories about life itself, regardless of the setting, are the only kind of stories worthy of being re-read, over and over again.
1997, luc besson
i want to live in a place where thai food comes to my window in the form of a giant floating junk. the shower/fridge combo is a bit iffy but hey, if i wanna escape i can sleep my way to a planet that is just one giant beach for vacay. yieah, not bad at all.
caught this gem in my second year of college when i was actually sick of movies because there just wasn’t anything new that captured my imagination. then some time late one night, i flipped into chris tucker saying “super green” while dressed like, urm, dressed crazy. hooked since then. loved it since then.
aside from gazing at the hawtness that is miz mila (and the hawtness of bruce willis WTFBBQ), you also get what is, imo, the best chris tucker performance ever. actually, one of the best performances by an actor onscreen ever. where in great googly moogly did he dream up those voice ticks?! i done seen him in those rush hour flicks and it’s totally not just a high-pitched voice at work — tucker tucked (haha) in an elastic physical performance to enhance the crazy. better than jim carrey. maybe you watch the first half of the film for the chase sequence through new york but you definitely stick around for the second half because wtfbbq with ruby rhod?!.
every two seconds, a familiar actor’s face pops on screen (luke perry?! ian holm?!) or else every three seconds there’s a static character showing up dressed as only gaultier can style. and, of course, the sets. besson (and his concept artist gurus) imagined it epic and epic is how i like it. new york is high and new york is low. attack of the clones was made a decade later with better graphic technology but it in no way conveys the realistic sleeze and grease of a living metropolis.
soundtrack is, just, love. it’s such an eclectic mix, from reggae to techno opera, but it all works. there were sequences where dialogue is at the minimum because the visuals are played up by the music alone. it gave the film a rhythm and you rolled with the beat until the end. spacey, techno beats. like a whole buncha people, the opera bit ranks high with me.
everybody and their dawg likes to throw around the good vs. evil theme. most end with the hero conquering evil once and for all. i much prefer whedon and besson’s version — evil is never truly vanquished. it comes back (maybe even at regular 500 year intervals!) and it must be defeated anew each time. otherwise good could not become good unless they knew and fought evil. the fifth element simplifies this (buffy had to go through seven seasons to get it) but that’s what make fifth element work. it’s not necessary to channel the eternal struggle of good vs. evil through a tortured hero for a story to carry emotional depth. it’s a lot more fun to be smart and snarky (i’m saving your ass so you can save the world!). punctuate the snark with occassional dark emo and it’s a film i won’t fall asleep watching. plus, well, the sparkly cgi makes me happy.
Sep 14 2009
1996, graphic adventure, barracuda
i’m about twelve years behind in playing timelapse. it was on my “must have” ever since i found a magazine ad of it where they’d used a ray-traced screenshot of the atlantis set — it was turquoise, it was shiny, and i totally wanted to go there. had to wait years for various reasons before i got my hands on a copy of this game. even though i played it way after its initial 1996 release, timelapse is as much responsible for my salivating over graphic adventure games as is myst and zork nemesis.
after waiting twelve years to play this, my conclusions?
1 – somebody, anybody, needs to remake this game using today’s graphic technology. syberia the hell out of it PLEASE. take the gorgeous shiny stuff and make it anti-aliased. i would die of happiness.
2 – dammit, where’s timelapse 2?? i’d like to return to that homeworld already!
timelapse is classic graphic adventure gaming. hopping around worlds and solving concentric-set puzzles. everybody and their mom harp about wanting puzzles that are logical to the environment. in that respect, timelapse is totally like riven. you get a journal that provides some clues but then that’s it. just you and your noggin figuring stuff out. pretty much the only two puzzles that drove me nuts were the picture-slide puzzle and the number wheel puzzle. interestingly enough, both are in the mayan world.
and oh yes, the worlds. visually gorgeous (as previously mentioned) and the designers didn’t futz around with research. many puzzles were culturally based. the only other game that did these types of puzzles super well was journeyman project 3. take that, logical hounds. timelapse worlds are vast and there was plenty to explore. the mayan world in particular Would Never End. temple after temple. it speaks a lot about the game immersion if my response to the vastness of the mayan world was that the mayans were crazy builders. and not that the game designers went wacko all out.
i can forgive the lack of plot urgency in this game because, well, i’m a sucker for pretty pictures. the professor guy i’m supposed to be rescuing? eh, who cares about him. if he were as smart as me, he would’ve gotten out as i did. leave him. i’m taking flight to the homeworld thanks.
Sep 13 2009
british, graphic adventure, nucleosys
have been looking for a good spook as of late so picked up scratches. bottom line spook factor wasn’t all that, except maybe for anything involving that damned basement furnace. poking around the mausoleum gave off a decent ick factor too. there were a few moments here and there where creepy vibe was well set up (it helps that you’re the only person poking around this drafty place). but the charm wears off when you have to plonk around the rooms back and forth for puzzle solving. and you know what? too bad there wasn’t ever anything jumping out at you when you “got a bad feeling”. it just told you about the creepy and then…that was it. boo.
my usual lust for amazing graphic imagery was not sated. maybe it’s because i’ve been spoiled with lush environments and fantastic designs in adventure games. but then, when the set is supposed to be this grand mansion, i wanted something i can fully dive into — and not rather static backgrounds that didn’t react to my clicks. whoever was the interior decorator for the rooms needs to be smacked. god-awful victorian gilt. ew.
user-friendly though. no hunting for pixels (much) and quite logical puzzle design. i think the only part i detested was dialing on the phone all the time and hearing the guy yap on and on forever.
the story? well, i guess it says a lot about the game if the story is something i mention three paragraphs into the rant. i get what they were going with the story and it’s a decently sophisticated take on curses, voodoo, and all that. but aside from (again!) that damned basement ending, nothing about the story really made me give a damn what happened to whom. just clicking from task to task so i can finish it and get it over with.
despite being rather blah about the game (most likely will not be revisiting anytime soon), i did shell out the cash when i found out there’s a director’s version. something about polished graphics, which i’m all for, and an extended ending. since the original basement ending did carry a nice twist, one of these days i’ll play the director’s cut to see if they’d added more juice to it.
Sep 11 2009
1993, martin scorsese
when i was fifteen and watched this for school, the only plotline that stuck out was ellen and newland not quite hooking up. when i caught this flick again at twenty-five (after having schlepped through an inglorious college career because i never quite jived with the rest of society) the only plotline that mattered was newland’s emotional awakening and eventual maturity. may no longer seemed a papercut foil. ellen is not quite so whiny. and, how fabulous(!), granny kicks arse. amazing what a difference ten years can effect. through the lens of an adult, this film captures so exactly my feelings of isolation, of life regrets, and of bittersweet acceptance. there’s no overly dramatic plot twist to bring out the emo. the low-key approach is much, much appreciated.
this is a scorsese film?! never knew until i wiki’ed it just now. which is so awesome because my usual raison d’etre for watching a scorsese flick is for the stylistic explosions of violence. age of innocence is so different from, say, gangs of new york. nothing hurried at all. obviously nothing blows up. everything spoken, from exposition to veiled menace, is given enough airtime so the viewer can really savor the words. which makes sense since the film’s based on a novel.
my only possible complaint? newland’s icky fake old person makeup in the end. so…stage drama-ish. like, ew!
m.m. kaye
unabashed fairytale with a one-eyed wink on the traditional princess types.
fairy godmother?
check.
a crochety old lady who loves ya anyway and speaks common sense.
handsome prince?
check.
eats ice cream straight from the tub (egads!) but will send bothersome family members packing in the face of twue lurve.
charming princess?
check check.
freckles on her snub nose and no need for frills to be special.
a short but bouncy read. thirty minute dose of happy feelings — better than watching friends. it’s easy to dismiss the book because the language is so fluffy. but the story lingers because there’s such a strong streak of common sense throughout. whyever should a girl wait around to be rescued by some hapless knight in shining armor? when did pretty determine anyone’s worth? but of course kings get tired! they work all the time!! and so on and so forth.
and the illustrations! oh my! all by m.m.kaye herself. flowing princess dresses, inquisitive squirrels, barefoot kitchen maids. nobody draws this style anymore. curves of art nouveau. absolutely love.
Sep 10 2009
white birds productions, benoit sokal.
there’s one thing that benoit sokal games will always be — a Visual Orgasmo. all imagery matches the story theme, down to the color palette and tone. paradise is about loss, war, social and emotional turmoil. so every set you step into is an amazing array of muted neutrals occasionally punched up by lush greenery. rain drifts, pools ripple, mosquitoes flit all about. love them visual details. my favorite? hopping around on the lily pads. just…so cute(!!).
story? should’ve amped up the emo earlier on. instead, all the angst is crammed into the last third of the game. took me over two years to finish this game compared to the all-nighter spent with syberia because i just couldn’t get worked up over what happens next. nothing happens next! except wandering around desolation and performing monkey tasks that make no sense. why why why do i need to traipse around the hated tree-house maze to gather a bajillion items for trapping that damned leopard who doesn’t ever stay put?? which, by the way, the leopard wandering off does nothing to forward the plot. no great twist revealed, no significant change to the main character affected. bah.
but i do love the ending. however left-field it was.
one of the buggier graphic adventures i’ve played in a while. ann doesn’t always go where you click. cursor transforms are on a slight delay. cursor has trouble transforming when in tight corners. she’s walking up stairs but her feet are shoving right into the steps! characters walk through one another (geez, old skool glitch!). etcetra. i actually don’t mind that there’s no indicator to scroll into the next screen unless you click in the specific direction. adds to the world building experience. i just, you know, would like it if i didn’t have to click in one direction several thousand times just so ann moves in that direction. srsly.
unlike syberia i have no memory of the soundtrack. and the only really memorable character is the elephant. i felt so bad for that elephant. who cares about the leopard. he’s always running off and getting lost anyway.
keep comparing paradise to syberia but that’s how it is when one is so much the superior of the other. paradise could have been so much better. not really paradise. more like purgatory.