The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Here it is. My proudest day on the back blog. The longest game I have ever played at 45 hours. Danielle was not happy about it, but I did it over a 2-year span. 18 hours in 2011, 27 hours in 2013. I'm actually glad I played it like that. Because it seemed like non-stop action for most of the 27 hours. As a rule, I'm not a big fan of the beginning of Zelda games when I'm not dressed in my green tunic wielding my sword and shield. From what I remember, the beginning of this game was kind of boring. You spend it on Sky Loft, your hometown which happens to also be a island floating in the sky. The whole dynamic of flying feels a little bit like the boat in Windwaker, although there is not nearly as much to explore in this world. If you're like me, that's awesome. I like a little more linearity to my Zeldas because the main reason I play is for the dungeons and the puzzles. I don't care that much about everything else. However, if you are all about exploring, this game won't be as fun for you.

The dungeons in this game are some of the strongest I have played in any Zelda game. The Ancient Cistern is my favorite dungeon of all time. The puzzles are by-in-large great in this game. They are never so hard that I wanted to give up, but they were often challenging enough to force me to think for a few minutes. I found the bosses in the dungeons to be pretty easy. Ghirahim, a sorry excuse for Ganondorf, was a boss of a few dungeons and I found him to be incredibly annoying because beating him was all about accurate sword swings. I'm more of a brute force kind of guy and that didn't cut it. The final boss was very fun, but it was over too quickly (that's a lie, it took me 6 tries - but on the 6th try it only took 3 minutes to beat him).

Anyway, this game in general is all about showcasing what wii motion plus can do. Rather than just swinging your wiimote haphazardly, you are supposed to time and place your strikes to do damage on your opponents. I found that most of the time that it took away from the experience rather than improve it, but there were a few times when I thought it was pretty cool. Still, I hope the next Zelda does away with the motion controls to some degree.

I am pretty upset that the Wii is so underpowered. I know this game would have looked gorgeous in HD, but as it stands now, it looks like shit. I had a hard time looking at it. I would have rather it looked like Ocarina of Time 3D than the way it looked. For some reason, Wii games just don't have the bright colors or textures that I come to expect to the point where Gamecube games seem to outshine them in the graphics department. Whatever.

Overall, this was a great, great game. It had everything you come to expect from Zelda games with the addition of motion controls. Though this probably represents the game that best utilizes motion controls on the Wii, it also demonstrates that motion controls don't necessarily add to the experience. Still, I love this series. This is a fitting addition. I imagine most will like it more than Twilight Princess but less than Ocarina of Time and Windwaker. Now it's time for A Link to the Past.

Friday Night Lights Season 2

For me, this season just didn't capture the same magic as season 1. Too much Jason Street. I find him pretty annoying to be honest. Not to mention Lyla, who is somehow worse this season despite her cheating on a cripple in the first. There were some big changes at the end of season 1 that were thrown out the window. I was okay with it, but this season didn't do much to add to the stories that were told in season 1. I wasn't a big fan of the way that race/racism was dealt with in this season. It got a little too serious and lost some of the fun from season 1. Still, Tim Riggins became my favorite character this season, so there's that. I know it sounds like I hated this season, but I didn't. I really enjoyed it. I just don't understand why it went in the direction it did. Still, I have faith in season 3 to get back to the magic of season 1. Good season. Not great.

Friday Night Lights Season 1

Wow. Steve has been singing the praises of this show for quite some time and for some reason I just never fully believed him. I mean, I saw the movie and it kinda sucked. What do I care about high school football? Apparently, I care a lot. This show really was all it was hyped up to be. Danielle loves it for all the freaking romance BS and I love how Coach Taylor just pretty much tells everyone to fuck off. But in all seriousness, it's hard to put into words what makes this show so compelling. The characters are great and the story lines never really fell into the trap of most shows centered around high school (Season 2 is another story). Anyway, Danielle deemed this her favorite show of all time and it's one of mine.

Modern Family: Season 4

Once more, I've got nothing much new to say about a show I've posted multiple times here. I'll admit that I didn't dislike this season at all, which makes it better than either of the previous two.  Could this be because I didn't watch it in real time? That's absolutely possible. I've got a long documented (right here on the blog!) history of slowly coming to dislike TV shows only to give up on watching them in real time, and then catching up with them in marathon viewings on DVD and slowly coming back around on them. What can I say? Some shows just feel mundane when seen in half-hour morsels week after week, but perfectly fine in back-to-back-to-back viewings. This is one of them.

Redbelt

There were many great films that came out in 2008. Most notably would have to be Slumdog Millionaire, Iron Man, Walle, and The Dark Knight. Actually, I searched for a few online lists that labeled the so-called "best" movies of 2008, and while there are plenty of impressive titles... Redbelt is not one of them. And that's a damn shame. 

Still going on my David Mamet kick, his most recent full-length feature film, Redbelt, is fucking amazing. Seriously, I absolutely loved this movie. There are faint memories floating around in my brain of this movie slinking its way into theaters, but, sadly, I never went to go see it. And, apparently, neither did the rest of the country considering the film only pulled in $2.3 million in the box office (according to RottenTomatoes.com). All that aside, it still remains an incredible movie and deserves to be on these internet lists compiling the top movies of 2008. 

The plot is a bit convoluted, but it can be boiled down to one simple concept: A jujitsu master and owner of a modest dojo in LA is forced into a televised fighting tournament in order to win a bunch of money that will help solve some serious problems plaguing his life. Now, don't get the impression that this whole movie follows this one tournament. That's really just the end of the final act. Most of the movie is spent developing our hero, Mike Terry  (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor - a badass actor), as he faces one shit show after the next. Everything that could go wrong for this guy, does. As the audience, you really begin to feel for him as this character embodies everything that's good in a person, yet it keeps getting him in trouble. Then when things turn their worst, his busts out his martial art skills and just lays people to the floor. ARGH! IT'S SO GOOD! I want to describe more, but I'll refrain. 

Take my recommendation, folks. With - once again - an amazing cast delivering great performances and story that gives you a punch to the solar plexus, watch this movie. Plus it's got Tim Allen in it, and, well... it's always nice to see the Tool Man with some work. 

A World of Keflings

Another day, another Xbox Live Arcade freebie beaten with little fanfare. This one was just weird. Its sole purpose seemed to be an excuse to get Xbox Live avatars into a game; I played for five hours as a giant version of myself. Or was I regular-sized, and the world around me small? It doesn't matter. Apparently this was a sequel to a previously extant Keflings game, and what that means I can't say whatsoever.

Perhaps I should describe the actual gameplay here. It's sort of like Warcraft II without any of the fighting. You help these little Keflings build their cities by putting them to work harvesting resources and building new shit and... God, does anyone even care?

This one's still free with an Xbox Live subscription for a few more days. There are worse gifts out there to receive, I'm sure.

Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes

Here's early October 's free Xbox Live Arcade game for Xbox Live Gold members. It's a grid-based turn-based strategy game with minimal RPG elements like leveling up, spells, and unit upgrading. It wasn't all that far off from something like Puzzle Quest, actually. It even took me thirty hours to beat. Fortunately, those thirty hours were largely spent on double-logging duties, with a laptop propped open playing either South Park or Parks and Recreation to keep me from utter boredom. I mean, I liked this game and all, but it was just so damn repetitious. I believe the original version came out on the Nintendo DS, and frankly, that's a perfect platform for this type of game; a portable "pick up and play" model just seems to work so much better for these sorts of games than a full console release. Having said all of this, I thought the game was a pleasant enough experience to merit finishing every side quest. So, while it took a while, I didn't mind elongating the experience by several hours for the sake of 100% completion.

Glengarry Glen Ross

About to go on a kick of David Mamet films. To start things off, Glengarry Glen Ross.

First things first, it's a terrible title - to me anyways. I always heard of this movie and though it was the name of the title character or something - I also thought this was essentially a gangster story based on the poster and the actors involved (I mean, Pacino, Arkin, Baldwin...). Couldn't be farther from that. 

The movie (er, stage play) centers around a small real estate company that has come under tough times. The heads of the parent company send in Alec Baldwin's character to announce (motivate) to the four salesmen that come the end of the week the two top salesmen will win some prizes while the bottom two get canned. After that, the story is set in motion with these four guys scrambling around to make their sales and keep their jobs in what looks to be a hopeless market. All the while, their manager (played by Kevin Spacey) has a stack of reliable leads (likely candidates that these guys could actually make a sale with) and has them under lock and key within his office. With the pressure to make sales, keep their jobs, and knowing the answers to all their problems are stowed away in their boss' office, you watch these salesmen plot and plan a way to stay on top in this dog-eats-dog world.

I think at quote from Wikipedia sums up the tone and plot of movie very nicely calling it, Death of a Fucking Salesman. What stands out the most of Mamet's writing is his dialogue - or, more obviously, his massive use of profanity. I fucking love it. In all seriousness, the character development is great and their conversations with one another are up there with something Tarantino would write - if we use him as standard for great dialogue writers even if Mamet made his presence known long before Tarantino. 

The movie does feel slow from time to time, but it's been adapted from Mamet's stage play. For that reason, you don't see the characters jumping around from location to location. Things are fairly isolated. The story is pretty much contained to two locations: the real estate office and a Chinese restaurant across the street. Director James Foley adds some energy to his camera work. There's a lot of panning, smash cuts, extreme close-ups. It all helps what would otherwise be a stifled presentation feel more alive. The soundtrack is also this sad, dissonant saxophone, bluesy sound. The film opens and closes to that music as a subway rolls by. Once again, it gives me the immediate impression that I'm watching some film noir detective story. Not a film about four salesman scared about losing their jobs. 

To tie things back into the start of my post, I'll explain the title. Glengarry Glen Ross stands for the two real estate properties these salesmen are trying to push. It's not even that clear from the story or dialogue to have the audience make this connection. It's just that the names pass over you without a second's notice. But, I'm nitpicking here. It's a great story; incredible performances from a star-studded cast in this film adaptation; and it deserved all the awards and praise it's won over the years. Check it out if you're ever curious. 

Parks and Recreation: Season 5

I just read my posts on all four previous seasons of Parks and Recreation to check for observations I'd already made so as to avoid repeating them here. Everything I've hit on before applies to this season too, and in no way have I changed my overall opinion of the show since its earlier days. But I noticed that I still haven't really gone into any depth talking about what I believe is one of the show's strongest features: its characters.

Any show needs interesting characters to thrive, but "breakout characters" are what can elevate otherwise fairly generic sitcoms to greatness, or at least significant pop culture relevance. For example, what's Happy Days without Fonzie? What's The Big Bang Theory without Sheldon? What's How I Met Your Mother without Barney? Whenever you watch any one of those shows, you're watching because of the existence of those characters. The rest of the respective casts may be just fine, and the writing might be funny enough even when said breakout characters aren't on screen, but those shows and many others are significantly elevated due to that one special incarnation where the acting and the writing combine nicely into someone memorable. What sets Parks and Recreation out and above so many other comedies is its sheer number of potential breakout characters. What I mean by that term is characters that could suffice as the sole breakout character on most other shows, but don't have to carry such a load here at all.

Objectively speaking, Ron Swanson is the breakout character on Parks and Recreation, the star of more T-shirts, posters, and Internet memes than anyone else on the show. But even on a hypothetical Parks and Recreation where there is no Ron Swanson - gah! - there would still be, say, an Andy Dwyer. Or a Tom Haverford. Or, especially in later seasons, an April Ludgate. Here's a quick exercise. Think of a fairly bland comedy you've seen recently. Now, add any one of the aforementioned Parks characters to the mix. Does that character not instantly become the best part of that show? I'm not suggesting that any one of the characters on Parks could instantly elevate another show to greatness, but it's a hell of an improvement, no?

Anyway, Parks has an embarrassment of riches on that front. It's not the first show in that category, by a long shot; Arrested Development instantly springs to my mind as another example of a show with so many absurdly memorable characters. (Buster! Lucille! Gob! George Michael!) When a show has such an all-star loaded roster, so to speak, it can avoid revisiting the same sources too often and running the proverbial well dry. No one character is stealing every scene, and as such, no one character must shoulder the load for the rest of the show.

Of course, Parks is great for so many other reasons, too, and some of the biggest laughs in the show come from one-off characters or even unnamed people shouting at town hall meetings. In fact I've heard it argued by others that it's the depth of Parks, and not the breakout stars, that form the backbone of the show. Hey, maybe both are true. Maybe the show is just plain great from its top-billed stars to its tertiary characters to its guest appearances to its throwaway gags.

Well, this has run long. But at least I came up with something new to say about one of my favorite shows. Until next time!

Paranormal Activity 4

One last horror movie for the road as we leave Halloween. Unfortunately, this one wasn't scary either...

I'm a huge fan of the first Paranormal Activity. Saw it in theaters when it first came out and - oh boy - was it creepy as fuck. Yeah, I was first rolling my eyes at the thought of another "found footage" movie, but searching for creepy shit going on in a haunted house worked beautifully. The time elapsed footage of the woman just standing over her husband for hours while he sleeps in bed; the random loud bangs in the dark; the woman just waking outside in their yard with no memory of how she got there. It scared the crap out of me and definitely made it difficult to sleep for the next few nights. I've been "fortunate" enough to experience this feeling quite a bit while watching horror movies as a kid, but seeing Paranormal Activity has been the most recent occasion of that ever happening (and, I think, The Ring before that). Although each sequel to this franchise has entertain/spooked me (a bit), this is by far their lowest point.

I found nothing either scary or inventive about Paranormal Activity 4. At least with every other sequels (er, prequels) you would see the creators try to introduce new ways film the spooky crap going on around them. In the third installment, which takes place in the 70's, the characters don't have security cameras or sleek, fancy HD cameras. Instead they have one of the main characters (who's conveniently a wedding videographer) mount the camera on an oscillating fan motor, which creates a lot of suspense and terror as the camera slowly pans back-and-forth, back-and-forth revealing something new and disturbing each time. 

This film is the first in the series to be a direct sequel to the first installment, which means that they're able have security cameras, webcams, and even an Xbox Kinect (cough, cough... blatant product placement) that can be seen in night vision - it lights up the living room with a bunch of green christmas lights. (Actual that was pretty cool. If you haven't seen what Kinect looks like in night vision, check it out here.)

Still from the movie where the night vision combined with the Kinect are used. Helps add another level of spookiness, but is far from sealing the deal. 

In the end, the movie just tries to rehash similar gimmicks used over and over again from the previous films. Sadly, it no longer has the same effect. 

Perhaps the one thing that frustrates me the most in this franchise is that lack of story development. Now, the first movie didn't really explain a lot, and that's totally fine - in fact, the less you understood the more mysterious and captivated you became. If you're not all aware of the storyline of this franchise, it's incredibly simple. This first movie: haunted house; turns out there might be a demon that has been following the wife since she was a little girl (although her memory is fuzzy on the subject); film ends with the woman becoming possessed, killing her husband, and stealing her baby nephew from her sister (while killing that whole family as well). Second movie (a prequel): we learn that sister to the woman who will later be possessed was originally being haunted by the demon and her and her family figure out how to throw the curse over to her sister instead - great sense of family values. Third movie (another prequel): we go back a few decades to when the two sisters are just kids and learn that their grandmother is apart of some witch cult and they are indoctrinated in (really confusing). And finally, in this film, we march forward for the first time. Now the possessed woman and the baby she stole are a few years older and have moved across the street from this teenage girl and her family. Same story as always. The girl is the only one who senses some shit is up and eventually everyone gets knocked off. By the climax, when the girl tries to escape (all the while running with a camera to keep the movie going), she is stopped by a giant horde of creepy-ass women (probably witches based on the evidence in the third movie) and the camera cuts out with one last scream from the girl. 

So... what should the audience take from all this? I HAVE NO CLUE! You would think after four fucking movies they would really start to piece together some strong narrative that would explain the mystery behind this invisible demon that's been tormenting (or serving?) this family for decades. But, no. All I've got is that there's apparently some secret cult of witches and that they have an invisible demon under their control that only young, disturbed children can see for some reason. 

I'm sure there are more and more of these movies to come, which makes complete sense. They're cheap to make and bring in the dough. My only suggestion: start building the story and start building the characters. We're lucky enough to have the same woman from the first movie still around. Sure, she's possessed and evil, but do something with that. She was barely present in this last movie (drops her kid off to stay with the family across the street because she has to go to the hospital or some shit). I guess what gets me angry is that I see a lot of potential for them to take this franchise and make it into something really compelling and epic, and, yet, they're just squeezing the juice out of it rather than breathing new life into it.

Well, I guess they certainly wouldn't be the first horror franchise to do that. Happy (belated) Dias de Los Muertos, folks.