I’ve only slept for 5 hours and it’s 7:30am and I’m feeling funny and it’s laundry day, so I guess it’s time for an update. So. Time to list a few things I did during my week-long, post-exam break:

• Played Street Fighter IV. It was pretty spectacular. I would like to play it using an arcade stick or something.
• Went to see Valkyrie, liked it.
• Watched The Wicker Man (1973, not the one with Nicolas Cage), found it ridiculous, will probably enjoy the remake more.
• Read V for Vendetta in Greek, was kewl.
• Watched every single episode of Flight of the Conchords. Loved it!
• Played some Metroid Fusion.
• Played Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3.
• Listened to TONS of podcasts. It’s become a habit.

Note: This was initially supposed to be a review of the film in less than 100 words, but didn’t work out. It was also supposed to be edgy and funny, but that’s expecting too much of my writing. What it ended up being instead is a warning.

David Fincher. I should’ve known. This movie can be considered interesting and, oh gee, I guess captivating until about half-way through, when you begin to realise you’re just being fucked with and shouldn’t really have bothered. But first, the story: Michael Douglas is the super-wealthy, kind-of-an-asshole businessman Nicholas Van Orton, who, in his 48th birthday, receives a gift from his younger brother, who’s played by Sean Penn. The gift is a live-action “game” that affects the player’s real life, manifesting itself as “real” events. Soon the game turns out to be some sort of con organised by a mysterious company that’s after the guy’s money. Things get out of control, as both character and viewer can’t tell if the game is real, how far it goes and who’s behind it. Eventually there comes a plot twist of Shyamalan-ian proportions that’s supposed to make you gasp, just like that time you found out that the Narrator is the Protagonist.

Only problem is, that revelation isn’t very conclusive, because the writers deliberately chose ambiguity over respect for the viewer. You might think I’m about to spoil it for you, but I’m actually making you a favour here: In the final scenes, Nicholas learns that the game isn’t real, but an elaborate prank devised by his brother as some sort of twisted birthday present. In the very last seconds of the film the protagonist appears pretty sure the whole thing is over, but THEN he looks around suspiciously, as if the game is still on.

Setting aside the fact that at its core this narrative doesn’t make sense anyway [what kind of sick bastard would torture his brother by ruining his life and consider it a birthday present?], this choose-your-own, inconclusive ending means that the writers decided to basically flip you off and deprive you of the reason you decided to watch the film in the first place, which is to find out what’s really happening. Ambiguity is fine when it’s the driving force behind the story, or when a conclusion needn’t be reached for the story to make sense structurally. But mysteries should be solved and this one wasn’t and it kind of pisses me off that they presented this example of awkward narrative asymmetry as a smart use of narrative technique. Answering yes and no at the same time doesn’t apply to the particular question this film was asking, so screw this.

Another major problem I’ve had with this film is that Michael Douglas doesn’t get his token kinky sex scene. An opportunity tragically missed if there ever was one. I mean, come on.

I’m kind of afraid to admit it, but this film is ultimately even more limp than Fight Club was and I still can’t believe I’ve just compared Fight Club favourably to another film.

I just finished watching this 45-minute-long interview with infamous movie director Uwe Boll. Yes, it’s the video game dude. But it’s quite interesting, since it’s not about video games. It’s about movies and Uwe is his usual outspoken, controversial self. And no, he doesn’t challenge anyone to a boxing match this time around (I… think?).

Through a tour of Boll’s house the viewer gains some insight into his personality and by the end of the interview you can’t help but wonder why, oh why, this guy can’t make a better movie just once to shut critics up, at least temporarily. I mean, he’s obviously got the theoretical part of filmmaking down. In any case, Boll seems to be in top form for this interview. He casually drops acidic remarks about Hollywood celebrities, he disses respected directors and offers his view as to why an Oscar is more important than Palme d’Or. He even answers an awkward final question about pornography.

I should also note that at the time this documentary was shot, he seemed to be pretty busy with three or four different projects. The trailer to his latest film, (1968) Tunnel Rats looks very promising, compared to his recent films.

Watch the full interview here.

So I’m flicking through the cyber-pages of IMDB and I come across a 1949 Lassie film called The Sun Comes Up. Having no idea how got there and feeling slightly confused (did cinema really exist in 1949?), I decide to read what few info there is about the film and- OHSHIT!?

It took me a good minute or two to decipher that weird syntax because I was giggling uncontrollably like a ten-year-old. But I mean… “a grand threesome”? Seriously? I couldn’t even make it past the word  threesome the first time I read the tagline. My giggle reflex kicked in.

It gets even better. Here’s the movie poster:

There’s something fishy about that family(?) of three. Oh wait. Let’s check the synopsis over at IMDB:

Set in the rural south of the United States, a bereaved war widow learns to to put aside her bitterness and grief as she grows to love a young orphan boy and his dog. Punctuated with song-filled interludes.

I don’t really know who that smiling old bastard is in the film, but his creepo smile and his position behind the little boy make me extremely uncomfortable. In fact, he’s probably doing something depraved with his right hand while acting cool and inconspicuous.

Other than that, things are quite clear to me. A grand threesome. A widow who loves a young orphan boy and his dog. *guffaw* This could totally be some bizarre, cult porn movie from the 70s. And the fact that the dog is Lassie only adds to the outrageousness of it all.

PS: The boy looks like he’s trying hard not to wince. Oh god.

[Continued from part 1].

I foolishly restricted myself to one CD’s worth of running time, so I guess I got what I deserved, but making this playlist was hard. I wisely decided, right from the beginning, not to delve into alternative takes or demos, but half way through the process I realised I had to omit Rock ‘n’ Roll (1975) entirely if I wanted to keep the playlist under 90 minutes.

Since the album is basically covers, I didn’t really mind that it wouldn’t be represented here. I think it’s a stand-alone piece of work that deserves to be heard, if only because Lennon sounds like he’s really enjoying himself recording this stuff. The complicated history behind the album is also worth researching.

Lennon’s solo material is so dear to me that to get 80 minutes of non-singles I had to exclude many great songs and a few albums’ worth of covers and outtakes. That, I think, speaks volumes about the quality of his music.

God/Hold On/Isolation/Well Well Well [John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band]

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is my favourite Lennon solo album and, arguably, his best. Every song in it is indispensable. Sadly, Mother and Love (two of the greatest moments of the album) were released as singles in the US, so they’re out.

God definitely belongs right at the beginning of this playlist. It’s the song that “marked the end of the 60s”, after all, and a monumental moment in Rock history. Then it’s on to Hold On and Isolation, both songs about his relationship with Yoko Ono and, finally, Well Well Well, which I chose because it illustrates the effect of primal therapy on John’s singing in this album.

Give Me Some Truth/How?/Crippled Inside/Oh Yoko [Imagine]

Imagine, the song, is out, because it’s a single. I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier is, unfortunately, too long and had to be left out. That leaves me with Give Me Some Truth, a powerful political message that fortunately doesn’t get as topical as most similarly political songs in Some Time in New York City (1972).

Crippled Inside and How? belong to the category of deeply personal songs that POB was full of. Oh Yoko I chose because it’s one of the most enjoyable and catchy examples of Lennon’s otherwise somewhat tiring (to me at least) and seeminngly endless series of songs about Yoko.

Bring On The Lucie (Freda People)/One Day (At A Time)/Out The Blue/I Know (I Know) [Mind Games]

Once Mind Games – one of my absolute favourites - and Meat City - which I was never crazy about anyway – were out, I thought I couldn’t get much out of this album. But then I listened to these songs again and, much like it happens with the actual album, what at first seems like a second-rate Lennon song, well… pretty much remains a second-rate Lennon song. Mind Games is an album that took a few plays to grow on me, but when it did, I started enjoying it immensely.

Freda People takes me back to peace songs with strong anthemic value, in particular Instant Karma or Give Peace A Chance. One Day, Out the Blue and I Know are the songs I enjoy the most in this album these days, but they’re really all fine, once you understand that this isn’t so much a personal or political statement like the first two albums, but a more relaxed pop album.

Going Down On Love/Bless You/Scared/Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down And Out) [Walls and Bridges]

Walls and Bridges is often called the second worst of Lennon’s solo albums (after the much-hated STINYC), which, I suppose, could be true if you absolutely have to rank them from best to worst – although some would argue that the Double Fantasy and Mild and Honey material is weaker than that in WaB. To me it seems like another example of laid-back songwriting. It is true that the album lacks focus in comparison to, say, POB, much like Mind Games before it, but #9 Dream (a single) is directly comparable to any of his best songs. Also, Whatever Gets You Through The Night: another single, another great song.

Just like most Lennon songs, these have a story behind them. Going Down On Love (yes, it’s a double entendre) and Bless You relate to his temporary separation from Yoko. Scared could be POB material if you strip away those damn horns and Nobody Loves You is a touching song of self-doubt with some great vocals that effectively capture that feeling.

I’m Losing You/Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) [Double Fantasy]

(Just Like) Starting Over and Watching the Wheels are the best songs in this album, but were both singles.Woman was another single. Being a joint effort with Yoko, Double Fantasy isn’t particularly rich in Lennon material, so I’m Losing You and Beautiful Boy were a small compromise. They’re both good songs, especially Beautiful Boy, which captures John’s love for his song better than any diary of home video would.

I’m Losing You/Grow Old With Me [Milk and Honey]

Again, the best songs from this John/Yoko album were released as singles (I’m Stepping Out, Nobody Told Me, Borrowed Time), so the two picks were mostly chosen for sentimental reasons. Grow Old With Me is also a good last song for this playlist, I think.

Hello and welcome to the first entry in the “Friday playlist” series, where I post a playlist and talk about what’s in it. On Fridays. But not necessarily every Friday. Sharing music online is illegal, but sharing a sequence of songs is definitely not and it’s just as fun. So please refer to your own music collection for the actual music. Think of it as a mixtape, only without the mixtape. What you really get is the plastic box the cassette comes in and the paper that has the order of the songs written on it.

To kick this off, I decided to go with John Lennon, since I’ve been listening to his solo work almost obsessively for the past couple of months and… not so obsessively for about half a year before that. The songs I choose from for this playlist are those contained in his solo albums, minus the ones released as singles, because who doesn’t know the singles?

Most of Lennon’s solo stuff you should already be familiar with, anyway. What is more, there are many songs that are very popular, despite not being released as a single. But hey, this is my first attempt at a playlist, so I’ll make it easy (end enjoyable) for myself.

Sources used for the making of this playlist:

• John Lennon singles UK (jpgr.co.uk)
• John Lennon UK/US singles (bagism.com)
• John Lennon post-2000 remixed/remastered catalogue: This is what I have, but the original cds are fine, too. Vinyl is even better.

Note: I did not use unofficial releases or official compilations of outtakes (such as the 1986 Menlove Ave. or the 1998 John Lennon Anthology ) as sources for this playlist, as I wanted to keep this simple for myself and you. If you like other versions of these songs better than those found on the albums, then feel free to replace as you see fit. Also, Unfinished Music Vol.1 and 2 & and Wedding Album are also out and you know why if you’ve listened to them (in short: it’s not music).

JOHN LENNON, NO SINGLES

The songs appear in order of release. I decided against proper sequencing, mainly because Lennon’s work has a strong autobiographical, confessionary tone to it. Listening to his solo albums in chronological order gives you a good sense of what his life was about from the late 60s up until his death, much like reading a diary would. There is some shuffling around of songs that belong to the same album, but songs from the same album are not divided.

Arbitrary restriction: The items on this playlist must fit in a CD.

1. God [4:10]

2. Hold On [1:51]

3. Isolation [2:51]

4. Well Well Well [5:59]

5. Give Me Some Truth [3:16]

6. How? [3:45]

7. Crippled Inside [3:49]

8. Oh Yoko [4:21]

9. Bring On The Lucie (Freda People) [4:11]

10. One Day (At A Time) [3:27]

11. Out The Blue [3:22]

12. I Know (I Know) [3:56]

13. Going Down On Love [3:55]

14. Bless You [4:37]

15. Scared [4:37]

16. Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down And Out) [5:09]

17. I’m Losing You [3:57]

18. Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) [4:04]

19. I’m Losing You [3:22]

20. Grow Old With Me [3:07]

Total duration: 77:46

Notes:

Fits in a 80-minute CD. Or even a 90-minute cassette, if you’re so inclined.

Songs 1-4 are from Plastic Ono Band (1970), songs 5-8 from Imagine (1971), songs 9-12 from Mind Games (1973), songs 13-16 from Walls and Bridges (1974), songs 17-18 from Double Fantasy (1980) and songs 19-20 from Milk and Honey (1984).

This is where I would normally post my comments on the songs, their sequence, the reasons why I chose these particular ones, etc. But this post is getting very long, so I’ll compile the comments into a separate entry instead. It should come some time tomorrow.

Update: Here’s part 2.

YEAH!

This game’s good! The demo’s been out for a couple of days and, despite a few issues concerning lag and the availability of dedicated servers, I’ve been having a blast shooting things with other people online. I won’t write much more – there are dozens of previews online, plus you can download the demo yourself and find out how you like it – but I’d like to briefly mention a thing or two.

The game is meant to be played cooperatively with other people. Forget those dumb bots. Also! Go for the advanced or expert difficulty to experience a relatively challenging levell of resistance from the mindless undead. Harder games are much more interesting, as tactics and co-op coordination really come into play.

The whole “Director” thing kind of reminds me of crazy Blast Processing-like marketing talk. In practice, you do notice differences from one game to the next. The AI controls the sound effects, music and visual effects to set the mood. It also rearranges the placement of health items and weapon caches and manages the flow of enemies. It works well (and by that I mean unobtrusively), if a bit cruelly sometimes, but doesn’t deserve its own special name.

Things absent from the demo  that I expect to find in the full version are: a) branching paths through the levels (the couple of levels on the demo were linear) and b) the ability to play as the Infected, which should be tons of fun.

I’m glad this game turned out well.

PS: I watched Ice Age 1 and 2 yesterday. They were fun! I stole the picture above from the second movie.

Time for another one of those posts where I jump from one thing to the next, ranting about meaningless, mostly personal matters that don’t interest you. Broken down in categories for your reading convenience!

Blog

First of all, I pushed the Zombie Week back a couple of weeks, because there was no way I could’ve written all those reviews in time. I haven’t even watched all those movies yet. I mean, I have watched each of them more than once before, but I haven’t watched all of them again for the purpose of reviewing them. I kind of like how this event will coincide with the release of Left 4 Dead.

Secondly, I have removed the tag cloud from the sidebar. As the number of tags rises, it becomes a hassle to browse them via a huge, messy cloud. I might start using sub-categories to make things a bit easier to find. The tags are still there, obviously. Just not accessible from the sidebar.

Getting older

I turned twenty a few days ago and I’d like to dedicate a few words to this. I don’t really mind birthdays; it’s one or two days before that it really dawns upon me that I’m getting old. This particular birthday came and went rather painlessly and I’m now in my 20s. Most of the people I expected to remember it, remembered. Some even surprised me by sending wishes I didn’t expect at all. So thanks! You’re awesome.

I also fed a stray dog that was sleeping on my doorstep in the evening of my 20th birthday. I felt better about myself and about the world.

Reading books or even manga

My reading list for the past week was birthday-themed. I read Birthday Stories, an anthology of short stories selected by none other than Haruki Murakami. I was a bit suspicious about this at first. I thought the inclusion of a popular novelist’s name was nothing more than a good way to sell more copies. But the selection is very interesting and Haruki contributes a foreword, as well as a short story. [Incidentally, that short story is about a girl turning twenty.]

Then I began reading 20th century boys, which I find oddly compelling. It’s your standard Japanese pop narrative: a bittersweet, melancholic story about growing up, which is, of course, mixed with a pretty ridiculous fantasy story about, erm, psychic powers and robots(?).

I don’t really know yet, because I haven’t read the whole thing (it’s huge!). I plan to, though. I haven’t really finished any manga series before, yet this seems to captivate my interest. Also, if it sounds dangerously similar to Evangelion, believe me, it’s not. This one has a human, personal quality to the narrative that Eva lacks. Not to mention that the ZOMG ROBOTS parts are, so far, much less pronounced.

Oh, and the image used in this post is from the manga.

Playing video games

Last week I finished Mother 3. It was awesome. In fact, I think I may have spent the exact moment I turned twenty playing the game.

The thing is so perfectly made and with such attention to detail, that I can’t think of anything I would remove from or add to the game to improve it. Or anything I’d change, for that matter. Itoi’s story ties together magnificently. Not a line of dialogue is wasted, out of place or otherwise unnecessary. The story sequences are fantastic. The graphics are beautiful and stunningly animated. The soundtrack is a worthy successor to that of EarthBound, which was one of the best SNES soundtracks (and that’s a real testament to its quality).

Yes, the game a bit short and more linear than the previous entries to the series, but I prefer it to both Mother 1 and 2 (or EarthBound Zero and EarthBound). If EB was a brilliant, deconstructivist take on the JRPG genre, this one is a much more standard JRPG and excels at it. One of the best games I’ve ever played! Give it a try, or disappoint every Mr. Saturn in existence.

After failing to run Corpse Killer (see previous post), I decided to play Snatcher instead. I’ve devoted some hours to Earthbound Zero as well. No time for huge games, so an adventure game and a primitive RPG will have to do.

Speaking or RPGs, I got a collector’s edition of Fallout 3, mainly because that Vault Boy bobblehead is so awesome. And looks great on my desk. It’s surprisingly well-made, too (I’m looking at you, Big Daddy statuette from Bioshock!). Keeps me company while studying. I’ll probably post my impressions of the game once I’ve actually played a bit of it.

Bonus content

For those of you who have read this far: I was walking to the bus stop yesterday morning, when I notice a van parked somewhere near my house with a radiation warning sign on it. I immediately went closer (ha!) and discovered it was a vehicle used for the transportation of radioactive material. I might have been irradiated.

That’s all.

FMV games: A sad chapter in the history of video games. The advent of the CD-ROM led not so much to improved graphics or sound, but to crappy and compressed full motion video and games so ridiculous that they can easily be included in most “worst of all time” lists. You know these kind of games, you used to play them back in the mid-90s and while thinking how awesome they were.

In any case, FMV games became synonymous with CD games in the early days of the medium and were known for shitty acting, lousy gameplay and money you could’ve instead spent on a quality SNES game. On consoles they were mostly rail shooters. On the PC side of things, FMV was used extensively in adventure games, up until the end of the decade and, in some cases, beyond.

An example from my own troubled childhood would be Black Dahlia for the PC, released I believe in ‘98, which came in 7 or 8 CDs. Can’t really remember. But stay away from it, unless you’re in the mood for some frustrating adventure game puzzles and a Dennis Hopper desperately in need for a career resurgence.

Note: NEC’s PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 was the exception to all this. Not only was the CD-ROM add-on put to good use most of the time, but many of those games wouldn’t have been as good in HUCard format. I also have a greater tolerance for 600MB used for a decent CD-quality soundtrack rather than choppy low-res cutscenes.

Sega CD and Sega 32X: An even sadder case. Sega CD was an add-on released for the Genesis (aka Mega-CD and Mega Drive, respectively, outside the US). It played shitty FMV games. Most of them were so laughably bad they were actually enjoyable. Some, such as Night Trap, became cult hits for reasons unknown. Others, such as Hideo Kojima’s Snatcher, were surprisingly good compared to the rest (altough the game was a port of the PC Engine version, and so not really made for Sega-CD).

The 32X was a mistake. It latched on top of your Genesis and let you play “32-bit” games. Erm, whatever. Most people decided to wait for the PlayStation/Saturn/N64 instead. Perhaps the most outrageous thing about this system were “Sega CD 32X” games, which required both add-ons to work.

Corpse Killer is one of those games. A remarkable product of this forgettable era of video games. Remarkable not because it’s good, which it probably isn’t, but because you shoot fucking zombies. From what little footage I’ve seen of the game – I haven’t played it yet – it looks as if the video is actually of higher quality than its contemporary FMV games, which unfortunately doesn’t say much.

This game seems to have that unmistakable low-budget-zombie-movie feel to it, which makes it all the more enjoyable to people like me. I expect a campy plot with outrageous characters and even more outrageous zombies. I don’t really care about the actual gameplay, so I shouldn’t be terribly disappointed.

I’ll let you know what I thought of it when I’m done playing it.

UPDATE: The Zombie Week has been rescheduled for the week of November 10th to 16th. I need more time to write these things. Sorry!

This blog has been dormant for too long, so an announcement is due: The week of November 3rd to November 9th will be Zombie Week. That means I’ll put up a review of a zombie movie every day of the week.

November also happens to be the month when Left 4 Dead will be released. For those not in the know, it’s a Valve-produced multiplayer survival horror FPS. With zombies. There’s something to make me forget about Team Fortress 2 for a while.

About that Zombie Week, then! Here’s the schedule:

Zombie Monday: Zombi 2 (1979)

Yet another member of the Romero family tree of zombie films, this fine example of Italian exploitation spawned some bad sequels and an army of devoted fans. Is also famous for some hot zombie on shark action.

Zombie Tuesday: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Romero at his most classic. Could this be the best zombie film of them all? If it’s Romero’s best, then it should be pretty close to the top.

Zombie Wednesday: Dawn of the Dead (1979)

Or could this be his best one? Romero’s social satire and morbid humour blend together to create what’s probably the most iconic zombie flick and certainly one of the most interesting and thought-provoking.

Zombie Thursday: [REC] (2007)

A recent Spanish take on the mindless monsters. Much like Cloverfield and Romero’s own Diary of the Dead, it uses the hand-held camera feel to convey a sense of action and urgency. It is also much, much better than both previously mentioned movies and one of my personal favourites as of late.

Zombie Friday: Dawn of the Dead (2004 remake)

An unnecessary remake that turns Dawn into a mindless Hollywood film. Sacrilege? I personally see this piece of coal as a diamond among a sea of mediocre (at best!) remakes. Also: Sarah Polley’s hot.

Zombie Sunday: Shaun of the Dead (2004)

And now for something completely different. That is, the best zombie comedy you’ll ever watch. Because you’ve got red on you. I’m sorry, Shaun.