We Are Humongous Suckers

Those of you who know me know that I am someone who, on occasion, can appreciate some absolutely, completely, utterly shitty music simply because it is that special combination of hilarious and catchy. 3OH!3, Lady Gaga, "Right Round" by Flo Rida, these are all examples of such a phenomenon. And of course I would be remiss if I failed to mention Ke$ha.

Ke$ha is, in fact, probably the worst offender on the list. I mean, this girl is just awful. "Zip your lips like a padlock"? Fucking excuse me? And what precisely does it mean to wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy? Is this a phrase the kids are using now? Am I approaching cultural obsolescence? And of course, let us not forget the moment that she requests that the listener "put a little love in her glove box". Awful. This does not preclude her, however, from dominating my most played tracks on iTunes for the last month.

Anyway, I've had this theory for a while now that maybe Ke$ha is some kind of stardom super genius and is deliberately trying to see how much money she can make with as little effort or talent as possible, but simply by pushing every "trashy party" button in your brain at once. Last night's appearance on American Idol has finally given me the evidence I need. This girl MUST be fucking with us.

OK, so anyone who knows the real lyrics knows precisely how neutered that version was (which really doesn't help with making her sound less juvenile). Still though: OH MY GOD DID YOU FUCKING SEE THAT? WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? First off, the girl never actually fucking dances for a second of the video. Second, what in god's name was going on with those TV men? And the headress... the fucking HEADRESS! This girl must be playing the greatest practical joke in the history of the music industry, and we are all the suckers that just fell for it. At least that's what I have to tell myself.

An Immediate Follow-up

As I was typing out my rant about Avatar, some of my co-workers started discussing it. I took a break to explain to them why it is the cinematic equivalent of a root canal, after which one of my co-workers turned to me and said "are there any movies you DO like?" This is, of course, a very silly question, but it is one that I feel deserves addressing. Why do I forgive some movies being shitty while others are given a much more hard line stance? So here is a run-down of what makes a movie in a genre GOOD.

Action Movies

The Good: The Die Hard Series (All 4), The Matrix, Desperado (or just about anything by Robert Rodriguez for that matter), Aliens, Terminator 2, Taken

The Bad: The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, Alien 3/Resurrection, Terminator 3 etc.

The Difference: I watch action movies for mindless bullshit. Now this may make me sound like a hypocrite in the post below, but fuck you, keep reading. I watch them for self-aware mindless bullshit. What makes the Die Hard movies great is their awareness that they are simply vehicles for pure testosterone. You don't name a sequel Die Hard 2: Die Harder without absolute certainty that what you are producing should be taken at face value and not a degree beneath. There is no depth, but they acknowledge that, thus removing my expectation of depth and making it OK. Where these movies falter is when the first film succeeds and the makers mistake that success for appreciation of nonexistent depth and make more. Almost every action movie I hate is a sequel where they try to take a simple and fun idea and try to puff it up to contain both ball shattering action and depth (nowhere is this clearer than The Matrix sequels). The result is generally a mish-mash of pseudo-philosophical bullshit peppered with explosions, making the movies neither all fun, nor all thought provoking, and leaving the viewer annoyed and confused as to what the hell the filmmaker is looking to get out of them.

Comedies

The Good: Anything by Judd Apatow with the exception of Knocked Up, Anchorman, Zoolander, Dr Strangelove, most Kevin Smith movies, Super Troopers.

The Bad: Knocked Up, The (Adjective) Movie movies, Napoleon Dynamite, The Girl Next Door, Talladega Nights, Any romantic comedy except Down With Love.

The Difference: Honestly, the way I view comedies is very similar to how I view action movies in that I am looking for an opportunity to not have to think too hard and just be amused. What makes or breaks it for me is whether or not the jokes have staying power. Napoleon Dynamite had about 3 funny lines, all of which were immediately driven into the ground in weeks and lingered like the last guy at a party who won't take the fucking hint for YEARS. The (Adjective) Movie formula seems to have finally petered out, but they are another example. Congratulations, you mocked every media darling of the current year in your movie, but forgot to make it about anything. Family Guy does this all the time, sure, but given that it is a half-hour weekly show that I can see for free, my standards are lower. If I'm going to pay to laugh, I want them to be LASTING laughs. Every movie on my good list is something that has held up to sometimes dozens of viewings (Anchorman, Super Troopers, Clerks) and while they lose some of the initial riotous hilarity of the first viewing, they always make me chuckle. What's not OK is taking the same formula, same actors, and repeatedly changing the backdrop. This is why Will Ferrell movies after Anchorman fell apart so quickly and why romantic comedies will always suck. Hell Down With Love only made the list because it is an indictment of everything that is wrong with the genre.

Science Fiction

The Good: Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Star Trek: First Contact, Anything by Andrey Tarkovsky

The Bad: Avatar, Avatar, Avatar, Fucking Avatar, Equilibrium, The Battlefield: Earth (of course), and also Avatar.

The Difference: Notice anything about my "good" list? That's right, all but one (Alien) are based on books, and are about as faithful renditions as one can get to the source material. And actually, with the exception of 2001 and Tarkovsky movies, they're all Phillip K. Dick books. My sci-fi absolutely positively MUST make me think. That's why I count things like Terminator and AlienS as action movies. The point is, the characters must be believable, have clear motivations, and it must be clear how we got from the present to the circumstances of the film. Even if there are flying cars or deus ex machinae that magically predict a future that doesn't technically happen, I will forgive it as long as what is being examined is a relevant and relatively constant facet of human nature. It also has to be something I haven't seen the exact plot of elsewhere (which come on, should not be difficult since your setting is literally any fucking thing you can think of). If the characters are too future-y, I can't relate to their problems, stop caring, and it goes in the Avatar file. The exception to my stringent requirements is First Contact, because fuck you that movie is too good, and in spite of standard Star Trek camp, comes way closer to meeting all of my criteria than fucking Shmavafuck (I can't even type it's stupid, shitty, now apparently meaningless name).

Horror

The Good: Nightmare on Elm St 1 and 3, The Exorcist, Dawn of the Dead (both versions), Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days/Weeks Later

The Bad: Every other horror movie in existence

The Difference: The above movies have a few special features: I find the concept behind the Nightmare on Elm St. movies fucking terrifying, as I am not prone to having or remembering dreams, and when I do, they always freak me the fuck out, so they play to my personal fears. I can laugh at the camp and stuff, but when it's time for shuteye, I really hate myself for ever watching those movies, which is the sign of successful application of horror. Exorcist gets points because the first time I saw it it scared me shitless and I have never been able to extricate myself from that association with me as a frightened kid. Again, effective. The Dead and 28 (blanks) later movies are judged on different criteria. George Romero started the trend of, well zombies, but also the trend of using zombies as social or political commentary. So while there are many zombie movies in existence that I didn't mention (some by Romero himself) these are the ones that utilize the awesome power of the undead to convey the better points one can make with such a medium. Every other movie relies on cheap shocks, overuse of gore, or "tributes" to B-movies that fall flat on their asses (Rob Zombie, I am looking squarely, decidedly, and eternally at you). Generally though, fuck horror.

There is a whole swath of movies I have failed to mention here, and that is because they are less distinctly categorizable, and therefore tougher to make broad generalizations about what makes them great or terrible (A prime example of a missing film is my all time favorite, American Psycho). But I feel that this is a respectable summation.

So in conclusion, yes, there are PLENTY of movies I like.

A Less Than Timely Rant

I am way behind the times in committing these thoughts to words, but the fact that I am stuck in this office for about 3 more hours with nothing to do gives me some time to get some good old fashioned vitriol going.

You know what movie is a stupid piece of shit? Avatar. Seriously. Fuck that movie and fuck James Cameron. I had been doing a pretty good job not thinking about this abortion of a film for the last month, but with the Academy Awards coming up this Sunday, it's been slowly coming back into my life like a herpes breakout. Although I don't know if herpes would be less obnoxious than listening to people justify why this movie is worthy of anything other than a straight to DVD release.

So Avatar is the most expensive movie ever, using state-of-the-art brand new equipment, and if you're the type who thinks movies aren't ALREADY way too fucking expensive, you can offer to throw even more of your hard earned dollars at James Cameron's feet to see it in 3D (read: see it with a huge fucking headache). Though this doesn't need to be reiterated at this point. If you hadn't already heard all this bullshit before then can I move into the cave you inhabit with you? It must be peaceful there. My point is that any time you ask someone to justify their opinion of this movie, they will immediately start talking about the special effects and/or 3D. One thing that is conspicuously absent from most people's positive assessment is any attempt to address the plot. If you push most Avatar fans on the issue, their response will be "yeah, the plot wasn't too original, but the effects/world/"immersive" 3D are so impressive that it makes up for it." Are... are you fucking kidding me? That's like saying you have the most unique house on the block that is built from material that can withstand a nuclear strike, but melts when exposed to rain.

First, to address the plot: Have you seen "Dances With Wolves" or "The Last Samurai"? Then you know what this movie is about. If you haven't, skim Wikipedia. Both of those movies are fucking awful too, so it won't take long to get the idea. Just throw in some nonsense about a rare mineral called (I fucking kid you not) "Unobtanium" and you have Avatar. If you just felt some bile rise in your throat reading that, don't worry, that's just proof that your brain functions. But you have the usual checklist: formerly unquestioning marine exposed to indigenous people of another planet who takes up their cause, the heartless corporation and army that oppose said indigenous peoples and marine (plus marine's posse), scientist type who "always kind of but not really" understood the people she studies, and a whole cavalcade of expendable dipshits who prance on and off screen contributing fucking nothing except spouting the most embarrassingly awful dialogue I have ever fucking heard.

Now, I will say that the Visual effects are good. That's undeniable and really, after 315 million goddamn dollars, there would be no excuse for the visuals to not make me shit myself in awe. And that's the problem, they're good, but most expensive movie EVER good? HELL no. Hell. Fucking. No. It's all very obvious CG work and the speed at which it ceases to be jaw-dropping and starts to be par-for-the-course and commonplace is maddening. After all, special effects cease to be any kind of special when they comprise the entire fucking film. Those are just effects then. And I'm sorry, but Mr. Cameron should really be looking to get his money back, because they're really no better than anything else from the last 5 years or so.

Of course, I would be remiss in my assessment if I didn't mention the whole 3D... thing. I did not see this movie in 3D because I resent the existence of that format. It makes me fucking nauseated, and because there is no way to provide any kind of feedback to the audience, provides all the immersion of a pop-up book. Plus you have to pay extra money for those stupid fucking glasses. The point is that if you need to have objects (I'd say characters too, but let's face it, they're more like objects than ACTUAL objects) flying into the face of the audience every 10 seconds to keep their attention, then either your movie needs one fuck of a rewrite or you're Michael Bay. A lot of people tell me I'm so sour about this movie because I didn't see it in 3D and thusly "don't get it". My response is this: If a movie is reliant on a gimmick that makes me physically ill to convey whatever fucking point it's trying to make, then it is a failure as a movie. Why not just make this a vehicle to display "things that would be cool if they existed" then just give a rundown on Pandora, sans the awful characters and plot, if they're really that unimportant to my "getting" of the movie? I can't goddamn believe some people.

I will remain immovable on this issue. If you think Avatar was a good movie, you are wrong. If you think that it is excusable to make a movie that has been done countless times before (all fairly badly) for the sake of "durfff I just made something pretty and who cares about original ideas or interesting characters?" then congratulations, not only are you wrong, you also have the same standards for entertainment as most household pets. This is all well and good, but I would request that like most household pets, you remain indoors until you undoubtedly die prematurely from eating something you shouldn't have, simply so filmmakers will stop pandering to your moronic tastes.

My New Hobby

"Excuse me, do you have a minute for (gay rights/the environment/NAMBLA etc.)?"

If you live in New York, you know this routine well. Groups of people spread out over a block or two with clipboards asking you to sign a paper and give them money for changes to occur. Usually, headphones or a good ole 5 mile stare into the distance beyond them is enough to get you safely through this human labyrinth relatively undisturbed. However, as I left a campus meal hall today, I accidentally acknowledged one of these annoyance's existence. In doing so, however, I stumbled into a fun new game to play with these people, allowing you to both not have to listen to their long-winded, guild-inspiring speeches, and giving you that warm fuzzy feeling most people get from kind of acting like assholes. Here is how you play:

As you approach, make eye contact with them. Provide a subtle head nod or perhaps a moderately friendly smile to encourage them that they do in fact have your attention. In giving it some afterthought, this works best with nonverbal cues. Ideally they will start to approach you. Maintain eye contact. Continue to walk forwards and right as they are about to open their mouth, break eye contact and keep walking.

Some may say that this is just being a dick for being a dick's sake, and they're absolutely right. My view on the matter is this: If you claim to not get off on being an asshole to people that annoy you, you are a liar.

On (Virtual) Morality

Hey, I'm updating this fucker again! neat!

Anyway, I'm just gonna dive back in here and start rambling about video games. My latest flames have been (and this is no surprise to anyone who has interacted with me in any capacity for the last month) Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2. Actually before that it was Assassin's Creed 2. And before that, Left 4 Dead 2. This was not a strong year for developers that WEREN'T pumping out something with an extra digit attached to it (or in the case of L4D2, a couple extra digits. Makes you wonder what happens when they get up to the 4th installment). But this is all a massive digression. I'm not even looking to talk about AC2 or L4D because they don't contain the elements I wish to examine.

The hot trend in gaming over the last few years has been presenting players with so-called "moral dilemmas" in an effort to enrich your experience by allowing you to develop your character as a devil-may-care badass, saintly saint, or completely schizophrenic. The problem with a lot of these mechanics, however, is that the options pretty much always boil down to "save orphanage" or "light orphanage on fire". Some conundrums are so absurdly black and white that the choice can be difficult not because of any moral quandaries that may arise, but rather because both options are so undesirable that you can't decide which one you dislike more. This problem is further exacerbated by the fact that most gamers are capable of telling the difference between things you do in real life, and things you do in video games. So while I myself would never blow up a town full of innocent civilians because some random guy in a suit made a cryptic offer of maybe being rewarded, you bet your sweet ass I will do it in a heartbeat just to see what the explosion looks like on my kickass computer. The point is, that these situations cease to be dilemmas on any moral level and I simply view them as option A and option B. One will be tried on the first playthrough, it's converse on the second. They will both be attempted with the exact same attitude of clinical curiosity, rather than a nail biting "Sophie's Choice" scenario.

So what does this have to do with my latest addictions? To be brief, Mass Effect 2 demonstrates exactly why this gameplay element does not goddamn work, and Bioshock 2 shows how, with just a little tweaking to the formula, it can be one of the most effective narrative driving tools ever. But because I love pointing out fault in things, we'll start with Mass Effect.

The second installment of the game has the same "paragon/renegade" meter that the last one had, with small boosts coming from the chosen dialogue options and larger boosts coming from character actions (how you choose to complete a mission, do you let the factory full of workers explode etc.). Getting higher scores in one or the other opens special paragon or renegade dialogue options that can get you special outcomes. These outcomes, however, are exactly the same whether you choose the red text or the blue text (I'll let your big brains figure out which is which), with one garnered because you're a charmer and one because you held a fucking gun to the guy's head. This means, however, that mixing nice and mean dialogue options (you know, like a normal fucking person would do) you split the points you gain in each category. For example, if half the time you're nice and half the time you're mean, you'll have a theoretical score of Paragon/Renegade at 50/50 but only have them at half strength, meaning the majority of special options are still closed to you because you chose to dabble. If you only pick one every time, you'll have 0/100 or vice versa, but more special options are open to you total. This forces the player to just pick one attitude from the start and fucking commit. Then you just kiss everyone's ass or treat everyone like shit so you can max out your scores. It's not morality, it's fucking math. And what do I care if I hurt someone's digital feelings? I need those points to get better dialogue options and that is fucking that.

Now, I'm going to completely change gears and start singing some praises. I'm also going to point out that THIS PORTION CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE PLOT FOR BIOSHOCK 2. I REPEAT, IF YOU DO NOT WANT PORTIONS OF THE GAME'S PLOT RUINED FOR YOU, DO NOT READ THIS PARAGRAPH. Bioshock was a game that arguably did not need to have a sequel. However, being that they made one anyway, I'll go out on a limb and say that holy shit this game is so fucking awesome it hurts. Gameplay-wise it doesn't differ too terribly from the first installment. Some mechanics were tightened up, enemies rebalanced, the awful fucking hacking minigame was changed to something not retarded, but all in all the game plays a hell of a lot like the first one. This is in no way a bad thing. Now, the first one too, had morality plays in the form of "save or murder the little girls you find wandering the underwater city". This comes back in Bioshock 2, but there is a twist. Rather than just changing your end cinematic based on whether you saved or killed all the little sisters, points in the last few hours of the game play out very differently based on your save/kill numbers and how you treated the NPC's with whom you can interact. How does it change? You rescue your daughter who has been psychically observing you for the first half of the game. Her world view is formed based on how you acted, but you have absolutely no control over what she does. My first playthrough, I saved all but one little sister (I was tired and didn't want to lead her all over the level, which you have to do when you save them) but killed all but one of the NPC's I encountered. This taught her that people are tools to be used and nothing more, effectively making her a psychic, sociopathic killing machine. This sounds really cool until you watch helplessly as she fucking slaughters an entire nursery of innocent little girls. This was not what I had been doing throughout the game, and I had prided myself on the fact that, apart from one bout of laziness, I stuck with being a generally nice guy, only killing the people who asked me to or the ones who deserved it (granted that was all but one). I felt actual sorrow for the monster I had created, wanting to break through the glass of the nursery and stop this crazy, out of control bitch who I had apparently fathered. I experienced literal horror as I watched her calculatingly murder everything in her path. And at the end of it all, she came for me, leaving me with the final choice to save or sacrifice myself. And in taking the noble route of sacrifice, she realized the error of her ways and the monster she had let herself become. As she mournfully strode into the world alone, no longer with a father to guide her and memories of the things she did in his name, a literal tear came to my eye. I fucked up raising this little one and didn't even know it, but managed to put it right.

And that, dear reader, is the crucial difference. While Mass Effect, Fallout, Dragon Age etc. all let you choose your own path and determine what kind of person you want to be, you are always in control and if you don't like an option, it is always your choice simply to not do it. Thusly, any consequences you may be faced with can easily be circumvented or outright ignored. Bioshock 2, however, offers you no such choice. Your actions have been performed, observed, and interpreted and are now let loose upon the world in the form of a force over which you have absolutely no control. Don't want Eleanor to kill her mother with a harpoon? Well TOO FUCKING BAD because you have a front row seat and the game is going to make your ass watch it happen as the gravity of your decisions sinks in and you realize that this once innocent girl is the product of your own machinations and nothing more.

What's too bad is that now that this trick has been done, and done incredibly fucking well, we're probably going to be in for scores of imitators until it too loses any semblance of depth and developers are forced to once again come up with something innovative for a goddamn change.

Or they could just start appending everything with higher numbers.

Not Hiatus exactly, but Hiatus-ish...

I'll keep this short.  I'm going to Russia today for the next two months.  I started a new blog specifically for this occasion.  http://donutgoestorussia.blogspot.com.  You'll follow it won't you?  I'll also be contactable by email, facebook, etc. but with what frequency I'm not entirely sure.  This doesn't mean don't try, just don't be offended if it takes a couple days to get back to you.  Anyway, see you all around.

On Racism

Resident Evil 5 comes out on Friday. I might-ish have a pre-order for it (the release date snuck up on me and I didn't realize it until pre-orders had closed) in the sense that one of the many awesome people at the Union Square Play n' Trade said he was pretty sure he'd have a copy of the game for me, and hopefully will call tomorrow to confirm so I can get it at midnight. Play n' Trade fucking rocks. Had I gone to a gamestop, they'd tell me I was too late, then demand I sell them my games for a dollar apiece so that I could preorder something else instead of, you know, what I want.

(Edit: Showed up at midnight, had a copy of the game with my name on it sitting in the box of preorders. Seriously, Play n' Trade fucking rocks.)

But i digress. What i really wanted to talk about was controversy, because nowadays it seems like no game can be released without some kind of big issue being broached by, well, idiots. The hot button issue for RE5? Racism. Wait, fucking what? Racism? Are you fucking kidding me? You kill zombies and fight an evil corporation who is evil for the sake of being evil. Pretty standard fare for an installment in the Resident Evil series.

Oh wait, back up: Did I mention the game is set in Africa? Did the "uninformed media schlock" alarm just go off in your brains? Do you see where I'm going with this?

Yes, people are accusing the game of being racist because you kill black people. In Africa. Say, wasn't that the name of the continent where like, there are a fuck ton of black people? Hell, there were so many of them that out of the goodness of our hearts we took them to America to live on biiiiig plantations so that they could chill and get out of the desert. Of course, then Abraham Lincoln kicked them all off of the plantations and they had to get jobs. At least, that's my knowledge of the situation based off what I skimmed on Wikipedia. My point, however, is that the game is set in Africa. You know what I would find a lot more jarring? A game set in Africa where there was nary a black zombie to be found (incidentally, if Rob Zombie and the guy from In Living Color teamed up, they should totally call their band Black Zombie). Shooting zombies that happen to be black because the infection hit in fucking Africa isn't racist, it's the plot of a fucking videogame.

I found an article on the Wall Street Journal via Joystiq that seems to sum up the problems with the allegations of racism in one particularly poignant line:

"the zombies hardly seem zombie-like when they control machine gun turrets and steer watercraft. Aside from when their faces open up and turn into tentacles, the zombies look like everyday African people, albeit ones that are trying to kill you"

Let's look at this a little closer, hmmm? "aside from when their faces open up and turn into tentacles"? Aside from? That seems like a pretty big detail to simply cast to the side when you're asking whether a game that's been in the works for years is denegrating an entire race. Also, if they look like Africans who are trying to kill you, wouldn't you be remiss if you didn't shoot them in the face? Also, I know Africa isn't the greatest place in the world to live, but if even the majority of citizens resembled the zombies in this game, then Africa would have been foresaken as a lost cause long ago. Christ, the spaniards didn't throw this much of a temper tantrum with RE4. Is the moral of the story that places that aren't predominantly white aren't allowed to be in videogames because if bad things happen to minorities it automatically means its racist? Hell if that was the case all crimes against minorities would have to be classified as hate crimes even if the crime had nothing to do with race, but that'd be sill... what? oh shit.