Now Playing:
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Maybe watching it at home on a rainy afternoon was the wrong way to go, or maybe the extended version really waters down the original, but man, Livia and I both thought
this flick was overrated.
We liked the amiable tone, most of the characters, Carell's performance, and I think Romany Malco pretty much ran away with every
scene he was in (Who is this guy? I've never seen him before.)
But aside from that? Well, it turns out there's a limit to how much sex talk and swearing I care to listen to over the course of two hours, and this one passed that limit about an hour in.
The Cat Returns
This is generally considered the weakest of Ghibli Studios films, but I was surprised at how weak it really was, especially in the dialogue.
The great thing about the Ghibli films (like Pixar films) is that there's no age group that they don't appeal to. Unlike Disney films, which might appeal to adults about half the time, even
the least complex Ghibli film (My Neighbor Totoro) engages both adults and kids by aiming high.
It's pretty instructive, in fact, to watch the American dub of a movie like Kiki's Delivery Service, and then watch it in the original Japanese with subtitles. The Japanese
dialogue is more complex and less inclined to snarky retorts and cheap gags. There are more half-thoughts and character details, and a little less emotional coddling.
But what's really instructive is to watch the feature on the DVD about the dubbing of The Cat Returns. The most important goal, apparently, was to match the words up to the
mouth animations, which meant the actors were rewriting as they went along, altering some writer's painstaking craft on the fly so the animations would match up.
To make matters worse, the subtitles for the movie are actually "dubtitles", transcribed from the dubbing session instead of translated from the original Japanese. For
a viewer who doesn't know Japanese, this puts the the original script entirely out of reach.
So kids will probably enjoy the movie, but parents should be prepared for that "I'm on an all-sugar diet" feeling that accompanies a lot of Disney animation.
Lamaze Chime Garden
Status: Ongoing. May soon break.
Mood: Varied
Notes: This is the toy equivalent of a "button masher". Whomp your little hand on any big flower and it plays a note. Or at higher settings, it plays a short tune,
or a pretty long tune. As each note of the tune plays, one of the flowers lights up.
The notable thing about this toy is the quality of the music. Most kids toys have dreadful little speakers scratching out a tune as best they can. The more complex the song
-- especially if they have singing, like a Disney toy based on a movie -- the worse the sound. The Chime Garden sounds great, especially at the highest setting (if I can figure out
how to post audio, I'll try to have some comparative samples up soon).
Gen is least interested in the note-by-note play. Turns out she likes to put on some music and dance (kind of bumping up and down where she sits). Or turn towards another
toy while the music is playing, then when the tune ends, she turns around, whomps a flower with both hands to get it started again, then gets back to her other toy.
Just tonight, the tunes started warping, repeating, and cutting out early. She has to work extra hard to keep her soundtrack going, but it's also kind of hilarious. I'm hoping
to get a recording of that too.
UPDATE: Looks like it just needed batteries...
We ♥ Katamari Damacy (PS2)
Status: Done
Mood: Sated
Notes: Good old Katamari. I was very excited about this sequel, although I hadn't quite exhausted the original. I tumbled through it pretty quickly.
Turns out, I didn't need more Katamari. Replaying the original every couple of years would probably be have been enough. It had better music, better interface, the king's dialogue
was less annoying. In W♥KD, an added level of self-referential chatter with the common folk just delays me from rolling the Katamari.
This one's got some twists: underwater rolling, speedway rolling, rolling up clouds, etc. It's still all just rolling, which is fine. Ultimately, it's the same game with
different backdrops. If you wanted that wonderful final level of KD to get even bigger and grander, this is probably as good as it gets. If the Katamari got any larger, it
would become a replacement Earth with all stuff of humanity trapped in the middle. Heh.
Half-Life 2 (PC)
Status: Done
Mood: Nonplussed
Notes: I played this game with the nagging sense that I should enjoy it more than I do. It's great to solve puzzles again in an FPS, and the atmosphere and detail in some
levels (especially those low-tide river sections) is fantastic. So what's not to like?
It was interesting to look at these levels as an LD. The game could have leaned back on its physics and graphics engines, known license, the always crisp and responsive
weapon play, and the basic fun of shooting enemies. But the scenarios were thought through at a high-concept so each was distinct from the last, each a set
piece worthy of discussion: "That one where you go under the bridge", "the part that played like the movie Tremors", "running from the tripods", etc.
Ultimately, though, I didn't care much. There wasn't a lot to enjoy except the moment-to-moment impulse: Where you were pointed, what you were facing, what weapons you
had on hand. I didn't feel a story building. I didn't care about what's-her-name or her father. I didn't care about the goal. I felt like the game often treated me like a child,
valued primarily for his trigger finger: "You gotta go do this, Gordon". "Oh, here, I'll unlock this door, Gordon." "Wow, I can't believe I'm meeting Gordon Freeman."
This could be said of other games too, but here it came into sharp relief against the years-in-the-making sophistication of the graphics and engineering.
The original Half-Life felt like a brilliant lark: The funny characters, the delightful and credible enemy design, the audacity of the tram intro and of certain puzzles
like the giant tentacle in the rocket lab. Valve seems to have taken their invention too seriously and tried to make a tourable sci-fi epic, with none of the punch and humor
of the original. You can see every discipline polished to a high sheen -- the art, physics, facial animations, level design, combat balance -- a team working on each and fitting
them together like a giant puzzle, but I don't know if any one person had a sense of what it should look like when you stepped back and took it all in. The resulting game
falls short of the sum (or perhaps more accurately, concatenation) of its parts.
I've always thought that the conceit of being permanently behind the eyes of a non-speaking character has both a personalizing effect, and a distancing effect. It was more
effective in the original HL because you were a recognized character, but not a special one -- kind of an everyman. The character might as well be you. In HL2, you're now
notorious, no longer an everyman, and yet you never say a word, and minions look to your mute self and your ability to throw boards around as a sign of greatness.
It doesn't work.
An necessary corrolary of this design (apparently) is that the experience is continuous. No cuts, no objective views of your character, no cinematics that aren't part of
the character's direct experience. The first-person viewpoint of your average shooter is already a narrative liability (how many films adopt that viewpoint, and for how long?).
As you're forced to walk every step of the journey, you find yourself dead-reckoning your way through the story as well, which nearly snuffs the pacing of the narrative
altogether. It's a primitive form of storytelling, and I hope HL3 recognizes that and puts story in front where it belongs.
Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Notes: Couldn't stop thinking about this old favorite recently, and I hit several stores trying to find it, but the only thing to be found was a "Best of" album.
Amazon had it, of course. I never expected the internet to be the indispensible archive of all my lost teenage pursuits.
Listening to the album for the first time in 15 years, I was surprised at the muddy sound, like a live performance (not a complaint, really), and the huge amount of organ
work, which you just don't hear much of anymore. One thing hasn't changed for me though -- the storyline of Rael is still compelling and bewildering and impossible to
figure out. There are a few websites devoted to decoding the odyssey, but like Kubrick's 2001, it's an odyssey I'd rather try to figure out myself.
Man, this album is a masterpiece.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (PS2)
Status: Done
Mood: Glad to be through it
Notes: After my extended station at the altar of Star Wars, I've become curious about how other publishers mine an established license for gameplay. Specifically,
how do they use a non-violent license, since Star Wars, Terminator, and James Bond offer pretty clear options for gameplay.
The answer, with regards to Harry Potter, is to throw in a bunch of puzzles... and a bunch of violence. As befits the perilous Hogwarts environment, there's always
something trying to attack you, from garden gnomes, to animated books, to older student prefects. While I can't exactly recommend the game, there are surprising moments of
wonderfulness that redeem the grueling moments inbetween. The stealth mechanism is frustrating, the framerate is shockingly bad, the dialogue more juvenile than it needs to be.
But flying around the fully detailed Hogwarts castle on a broom is really cool, as is exploring the gigantic place on foot, and several puzzles are nicely done.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (audiobook)
Status: Ain't tellin'
Mood: Won't say
Notes:This is one of those geek events that everyone should enjoy on their own terms, so I'd rather not say anything until people have time to finish.
The Century (audiobook)
Status: 1980
Mood: Approaching the 80's with a shiver
Notes: Fifteen CDs covering 100 years, this audio documentary has to breeze over a lot of detail. It's still a fun ride though, and I'm learning about my weakest subject,
everything prior to 1930. The very best part is interviews with people who lived through the time. Hearing people talk first hand about WWI trench warfare, or the farmgirl
who witnessed the Wright Brothers' flight, nothing quite matches it. Great voices telling great stories.
The 7th disc of the series is called "Civilians at War", and speaks of how all sides specifically targeted civilians, for purposes of terror, demoralization, or sheer hatred
and revenge. It's very, very grim stuff, and I admire the series for devoting an entire disc to such a depressing, unrelenting narrative.
I accidentally deleted the final two discs burned on to my computer after sending them back. I may just call it right there. The recent history is just too close to want
to relive.
Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
Status: Done (twice)
Mood: Glad there aren't any more to get hooked on, at the moment.
Notes: After finishing R&C2, I felt I'd had enough for a while. But I mentioned it to Gresko and he brought in R&C3 for me, and I thought I'd check out the opening,
and now I'm hooked all over again. Funnier than the previous two, and with various tweaks to make the gameplay a little sleeker. Once again, I broke my usual rule and
replayed this one to find the better weapons, etc.
Star Wars: Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
Status: Done
Verdict: "At least I'm not watching TV"
Notes: I've always wanted to avoid falling into the TV trap of just watching because there's nothing else to do, or because everything else takes too much energy.
Just about any artform, of course, can produce something engaging enough to keep the eyes open the lull the brain to sleep, but TV is so utterly passive that it becomes an
easy scapegoat, and makes your personal choice of brain-candy look good by comparison: "Well at least I'm not watching TV".
Revenge of the Sith is one of those well-tailored, slickly diverting games that makes TV look relatively healthy. Which isn't to say I'm not enjoying it. It's fun,
it's got sound and fury, clips from the movie, experience points, combos, sound-alike actors with a few good lines, and non-stop action. And Star Wars, woo! I'm not sure my
brain is any more engaged than it would be watching the average episode of Law & Order. But the game is more addictive, takes a hell of a lot longer to finish, and costs
$50 more.
Not to single out ROTS here; most videogames on the market (including some I've reviewed here) might fit this description. The trick is to recognize when they're putting me
into the "alpha glow" state of TV and stop playing. Wow... harsh.
Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando
Status: Done, but I can imagine firing it up again one day
Verdict: Ingenious and addictive
Notes: I think Insomniac has a better track record than Blizzard in terms of keeping their franchises intact and making each installment better than the last.
R&C capitalizes on one of the things that made the Spyro series so much fun: The pleasure of watching scads of sparkly stuff (Spyro's gems, Ratchet's bolts) jingling into your
inventory. Not to mention beautiful artwork, just enough puzzles to keep the brain alive, and a breezy sense of action that's all but unique to Insomniac.
I admire the game for making complex strategic choices seem like mindless fun. My enemy is through a doorway and around the corner; I can't use the straight-shooting machine
gun, the guided missile is has too wide of a turning radius, I'm out of ammo for the HK220 smart missiles, my bomb-gun is too short-range, and a gap in the ground swallows my
roving spiderbot. Aha! I'll toss my decoy puppet into the doorway and draw them into view for my sniper gun! Hmm, only 4 rounds left. I'd better make them count...
Normally, I never replay games. But R&C has a very neat Challenge mode, which adds multipliers to the bolts you can collect. The longer you remain untouched by the
enemies, the more each bolt is worth (up to 20x). This lets you afford the high-powered weaponry which you can only dream about during the first playthrough. Brilliant!
Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (audiobook)
Status: Disc 4 of 4
Mood: Wishing it was unabridged
Notes: The first arrival from Simply Audiobooks; I decided to enjoy the audio version of a book that Livia is
reading, and I put it into the queue before I realized it was abridged (as a rule, I avoid unabridged stuff unless it's throwaway fiction of the Dan Brown variety).
A few years ago I read The Gnostic Gospels, by the same author. For some reason, historical Christianity is fascinating to me and these books don't disappoint.
Law & Order: Justice is Served
Status: Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
Verdict: Easily worth $5 and 6 hours.
Notes: I found this for $5 at Target, a hard bargain for me to pass up. I like these investigation/courtroom games; they're a very small sub-category
of adventure games, with a deliberate attention to detail that most games lack. After the first L&O game, I had low expectations for this one, but I was surprised. The interview characters are very distinct personalities, and a lot of care went into to
the interview animations.
The story ain't bad, there are some decent puzzles (easy enough not to kill the momentum) and no time limits or other nonsense. It's fun to interview
the kindly next-door neighbor, a helpful old lady, then order research into her background, tail her around town, and drag her in for a psych profile just for the hell of it.
The best thing about this game is the characters, their faces and voices. You can "recognize" them, they seem familiar, but not quite from central casting. In fact, the
bit players have a lot more personality than the show regulars. There are so few games with an interesting cast of characters, (or the time to get to know them) that this
is a real achievement, pretty special in the world of games.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (audiobook)
Status: Done.
Mood: Intrigued, kinda scared
Notes: Let me sing, yet again, the praises of Jim Dale. If you've seen the Potter movies on DVD, you've heard his voice in the interactive sections.
During one sequence here, he plays about a million characters in chattering conversation, and manages to keep them distinct, serious, and funny by turns. His standout performance
on this set is the muttering house-elf named Creature.
This is my favorite in the series. The politics of the school and ministry are fascinating, darkness lurks at the margins, and everyone's fate seems to hang by a thread. I never dreamed the series could get this involving.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (audiobook)
Status: Finished
Verdict: Pretty good.
Notes: Fun book, and if you've never heard Jim Dale voice all the characters in the Harry Potter series, this is possibly his best work yet. A huge cast of characters to deal
with, and differentiate, and he does justice to every one. Madame Maxine saying "Dum-bel-y-dore..." had me cracking up. He even has to sing this time!
Rowling is increasingly
clever about introducing plot points that don't look like plot points, to explain some quirk of plotting far down the road. This more than anything, I think, makes her books
increasingly long. But I'm not complaining, cuz my commute can get pretty long too.
Jade Empire (XBox)
Status: Finished! And sold on Ebay!
Mood: Glad to have played, glad to be finished.
Notes: There's no game in recent memory that's been such a start-and-stop affair. Travel a ways, get into a long-winded discussion, initiate a fight
that's over in about 20 seconds, travel a ways longer, load a new map, repeat. The load times are excruciating,
especially when you're just shuttling between two locations over and over (as in the Imperial fighting arena). The dialogues are fairly standard stuff,
but using about twice as many words as necessary, making this one of the first games in which I habitually skip voicelines before the characters finish.
So I applaud Bioware for the milieu, the artwork, and the engaging combat engine, but please, let me play!
Full Review Here
Katamari Damacy (PS2)
Status: Finished, working on bonus levels
Mood: Enthusiastic! But distracted by different unfinished games
Notes: This is the silliest game I've ever played, possibly the simplest, and one of the most fun. You roll a big ball around and pick up objects -- that's it!
In the beginning, your ball can only pick up ants and thumbtacks. As it gets bigger, you work your way up to crayons, then batteries, then balls of yarn, then
gita (Japanese sandals), then small animals and upward from there. Part of the fun is the absurdity of laying waste to a household, then a small town as you roll everything up
into your ball. I can't recommend it enough. And it's only 20 bucks!
LEGO: Star Wars (PS2)
Status: It's all over but the invincibility, and who needs that anymore?
Mood: At 30 hours, this game is about 10 times too short.
Notes: This rivals Katamari Damacy for silliness, but only because deflates the self-serious Star Wars into LEGO icons. The minute I saw Qui-Gon's
arched little eyebrows and ponytail on a LEGO head, I was hooked. In terms of design, it feels like a variant on Ratchet and Clank. Run around,
kill enemies, get "bolts" (aka LEGO studs). Use the studs to buy things (in this case, new characters and cheatcodes). It doesn't have the serious
stunting of R&C, but there are several puzzles, and that wonderful circular structure where you revisit earlier levels with capabilities that you find
in later ones. In this case, the capabilities you pick up are innate to the characters you uncover. So in essence, it's a collecting game, and you don't
want to stop until you've seen LEGO Anakin fighting LEGO Obi-wan while LEGO Palpatine snickers in the background (Does this actually happen? I'm not telling...)
Globalization and it's Discontents - Alfred Stiglitz
Status: Still just starting.
Mood: Ready to learn; anticipating bouts of depression.
Notes: Globalization is one of those trendy subjects I've been planning to learn about for some time, like Chaos Theory and Genetic Engineering.
I wanted to get to it before it became entirely passe, so picked up this book by Nobel Laureate Stiglitz. He lets on early that he considers globalization
a necessary evolution of the economic world, but also recognizes that it's hurting a lot of the people it's usually touted as helping. Now I just have to keep
reading and find out why.
This is one of those subjects I got used to while working at KPFA. There's no hope in the world of stopping the engine of commerce that feeds
globalization, but I like to think a discussion this will make a few well-intentioned bureaucrats work towards containing the damage.
Warcraft: Day of the Dragon - Richard Knaak
Status: Ground to a halt, for now
Mood: Ho hum...
Notes: When I first got hooked on World of Warcraft, I became interested in the lore of the game. I thought I'd be excited somewhat more about
visiting places and meeting people if I knew their backgrounds. The histories on the WoW webpages are a great place to start, but there are still a lot of unanswered
questions.
There are significant barriers at work for me here. Given limited time, I vastly prefer non-fiction to fiction. And fantasy is probably the hardest fiction
for me to get into. AND, my interest in WoW itself is flagging. So, about halfway in, I'm getting pretty much what I expected. A bit of lore, a few uninteresting characters, a narrative that feels
tailored step-by-step to provide thrills and no real sense of risk for the reader. Writers often talk about characters that begin to write themselves,
resisting the writer's manipulations. But readers get the same feeling as characters come alive. They develop a faith in the characters' independence,
and a parallel trust that the writer isn't just fudging events to progress the characters toward a predetermined fate. So far, events and characters appear too "scripted"
to make me care.
I just checked the Amazon reviews, however, which say it starts poorly but gets much better. I guess I'll keep at it.
Sullivan's Travels
Directed by: Preston Sturges
Written by: Preston Sturges
Starring: Joel McCrae, Veronica Lake
A few years ago I assembled a list of "desert island" films, movies with enough variety and depth to keep me interested on the proverbial desert island.
This was one of my choices, based on a viewing from 1982 or so. I watched it again recently, on the Criterion Collection DVD and I'm not so sure anymore.
I still like it a lot, but what came across well in a repertory theater with an admiring crowd was more quaint and dated on a TV screen 20 years later.
The humor is broader than I remember (like the old "everyone gets pulled into the swimming pool one by one" schtick) and the banter doesn't spark
the way it once did. Some movies inspire a nostalgic forgiveness for the gaffes and missteps, but this one offers up a little to much to forgive
sometimes. Still, the setup, the opening road scene, lots of the dialogue, the fascinating mood shift, and that beautiful church scene still make this
a worthwhile rental.
