Over on his forums, the legendary comic artist and writer takes umbrage with my review of his Angel vs. Frankenstein over at the CB.*
To be fair, he doesn't get too snarky with it but he does engage in my least favorite creator reaction to criticism: "well they obviously didn't read/watch/understand it."
Which is, you know, kind of a bullshit reaction from a seasoned professional and kind of traffics in the laziest thinking about the objective quality of one's own work. So to all creators out there who are compelled to write me or write dismissively about my criticism of your work: yes, I read it (thoroughly, I might add) and no I didn't think it was very good (but I congratulate you for getting it out there).
It's a tricky thing putting your work out there for the world to see and of course with anything that involves any modicum of talent it's going to take knocks from all corners. But don't (and this is directed equally to you creators just starting out and you older guys who are convinced you know it all) take the intellectual shortcut of assuming that criticism is dismissal or that the critic in question doesn't "get" you.
Sometimes your book isn't very good or (in the case of this particular title) it's simply fair and I hoped for something deeper.
*Thanks for directing me to the link, commenter Matt - if you have a personal site link I'd be glad to add it to the body of the post.
Two movies I've been anticipating for a while are Anders Morgenthaler's animated revenge thriller Princess (2006) and Natasha Arthy's Bend it Like Beckham for the kung fu set, Fighter (2007).
Princess is an odd package on paper: August (Thure Lindhardt) is a priest whose porn star sister has recently and left her damage but smart 5-year-old Mia (Mira Hilli Moller Hallund) to care for. Shocked by the emotional harm done to his young niece, August embarks on a mission to erase any vestige of his late sister's porn career while working his way towards her lover/boss, Charlie.
Using traditional animation, CG, live action inserts, and grainy camcorder video the story follows August on his quest in the present while giving viewers hints about how the rift formed between the formerly close brother and sister. The camcorder views in particular (always from August's perspective) show his compulsion to document his sister, no matter how sketchy the situation.
August is a bit off - he hates pornography (with good reason, in this case) but he also seems deeply, profoundly broken in his own way, even before his sister's exploitation. In flashbacks - which are sometimes accompanied by a distracting CG trip through August's synapses - he's always the observer and never the actor. Morgenthaler and co-writer Mette Heeno's script has a tendency to keep August's camera rolling when it should not be (particularly in the tense, confrontational second scene with the landlord).
The present-day sequences show August attempting to connect with Mia, even trying to gain a measure of catharsis for her by allowing her to participate in the revenge against her exploiters and abusers. The script is a little unclear on how many people mishandled this unfortunate child - I think it was just one character, but August seems to believe Charlie was involved as well.
The movie's position, I think, is that Christina and Mia's exploiters should be destroyed absolutely and completely. The two that we see, Preben (Tommy Kenter) and Sonny (Soren Lenander) are essentially vile gangsters. Charlie remains elusive but we understand from the shrine he has built for Christina in the local cemetery that he's a grotesque.
The viewer gets a Death Wish vibe from the whole thing, with the very capable August taking down these unsympathetic scumbags, working his way up the food chain. Even the cops are somewhat on August's side, opining that Preben and Sonny are lucky they're getting any help at all. August's attacks against the pornographers (and later their gun-toting henchmen) are fairly stylized, with the camera following the trajectory of bullets and crowbars as they hit their mark.
The film ultimately becomes exploitation cinema, all things considered, with its blood red-tinted focus on the violence and the almost playful nature of August's vengeful outing. Consider the scene in the warehouse early in the film where he has Mia pouring the gasoline while her stuffed animal prances in the background (a common conceit is that Mia thinks her stuffed bunny, Multe, is alive).
Why was animation chosen as the primary method to tell this story? According to IMDB it's about 20% live action and 80% animation - that sounds about right. Obviously, there's the appeal of splitting the past from present via format but what did it serve making the present animated? I suppose as a practical consideration, animating the film allowed the filmmakers to execute some of their more visceral set-pieces (how else could they afford to show the destruction of a city block of porn shops?). Still, there's a sense of the fantastic to the events given the slightly stylized nature of the characters and Mia's inner world being manifest through the ever-present Multe that creates distance instead of drawing you in. The split between the "real" (August in the past) and just plain moviemaking distracts more than it attracts if that makes any sense.
What do we make of the character's fate at the end of the movie? Or the friendly porn starlet who aids Mia in the mansion? The very final scene would hint that August's quest was just and redemptive while the acts themselves and their physical repercussions would tend to read as an outsized reaction on his part. I think in crafting such a strange brew of film styles and focusing on the delivery method of the content, the creative team perhaps got a little muddled in the actual, you know, content of the content. Ultimately Princess comes off as a revenge pic of the sex and murder genre - think 1979's Hardcore with George C. Scott or the original Get Carter. Unfortunately it puts up so many layers between its lead and its message that the movie is difficult to get behind.
Fighter similarly has a problem with a somewhat inscrutable lead. A coming-of-age Kung Fu film should be an easy sell to me but the script and performances never really generate any sort of relatable or believable tension. Instead, we get a retread of of numerous teen girl empowerment films which aims for grit but hits melancholy.
It's about Aicha (Semra Turan) a high school student cool to her strict Muslim parents' aspirations for her to become a doctor. The tomboyish lead would rather be practicing martial arts and watching grainy interviews with the late great Bruce Lee, though. The tension is obvious well-worn - traditional immigrant culture (her family is Turkish) vs. modern opportunities for a girl in the west. Writer/director Natasha Arthy and co-writer Nicolaj Arcel's script just dresses it in martial arts drag.
I've mentioned before that Aicha is inscrutable: some of that is from a script that's vague on exactly what her character wants but the other part is Turan's performance which is incredibly internal. Aicha spends a lot of her time literally running between locations and keeping her eyes down and mouth shut when she gets there. Of course she opens up a bit when she joins a Kung Fu club run by the Hong Kong mainstay Xian Gao (Crouching Tiger, Fong Sai Yuk a.k.a. The Legend) but that liveliness is more the result of well-choreographed if choppily-edited fight scenes.
The movie only seems alive during the wire work-heavy action scenes (which culminate in a tournament that's more Fight Club than The Karate Kid) but for the remainder of its running time the story is on autopilot. The story can barely muster any surprises or variation on the type of film, instead coasting on the formula. If you guessed her father was an ogre, her mother was knowing and disappointed, and that she had an older sibling who was the family's pride and joy then you were right on all counts. Is there a Danish boy outside of her traditional community who has her eye? You bet, but in this case it's the slightly slimy Emil (Cyron Bjorn Melville) whose character is never really given anything beyond an overtly sexual interest in Aicha.
I can't fault the look of the film, however. The grime and grit of the lower class Denmark estates are convincingly visualized through lots of handheld camera work and a high level of grain in the image.
I recently checked out these two much talked about horror features on DVD and found both to be sorely lacking.
Deadgirl(2008) (not to be confused with 2006's excellent The Dead Girl) is about two high school outcasts and the dead girl they find in the basement of an abandoned asylum. The catch: she's not quite dead and can't quite die.
The two friends, Rickie and JT (played by Shiloh Fernandez and Noah Segan), are a pretty miserable pair from the beginning but the plot attempts to drum up sympathy by giving the former a pretty crush for him to gaze at longingly for much of the running time, even as things start to get pretty messy down in the basement. The plot attempts to wring extra tension from JT's rather abrupt descent into depravity and Rickie's inability (or unwillingness) to pull his best friend back from the brink.
On paper there's a lot of interesting things to explore in terms of slippery slope morality, the power dynamics between friends, and the use of sex as a form of power. In particular, the relationship between JT and Rickie should be an electric current running throughout the entire film. Unfortunately, the piece devolves into the realm of "gore-sploitation" so quickly (look, everyone - guys having sex with a gnarly corpse) that any emotional shock is quickly undercut by the juvenile attempts to gross viewers out.
The production values are strong and the gore effects are actually quite decent but the casting is horrible with one of the oldest looking crowds of 17-year-olds in recent film memory and overwrought, very broad performances by the entire cast. The only member of the cast who really acquits themselves is Jenny Spain in the thankless role of the Deadgirl. The only one not playing to some warped high school cliche template she goes full bore with an uncomfortable mix of sexuality and primal ferocity.
Next up is Grace(2009), a film with a bit of a built-in rep thanks to some walkouts and vomiting during its time on the film festival circuit.
This natal horror film deals with Madeline (Jordan Ladd, sleeping through the role) whose husband and unborn child are killed in a car accident. Determined to carry the child to term she(and everyone else) is shocked to learn that the child (named Grace, natch) isn't as dead as they all believed.
Being a horror movie, this can't go well.
Vegan Madeline quickly learns that her little girl isn't interested in milk and has to get a regular supply of the red stuff in increasingly gruesome ways. Meanwhile, her isolation and increasingly erratic behavior starts a power struggle with her unhinged, control freak mother-in-law, Vivian (Gabrielle Rose, willing to bare her teeth and everything else in this role).
The concept here is much thinner as the story travels the familiar horror path where stories like Pet Sematary have long since and much more interestingly tread. Perhaps if the lead weren't sleepwalking through the role the film might have made more of an impression.
As it stands, the film is a dull-eyed mess that kind of happens and then ends.
Both films have especially nice posters, though.
Deadgirl Trailer
Grace Trailer
See Cronenberg's delightfully weird The Brood (1979) instead:
Or Cemetery Man for another take on the girl who just won't die:
I saw Frank Darabont's adaptation of Stephen King's "The Mist" back in its summer release back in '07 and kind of hated it. It was that rapid-build kind of hate as well where you like it marginally in the theater and by the time you hit the exit you're convinced you've somehow been... I don't know, swindled?
The film was is a "hell is other people" piece about a small New England town and the thick mist that covers it after a mysterious storm. The townies and some vacationers end up holing up in a supermarket when they learn that the mist is inhabited by all manner of vicious creatures from somewhere else. Of course as a microcosm of American values and types (the elitist lawyer, the noble artist, the barking mad evangelist) it's only a matter of time before conflict breaks out between the natives.
The ideological gulf is between Tom Jane's pragmatic artist character and Marcia Gay Harden's bible-thumping Miss Carmody. Harden's character spins the events in apocalyptic-mystic terms, equating the monsters with divine retribution due to the litany of complaints one gets with any zealots: people are having the "wrong" kind of sex, abortion is murder, cats are sleeping with dogs, etc.
Carmody was painted in such broad strokes that it took me out of the movie when some of the townspeople started coming around to her side of things by the midway point. Harden gives a foaming at the mouth, foul, bitter performance (note, I'm not qualifying it as "good" per se) and it felt like a cheat on the part of the story to generate artificial tension. By the end of the film some of her followers are calling for human sacrifice in their panicked need to assuage a conception of God closer to King's "Children of the Corn."
So why did I rewatch it recently? I can't really answer that in any satisfying way. I was compelled to take it in again, though. Two years out the acting is still rough (Tom Jane's last scene unintentionally gets a laugh), the CGI is still dodgy, and Mrs. Carmody is a broad as ever but somehow it kind of works now in a way that it didn't back in '07.
I'd say part of it - if I'm being honest, most of it - has to do with the seismic emotional shift the country has gone through post '08 election or at least the cable news version of the national attitude anyway. We seem more balkanized than before and some on the right appear just plain mean. In particular, the religious right has been co-opted by some of the most vitriolic voices in the Pat Robertson mold. Some of the most nasty thoughts have been given voice recently by religious leaders (which happens with any real cultural sea change) but what's most appalling is that there are too many nodding their heads in agreement or at least not calling bullshit.
There's a real feeling of blood in the water right now with the people who've been sharpening their knives for years waiting for some kind of ultimate confrontation between the people and the state, black against whites, or Christians vs. everyone else enjoying the increasingly hyperbolic and hostile mood out there.
It remains to be seen how much of it is the cable news cycle giving voices and legitimacy to fringe elements but there's an element out there, increasingly vocal, that mimic the sentiments of the Mrs. Carmodys of the world. That is, they're the folks that believe that "something's not right" with the country, and wouldn't mind a little bit of bloodletting to get America back to the "good old days" (i.e. cultural hegemony, minorities "in their place," and a simpler black and white moral spectrum).
Also, as overwrought as the ending to the movie is, there's some subtle, maybe even accidental comment there about how leaving the crazies to it and bugging out will get you nowhere. Those final apocalyptic moments get kind of silly with Tom Jane's extended "noooooooooooo," and I can't dispute that at all. At the same time, it's kind of poignant - the sense that the loudest, craziest voices have won out and forced the voices of reason to beat a hasty, bloody retreat.
Again, "The Mist" hasn't suddenly become transformative art but it has become very much of the moment.
Please note the images I selected from the recent Teabagger rallies were selected with a Google search for the words "teabagger + racist." These are intentionally slanted images but it was alarmingly easy to find them to justify my point.
I began thinking about songs - particularly the ones that play over and over in my head and the ones that I can't bear to be without on a CD or on my iPod. Here are a few, in no particularly order:
"Marked" - Bad Religion
This was actually one of the first CDs I had to have and it was all thanks to another song entirely,"20th Century Boy." But this song just got me and gets to me still with its insistent final verse and the relentless speed of the whole thing. It was like a message delivered on the run and if you didn't get it, so what?
I've listened to other albums by Bad Religion since - my estimation of the band has diminished over time. Part of that is because I saw over time how simplistic (in the pejorative instead of "simple" as an observation)their music was and is. Of course part of it is growing a little older and not being able to maintain that level of intensity that you have when you're 13 or 14, but there it is.
"Beep Street" - Squarepusher
I actually discovered Squarepusher thanks to an Ken Ishii mix CD via the track "Squarepusher's Theme." I was completely enamored with the song - the way it didn't sound like the usual fiddling with knobs that I was used to in electronic music. I could hear real instrumentation in there even through Ishii's blending the track so that it could work as part of the overall playlist.
Being in South Florida at the time before the advent of internet music sales, it took a little while before I got hold of Feed Me Weird Things, the album where the track actually appears. So I "settled" for Hard Normal Daddy which in and of itself was a revelation.
I mentioned the instrumentation in "Squarepusher's Theme" but I learned that the musician was actually a virtuoso in multiple musical forms. At the time I had trouble characterizing what I was hearing. It sounded like drum and bass, but at fewer bpm's - gentler without any sort of affectation. It wasn't music you danced to but it was music that you heard. The tracks on Hard Normal Daddy demanded my attention because of the many layers of sound, with the variable rhythms and pacing making each track stand out.
I loved "Squarepusher's Theme" when I first heard it but i fell in love with "Beep Street" the first time I heard it.
"It's In Our Hands" - Bjork
More recent than the other entries and maybe more fitting with my temperament at this age. If you'd asked a few years ago I would have chosen her "Hyperballad" given the rawness of that track, the emotions laid bare. "Hyperballad" is actually still my favorite song by Bjork and one that I could never bring myself to ignore if it were playing. But "It's In Our Hands" is the one that I can't live without right now.
It's the imploring and jarringly sensual nature of this track that appeals to me. It feels like seduction out of desperation, this song without the track itself ever feeling desperate or like shallow vamping on the part of the artist.
I've always felt that she had one of the most beautiful voices in the world and this song reinforces that. It's like a well-honed tool, her voice, bouncing between wavering, almost youthful imprecation, and bedroom cooing between verses.
"La Cerca" - Sparta
It occurs to me that in spite of enjoying their music for years as At the Drive-in and when the band members broke apart to become Sparta and The Mars Volta, I know almost nothing about the roster in either groups.
For instance, I didn't know Sparta vocalist Jim Ward's name even after all these years of enjoying the texture of his voice. It's a voice that works perfectly with the material, which bounces from pop profundity to lyrical absurdity.
I don't have any deep reason or emotional connection to this song - I just like it quite a bit and feel like something's wrong if I don't have immediate access to it.
"Seed Of Memory" - Terry Reid
What the hell, right? Anyone who knows me knows I have a strong aversion to the hippy drippy sentiment of the late 60's and early 70's. I can't connect to any of it, only really vibing to southern rock and the more aggressive precursors to hard rock.
Well, maybe how I came to the track is part of why I enjoy it - via Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejectsof all things. Say what you will about Zombie as a filmmaker but the man knows how to put together a soundtrack.
In this case, the song actually plays during the end credits after the antiheroes of the piece have been peppered with bullets by the Texas State Police. The song was actually a great comedown to the often garish violence of the previous 2 hours and Zombie was right to use it for the credits which kept the image up high - an eagle's eye view of the world below, divorced from all the terrible things that had happened before.
I appreciate the song now on its own now because of how rich and textured the track is. Its melancholy melody can alternately soothe or subdue me depending on my mood and I come back to it frequently when I need it.
"Joga (Remix)" - Bjork remixed by Alec Empire
I mentioned before the quality of Bjork's voice. Here, noise and hardcore artist Alec Empire wields it like a weapon - sending a blast of her vocals in between assaultive bass attacks. It's actually really unexpected and was such a departure from what I was used to in her work. I think the only other analogue I'd heard up to that point was "Army of Me" but there was such a gap between that track and this one that history had a way of getting lost in between.
What I'm saying is, I love it precisely because it's NOT a song by my favorite artist or at least it's a dramatic reinvention that actually makes me appreciate her talent all the more for its malleability.
On top of that, I first heard this song around the time that I was really into the Atari Teenage Riot. At this age I may not get as much out of their music, but Alec Empire's solo work has continued to endure because it's usually so raw and powered at times by its digressions and divergences.
Last weekend I checked out both Inglourious Basterds and The Baader-Meinhof Complex. Both are stylistically two fairly different movies. But without the intent of denigrating or elevating either one I must say that on a certain level the two films are incredibly similar thematically.
On the surface they seem wildly different - QT doing his movie-movie thing about World War II and the power of big "c" Cinema. Some quibbles notwithstanding I'm beginning to feel like it was one of my favorite movies of the year as a cumulative effort (but more on that in another post). As for BMK, it a rousing action film wearing the skin of a counterculture 60's action film about the extreme leftist sentiments sparked by Western intervention in Vietnam, the perceived police state mentality of the German government, etc.
But look deeper and it's evident that both are movies about appearances and rep. In a 9.1.09 posting titled "Real of fictitious, it doesn't matter..." Jim Emerson makes a very thorough dissection of IG and the role of reputation and appearance throughout the film. Emerson postulates (and I agree with his analysis) that Tarantino crafts characters whose reputations precede them, noted by nicknames ("Aldo the Apache," "the Jew Hunter," "The Bear Jew") and even self conscious asides by the movie itself (notably Stiglitz's introductory vignette).
This common thread is shared by BMK which follows the Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorist/revolutionary group in its heyday in the late 60's and early 70's. Part of their mandate - one shared by the Basterds - is to strike fear into the German power structure, creating tension and demoralization of what they perceive as immoral and even inhuman oppressors. Point of fact, part of the RAF propaganda explicitly described the police as pigs and effectively declaring open season on the men in uniform while at the same time dissuading attacks on "the workers" (i.e. civilians).
While the RAF leadership doesn't have evocative nicknames like the Basterds, their identities are known and they have very public faces. In fact, one of the most effective tools in ultimately rounding up the RAF leadership was a sort of "catch 'em all"-style wanted poster with images of the known members of the outfit displayed with x's marking the ones that had been captured of killed by the authorities. Pay attention to the trailer as well - as much as it comes through there in the actual film there's a very pervasive rock star/outlaw swagger to the early exploits of the RAF. It's a handy bit of synchronicity that the fashions of the group members echos some of the styles seen today (skinny jeans, form-fitting clothes with a retro vibe) that's at odds with the proletarian aims of the group.
Indeed, for all its talk of anarchic abolition of controlling capitalist systems, the RAF was incredibly well-marketed in its day, with frequent distribution of flyers bearing the group's logo. Compare and contrast this to the Basterds' unique form of propagating their fear message which involves marking German survivors with swastikas on their foreheads. This act serves the double purpose of forever unmasking the Nazi soldier while also acting as the guerillas' calling card to the German people.
There's also the question of authenticity - it comes up a couple of times in Basterds as subtext (maintaining a pretense of authenticity to survive) and is part of why the characters/historical figures of BMK struggle. Shoshanna Dreyfuss a.k.a. Emmanuelle Mimiuex must maintain the mask of the Gentile to avoid extermination while Andres Baader strains in every scene to prove how dedicated he is to the proletarian struggle, often exploding at his compatriots for what he perceives as their lack of authenticity. In the middle of the film, there's even a moment where the BMK leadership doubts the authenticity of a group member and defames the person in order to have them liquidated.
The point of similarity between the two films simultaneously creates a contrasting effect as Taratino gives us these larger-than-life figures whereas by the end of BMK the characters have been reduced to an extent after making themselves mythic. One of the last lines in the latter film has the speaker telling the assembled group that their heroes weren't victims or victimized - that they weren't martyrs but instead subjects of their own choices. In this manner, we the audience and the assembled group listening to the aforementioned speaker learn that the BMK leadership was neither a cause to follow nor objects to be edified.
Apropos of nothing but in the year that the U.S.A. get its first black President and Iran takes a stab at revolution that the most amazing thing to me recently is the fact that a licensed video game - featuring a comic character no less - is receiving almost universally positive reviews from the gaming press.
My priorities can at times be somewhat off-kilter.
*It'll be great to have my own copy of the game so I can talk about it with some level of authority.
I finally got around to playing through the second in what is presumably one of many chapters of the F.E.A.R. franchise.* Overall, I thought it was a series of interesting moments instead of a cohesive game. Below are some other thoughts about the game and where it succeeded and possibly failed.
Spoilers may follow. Jump scares actually work
There are lots of "monster closet"-style encounters in the game with specters and beasts of all stripes appearing while you're exploring the blasted city in the game. Most effective, I think, were the sections in the abandoned elementary school. The eerie calm and quiet of an only recently abandoned school was well used by the level designers in heightening the in-game tension.
While the actual construction of many of the levels left a bit to be desired, the tone was just right in many places making this player feel like he was actually in a horror scenario.
I hated The Man Without a Face
The game was such a wildly extreme version of the faceless protagonist - your character has neither an identity nor a voice. It was my hope that somehow this would play into the story which deals with mass-market replica soldiers and the anonymity of for-profit combat but by the end of the game it felt as though the developers couldn't be bothered.
The issue is obviated by the large-ish cast of characters barking story content at you throughout. Why are they talking while you (potentially) have a mouth yet can not scream? Strangely, the developers have opted to make their player character a set of hands with some guns and it really makes the whole experience feel disconnected.
Consider as a counterpoint the faceless protagonist of Bioshock - what was really special there was how thematically your having no face or identity made sense. For all intents and purposes, your character Jack had no identity prior to entering Rapture.
Rubble rubble (I'm sick of all this)
The game just before and then immediately after the nuclear explosion which occurs at the conclusion of the first F.E.A.R.. As a result, much of the city and outlying areas have been decimated by the blast with toppled vehicles, blasted ash remains, and still-burning fires littering the landscape. In some cases this presents for interesting level design, with teetering buses perched precariously over your head and upended buildings for you to navigate.
Still, more often that I'd like to have seen obstacles in the environment tended to come in two flavors: rubble textures and slightly un-jump-able railings and platforms. It really shook the sense of being a nimble commando part of an elite team of badasses. More troubling still is how the game lends itself to exploration but contradictorily has these weird artificial barriers slowing your progress.**
It sure is quiet in here...
Feeding the sense of isolation in the game, F.E.A.R. 2 almost immediately separates you from your team and has you rolling solo for most of the game. While it feels a little sloppy in terms of the story (you're part of an elite team of commandos that tends to split up at the first opportunity) it's highly effective in making you feel the loneliness of the entire scenario.
This is aided by the use of sound in the game with the judicious application of silence where necessary (or the occasional howling of the wind). Sometimes, small touches are enough to enhance the overall mood of a thing, and here's a place where the developers at Monolith scored a point.
The accidental rape story
This is possibly a place where the content of the narrative may have gotten beyond the creators, so please bear with me.
There's a certain strain of body control in the narrative with the victim becoming the victimizer (at least in Alma's case). There are a couple of layers of the strong gaining physical agency of those who aren't as strong. Your character is warned repeatedly that Alma wants to "absorb" you as she has done to others in the past. You're forcibly thrown into fugue-like states thanks to Alma, drawn/guided to the next point in the story.
Then there's the elementary school where we learn that many children were being groomed like Alma to be telepathic soldiers. The way it unfolds during the course of the stories is as a series of abuses perpetrated in secret without the consent of either the children or their parents. The Armacham doctors exert their control over the children, altering their very makeup in spite of the known debilitating repercussions.
The whole story boils down to you trying to protect your body from Alma who ultimately succeeds in gaining control of you long enough to impregnate herself in the game's closing moments. She's the game's ultimate victim and controller. From beyond the grave she's seeking vengeance for her years of forced imprisonment by her own father. She was impregnated multiple times to gain manageable progeny who could be mined for their abilities.
We're told late in the story that she wanted children of her own - while it's handled awkwardly and the final scene is at odds with all the threats of her absorbing your character - the final moments are effective and put new light on the multiple encounters earlier in the game where Alma attacks - no, assaults you, grappling you, trying to pin you down.
It's heady stuff and I wonder if the creators indeed this as a layer of text in the game.
*Henceforth to be known as The Deadly Adventures of Sexy Super Ghost Alma.
** Fallout 3 was another culprit with this kind of design - but it was less egregious there since there was so much more open space to explore compared to the spare corridors, warehouses, and hallways of F.E.A.R. 2.
These CNN images of an automatic rifle-toting health care protester caused me no small amount of heartbreak this morning when I first saw them. You can read the original story here.
It wasn't because this was a citizen carrying a presumably loaded weapon to a site of public discourse. It wasn't that he equated debate with violence. It wasn't (just) the cool dispassion with which he responded to the reporter and the cold inexorable logic which seemed to have brought him to this set of actions.
It wasn't even that he was a fellow black man who felt he would have to defend himself from his black Commander in Chief... that this protester felt he needed to make a preemptive show of defense.
When asked why he brought the gun, the man - who refused to identify himself - replied, "Because I can do it." Later he said, "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms."
I was nearly heartbroken this morning because in a relatively short period of time - say a month - the national discourse has broken down to such a degree that some segments of the population feel we're on the verge of armed revolution. Rule of law and civility are nothing next to personal politics and emotion. The cynic in me would say, "What's new" but the other part of me, the maybe less reptilian part that generally has hope for people tells the cynic to shut the hell up.
Maybe there is a gap between the way we're expected to behave and the way we actually act. It is for all intents and purposes a hostile act to bring a gun to a health care debate and yet media outlets have reported multiple instances. And instead of outrage we barely respond. We've become so insistent on protecting our liberties that we ignore the fact that we actually have fundamental responsibilities as citizens and hell, as human beings.
Yes, a person can carry a firearm openly in the state of Arizona, but it's our responsibility to tell a person who brings a gun to a debate that they're escalating tensions, endangering others, and generally being a nuisance for its own sake.
Yes, a person can have a strong opinion on the overhaul of the health care system but it's their responsibility to do so in a way that's honest and doesn't involve shouting down the other side like wild-eyed mobs. This goes for both sides.
Yes, a person can editorialize on your national platform about your views about the government and how they're managing the country but it's your responsibility to make sure that there is a clear break between editorial content and the news. This means the relentless grinning, smirking, microsecond text polls, and controlled messages need to be identified as what they are - coded and colored presentations of opinion overlaid with the barest skeletons of facts.
Yes, a person can believe in creationism as the process of development of life on earth but they are not free to ignore the extensive scientific evidence or otherwise prevent others from learning essential scientific truths.
Yes, a person can - and should - work hard and earn money and be a success, but it's their responsibility to do so in a manner that doesn't harm the person next to them.
We're not a nation of lone citizens here - we're a collection of communities and shared interests. Why don't we start acting like it.
Having just seen District 9 this weekend I have to come down on the side of critical consensus and say that I found it to be an exhilarating experience that was very much of the moment. "Of the moment" means that the plot doesn't hold up to greater scrutiny after the fact, with some story elements remaining poorly-explained or outright ignored (particularly with regard to the central issue of the use, value, and application of the Prawn technology).
Still, the exuberance of the thing - the energy of the action, the humor invested in the many situations protagonist Wikus Van de Merwe stumbles or is thrown into - makes it work in a way that the recent Star Trek reboot worked.
One thing that has left me a little irked since the movie bowed was the insistence (critically, at least) that the movie is a parable for Apartheid when it instead feels reflective of the recent immigration crisis experienced in South Africa. For a time there reports would pop up on CNN about attacks by SA locals on immigrants from Zimbabwe and other displaced persons and it was actually pretty hairy. According to this NY Times piece from 2007 something like 3900 illegal immigrants we being deported weekly. They were viewed by locals and preexisting immigrants as a challenge to low-wage jobs and homes in informal settlements. It was all about hustling to get a place on the totem pole even if it's at the bottom.
If I recall correctly the violence reached a fevered pitch sometime in the middle of 2008 with immigrants being burned out of their homes or even killed but in the time since nothing about the issue has really popped up on my radar.
Obviously, I get that Apartheid is the more recognizable cultural issue* from the area that still has resonance to this day but it doesn't really jibe with the issues presented in the film. Plus, I kind of feel like this "good immigrant/bad immigrant" story is thematically richer today across all borders. Not just in the U.S. but in any country where the poor feel they have to duke it out with the recent arrivals - the fear that the "unwashed masses" will somehow wash over everything that has been built before by the "good" immigrants (i.e. the ones that were there first).
It puts me in the mind of Miriam Colon character from Sayles' Lone Star - a successful Latina businesswoman and Mexican immigrant who had pretty much convinced herself she was born on this side of the border and had no compunction talking trash about anyone else trying to cross the border. The script painted her as a fairly nasty character made so by an initially hardscrabble life after the death of her husband.
I'm curious as to how much co-screenwriter Neill Terri Tatchell Blomkamp were conscious of the immolation of Zimbabwean immigrants and the violence and all that when they were putting the script together. Blomkamp's Alive in Joburg short was shot/released in 2005, around the time that the massive wave of Zimbabwean immigrants were crossing the border into South Africa. I suspect it had to have at least been somewhere in his mind during the making of both the short and the current feature.
*It should be noted that directed Neill Blomkamp has gone on record as saying that he's not trying to make an "issue" and that his District 9 is more of a big action film with some sociopolitical undertones kind of informing some of the narrative.
I am a writer/designer in the video game industry as well as a regular contributor to Comics Bulletin.
I'm currently looking for collaborating artists for several comics projects.
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