Movie Update 39

You know the drill.

Charade


A comedy/thriller/romance thing starring an aging Cary Grant and a still young looking Audrey Hepburn, who try to track down some money her husband stole before his death before they get killed themselves. It's sort of like an Alfred Hitchcock movie that doesn't take itself quite as seriously, with plenty of twists and turns in its mystery and plenty of murders getting dramatically discovered. The script is really fun and never stops adding new elements, though by the end I was really wondering if so much deception by certain characters was really necessary or advisible. An entertaining movie nonetheless.

The Game


One of David Fincher's earlier films, and another one with a script that packs plenty of memorable moments and surprises but doesn't quite end up telling a believable story. Michael Douglas is a wealthy businessman who perhaps takes his job too seriously, and whose life is turned upside down when his brother (played by Sean Penn in a small but interesting part) gives him the birthday gift of a "game" from a company that promises to make his life exciting and unpredictable in the spirit of fun. Things start to go horribly wrong, and you're left to wonder whether it's all part of the game or if the company is actually out to get him and the money he controls. I couldn't really take the premise seriously because it was just too elaborate for anyone to really pull off, but I still enjoyed the movie for Douglas' increasingly perplexed and unhinged performance and Fincher's direction, which was already distinctly in his own style.

The Motorcycle Diaries


A movie about a bike trip that Che Guevara took around South America with his friend and wrote about himself, one that turned him from a normal upper class Argentinian into a political revolutionary who would eventually become one of the world's most notorious radical communists. The movie doesn't go too far into what he would eventually become, but inequality is definitely a bit part of the story, and Guevara is portrayed very sympathetically, almost saintlike in his devotion to honesty and helping people when he can. Ignoring any thoughts you might have about the movie politically, I thought it was a well shot and beautiful movie, if sometimes a boring or tedious one. Not great, but it was certainly interesting to see the perspective.

OSS 117: Cario, Nest of Spies


Before director Michel Hazanavicius and stars Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo made this year's Best Picture frontrunner (I'm guessing) The Artist, they collaborated on this, another tribute to older cinema, though in this case it's 50s and 60s spy movies rather than silent film, and more overtly parodic. Dujardin stars as 117 a suave and talented French secret agent who is sent to clean up a mess in Cairo after his old buddy and partner gets killed while undercover. He meets a local played by Bejo who acts as his liaison in Egypt, and then proceeds to uncover or stumble into a complex web of betrayals and conspiracies that make up the secret underground of the city. 117 is at times both the perfect agent and a joke of one, sometimes effortly dispatching an assailant or slipping into bed with an exotic beauty, sometimes being obnoxiously sexist or intolerant of Islam or missing an obvious clue. The movie slips up with a sour moment now and then, but it's most a very entertaining spoof, and Dujardin is a great leading man, meaningless comparisons to George Clooney aside. They made a sequel, and I'd like to see it soon.

Game Update 21: 3DS GBA Ambassador Games

I've still only touched a handful of the ten free Game Boy Advance games I got along with other early Nintendo 3DS owners late last year. I've played quite a bit of them though, and this is what I think.

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity


There's a type of gamer that has emerged fairly recently, one who probably has the skill to complete games on harder difficulties, but is more interested in seeing all the content a game has to see than being challenged, and so plays on easy mode in order to do so without frustration. They are content tourists, and I have been known to become one when I'm playing a type of game I'm not really into. Racing games where you have to finish a certain place or better to advance to the next course are not kind to this type of gamer. F-Zero is even worse, because there's no chance of coming from far behind - you have to finish at a certain place in each lap, and that place gets higher with each circuit. And with the fact that every course looks pretty much the same, I'm not much interested in acquiring the skill to do better in order to see all that content. A functional game but not a very fun one.

Mario Kart: Super Circuit


Super Circuit is a bit better than F-Zero, because at least the easiest mode actually seems like it's pretty easy. It's still not terribly entertaining, though - racing games done with non-3D tracks are just a dicey proposition, and this version of Mario Kart is playable but just not very enticing. I've played a bit of Mario Kart 7, and it's night and day how much more fun that game is, even with the increase in annoying item usage. Another game I don't intend to revisit.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong


This is a fun though occasionally frustrating puzzle platformer, which at times places great emphasis on both of those skills. Donkey Kong captures a bunch of Mario's little robot versions of himself, and he has to get them back. Each world has a similar progression - six standard levels, which require you to find a key on one screen and then a robot on the next, a seventh level where you have to guide the robots you've collected to a toy box, and a boss level where you face off with Donkey Kong before he runs away and you go to a new world with a different theme. As I said it's a pretty entertaining game, though there are some weird quirks, like how there's a tutorial video before each level that only hints at what you'll have to do next, and even with all of that help plenty of game elements are introduced without explanation. A whole second mode was unlocked after I saw the credits the first time, but I don't find myself interested in it - I think I got my fill of the gameplay already.

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!


I definitely had more fun with this than anything else on this list, despite the WarioWare thing not really being a fresh concept anymore. The game is basically the industry itself in a nutshell - you visit various developers around the city, and try out their various games in some sort of strange situation that can handily represent your metaprogress in the actual game itself. The games can mostly be finished in three seconds or left, and your goal is to just finish as many as you can before you make too many mistakes, as they are randomly chosen and fly by at great speed. It's a funny and addictive experience that's also packed with a lot of extras such as endless versions of some of the microgames or special two player ones which can be played on a single system. There's a manic, crazed energy to the whole thing, and it's just a good time.

Movie Update 38

Hey, how about I write a little bit about some movies I saw recently and then you can decide whether or not you agree with me.

Lethal Weapon 2


I have to admit I kind of miss movies like this - big summer blockbusters that don't rely on high concept science fiction to get their thrills. It's not that I don't like science fiction, obviously, I just miss action movies that aren't about superheroes or robots or vampires or whatever. Lethal Weapon 2 isn't even that spectacular - it's just a solid buddy cop movie with a enjoyable rapport among the main characters and some fun, bloody action scenes. But that's all it really had to be. I'm glad I watched it.

Peggy Sue Got Married


I don't know how many times I can keep saying that Francis Coppola had a strange career after the 70s, but it's still true. Back to the Future got the lasting attention, but Peggy Sue Got Married is another time traveling 80s high school comedy thing, starring Kathleen Turner as a woman who loses consciousness at her 25th high school reunion and wakes up as a 17 year old again, determined to make different choices and not even sure that any of it is actually real. The movie plays up the drama a fair bit and is less wacky than most movies of its sort, but its highlight is definitely Nicolas Cage, from his hair to his bizarre voice to his whole demeanor. Odd, but more fun than most of Coppola's other odd movies.

Shane


I believe this is the final film from AFI's revised version of the 100 best American movies that I've seen, and it's a pretty good one. Alan Ladd stars as the titular character, a gunman who tries settling down with some farmers out West, but finds he is unable to escape his past when they get increasingly harrassed by men who want control of the whole territory. There's an annoying kid who comes close to ruining the movie on a number of occasions, but it manages to survive as a classic example of a solid but not great 50s Western.

Speed


Another fine example of a blockbuster action movie that didn't need an impossible concept to work, although it does rely pretty heavily on a gimmick. I know I'm one of the last people to see this movie, and I don't need to tell you what it's about, but I will say the movie does a pretty good job of adhering to a traditional and workable story structure despite a great deal of it taking place on a speeding bus. There's very little in the way of real human on human violence, but due to the clever exploitation of the plot's strange circumstances and the chemistry of the main cast it remains exciting for most of its duration. I liked it more than I expected to in any case, and Keanu Reeves' bad acting is in fine form.

Game Update 20: DLC Round-Up 5

It's getting close to a year since I've done of these. I'm not quite as focused on seeing every piece of content from every game I play as I used to be.

Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den


Minerva's Den has a reputation as one of the best DLC add-ons for a game ever made, and it's well earned. If you didn't need to buy Bioshock 2 first to play it, I'd say you could just skip it and play Minerva's Den to get all you need out of the experience. It serves as a sort of smaller version of the main game, again having you play as a Big Daddy and collecting most of the same equipment as you experience a story that's a lot more tightly written and emotionally effective than the main game's. It always seems a bit odd to focus on praising the narrative of a video game, especially a downloadable add-on, but Minerva's Den really is exceptionally well conceived and executed. Worth checking out even if you didn't love the main game.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution: The Missing Link


Another add-on that acts as a microcosm for the main game, The Missing Link explores a gap in Human Revolution's story and basically allows you to make a new Adam Jensen from scratch that you will use for a few hours before the story wraps up and connects back to the main plot. You begin on a ship and eventually end up on another secret base, which you can either sneak or shoot your way through until you reach the ending. Obviously this DLC doesn't capture the other side of the game that lets you just walk around and explore, and there were a few annoying aspects of the level design, particularly the way the mission requires you to go back and forth in the same space repeatedly and pass through the same extremely slow doorways until you get sick of them. But if you really enjoyed Human Revolution like I did, it's hard to say no to another clandestine base to infiltrate, especially if you can get it on sale.

L.A. Noire: Rockstar Pass


None of the DLC for L.A. Noire was very substantial, but the way Rockstar distributed it was very cool. There were several individual cases that were available for download for okay prices, but if you knew you wanted to play all of it, you could plop down a little extra for the "Rockstar Pass" and get all of it as it came out at a lower rate. It encouraged people to pay more up front with the knowledge that they wouldn't miss anything. The cases themselves seem like they were merely snipped out of the main game without much thought, some of them even revealing certain story elements that were referred to "later" in the main plot without explanation. The original game was plenty long enough, so I didn't feel cheated, and the cases themselves were a natural extension of what made the game fun in the first place. Neat investigations and adequate action sequences abound.

Portal 2: Peer Review


The best kind of DLC is free DLC, and Valve knew that when they put out Peer Review, an extension to Portal 2 that added something similar to the challenge mode from the first game that was missing in the sequel, and more importantly, added a new section to the already stellar co-op campaign. This section mixed and matched various concepts from earlier in the co-op to put together some really fiendish puzzles, creating perhaps the most difficult (and no less entertaining) Portal gameplay that I've experienced. And of course it's framed within the context of Portal's very funny and entertaining universe, which means plenty of new GLaDOS quips and robot antics to laugh at. It's hard to get a better value for your no dollars.

Movie Update 36

These were expiring, so I watched them. Yep.

Ball of Fire


A screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks, featuring Gary Cooper playing off type as an awkward, stuffy intellectual and Barbara Stanwyck playing very much on type as a club singer and mob boss' girlfriend who helps him and his fellow encyclopedia writers come out of their shells. Ball of Fire is mostly an enjoyable movie, though there's definitely something very weird about it. The professors are all pretty likable guys, but it's just a little uncomfortable seeing them all fawn over a young and attractive woman, even if it's innocent. The shift from her using them to avoid the police to actually getting romantically interested in Cooper is pretty abrupt as well. As I said though, it's mostly a fun movie.

Deathtrap


Sidney Lumet movies are often based on plays or feel like they could be, taking place in a small number of locations and not being particularly visually flashy. That's definitely the case with Deathtrap, though I think the entire thing being limited mostly to a single house works in its favor. Deathtrap was a play about writing a play based on a murder, and the fact that the movie version isn't a play itself does do a little to remove some of the inherent cleverness of the structure. But the story still works, and the performances by Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve are really good. I can't say as much about the other characters, but it's both an amusing and incredibly tense movie at times, with some great twists and surprises.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp


It was a big surprise for this movie to be in color, though apparently that was a thing for its makers Powell and Pressburger while most directors from the 40s were still working in black and white. The movie is based on British cartoons about a blowhard English military man, though it tells an original story about how such a man might come to be like that over a lifetime of fighting in wars. Roger Livesey and Anton Walbrook give a pair of great performances, first as young soldiers, then as middle aged veterans of the first World War, then as old relics at the beginning of the second. There's also an amusing bit with Deborah Kerr playing three different women who all look the same at various points in his life. The movie is concerned with many things, but the main one I thook away from it is how a lifetime of experiences can affect a person and make them who they are. A great and refreshingly civil war movie.

Odd Man Out


Carol Reed's The Third Man is a classic of the noir genre, though I can't say I enjoyed Odd Man Out nearly as much. It has an interesting subject, with James Mason playing an IRA leader who gets wounded and stranded in the middle of Belfast (though the film is not actually explicit about either of those references). There are some interesting moments sprinkled throughout, though I was mostly kind of bored while I was watching it, which shouldn't happen with a movie about hiding from the police and troublesome politics. I didn't think it was bad, I was just rarely actively intrigued by what was happening, and with a genre that thrives on intrigue, it was disappointing.

Movie Update 35

Here are a few movies I saw before the end of the year. I won't keep you in suspense: I liked them all.

Dreams


One of Akira Kurosawa's last films, Dreams is more like a collection of shorts, all based on various dreams he had and presented in very different ways. You can detect some progression as it goes on, as the early segments feature children as the central characters, while later ones are generally darker, and the last few all star the same person. But mostly it's just disjointed ideas brought to life in usually interesting ways. I liked the movie more than I thought it would, from its bizarre fantasy imagery to its more unsettling moments. I've never felt more cold watching a movie than I did watching the blizzard segment. It also features Martin Scorsese in a cameo as Vincent van Gogh, which is weird.

The Limey


I kind of like the idea of Steven Soderbergh, but I haven't actually really, really enjoyed a movie he's made until now. The Limey is an extremely sharp and tight revenge thriller starring Terence Stamp as an older British career criminal who takes a trip to America after getting out of jail to get even with the man responsible for his daughter's death. There's really no nonsense about the movie, it's pretty short and has very few characters who aren't directly related to the single central story thread. It's not the most exciting movie ever, but it's occasionally quite tense and sometimes even pretty funny. It also has a lot of nice little touches, like Soderbergh inserting snippets of a much younger Stamp from another movie to establish his backstory. The whole thing is very minimal and hazy, with its frequently jumping around in time in moments of reflection. Not quite great, but a very good take on some pretty basic material.

Miracle on 34th Street


I've seen pieces of this movie before, but the part that I didn't know, and what I think is totally brilliant about it, is that it never answers the question of whether the "Santa Claus" in this movie is actually Santa Claus. It doesn't answer the question because the answer doesn't matter, what matters is the message he's trying to give to the people around him. Well, I thought it was clever, anyway. Otherwise, it's a charming old Hollywood movie with charming old Hollywood acting, and it's sort of interesting seeing Natalie Wood this young even if her character is pretty annoying. A really nice family holiday movie, that nicely skirts a lot of issues with that subgenre.

Running on Empty


Sidney Lumet's Running on Empty is an odd little movie, combining elements of crime and soap opera. The story begins years before the film itself starts, when a couple decides to bomb a laboratory owned by a company that made napalm, and accidentally severely injures a janitor that wasn't supposed to be there and goes on the run. Years later, they're still on the run, changing identities and moving every time they suspect the law might be on their trail, with two kids in tow. They're pretty used to it, but the older son, played by River Phoenix, is getting a bit old to be staying with them, almost ready to graduate high school. Things really change when he both meets a music teacher who's impressed by his piano skills and wants him to go to college for it, and falls in love with the teacher's daughter. Family drama ensues. It's the kind of thing that probably shouldn't have worked, but Lumet is a director who seems to be able to do a lot with some slim material. It's far from his best movie, but it's a pretty good one with some strong emotional moments.

Television Update 8: Fall Finales '11

This is a bit later than I usually do this, but... what, do you want your money back?

American Dad! - I haven't been into this season as much as I have been in previous years, though I did watch the three-part hurricane crossover with the other two Seth MacFarlane shows, and it confirmed that Dad is still easily the best of the bunch. Maybe it's relying a bit too much on violence and shock value these days, though.

Chuck - NBC has had no qualms about burning off this show's remaining episodes and putting it out of its misery, airing two episodes during the holiday period when there is basically never anything actually on television. The show's the same as it's been the last couple years - charming, silly, and occasionally infuriating. They do seem to be heading towards a respectable conclusion though, possible.

Community - Unfortunately, the show won't be back in the Spring, and we don't know when we'll see it again. The only hope right now that it avoids cancellation rests in NBC's complete inability to put together a compelling lineup. Season three wasn't as strong out of the gate as the show was last year, but there were at least two truly outstanding episodes to remind me why I love it. And even the weaker stuff is still totally fine.

Fringe - I kind of don't like how this season has hit a big reset button and erased a bunch of character development just for the sake of yet another slightly tweaked alternate universe. I do think things picked up though when Peter came back, and I hope once they really get things going it will be as crazy as ever. For now though, still pretty much early-season Fringe.

How I Met Your Mother - This show hasn't been amazing or terribly original for a while, but it's still a consistently entertaining, comfortable watch every week. I've given up on hoping for consistent development in the overall plot, though time is running out on doing what it needs to do without stretching into unbelievability. If you just accept it as a sitcom, it's hard not to like it, and the cast is still great.

Modern Family - I feel like the Modern Family backlash is starting to kick into full gear, especially after another big batch of awards. Personally, I still think the show is usually pretty funny, the problems being the same as they've always been - it's secretly a heinously unoriginal show. If anything's gotten worse, it's just that the stereotypes all the characters fit into are getting harder to hide. But it still makes me laugh so I'll keep watching.

The Office - I've gotten a few chuckles out of this season, but the show really lacks a direction without Steve Carrell. James Spader is good, but he's a bit too toned down from his appearance last season to really be exciting, and while I was right in guessing that Andy would slip easily to Michael's shoes, the transition was just a bit too easy, and it seems like we're just doing all the same things over again. The show's definitely close to losing me after this year.

Parks and Recreation - Probably my favorite show on this list right now. I love the continued expansion and development of Pawnee as a fictional place, I love the cast about as much as any ensemble a sitcom has had, and I love the way the story is balancing comedy, romance, and small-town politics. It's very rare for me to watch a new episode without smiling the entire time.

The Walking Dead - The brief first season was very inconsistent, and the second is much the same so far. I like when the show just exists as a depiction of life in a very different world, where death is always a constant threat and people struggle to deal with it. I hate when the drama gets too forced or stupid and the writers struggle to justify what any of the characters are doing. I had a poor gut reaction to the twist in the midseason finale, but if it leads to a series with much clearer stakes and less pointless squabbling, it might have been worth it. I just worry that the budget cuts were too harsh for the show to ever gain real momentum, though. Spending this much time in one place is hard to justify when there's so little happening.

Game Update 19: Some PSN Games

These are all games I got on PSN in 2011 and never got around to talking about. They're all worth playing, although I didn't actually have to pay for half of them.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition


I got two Street Fighter games on PSN because Street Fighter Alpha 3 was the only one I owned, and I figured I ought to have a couple more, if only for history's sake. Street Fighter III is kind of an oddball, with only a few familiar characters and a whole bunch of strange new ones on the roster. Like there's a weird experimental creature than can change shape and a little goblin guy with one arm. I actually liked it more than the other one I got though, because the animation is kind of amazing to watch, it has a fun and deep fighting system, and the challenges that you're always making progress toward add something to the experience. I didn't manage to actually find any opponents online, though.

Super Stardust HD


One of many, many downloadable shooters this generation that you control by moving your ship with the left stick and aiming your fire with the right. I never played the original games Stardust HD is based on, but it doesn't take long to figure it out - you fly around the surface of various planets and protect them from asteroids and other threats with a variety of weapons. The game looks and sounds very nice and is pretty smooth to play. I wouldn't have gotten it if it wasn't among the choices for free games after Sony finally got PSN back up last year, but it's a fun little game.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix


As far as I can tell this is a graphical overhaul of what was considered the definitive version of Street Fighter II, with a couple other bells and whistles added on. The new backgrounds and characters look nice, but because the game has to stick to the same animation cycles in order to keep the gameplay the same, there's a weird disconnect between the smoothness of the images and the stutter with which they move. I ended up switching to the traditional sprites, though of course then you have the disconnect between the fighters and the backgrounds, which you can't change. Still, the core gameplay is full intact, and though it's not as smooth or modern as Street Fighter III, it's still pretty fun. Couldn't find any online opponents in this one either, though.

WipEout HD


The other free game I got when PSN came back was this, complete with the Fury add-on. All of the various futuristic racing games sort of blend together in my head, but WipEout seems like a popular one, and this HD version of it is enjoyable if not particularly original. The standard races are fun, but the game seems more fresh in its other modes, particularly the ones that Fury added. I'm not a huge racing game guy, but WipEout HD looks really nice and doesn't have any major issues.

Movie Update 34: Alfred Hitchcock

A bit of the master's earlier British work, a movie from his golden age, and the last one he ever did.

The 39 Steps


I think this is considered one of Hitchcock's better early films, but I thought it was merely pretty good. A man gets involved in a spy conspiracy after a woman asks him for help, and he has to uncover the secret of what the 39 steps are before he gets captured or worse by the people behind it. The main character runs around a lot but the way the mystery gets solved is kind of silly and there really isn't much to the movie besides him running away. North by Northwest is pretty similar, but I think it was done much better.

Dial M for Murder


I think Hitchock was definitely at his best in the 50s, and Dial M is another feather in his cap. It actually came out the same year as Rear Window, but while it's not as good as that movie, it's still a solid thriller, and one that similarly takes place almost entirely in a single location. A man tries to put the finishing touches on a very elaborate scheme to murder his cheating wife, but of course the plan goes wrong and he desperately tries to cover his tracks while the police sniff around his apartment. It's a very cerebral film, and it's very easy at a number of points to go "wait, what?" as the little tricks and traps the characters place for each other start going off constantly. It comes together very well by the end, though.

Family Plot


Sort of an odd note for Hitchcock to go out on, Family Plot is half mystery and half sort of weird comedic thing. Certain bits that you wouldn't expect to be played for laughs are, but other moments are pretty dark. It stars a psychic and a cab driver/investigator who get a lucrative job to find an old woman's long lost relative, who turns out to be a murderous jewel thief. Espionage and hijinks ensue. Family Plot is not a bad movie at all, but it's definitely an unusual way for one of the best filmmakers ever to end his career.

Sabotage


A woman begins to suspect that her husband is a terrorist, but not before a lot of bad stuff happens to her. There are a couple nicely tense moments, but ultimately the only thing I'll probably remember about it is that it's the origin of the old clip from Inglourious Basterds in the scene where the narrator explains the combustible properties of nitrate film. It's quite short, and simply put, not much at all happens.

Movie Update 33: Woody Allen

These movies are all from the mid seventies to early eighties, and show off Woody Allen's more serious and philosophical side. They're also funny though, with one big exception.

Interiors


The only pure drama on this list, and the only pure drama by Allen that I've seen. It's the story of three (though really mostly two) sisters and what they experience after the separation of their parents. They frequently butt heads and have very different takes on their parents, especially how their delicate mother is handing being away from her husband. She dives even deeper into her interior decorating, but it might not be enough to keep her going anymore. The film is very obviously heavily influenced by the style of Ingmar Bergman, and it's mostly a well acted and filmed drama, but I mostly wasn't interested in the characters or their plights. It also seemed just a bit forced in the shots it creates - Bergman was able to create similarly striking images without them seeming so intentional. Still, it's not a bad departure for a guy previously mostly known for silly comedies.

Love and Death


Possibly the last purely goofy Allen movie, Love and Death still has hints of what he would try out later, both in its repeated Bergman references and the constant philosophical debate among its main characters, even if that debate is mostly played for laughs. It's about a Russian played by Allen who stumbles his way to being a war hero, marries his cousin played by Diane Keaton, and eventually they attempt to assassinate Napoleon together. It's a fun little spin on classic Russian literature that manages to be funny throughout without completely ignoring the subject matter it tackles.


A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy


Yet another Bergman-influenced film (boy, did Allen ever love that guy), and his first collaboration with Mia Farrow. It's about three couples that go on a weekend together to a cottage in the woods in the early 1900s, and end up struggling the whole time with conflicted feelings. Farrow is marrying an older professor, but she had a previous experience with Allen and is very attractive to his other friend. The professor is drawn to the friend's new companion, and Allen also has feelings for Farrow further risking his rocky marriage with Mary Steenburgen. There are some sillier elements like his flying machine and a strange device that can show the past, but it's mostly a very entertaining mix of comedy and romantic turmoil.

Stardust Memories


Allen claims this film is not autobiographical, those it's easy to see how it could be seen as such, with him starring as a film director who wants to be serious but is constantly told by fans that they prefer his earlier, funnier work. It's again a mix of humor and more serious elements, this time with an occasionally trippy feel. We frequently see snippets of the films his character has made, and they mix with real life and odd dream sequences which make it easy to get a bit lost as far as what the movie is trying to say. It's a pretty divisive film, and I myself was unable to decide whether I really liked it or thought it was too muddled.

Movie Update 32: Nolan and Scorsese

Martin Scorsese is one of the best directors who ever lived, and I think that Christopher Nolan is on his way to earning that distinction. In the last week I've watched the few remaining movies by both of them available for streaming on Netflix.

The Age of Innocence


Love stories are often passionate, but few let that passion boil just under the surface as much as it does in The Age of Innocence. Daniel Day-Lewis plays a lawyer from a wealthy family in 1870s New York City (only a few years after the chaos and violence depicted in Scorsese's other film Gangs of New York) who becomes engaged to a woman played by Winona Ryder, but when her cousin played by Michelle Pfeiffer returns from Europe, he realizes how much stronger his feelings are for her instead. Wealthy families always want to avoid scandal though, and Pfeiffer is already damaged goods since she's considering divorce from her powerful husband, and they struggle with whether to take a chance or avoid causing a stir. Innocence is a well made movie with really good lead performances, but because it's so wrapped up in that distant old wealthy people mode, I didn't really find it gripping for most of its duration. A good movie, but I didn't find myself very invested.

Boxcar Bertha


Boxcar Bertha was Scorsese's first film that wasn't connected to his student projects, and it took a while for me to figure out what was off about it. Eventually though, it hit me - it's an exploitation movie. Not a terrible one, and it's one based on unusual concepts for that sort of thing, but it's still an exploitation movie. It uses issues like labor unions and race relations to make a movie about a girl who gets naked sometimes and robs banks and shoots people with her partners. It's sort of a second-rate Bonnie and Clyde with worse acting. I don't want to be too harsh on the movie, because it does some interesting things that most B movies you'd compare it too wouldn't. But it still never reaches very high, so even its solid execution results in a movie that's decent at best.

Following


Following is Nolan's first film, shot independently in black and white on a very small budget. It concerns an unemployed aspiring writer who decided to start following random people to learn about them and get inspired. Eventually he repeatedly follows the wrong guy, and gets pulled into a world of small-time burglary and betrayal. Much like his next film Memento, Following has a complex plot that is further complicated by the script's non-linear approach to structure. It jumps back and forth between time periods, always revealing things that end up clarifying or contradicting what came before. The actual truth behind what's going on when it's finally revealed can be looked at in two ways. On one hand, it's really kind of an absurdly complicated scheme to resolve what wasn't that difficult of an issue, and it's sort of unlikely that the whole thing would come together correctly. But on the other hand, it's still a really fun mystery to unravel, and the fun of noir movies is always that moment of realization when it all finally makes sense. It's a really good first effort.

Insomnia


Insomnia is the only film Nolan's directed that wasn't based on his own screenplay, and it shows a bit. He was proving to studios that he could handle a larger budget and more recognizable cast, and he does a good job of that, though the movie underneath is merely solid and definitely the least interesting thing that he's done. It's pretty much a boilerplate detective story with a plot that wouldn't be out of place in a random episode of most cop shows, but there are a few things that make it work. The first act twist that provides Al Pacino's Detective Dormer with an internal conflict does a good job of complicating an otherwise standard plot, and the ensuing insomnia that plagues him adds a lot of flavor to the whole movie. The acting by him and Robin Williams is good, and it's a really well-shot film, particularly in a few really tense sequences that are unlike what you'd usually see in this type of story. Hilary Swank's character seemed really badly written, and there are a few other hiccups, but mostly it's an above average Hollywood mystery/thriller. Nolan's best asset is probably his screenwriting, but I think with Insomnia he shows it's not the only thing he can do.

The Last Temptation of Christ


Based on a book besides The Bible, The Last Temptation of Christ tells the story of Jesus Christ in a very different way than we're used to. Willem Dafoe's Jesus is tormented by his knowledge and his communications with God, and he is a much weaker man than he is ever depicted as being in the New Testament. The movie hits a lot of the expected notes from the few years that he worked as a prophet, from his wandering in the desert to his sermon on the mount to turning water into wine to the healing of the sick and of course, his arrest and crucifixion. But it shows these moments in different ways than we're used to, and considering these stories in a different light, seeing them as the actions of a man with weaknesses and desires that he must sacrifice rather than an all-knowing and serene son of God is very interesting. The most memorable and controversial sequence comes near the end, when we see Jesus as a man who raised his own family rather than one who died for our sins, but the resolution of this sequence, when everything finally comes together, is extremely powerful, and strikes me as something that would restore faith rather than challenge it. Definitely one of the best religious movies I've ever seen.

Game Update 18: 3DS NES Ambassador Games

With the recent release of the Game Boy Advance "Ambassador" games for early adopters of the Nintendo 3DS (which seem pretty cool so far), I realized I never wrote anything about the NES games that were released in the same way a few months ago. There's a pretty good reason for this: four of the games are interesting and probably worth playing through, and the other six are basically garbage and I'll be glad to never look at them again. These are those six games.

Balloon Fight


Essentially a rip-off of Joust, Balloon Fight is a game where you try to pop the balloons tied to enemies on screen while protecting your own balloons from the same fate. Repeatedly tapping the button causes you to rise, and neglecting to do so causes you to fall. Don't ask me how these mechanics are actually supposed to translate to a real world situation involving a man fighting birds attached to balloons. If you are above an opponent when you collide with them, congratulations, you win that confrontation. There's also a mode where you try to float through an obstacle course for as long as you can. Not a bad idea, but the controls are terrible and it's no fun to play.

Donkey Kong Jr.


A sequel to the original Donkey Kong, and probably the only game where Mario is the antagonist. You have to get through a series of levels, trying to reach the top and rescue your father before moving to the next one. The gameplay is pretty familiar, although there's a lot of gripping onto and climbing of vines. Donkey Kong Jr climbs vines slower than any other ape who's ever lived. Not a bad idea, but the controls are terrible and it's no fun to play.

Ice Climber


Although you play as both climbers when they appear in the the Super Smash Bros. series, you only get one in this game's single player mode (none of the Ambassador games actually have multiplayer implemented yet despite the options appearing in the main menu, though Nintendo has said they'll add it in). Your goal is to climb a series of mountains, which are really just vertical platforming levels with bonus areas at the top of them. The way up is often blocked, but you can smash your way through with your hammer. Not a bad idea, but the controls are terrible and it's no fun to play.

NES Open Tournament Golf


A golf game with a few different courses, I'm not sure if it set the standard for pretty much all golf games that would follow but the archetype you're used to is here. You choose the direction to swing in, the speed of your swing, where you hit the ball, and what club to use. It has a swing meter where you press a button to start the swing, press it again to set the power, and press it again to set the accuracy. Unfortunately it's not a very easy to use swing meter. Not a bad idea, but the controls are terrible and it's no fun to play.

Wrecking Crew


A game where Mario is a demolition expert rather than a plumber. Your goal is to smash all of the walls in the level without getting killed by strange alien creatures you don't seem to be able to defend yourself against. There's also a few different types of objects that there's no clear way to interact with. You can't jump, but the levels do wrap around, giving me the impression that they all take place inside silos. Not a bad idea, but the controls are terrible and it's no fun to play.

Yoshi


Yoshi actually isn't that bad, it just doesn't have the addicting quality that all great classic puzzle games are supposed to have. It's a pretty simple set-up, though still maybe a bit more complex than it has to be. Much like Tetris, a variety of objects fall from the sky in pairs, and you have to rotate columns to try to stack like objects and make them disappear. Also two of the objects are the bottom and top halves of an egg shell, and if you manage to get the latter to appear above the former in a column, then they and any other objects between them also disappear. The speed increases over time, and eventually there's too much crap and there's no where to put it and you lose. I actually played quite a bit of a complete rip-off of this game on my scientific calculator in high school. It was just a way to pass the time in study hall though, and I can't say the real thing is any better.

Movie Update 31

Crank: High Voltage


Remember when I said that the original Crank was actually less over the top and insane than it advertised itself as? This sequel, which brings back most of the significant characters in some way and attempts to escalate on everything the first movie did, corrects that issue. Instead of having to keep his heart rate up by doing things like getting into fights and having sex with Amy Smart, Jason Statham's heart has been replaced with an artificial one and he must keep its battery charged by doing things like electrocuting himself and having sex with Amy Smart (because it generates static electricity through friction, obviously). There's a lot more violence and nudity and general zaniness in this movie, so it succeeds at surpassing the first movie in that way. It does have a different problem though, which again prevented me from really liking the movie - it just seemed too mean-spirited. People don't just get hit in the nuts, their genitals get destroyed. A man is forced to punish himself for messing up by graphically cutting off his own nipples. Just lots of messed up stuff like that, and I thought it was usually more gross than entertaining. Otherwise, it's as kinetic and crazy as advertised, with a few moments of inspired originality.

Hoosiers


Hoosiers is as predictable an underdog sports story as you're ever likely to encounter. Gene Hackman comes to a small Indiana town to become the high school basketball coach, and he struggles to gain the acceptance of the locals before molding the team into an unlikely winner, more successful than they've ever been before. Dennis Hopper plays the father of one of the players, a drunk and embarrassment to the town who actually knows a lot about the sport. Barbara Hershey is a teacher at the school who questions Hackman's methods but eventually warms up to him. There's a kid who's supremely talented but unwilling to play, and a bunch of ignoramuses who have it out for the interloper. Though it's nothing you haven't seen a bunch of times, Hoosiers is still a charming and well-executed version of that formula. The acting is solid, and the basketball scenes are authentic and exciting. It was a bit weird for the only black people in the movie to appear at the end as players for the big bad final opponent (the movie takes place in the 50s), but otherwise there's not much to really hold against the movie. Pretty likable stuff.

The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming


A weird mix of comedy and politics, The Russians Are Coming tells the story of a Soviet submarine crew that accidentally runs aground on an American island and attempts to get back in the water without causing an international incident. Unfortunately, they run into difficulties, and things are exacerbated by the locals who are alarmist about the threat and quick to gossip. Things almost totally boil over in a remarkably tension-filled stand-off before the film remembers it's a comedy and deflates it in a pretty cheesy, feel-good way. It's a likable movie, with some frustrating side characters and maybe too long a running time but not much else to complain about. The best part is probably Alan Arkin's lead performance as one of the Russian crew members, who doesn't actually get a ton of dialogue but when he does always manages to make a lot out of very little. I'm honestly not totally sure what it was trying to accomplish, but it's a pretty good movie.

Tom Jones


There's something about 18th century England that is just inherently interesting to me. The British accents, the horrible class inequality, the technology still stuck in the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, it's just... I don't know. Interesting. Tom Jones is based on a serialized novel published during that period, and features Albert Finney playing a bastard who's been raised in kind society and grown up to be a womanizer, well-liked by many but hated by some. The movie actually won Best Picture, which seems kind of strange, but I guess movies could do that back then without being dramas about serious issues or mediocre. Wow that was pretty harsh, I've actually really liked most of the recent winners of that award. Oh well, whatever. Tom Jones is funny, has an intriguing little plot about the secrets people sometimes keep, and has some nice performances. It also frequently features characters talking to or just looking at the camera, which somehow never gets old. And now that the movie has expired from Netflix streaming, the site doesn't have it at all. What's up with that, Netflix?