Patrick Klepek on the Internet and Comments Culture

Teaser for Gareth Edwards' Godzilla

Well, damn. Longtime readers (ha!) will know that I have something of an affinity for Godzilla movies, and the teaser trailer for Gareth Edwards' franchise reboot has made its way online. It's included below so give it a watch. My six word take on it is this: I am torn, but mostly excited.

On the one hand it just fucking nails the tone. The J Robert Oppenheimer voice-over with his famous "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" is absolutely perfect for more reasons than I can say in just this sentence, and really sells me on the idea that Edwards understands and respects the source material. It also points towards this movie at least doing something new with the whole "all giant monsters are a metaphor for 9/11 always" thing that's so pervasive these days, but that's another post for another day (or did I write it already?). I'll even buy the slightly-cheesy way they worked Gozilla's cry into the Oppenheimer speech, because they're using the iconic sound and it really works well.

On the other hand, that is not a man in suit.

I wasn't the biggest fan of Edwards' Monsters, but with a bigger budget we can at least be sure that this movie will nail the on-the-ground experience of the obligatory human characters. Judging from how dark they look to be going, it seems appropriate that they're focusing on the larger-than-life, beyond-imagination and control aspect of Godzilla. Really fits with the Oppenheimer quote, and actually makes me excited to see how human beings react to this incredible monster unleashed upon them.

Ok, I take it back, I'm almost entirely excited. Fuck! Godzilla man! #pleasedontfuckthisup

Edit: Now with a working video link.

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Well done to the Breaking Bad team, with special mention to Vince Gilligan, Michelle MacLaren, Rian Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, Bob Odenkirk, and (especially) Betsy Brandt and RJ Mitte (who both broke my heart last night), not to mention everyone else. You've all managed to accomplished something rather incredible: you've created something truly special, memorable, and unique; you're stuck the landing (so far, at least); and you've managed to get the world at large at least tangentially interested in poetry. Well done to you all. 

Extra Credits' History Lesson is Pure Awesome

This is materialized awesome. Lets get lots more of this, please?

The Fast and the Furious Franchise

This movie should not be as awesome as it is

Last week I found myself with some free time on my hands and so I decided to check out the Fast and the Furious movies. That might seem kinda random but I've been hearing good things about the most recent entries in the franchise since the last one, Fast Five, came out in 2011. On top of that, the hype leading up to Fast and Furious 6 (or whatever it's called) has reached critical mass, and so I gave in to the good word and watched each of the five existing films over the course of a few days.

The movies are gloriously stupid. The original The Fast and the Furious is a poor-imitation of Point Break, but what it lacks in creativity it makes up for with flashy car culture. Paul Walker's very existence might be a testament to how underappreciated Keanu Reeves really is, but Vin Diesel at least brings a sense of authenticity to the film. You just can't help but love a guy whose earnest personality shines through as much as Diesel's does, whatever he may lack in acting talent. The movie's fetishization of fast cars isn't really my thing but it's at least well executed, as are the (often anime-inspired) car races/chases. None of them really wowed me but that's partially because the film's real focus is the character dynamics -- admittedly an odd choice given the cast, but somehow it works.

The franchise takes a bit of a wrong turn with its first sequel, 2 Fast 2 Furious. It's easily the worst of the bunch, as it loses Diesel and focuses on the much less likeable Walker, and tries to make up for the net loss in charisma with Tyrese Gibson, Eva Mendes, and Cole Hauser. Spoiler warning: that attempt fails. Gibson is an awkward mess of one-liners, Mendes' role and performance could easily have been fulfilled just as well by a cardboard cutout, and Hauser seems like he's only in the movie because he lost a bet. The cast is a void of personality and they're given very little to work with. I actually felt sorry for Gibson when he had to utter the despicable phrase, "It's a ho-asis in here," with the script foolishly over-compensating for the film's deficiencies by laying on the machismo so thick it's self-defeating, not to mention sexist. What's worse, the movie even fails to deliver compelling driving sequences. In trying to up-the-ante from the (relatively) grounded races in the original, 2 Fast 2 Furious relies too heavily on special effects sequences in which simulated motion blur and trails of light convey tension through the illusion of velocity. The movie lacks interesting characters to drive the plot forward and fails to live up to its car-festishization heritage by making the classic too-much-SFX mistake in an attempt to top its predecessor. The entire thing feels perfunctory and aimless, and ends up being entirely pointless. The only bit of 2 Fast 2 Furious worth remembering comes right at the end, when Walker jumps a car onto a moving boat and Gibson almost breaks the fourth wall by pointing out that "This is some real Dukes of Hazzard shit!" It's the only time the movie really seems to get how stupid it is, which is precisely the strength of some later entries in the series.

Next up is The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, a significant departure that singlehandedly resuscitated an otherwise dead franchise. It's easy to see why this gem saved the series given that it embraces the things that made the original Fast and the Furious great (compelling character dynamics, ostentatious car culture, and great driving action that's heavily inspired by anime) while avoiding all the pitfalls that ruined 2 Fast 2 Furious (over-focus on special effects, too much reliance on the previous films, and Paul Walker). Really, the status of this movie as a Fast and the Furious movie is something of a misnomer, as (until the final epilogue moment) the only tie between Tokyo Drift and its namesake is the focus on car racing culture. The movie stands on its own with an entirely new cast of characters playing out the classic fish-out-of-water story archetype. It's a movie that effectively tells a familiar tale, has a good time in doing so, and love for fast, flashy cars. In fact, Tokyo Drift actually features the best car scenes of the entire franchise by far, as the reorientation to Japan comes with a new and inherently more cinematic racing style: drifting. The driving sequences are less about raw speed and more about tight turns, isolated moments of tension that are much easier to frame in a camera shot, and this allows the film to revel in actual footage of talented car racing and stunts as opposed to hyper-stylized special effects sequences. It's a welcome change that makes the movie a worthwhile celebration of car racing. Also, the guest star appearance of Sonny Chiba late in the film is a great move that helps contextualize and raise the stakes for the very competent cast of otherwise unknown actors (I'm pretending Bow Wow is just another actor because it's easier to appreciate his role if you ignore his star "power").

The fourth entry in the series, Fast & Furious, is a fun if forgettable return to the franchise's roots. Paul Walker and Vin Diesel are back, as are most of the original cast, and once again there's a plot about going undercover to bring down a criminal enterprise. It's all serviceable but definitely not compelling in its own right, and seems more transparently than it should like an excuse to get Walker and Diesel back into fast cars. There's just not a lot of reason for the viewer to care beyond the presence of those two actors, as Fast & Furious intentionally makes it difficult to relate to their motivations: there's a weak shell game with the villain late in the film that eliminates the possibility of a proper antagonist; more crucially, Michelle Rodriguez's death provides Diesel's motivation but the event occurs off camera at some undefined point after the opening set-piece, and so we're asked to understand his actions simply based on information told to us and a relationship established in a different movie. It's a bit of a mess, but Fast & Furious at least builds on the previous entries to deliver compelling driving sequences. Keeping in mind the strengths of Tokyo Drift, the driving in Fast & Furious is more about practical than special effects, and it makes up for a less cinematic racing style with more stunts and crashes. It's a somewhat effective strategy, but in attempting to remain grounded in reality the movie suffers from "cars driving in a straight line" syndrome.

Finally, there's Fast Five. Hot damn. This movie transforms the franchise into a strange and incredible cross between Ocean's Eleven, The Bourne Identity, and The Fugitive. There's even a little Clear and Present Danger thrown in at one point. All the while the movie retains the Fast and Furious franchise's telltale focus on driving action, and wisely remains grounded in practical-based effects work -- but those scenes are now centred on utterly insane, high-concept set-pieces that are occasionally accented with digital effects work. Director Justin Lin manages to avoid all of the problems with the earlier movies and take their best elements and crank em up to 11. In the first twenty minutes we're given two insane action sequences (including crashing a truck into a moving train!) and two great antagonists: Joaquin de Almeida is always a fantastic villain, and Dwayne Johnson serves as a great source of tension and counterpoint to Vin Diesel. From there the cast of earlier Fast films are reassembled into a crack team for the ultimate heist. It's an absurd but fun plot that does the trick, conveniently setting up the most ludicrous driving sequence in the franchise to-date. All the while the film takes loving, fourth-wall-breaking pot-shots at itself, with Walker and Diesel carelessly winning an obligatory street race off-camera (because as if they could possibly lose at this point) and Johnson instructing his men not to "ever, ever" let the protagonists get into cars. The best is definitely when Sung Kang's Han acknowledges the franchise's irreverent approach to chronology, saying they'll get to Tokyo "eventually" as a nod to the fact that (spoiler alert) he dies in Tokyo Drift, the last entry in the Fast and the Furious timeline. The whole thing is silly, fun, and gracefully executed, making Fast Five a much better movie than I ever expected.

Given how much I obviously enjoyed Fast Five, I'll be curious to see where the franchise goes with Fast and Furious 6. Apparently they're bringing characters back from the dead now, which they've sort of done before with Han albeit not in-cannon. On top of that the villain seems to be a stand in for Heath Ledger's Joker, stating in the trailer that "the code [Diesel et al] live by makes [them] predictable," which is almost word for word what the Joker told Batman in the iconic interrogation scene in The Dark Knight. I'll be curious to see how that move plays out, as Skyfall pulled off the same thing and that movie took itself way more seriously than I expect Fast and Furious 6 will. If nothing else, this next entry in the Fast and Furious franchise will provide one more opportunity to bring the cast together for more silliness and car-based mayhem.

Skip to 1:26 for the villain's Joker-esque line about the heroes' "code"

I really didn't expect to end up liking the Fast and Furious movies. I figured they'd be stupid and a waste of time, and in fairness I was right to a certain extent. 2 Fast 2 Furious is a frankly terrible movie, Fast & Furious is difficult to care about despite enjoying other entries in the series, and I'd rather watch Point Break than the original The Fast and the Furious any day. But that said, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is a great movie, full stop, and Fast Five is way more self-aware and fun than it has any business being. If Justin Lin can bring the kind of inspiration he's brought to the franchise two out of three times with Fast and Furious 6 then we could all be in for a real treat in a couple of weeks. A real stupid, loud, explosive, and flashy treat.

So I guess the Fast and the Furious franchise gets the elusive/über-pretentious "Max Rambles Stamp of Approval." Who'd have seen that one coming?

Has the true meaning of the ending to The Thing been revealed?

A post went up on io9 today about a reddit user who may have revealed the meaning of the ending of John Carpenter's classic The Thing. If you haven't seen the movie then you should probably reevaluate your choices in life, or at least stop reading now because I'm going to be spoiling its awesome ending. Seriously though, you haven't seen The Thing? Come on, you can do better than that.

If you're still reading then I'm assuming you've seen The Thing and recall how at the end Kurt Russell and Keith David are left sipping whiskey and contemplating their assured demise, but it's unclear whether both of them are still human or not. The film ends on a totally awesome and characteristically ambiguous note with the audience left wondering, "Was one of them the thing at the end?" It's the perfect ending for a perfect movie (you can expect a post on this at some point), and one that has resonated with viewers since the film was released in 1982.

UNTIL NOW (maybe) [probably not]

reddit user kleinbl00 posted a comment on a discussion of The Thing describing a conversation with a friend of his about the movie. His friend claims to have worked for and talked to John Carpenter about The Thing, and well... Just check this out:

A friend of mine, back when he was an assistant, spent a great deal of time with John Carpenter doing interviews and the like for video games and comic projects. I was discussing my conversation with Larry Turman with this friend and he said 

"You know, I asked John Carpenter about The Thing." 

"Oh yeah? What did he say?" I asked. 

"He said he never understood where all the confusion came from. The last frame of The Thing is Kurt Russel and Keith David staring each other down, harshly backlit. It's completely, glaringly obvious that Kurt Russel is breathing and Keith David is not." 

I looked at my friend for a minute, soaking it in. Straight from the horse's mouth. 

"That's a pretty subtle cue to expect the audience to absorb having seen severed heads grow spider legs and run around," I said. 

"That's the genius of The Thing," my friend said, and we moved on to other subjects.

Holy. Freaking. Hannah.

Admittedly it's totally a "friend of a friend of mine"-type unsubstantiated anecdote that could be totally fabricated, but even then it'd still be a really cool take. It just makes me want to go back and watch The Thing again and do a frame-by-frame when I get to the final scene. It's also way too cool a story for me not to have shared here.

(reddit via io9)

Reposts: Destructoid's Top 10 Castlevania Songs

I'm a big fan of classic video game music. It's engaging, energetic, and my history of playing games has conditioned me to feel active and want to accomplish things when I hear it. When I go running I use a mix of 8 and 16-bit era tracks as I find they provide a great impetus to keep going and push yourself harder than you would otherwise. Now Destructoid has put together a list of their all time top 10 songs from the Castlevania series (which is deservedly renowned for its music, among other things), and the list has inspired this post in more ways than one (geddit?).

Their number two pick, "Bloody Tears" from Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest, is my personal favourite. I particularly like the 16-bit remix of the track using instruments from the Mega Man X2 soundtrack, embedded below. The enhanced sound quality of the 16-bit era really brings out the best parts of the song and ups the foreboding quality by highlighting the pipe organ opening. In putting this post together I also stumbled across another great remix of "Bloody Tears" using the instruments from Sonic 3. It takes a few more liberties as a remix by adding a electric guitar-style melody at various points throughout the track, and the addition gives the song a new, '80s hair metal-esque twist.

- - -
'Reposts' are inspired by other articles or blog posts around the Internet. They are used here with accreditation as the basis for short bursts of Max's interests.

Looper

Swoon

After months of silence and an embittered post about the quality of summer movies in 2012, along came Looper to answer all my cinephile woes. One disappointing film after the next had me positively exhausted with film criticism, but Rian Johnson's latest has me back on the wagon. Looper isn't perfect, but it's an original, intelligent, and engaging science-fiction/time travel movie that's also accessible and affective (which is more than I can say for some other flicks in the genre).

I liked Looper a lot, that's the short version of this review. What follows will be a more in-depth discussion that will include spoilers. Steer clear if you haven't seen Looper yet, as there are some legitimate surprises in store for you.

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Ok, let's just get the big negative elephant in the corner out of the way: the time-travel mechanics of Looper only kinda sorta work at best. This movie is not a scientific examination of multiple timelines (ala Primer) or conversely a postulation on cyclical inevitability (ala 12 Monkeys). Rather, Looper is an adventure film about agency that uses the concept of time-travel to underpin its thematic structure. This is never so clear as in the film two weakest moments, namely the cheeky, fourth-wall-cracking "I don't want to talk about time travel" diner conversation, and the sepia-toned "I saw how it would happen" montage during the climax. These moments demonstrate that Looper puts its heart before its brain and desperately wants the audience to follow suit. Unfortunately in doing so they lead the viewer by the hand to the "point" of the film, and are the most inelegant moments in Rian Johnson's career to date.

Nevertheless, Looper is an incredible and worthwhile experience. It melds aspects of the Terminator franchise (only in reverse) with Akira of all things, and kept me guessing for most of the movie. Although it might be intellectually-light on time-travel as a whole, that torture sequence is burned in my memory as one of the most original and visceral takes on the concept that I've ever seen. It showed us everything but all the while adhered to the old horror-film adage that the scariest monster is the one we don't see.

Additionally, the film's defiant moral ambiguity in refusing to have a real villain is a convention-busting turn that we don't see very often. I know, I know, Bruce Willis kills children in cold blood, but the fact that he and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are the same character complicates the matter. We literally can't just write-off Willis as the bad guy because he's the same character as Levitt. The character is a profoundly selfish one but that's not the same thing as being evil. By all traditional measures Willis is actually better than Levitt: he's reformed from the murder business, off the drugs, and has suffered a sympathetically tragic loss. We can't entirely root for one over the other because they both frustrate our moral instincts and yet are fundamentally two sides of the same coin. That's part of what makes Levitt's choice at the end so effective, both for the character and as a sci-fi conceit.

The definition of sci-fi is a contentious subject, but I subscribe to the idea that the genre presents strange worlds to encourage reflection on our own. The ways in which sci-fi settings differ from reality are precisely what create this interrogative reflex, as their strangeness forces us to consider the ways the real world is different and (more importantly) why. In the case of Looper, the qualities that set its world apart let us consider the meaning of choice and repercussions (apt for a time-travel movie).

Besides the time-travel and telekinetic powers that distinguish Looper's future from our own world, the movie's setting is generally familiar. Those two elements allow us to examine two characters in unusual ways: one at two separate points in his life, both as a youth trying to make his own way and as an old man who's lost everything; the other character is the boy with an incredible gift who doesn't yet have enough control of his life to determine what he'll become. Over the course of the film we're made increasingly aware of the pain and violence that both characters inflict on others as a result of their selfish choices. Ultimately we discover that each character's actions are precisely what inspire the other to lash out against them in an endlessly repeating pattern of revenge (in theory it's a two-timeline tiered cycle of violence, but again don't worry about the mechanics too much). The sci-fi aspects of the movie are what let us see the whole self-replicating "loop" (ugh) of selfishly-motivated choices and their repercussions. When Levitt joins us in seeing these puppet-strings he does the only thing that's needed to stop the cycle: he makes an unselfish choice.

Looper's central focus is understanding the consequences of our actions, and the time travel and telekinetic powers are simply the tools Rian Johnson uses to explore that concept. The moral ambiguity serves the same purpose as the sci-fi elements in that these narrative qualities flesh out the nature of each character's decisions. In the end there's no villain or hero, just people making choices that spiral out of their control into a self-perpetuating cycle. The fantastical differences between our world and Looper's are what allow Levitt to share the audience's perspective, to see the big picture and the role(s) he can play in it. Conceptual mechanics and plot holes aside, it's the stuff of classic sci-fi by my definition.

I had tons of nitpicky problems with Looper, ranging from the mundane (JGL's makeup may have been well done but damn was it ever distracting) to the fundamental (if they didn't make loopers close their own contracts then this whole mess could have been avoided). Overall though the film was greater than the sum of its parts, as the plot (holes and all) served to reemphasize the narrative's central theme. Looper is a fantastic sci-fi movie that showed me things I'd never seen before via a unique perspective. I definitely recommend it to anyone who likes sci-fi or any of the talented people involved with the film.

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Side note: If you're intrigued by my brief discussion of the definition of sci-fi, then I highly recommend you check out the works of Darko Suvin and Adam Roberts. My own take draws very heavily from Suvin's ideas of cognitive estrangement. They're both very interesting and definitely worth a read if you're so inclined.

Orca and Ripoff Flicks

I've acknowledged The Big Picture as one of my favourite web series before, and its best moments often come in October when "MovieBob" does an annual feature called "Schlocktober." For a full month Bob gives us episodes on "obscure and/or bizarre horror and monster movies," basically ensuring that Christmas comes an extra four times a year for horror/monster movie nerds. This year Bob has decided to feature Orca as one of his movie picks, and the results are fantastic. Give the episode a watch below (major spoilers for Orca):

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Schlocktober 2012: Orca

This video brings up a long-time curiosity of mine: movies that were green-lit strictly to feed off the popularity of blockbuster hits. One of my all time favourite films, Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece Alien, is perhaps the best example of this phenomenon. Dan O'Bannon's script was approved for production largely by virtue of the fact that Star Wars was an unprecedented hit in 1977, leading movie execs to say "People love space!" and fast track potential contenders for said space-fans' money. But the story of Alien is a serious diamond in the rough type scenario, as more often than not these "ripoff flicks" end up as poor shadows of the films that inspired them. Just watch Moonraker and you'll see what I mean.

As Bob indicates in the video, the release of Jaws had a similar effect to that of Star Wars, and Orca was one of many attempts to steal Steven Spielberg's crown as the king of underwater horror (to date none have succeeded, IMHO). Another illustrious contender was Joe Dante's Piranha, a parody of the many Jaws imitations. It is notable both for being "the best of the Jaws ripoffs" in Spielberg's own estimation (source: Wikipedia), and because James Cameron made his directorial debut with the sequel, Piranha II: The Spawning. Also the hilarious 2010 remake, Piranha 3D, featured a 3D underwater nude ballet sequence that might be most exploitative thing ever filmed.

The ripoff flicks phenomenon has intrigued me for years because when things go right (see: all of the aforementioned examples besides Moonraker) it's the perfect confluence of the financial and artistic motivations behind filmmaking. Granted, things tend to go wrong more often than not (see: Moonraker), but the best examples make all of the worst movies worth it (others might not agree with me). Hell, the superhero film genre is itself an example of this phenomenon, and I'd watch Catwoman a hundred times if that's what it took to get The Dark Knight. I might revisit this subject in more depth in a future post, but for now it's enough to say that ripoff flicks present a more nuanced picture of the business side of filmmaking.

Movie Bob Reviews Cabin in the Woods

Continuing right along on the Cabin in the Woods love fest, below is a video review of the film by Movie Bob, who longtime readers will recall is one of my favourite critics. It's a solid and somehow even more glowing review than my own, but and likewise does its best to shy away from spoilers. Give it a watch, particularly if you've seen the film and are in on the jokes.

Now I just want to see it again...

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Cabin In The Woods

The Style of The Wire

About a week ago this video-essay on the visual style of The Wire made the rounds on film blogs and such. I only finally got a chance to watch it this morning, and frankly it's stunning. Erland Lavik, a Norwegian academic, gives a shockingly thorough and well-presented breakdown of The Wire's unique approach to story-telling, and spends thirty minutes expanding upon a premise that only takes a few words to convey: it's shot like a documentary. His analysis of the "creeping up on the action" motif, and the way the camera follows instead of fishes, floored me by pointing out subtle but significant aspects of some of my favourite scenes.

Although I'd acknowledged that The Wire was presented in a particular way to reflect its narrative, until I watched this video I hadn't really considered all of the subtle ways in which that design choice manifested itself. Lavik's video feels like sitting through a half-hour introductory lecture on filmmaking, and if that sounds like something you'd enjoy then I strongly recommend you check it out.

Warning: Spoilers for The Wire follow

As an aside, the zoom on Bodie near the end is positively haunting, especially with Lavik's narration of how Bodie clearly doesn't see the big picture at that moment...

One line I particularly appreciate is when Lavik says that "when everything is presented as climactic, nothing is" in reference to Domino. That sentiment also perfectly captures one of my (many) problems with the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica: the fact that we saw Admiral Adama reduced to tears so many times robbed the image of its impact. *Sigh* But that's another rant for another post...

(Via /Film)

Martha Marcy May Marlene

2011 is long since behind us and the Academy Awards have come and gone, so I guess now is as good a time as any to say that Martha Marcy May Marlene was my favourite movie of last year.

Let me take a moment to contextualize that statement: despite my best efforts I still have yet to see Oscar nominees Hugo and Midnight in Paris (both of which I expect will be phenomenal), and I missed out on Tree of Life simply for lack of enthusiasm. I also never bothered to see The Iron Lady, Albert Nobbs, or War Horse because, quite frankly, I thought they looked like shit films and the word from critics was that my instincts were right. Finally, I also missed out on some allegedly great smaller flicks like A Separation, though I intend to rectify that shortly.

Now, with those caveats out of the way, let me tell you about why I thought Martha Marcy May Marlene was a sublime achievement in cinema.

Martha Marcy May Marlene takes place immediately after a young girl (predictably) named Martha -- played by the incredible Elizabeth Olsen -- escapes from a cult after two years of isolation from the rest of the world. The movie tells the story of her struggles to reintegrate herself into society while living with her sister Lucy. Throughout the film we see moments from Martha's time with the cult that explain what she went through and give a sense of why she ran away. These memories are so seamlessly integrated with the depiction of Martha's new life that it is sometimes difficult to tell whether what's on screen is a vision from the past or an event Martha is currently living through. And that's exactly the point.

The central conceit of Martha Marcy May Marlene is the psychological trauma that Martha suffers from as a result of her time with the cult. When the movie starts we see Martha at her weakest: she is terrified and alienated from society to the point of being completely unable to explain what's happened to her, even to her own sister. After a few minutes we see a memory from a few years earlier when she first encountered the cult, and it shows how normal and strong she was before. As the film progresses we both see Martha struggle to readjust to normal life and also her memories of the horrifying experience that broke down her personality. While Martha's mental scars become more apparent to her family, we the viewer become privy to the memories underneath. The result is that we not only begin to understand  her way of thinking, we also begin to share her fears.

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a psychological masterpiece that doesn't simply portray its main character's feelings of paranoia, it makes the viewer share them right along with her. As the cult's true nature becomes clear from Martha's memories, her outbursts around her sister seem less and less irrational and more poignantly understandable. By the end of the movie we are literally sharing her delusional hallucinations, or are we? Part of the film's brilliance is that we're never quite sure, just like Martha.

I've made it clear before that I'm a fan of horror movies, and that sentiment plays a major role in my affection for Martha Marcy May Marlene. It skirts the genre divide between psychological thriller and horror only insofar as the violence takes place almost entirely in Martha's mind. With that established, it should be clear that Martha Marcy May Marlene is not for the faint of heart: by the end of the movie I was literally sweating and ready to jump at the slightest movement in my peripheral vision. But that's just a testament how powerfully the film makes you understand Martha's battered and terrified perspective.

Martha Marcy May Marlene is not a film for everybody but it was without a doubt my favourite film of 2011. It affected me more than anything else I saw last year and so if you're prepared for a powerful and horrifying psychological thriller then I strongly recommend you check it out.

Quantic Dream's Incredible "Kara" Tech Demo from GDC

In case you missed it, below is the amazing "Kara" tech demo that Quantic Dream's David Cage (of Heavy Rain fame) showed off at last week's Game Developers Conference 2012. It's an outstanding display of the PS3's power and a short but interesting exploration of the nature of artificial intelligence. But don't take my word for it, check out the video below:

What an incredible video. In a scant seven minutes the "Kara" figure manages to raise complex ideas about the manufacturing of artificial intelligence and the responsibilities of their creators; by extension those same concepts trouble conventional notions about the origins and value of sentient life. These are common science fiction tropes that I for one would be excited to see explored in a video game, and especially one by the likes of David Cage. 

Longtime readers (ha) will recall that I was more than a little excited for Heavy Rain.  Although the game didn't necessarily live up to my expectations, it was nevertheless an interesting and unique experiment for the medium. I'm excited to try out David Cage's next game, whatever it ends up being, and this tech demo has increased my curiosity about what that project will explore. If nothing else it shows that he is building upon the foundations he laid in Heavy Rain, both in terms of continuing that game's technological/graphical developments and also improving on its shortcomings. 

One of the most resounding criticisms of Heavy Rain was the fact that it was set in America but voiced (poorly) by French actors, thereby completely breaking any senses of immersion or tension. This demo clearly shows that Cage has heard those critiques and (hopefully) won't make the same mistake twice. The acting on display in the "Kara" demo is profoundly moving, and the mere idea of a game exactly likeHeavy Rain with that caliber of performance is buzz worthy. And I don't believe for a second that Cage would settle for simply Heavy Rain 2. 

Whatever's coming will be as unique and exciting as Cage's previous game was, and will clearly be building upon its strengths and weaknesses alike. It almost feels stupid to get my hopes up all over again, but this demo has me excited despite myself. Fingers crossed whatever we get from this lives up to its potential.

Belated Media: Scream

The latest awesome thing I've found during my daily scouring of the Internet is Belated Media, a video series of film reviews steeped in sarcasm, geekery, and pretension. There aren't many videos in the series but they can all be found here on YouTube (there's also a very ugly tumblr blog and a Facebook page). Some of my favourites are the Top 10 of 2010 video and the Black Swan review (that started it all?), but the absolute best is the Scream review embedded below. Just watch it, Belated Media speaks (at length) for itself. Suffice to say it's a fantastic review of an incredible film:

This video series is the perfect match for me. It's snide and geeky and funny, and more than one person has already pointed out significant similarities between our styles. In that sense I suppose my admiration is almost an indirect form of vanity, which I am completely ok with. I'd be lying if I said that watching these videos hadn't made me at least consider putting together a video review of one of the movies I've seen recently and enjoyed (reviews are incoming, I swear). But regardless of all that, Belated Media presents witty and intelligent commentary on popular movies. You should check it out. End of story.

Max Landis' The Death and Return of Superman

Max Landis, son of director John Landis, is the writer behind the recently released Chronicle, a film about three high school friends who get superpowers and "make an amazing discovery." I haven't heard anything about the movie but its synopsis isn't exactly inspiring, and when I saw the trailer I initially thought I was watching an old ad for either Hancock or Heroes. Those are both bad signs. However the movie seems to be doing relatively well critically so maybe it's better than it looks. I'll probably check it out. But none of that is what I'm posting about today.

In (what I assume is) a move to support Chronicle, the younger Landis has released a short film in which he rants about the (apparently terrible) mid-90s comic series The Death and Return of Superman. In case you need the painfully obvious pointed out to you, it's a comic wherein Superman dies and then comes back to life. Because he wasn't already being compared to Jesus enough already. Anyway, the Death and Return storyline is generally panned as being emblematic of everything that was wrong with modern comics in the 90s, namely that they relied on big crossovers/events that shocked people into buying issues that lacked actual substance. So in the video Landis breaks down how terrible this Superman storyline is, point by (hilarious) point, and also discusses the underlying comic-industry-executives rationale behind the whole event. Meanwhile various celebrities (Mandy Moore, Elijah Wood, etc) act out what Landis describes in a similar fashion to the always incredible Drunk History videos.

If you've taken the time to read this far into the post then for your own sake please take 15 more minutes to watch the video below. It's hilarious, insightful, and kinda made me want to check out Chronicle. Also I promise to make this my last post about comics for a while, it's only now dawning on me that there have been a lot of them lately.

 

(Via Topless Robot)

They're Making Escape from New York In Space

Seriously. Watch this new trailer for Lockout, it's just Escape from New York but in space instead of New York. And that sounds absolutely awesome. John Carpenter's classic is one of my all times favourite films, and Lockout is written by Luc Besson, the guy responsible films like The Fifth Element, Léon: The Professional, and Taken. This movie is going to be derivative, superficial, possibly even forgettable, but I'm excited for it all the same. who doesn't like to see an archetypal badass break into a maximum security space prison to save the president's daughter?

 

The Liebster Awards

The other day an old friend of mine commented on a recent post saying he was nominating me for a Liebster Award. At first I took this as just a few kind words but upon further research I've discovered that the award is real! Sort of!

Stemming from the German word for "dearest," a Liebster is a pay-it-forward, feel-good award for under-known blogs (ouch?). Basically the system works like this:

1) You get nominated for the award
2) You make a post accepting said award (you're reading this now)
3) You nominate five other blogs you enjoy that are under read (less than 200 regular readers)
4) The cycle continues

A quick Google search reveals the many winners out there, and by definition they're sure to be awesome-but-unknown blogs. My friend John over at Tauroscatology nominated me on his blog, so I guess that means I can't nominate him. Regardless you should check his stuff out because he's a great writer, and I'm sure the other blogs he nominated are fantastic too!

On that note, here are my nominations (in no particular order):

1) The Daily Protagitron - My good friend Martha's awesome blog about awesome things like movies, beer, books, knitting, etc. I always enjoy keeping tabs on what she's up to via her blog and it's a great way to find out about new, interesting stuff I hadn't come across on my own. And again, she writes about movies, books, and beer people. It's great!

2) Textual Relations - Maybe the least regularly updated of the blogs I'm nominating, Textual Relations covers books, academia, feminism, and Internet culture. If you know/care about my blog/opinions enough to be reading this sentence then you can probably understand why I'd enjoy reading about all those things. If you're at all interested in any of those subjects then you'll love this blog.

3) JusticeBlawg (specifically posts by Johanna under the name lawunion) - I recently featured Johanna's post about The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on this blog, and this seems like another good opportunity to mention her work. Johanna's quickly becoming one of my favourite voices to read on the Internet as she's both well thought out and opinionated (a sorely rare combination) AND approaches her subjects with a candour that is beyond refreshing (both in terms of its source and the context in which it arises). It's a bit on the academic/lengthy side (hell, so is this recommendation) but if you're into that this blog/author is well worth your time.

4) Experience Points - Not totally sure if this qualifies as an "under read" blog as per the Liebster rules, but I'm realizing now that I don't really gravitate towards unknown blogs. Insert self-reflective comment about "I shouldn't only pay attention to loud voices in a big crowd" here, etc. Anyway, Experience Points is a wonderful blog that takes an "intelligent but not humourless" look at video games. This blog has definitely helped inform some of my Games As Art posts in the past and continues to be a great source for serious commentary and discussion of one of my favourite mediums.

5) ... Ok I'm throwing in the towel now. I seriously cannot come up with any more blogs I know that are criminally under-read and shouldn't be. If I can think of another blog then I'll post an update to this later, but for now that's it for my Liebster nominations. I feel like on some level I've failed the Internet as a blogger today by not being more up on other awesome but unknown sites, and for that I apologize. I'll do better in the future, I promise.

As something of a compensation I am going to give props to one of my favourite (though definitely not unknown) blogs, Topless Robot. There Rob Bricken and his cohorts post hilarious, snarky comments on geek news, daily lists of amazing things you never knew you wanted to read about. It's a wonderful place to lose yourself for a few hours and come out on the other side more uselessly informed about nerd/pop/Japanese culture than you ever wanted/needed to be.

Anyway, that's it for my Liebster noms! Here's hoping you enjoy the blogs I've linked to, let me know in the comments if there are any I missed that I really ought to mention, I'm sure I'll think of some within moments of posting this piece!

It's Time

I don't really like the idea/want to get in the habit of citing Gawker as a good authority on social issues, but in this case they're dead on: the US absolutely does need ads like this one:

The Big Picture: Frankenstein Conquers the World

Over the summer I started watching a weekly video series called "The Big Picture" over at The Escapist. Basically the gist of the videos is that one of the Escapist's regular contributors, MovieBob, has free range to rant about whatever strikes his fancy each week. Topics have ranged from a set on Hollywood History to the revolution in animation that is encapsulated in Yogi Bear's collar (seriously, watch that one, it's AMAZING). 

Considering that content description and the fact that the series' subtitle is "A Hard Look At All Things Geek," it's really no surprise the videos strike my fancy more often than not. I've been planning to feature an episode here on the blog, and I think last week's installment presents the perfect conflux of MovieBob's style with a number of my personal interests. I hope you enjoy The Big Picture: Frankenstein Conquers the World.

Ok, now that you've seen that I want to present a quick commentary on why I selected that video in particular. First and foremost it's about a movie I have never seen, and one that features Frankenstein's monster no less. This immediately piques my interest since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of my all-time favourite novels, and I love to explore its various adaptations (even though most of them are kinda crap). I realize now that I haven't talked about Frankenstein at all on this blog, and perhaps that's something I need to rectify in the near future... Regardless though, that fact alone has me curious, but the hits don't stop coming. On top of that the movie is made by Toho of freaking Godzilla fame, and I've made no secret of my love for all things big, radioactive, and green.

So the movie features a giant, radioactive monster that's (inexplicably) referred to as Frankenstein stomping around Japan and generally acting like everyone's (read: my) favourite king of the monsters. That's more than enough to sell me, but wait! There's more! MovieBob rightly tells us how this is one of the only movies to really dive right into the darker aspects of Japan's 20th century history, featuring not only their alliance with the Nazis in WWII but also the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima as major plot points. Holy shit! 

I've mentioned before how one of the reasons I find Godzilla so interesting is the fact that he's more or less a cinematic manifestation of the social/cultural/political/psychological scars left on the Japanese populace by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These are some of the darkest moments in modern history and the orignal Gojira was a clear attempt to negotiate the literal and figurative damage done. Regardless of the increasingly ridiculous and irreverent latter films in the series (although I would argue they build off the initial framework in interesting ways) that first movie dealt with some very serious subject matter via metaphor, leaving the real context off-screen in the hearts and minds of the audience.
Frankenstein Conquers the World eschews subtlety altogether and dives head-first into the historical fray. The movie not only deals with the bombing of Hiroshima as a historical fact and incorporates it as an integral plot point, it moreover depicts this event on film. Seriously! You saw the video above, you know as much as I do, even MovieBob is stunned by this choice. On the one hand this honestly doesn't sound nearly as tasteful or clever as the approach taken in the Godzilla franchise; there the idea of nuclear power was the plot rather than merely an event driving it forward, and the actual history was respectfully left to the audience to remember. On the other hand, Frankenstein Conquers the World is unique in its explicit response to such a horrifying event a scant two decades after it actually occurred! The movie was made in 1965 so the damage done was still very much fresh in the minds of the Japanese populace, and yet Frankenstein seems to use the event as a mere justification for getting a dude to stomp around miniature sets. Hell, the bombings are (rightfully) still a touchy subject, so it's incredible to think that they were depicted on film at all so shortly after occurring, and moreover that they were used in such a (seemingly) irreverent way.

So Frankenstein Conquers the World has shot right to the top of my "To Watch" list, number one with a bullet! I don't expect it to be deep, artistic, or even good for that matter, but I do expect it to be an "interesting" take on Frankenstein and a uniquely explicit look at Japan's response to the bombing of Hiroshima. I expect it'll play on a lot of the themes and concepts that I find so captivating about the Godzilla franchise, albeit a little less tastefully. Finally, I expect to have a good time enjoying some classic "MAN-IN-SUIT" action (Frankenstein fights Baragon!!!).

This post ended up being more about Godzilla (again) than about The Big Picture or even Frankenstein, but I think it served its purpose. I wanted to give a shout out to one of my new favourite video series and also talk about a movie that I really want to see, and I'm always happy to talk about Godzilla. Plus now I have a few new post ideas in the bank. Anyway, take my advice and check out The Big Picture, it's pretty damn awesome (again I specifically recommend the one about Yogi Bear's collar). And if you've seen Frankenstein Conquers the World or have a different opinion on Godzilla or whatever then, as always, let me know in the comments.

Never Thought I'd Be Afraid of a Graphics Editing Program

At the recent MAX 2011 fest (what the...), Adobe unveiled a prototype for an upcoming feature in Photoshop: unblurring. I tried to sum up how this new technology works but Geekosystem's Eric Limer does so better than I ever could have: "The algorithm actually calculates the movement of the camera during the time the shutter was open and uses it to retroactively correct the blurring that occurred. Impressive."

Fuck yeah that's impressive! It's like the future is now, and without any shitty motion controls!

Watch the video below for the announcement. Listen carefully to the crowd and you can hear the astounded cries of "That's impossible!" and "Holy shit!" and "Witch! Burn it! Burn the witch!"



(Via Geekosystem)