Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

I just finished the game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth on the PC, and I must say it is one of the most frustrating games I've ever played. Despite this, it does have one of the coolest stories I've ever seen in a game, and it is told with considerable skill. There are a lot of genuinely creepy moments that put Resident Evil and its ilk to shame, and the atmosphere is very immersive. The ending is also excellent.



The problem is that the game is marred by several design flaws and a slew of bugs. A crappy save system is the main problem and the end of the game is almost unbeatable because of one of these bugs. There is a wonderful, unofficial, "patch" available that fixes a few things and makes the game a lot easier. I only used it to get past the endgame bug I spoke of, as the patch makes you move faster, which is a big help as you are trying to escape an underwater city that is about to explode.



Using the patch may make the game too easy, as it also makes you do more damage and things like that. But, in all honesty, if I'd had the patch at the beginning, I'd probably not be writing about how frustrating the game is, but how awesome it is. So, get the patch, then play the game. If you don't get the patch, don't ever play it, because it will make you want to pull your hair out.

Technorati Tags: video games, PC games, computer games, call of cthulhu, cthulhu, bethesda, survival horror

Volver

Volver is a dark-comedy gem from master auteur Pedro Almodovar. It deals with life, death, and family, (some of Almovodar's usual topics) in an intelligent and unusual way. Occasionally subtle, and occasionally not, Volver is an excellent, character-centric film.

The Spanish word "volver" translates to "return," or "revert." The film makes significant thematic use of the concept behind the word. The film begins with Raimunda (Penelope Cruz), her sister, Sole (Lola Duenas), and Raimunda's teenage daughter, Paula (Yohanna Cobo) visiting the grave of the older womens' mother in a small Spanish town. When they return home, events conspire to leave Paula fatherless, Raimunda with a restaurant, and, later, Sole with a live-in ghost. Terminal cancer and confused paternity also make guest appearances. The plot would be perfect for a daytime soap opera. But, under Almodovar's expert touch, character development takes priority while the plot's cliches find themselves undermined and modified to fit the writer-director's unique sense of humor. Events that would normally be hammed up on daytime TV find themselves played for laughs. Even with all the black comedy, the film retains significant emotional impact.

Penelope Cruz gives an excellent performance. That's not to disparage the rest of the film's acting, which is great all around, but Cruz's is worth mentioning, if only because the English-speaking part of her career has been less than stellar. In Volver, the audience can feel the stress and anxiety that lie beneath Raimunda's facade. She plays a character who pretends to be strong, but doesn't realize she doesn't need to pretend. Every level of that character is visible in Cruz's performance.

Volver's cinematic style is very playful. Almodovar seems to have opted for a kind of Classical Hollywood style, but he seems to purposefully overplay it. For example, several times the camera goes beyond the normal levels of the cinematic male gaze and the camera rests on a woman's body for an inordinate amount of time. Normally, the male gaze is found in the subtext of the editing and cinematography, but Almodovar seems to revel in it. It is almost as if he is purposefully putting things into his film for film students to write about. Ironically, Almodovar is gay, which provides further evidence that this emphasis on the female body as a sex object is filmic playfulness. Roger Ebert has also quoted him as saying "Yes I am a gay man, but I love breasts."

In conclusion, Volver is a cut above most other films out today. It uses what could be called a "trite" plot in a way that emphasizes character and manipulates that plot into a shape that is both affecting and comical. Both playful and serious, Volver is not to be missed.
pedro almodovar

Golden Globe Winners

When the Golden Globe nominations were announced, I complained that this year lacked the excellence of last. While I wasn't quite wrong, I should have held out for those last few movies of the year before rendering my final judgment. This year did lack a Cache or Match Point, but it did have Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth. However, the Hollywood Foreign Press seems to have failed to notice, so it seems my cynicism was justified, at least in part. I really don't understand how Babel, a great movie, don't get me wrong, could beat Children of Men, an even greater one.



Oh well. I guess awards really are meaningless after all. After last years Oscar win for Crash, I should have figured that out on my own.





Technorati Tags: movies, cinema, film, oscars, crash, golden globes, babel

Ten best movies of 2006

I've been thinking about this quite a bit, and I think I've decided what I feel were the best movies of 2006.



1: Children of Men

2: Pan's Labyrinth

3: The Departed

4: Little Miss Sunshine

5: Science of Sleep

6: The Proposition

7: Volver

8: Stranger than Fiction

9: The Descent

10: Prestige

That "Almost made it" spot: Babel



I haven't seen Little Children or The Last King of Scotland, both of which could thoretically make the list, but I figured I'd make it without them.



Obviously, a lot of people are going to disagree with this list, especially the inclusion of The Descent, Science of Sleep, and The Prestige, none of which are getting much awards chatter. But I stand by the list.



Some of it was difficult to come up with. Especially choosing between Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth, both of which are excellent movies.



I was a bit disappointed in Babel. It didn't have the emotional "oomph" Inarritu's work has had previously. However, I think re-watching it is in order to come up with a final verdict, because I went into it expecting the level of melodrama found in Amorres Perros and 21 Grams, but instead found a more emotionally distant, and possibly more mature, film.



I'll also mention that I was highly disappointed in Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. I bring this up because I've been very excited about the film for a few years now, from back when it was announced as a three-hour epic with Brad Pitt and I anxiously awaited it making this list. But, alas, it is not nearly as good as it should have been and failed to make the cut.









Technorati Tags: movies, cinema, top ten, golden globes, oscars, awards, film, 2006

The Queen

The Queen, or, more appropriately, How Tony Blair Saved the Monarchy, is an interesting look into the inner-workings of the British government and Royal Family in the week after the death of Princess Diana. The audience gains entry to the previously guarded Royal Family life and its interactions with Number 10 Downing Street. Dry humor, great acting, and an original premise make for an interesting, though not perfect, film.



The movie starts out with Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) winning the prime minister election and meeting the queen for the first time. Soon, the Royal Family receives word that Diana has died in a car accident and they soon find themselves in the midst of political turmoil. Blair finds himself thrust into the whole thing when the Family fails to agree on how things should be handled and the public begins to take notice. Blair finds himself working to keep the British people happy, while at the same time preventing Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) from committing political suicide in a new society that she doesn't understand, before he is even sworn in.



With The Queen, Stephen Frears does a great job of humanizing the UK politicos and royalty that make up the cast. Showing these people on the news or in print distances them from the normal people of the world. They seem like they are just pictures and words, speeches and policy. Most of the time, when powerful people are depicted on screen, the closest the filmmaker comes to showing them as real human beings is to depict them as bumbling idiots, ala American Dreamz. Frears takes a different tact. While he does depict Her Majesty's moments of indecision, stubbornness, and weakness, her moments of strength and the reasons behind that stubborn indecisiveness are also shown. She is shown doing things, such as breaking down in a car, that most people would never even associate with the Queen of England. Frears never insults his characters with the kind of one-sided characterization found in many films, and that is very refreshing.



Stylistically, the film is average. It relies very heavily on reaction shots and there are a few scenes where the cutting could have been slowed down. A lot of the cinematography is very good, especially the shots of the Balmoral Estate. Altogether, the cinematic technique is functional, but nothing to be beholden to. Simple Classical Hollywood Style doing its unobtrusive job. Obviously, Frears was only looking for utilitarian functionality, so complaining about it would be a little out of line.



The combination of wit, good writing, and interesting characters make The Queen a great entry in the Frears canon. However, it's not the kind of movie that is worthy of the praise it has received. It is a good film, but not magnificent. It occasionally drags and doesn't push very hard on the cinematic technique side. However, it is enjoyable and sheds a new light on this normally cloistered group, making it well worth the watch.

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Apparently, everone in Ireland does coke

A recent study found that 100% of the euro notes in Ireland have at least trace amounts of cocaine on them. Kind of funny, if you ask me. Which you didn't, but still.



Also, the use of meth brought in from eastern Europe has extremely high sulfate content, which comes out through the user's sweat and degrades the euro notes, causing them to become brittle and crumble.



I guess the message there is not to do drugs, because they'll make you poor.









Technorati Tags: drugs, euro, dollar, money, ireland, germany, cocaine, meth

Children of Men

Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men is the first science fiction masterpiece of the new century. It is a bleak meditation on violence and the human condition, and Cuaron's deft cinematic touch leaves the audience breathless in the film's wake.



A biology student once said, "The only thing unique to humans is their ability to create other humans." Children of Men deals with a world where even that is taken away. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic near future. This isn't a quick, flash-and-everyone's-dead apocalypse. This apocalypse leaves humanity to crawl towards the inevitable end in the aftermath of an inexplicable loss of human female fertility. The entire future of human existence is limited to the lifespan of a single person



Theodore Faron (Clive Owen) and Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore) had a child at one point, but lost him to the flu pandemic that took place soon after the loss of fertility. Now, Julian is the idealistic leader of a revolutionary group seeking to bring equality to immigrants in England. Theo has given up his activist roots in exchange for cynicism, alcoholism, and a successful business career. During the course of the film, he finds that his idealism isn't completely gone, it was just in hiding, waiting to be used again. He has this opportunity when Julian asks him to help with humanity's single most important mission: to escort the first pregnant woman in eighteen years out of London and to safety.



While this may sound like a run-of-the-mill story, Cuaron is able to bend and stretch the material to his liking. Combined with excellent dialogue and memorable characters, the story takes on a life of its own. The film's refusal to explore the issue of why women are infertile is also quite interesting. Though a couple of explanations are offered, they are never explored. This suggests that this issue is beside the point. The story is not about how people got to their current condition, but what they do to escape that condition. The cause is irrelevant.



Though extremely bleak, their is also a lot of humor in Children. This helps lighten the mood and prevents the film from being too depressing to bare. At the same time, this humor makes the parts of the film that are bleak that much more so by contrast. This not only makes the movie more enjoyable to watch, but makes the narrative more complex. It has emotional valleys and peaks, which keeps the audience from getting worn out on one side of the spectrum or the other.



Cuaron obviously trusted his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, as the camera work is hardly touched by the editor's shears. Long takes are the norm, tracking the action and allowing every detail of every person or violent act to soak into the audience's psyche. Almost constant movement prevents the image from becoming dull. Though jerky, documentary-style cinematography is used, it isn't overdone to the point of cliche as it is in many movies that attempt to be "realistic." In Children, realism comes from the way this futuristic collapsed society is depicted. The majority of the population lives in squalor, while very few are able to do much better then that. Anger and hopelessness lead to violence becoming a part of everyday life. What makes this realistic is that, for many people, this is the way they live today, in 2007. For them, society has already collapsed.



When the credits roll, it is difficult to really leave Children of Men. It is, in a word, enthralling. The brutality of the cinematic text haunts the spectator, refusing to let go. The immediacy of each frame leaves a lasting impression. Finding a film that is capable of such a feat, without the emotionally manipulative chicanery many films employ, is something to be remembered. And Children of Men definitely shall.













Technorati Tags: children of men, clive owen, julianne moore, alfonso cuaron, movie, cinema, review, film, science fiction, oscars, golden globes

Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

Perfume: the Story of a Murderer is the compelling, and creepy, tale of a man doomed from the day he was born. The film is directed with technical virtuosity and an extremely adept visual sensibility by Tom Tykwer. The story is bizarre, and, at times, tragic. However, the film suffers near the end when the story takes an almost nonsensical turn that reduces the film's visceral impact and fails to fit the rest of the story thematically.



Based on the novel by Patrick Suskind, Perfume tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), a fictional 18th century Parisian perfumer, who is also the subject of the Nirvana song, The Scentless Apprentice. His life starts with a birth beneath a fishmonger's stall. Soon schlepped off to an orphanage, Jean-Baptiste realizes he has a uniquely superior sense of smell. Later apprenticed to perfumer Giusseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), Grenouille begins to explore a darker side of perfume making in his attempts to create the perfect smell.



Dealing with personal alienation and serial murder is rarely a "fun" thing in any medium. But, somehow, Tykwer manages to tell the story in a surprisingly watchable fashion. The world is treated with a certain sense of humor, and even death is shown in a comical light, from time to time. Rather than creating a morose, dark film, Tykwer balances sheer creepiness and dark comedy that makes the film enjoyable, without turning it into a farce. Another interesting point is that the film never judges Grenuille. The townspeople definitely do, and their judgment is harsh, but that appraisal stays within the narrative of the film. In fact, a narrator is used to tell the majority of the story. This technique helps to distance the spectator from the main character, giving the spectator enough space that he or she can withhold their verdict, allowing them to enjoy the movie, as a hated main character tends to make any film less fun to watch. However, purposefully preventing the audience from identifying with the main character is a double-edged sword. Doing so requires the character to remain somewhat undeveloped, and an underdeveloped main character is never a good thing, as it leaves the audience without any sense of the character's motivation. Even the antagonist in a good story requires some kind of explanation of their motives, otherwise the spectator is left wandering "why?" throughout the entire film.



Visually, Perfume is a feast for the senses. It would be the perfect film to showcase Hans Laube's Smell-o-Vision, (or John Water's Odorama, for that matter) but even without such a gimmick, the film is able to showcase the sense of smell beautifully. Tykwer and DP Frank Griebe use extreme close-ups as a stand-in for Jean-Baptiste's exceptional sense of smell, and it works extremely well. Combined with Alexander Berner's exceptional editing, every rotting fish and beautiful woman almost feel as if they are in the audience under Griebe's wide-open lens.



In the end, Perfume: the Story of a Murderer is a well told story that spends most of the time being a story worth telling. It deals with its main character's emotional alienation in an amusing way. It only fails in not fully developing its characters and having an ending that is borderline inexplicable. Other than those faults, it is a very easy film to recommend to anyone who doesn't mind a bit of macabre humor or a character that is certifiably psychotic.







Technorati Tags:Tom Tykwer Tom Tykwer, perfume, murder, patrick, suskind, dustin, hoffman, ben, whishaw, nirvana, serial, killer, grenouille, film, cinema, review, movie

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Super Parrot

There is a parrot in New York who has developed a vocabulary of over 950 words. Beyond that, he has a sense of humor, and likes to make up words when he doesn't know one to fit the situation.



I wonder if this is something every African Grey is capable of, or if this is an exceptionally intelligent bird. Either way, it is quite interesting, especially considering that humor is something that requires a rather high level of mental development.









Technorati Tags: parrot, parrots, birds, african grey, intelligence, humor, animals, language

Video game save systems

At some point while playing any video game, the game will need to be saved. The player has to exist, for a little while at least, outside of the game world. Beyond that, it would really suck to start a game over from the beginning every time the player's digital avatar met its pixelated demise. So, game developers have to implement some kind of system so that the player's progress can be saved.



Most games allow the player to save at any point, usually by simply hitting "F6" or the like. Thats fine. What is a problem is when the developers allow the player to save only at some specific point in the game, such as between "scenes" or at a save point indicated by some silly in-game item, such as a computer, or glowing blue ball. That is silly. Saving is not realistic. It never will be realistic. So, why put the save process into the diegesis? It doesn't belong, so don't pretend it does.



When the game can be saved at any point, the player can save just before the difficult battle occurs. So, when that part has to be repeated a few times, its no big deal, as the player doesn't have to waste time before trying the hard part again. However, when the game only allows you to save every now and again, the player often has to repeat the same minute long walking-towards-the-battle sequence, or the same conversation, or even a ten-minute long cutscene, that, while great the first time, starts to really annoy by the third time through.



What is really amazing about the whole thing is that almost every review for a game that only allows saving at specific moments complains about how the arbitrary save point system sucks, but developers don't seem to care. It's doubtful that changing the save system to be more forgiving would alter the sales of a game, so why not do so? Or, maybe give the player the choice at the beginning of the game? What a novel idea.





Technorati Tags: video games, saving, game development, computer, nintendo, ps2, ps3, xbox

Pan's Labyrinth

Guillermo del Toro's new film, El Laberinto del Fauno is a fantasy masterpiece that has the tenacity to deal with several subjects at once, without ever missing a beat. On the one hand, the story concerns a group of Spanish guerrillas during the early days of Franco's regime. On the other, the story is about a young girl, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), who finds herself thrust into both a guerrilla war, and the royal political dealings of an underground kingdom, of which she is, apparently, the princess.



Ofelia serves as the main character in the fantasy side of the film, but is merely a supporting character in the other half. Her step-father, a captain in the Fascist army (Sergi Lopez), and Mercedes (Maribel Verdu), the Captain's maid and a member of the Resistance take the positions of main character in the "real-world" story. It is never clear if Ofelia's fantasy world is real or imagined. Being relegated to the position of a supporting character in the "real world" could be what lead her to create the underground kingdom and its denizens.



Throughout the film, the real world is depicted as a depressing, bleak place where terrible people are allowed to do terrible things, despite the best efforts of the people who are not terrible. However, hope and a willingness to struggle are shown to often be enough to make life bearable. Ofelia's fantasy realm is thematically different than that of imagined worlds found in many other movies. Normally, these fantasy realms, such as that in Jim Henson's Labyrinth,

are places that the character goes for a while, learns a life lesson, and returns, ready to face reality. In Pan's Labyrinth, the sheer brutality of the "real world" makes that impossible. The typical "normality - complicating action - escape to fantasy world - resolution - return to normality" plot structure doesn't work in mid-40's Spain, as the real world is much worse then the fantasy one. Instead, the two worlds slowly merge into each other, at least in Ofelia's mind. Things , such as mythical roots, from the fantasy world begin to carry over into the real one. This new take on the fantasy world plot is part of what makes El Laberinto

such an excellent film.



Maribel Verdu and Ivana Baguero both give excellent performances as Mercedes and Ofelia. All of the acting in the film is exceptional, but these two stood out in my mind as worthy of recognition. They both seem to grasp the inner workings of their characters and consistently show these inner workings to the camera.



Stylistically, the film is excellent as well. Generally, I deride movies that use high-contrast film stock because they tend to look like car commercials or Matrix rip-offs. The style tends to read as highly derivative. However, del Toro and cinematographer Guillermo Navarro seem to have known exactly what they were doing in choosing the film stock as it looks excellent and highlights the mood of the film. The editing is very interesting as well, using numerous visual match cuts to move the action from setting to setting.



Del Toro obviously went through a lot of effort to make this movie look exactly the way he wanted, and the final product looks great because of it. Special effects-wise, it is one of the best looking films I've ever seen. Despite having a budget much smaller than a typical Hollywood SFX movie, Pan's Labyrinth is able to use its minimal CGI and amazing costumes and sets in a way that leaves the spectator concentrating on the film, not the nifty explosions. The effects are subservient to the film, rather than the other way around.



Overall, El Laberinto del Fauno is an excellent example of what a fantasy movie can be, but rarely is. The film deals with complex themes, but never moves into the realm of the didactic. In addition to that, the excellent acting and a firm directorial hand make this, easily, one of the best films of 2006.







Technorati Tags: movie review, Pan's Labyrinth, El Laberinto del Fauno, Guillermo del toro, cinema, movies, franco, spain, 1944, guerrilla warfare, fascism

Console Wars

Over the past few years, the videogame console market has been in a constant state of warfare as Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony vie for dominance. Sony has always dominated, with a 62% market share in 2003, and about the same, as of mid 2006. However, Microsoft is poised to take about a 15% piece of that pie before 2011. Analysts predict Sony will remain king, with Microsoft a close second. Nintendo will be left in the dust with a mere 16%. Of course, these predictions were made before the ridiculous PS3 shortages, so the numbers will probably change some. However, these shortages will probably not be enough to really alter the gap between Nintendo and its competitors.

Come next generation, Nintendo is going to have to really step things up if they want to remain competitive. Using last years technology and adding a motion sensitive "Wiimote" as a gimmick doesn't make for a great system. Hyping up revolutionary gameplay that isn't doesn't make for a happy fanbase. Despite the current 55% market share for Nintendo (this includes handhelds, where Nintendo is the definite winner), there is a good chance that their sales have already peaked. As PS3's become available, Sony will slowly, but surely, take back their share of the market.