Deponia

I'm an idiot and as such I bought another PC game bundle, this time entirely focused on adventure games. What can I say, puzzling over a good point-and-click adventure just seems to work well with the tv on in the background- none of these games require constant attention, and most of them appeared to be very well-reviewed, even if I had heard of exactly zero of them before buying the bundle. Plus most of them seem like less than ten hour commitments. First up is Deponia, a game from Germany's Daedalic Entertainment, in which you do the standard adventure game tasks- picking up random objects, combining them with eachother and the environment, and navigating dialog trees to solve puzzles and move through a story. The gameplay is nothing revolutionary here, and nor is the story- a scrappy young man, Rufus, living on a poor junkyard planet sometime in the future, is desperate to leave and make it to the rich planet of his dreams, Elysium. Of course almost immediately after he starts on his journey, the entire thing is thrown completely off course and it's up to Rufus to both a) figure out a new way to get to Elysium and b) unravel a conspiracy that threatens everyone he knows on his home planet. The problem with Rufus is that he's a selfish prick who only thinks of himself, so he's not getting much in the way of help from his acquaintences. While his constant arrogance can get grating, he's at least mastered the art of the comedic pause. That, and the mostly good puzzles and gameplay would seem to make this a decent enough game. But damn, if I've ever seen a game just derailed by a plot, it's this one. Deponia is just so painfully misogynistic. I had to check some reviews afterwards and found out I'm not alone here, everyone's wondering what the hell is up with all the blatant objectifying of women. I mean, Rufus spends the whole game pining after this girl from Elysium, and winning her heart feels like the true goal of the game. So guess what her name is? It's Goal. GOAL. They named her GOAL. She's literally the "manic pixie dream girl" minus the "manic." When she falls to the planet, the men in the town fight to claim ownership of her. And when Rufus does something in front of her that she doesn't like, he has the ability to just wipe her memory and start fresh again with a back-up personality chip! She's one of two women in the game, and the other one slips comfortably into the bitchy ex-girlfriend trope. Rufus later interacts with her for a puzzle by drugging her. Fantastic. It wouldn't be so bad if by game's end you have Rufus learn his lesson, or if other people were calling him out on his shit, but no, this is apparently completely normal behavior. Two more games were released in the series, and from what I've read it only gets worse from here. The third game even brings in some racist stereotypes too! I mean, I get crude humor. I can see the appeal of how over-the-top a game like Duke Nukem or Leisure Suit Larry can be. But man, it just didn't fit at all here and I've got no interest continuing on with what was otherwise a decent enough adventure series.

Léon: The Professional

Before I even start talking about this movie, it's quiz time. Name the then-child actress from this 1994 movie, pictured below.

Maybe the rest of you can see it right away; it's Natalie Portman. I'm sorry. I know this shouldn't blow my mind - lots of A-list actors start their careers when they're young, and lots of people look a lot different before puberty than they do afterward - but it blows my mind all the same. I was about thirty minutes into this movie when I said to myself, "This kid is annoying as hell. I wonder if she ever worked again after this movie." The role was just so angst-ridden and hardened and cynical, and I was wondering if this actress had grown up to become some sort of character actor whose specialty was badass gritty anti-heroines in the vein of Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley or basically any role Michelle Rodriguez has filled. Nope! Natalie fucking Portman, one of the most sweet and wholesome actresses in the business. Mind blown.

Anyway, now that that's off my chest, let's spend some time talking about the movie itself. It wasn't bad! It's a French-made English language movie about a professional hitman and his apprentice. (Again, that's Natalie Portman. Young Natalie Portman played a hitman's apprentice.) The whole thing starts when Natalie's dysfunctional and mean-spirited family is murdered in their apartment in cold blood because her father pissed off the wrong corrupt DEA agent, or something. Natalie is taken in by her neighbor - Léon - who promises to teach her how to become a hitman herself. From there the movie is an interesting mixture of equal parts Man on Fire and The Karate Kid and The Transporter. A perpetual lone wolf takes in preteen orphan and trains her in his craft. He slowly comes to love her, because of course he does; she loves him too, but in an awkward half-fatherly half-sexual way, which I guess is par for the course among eleven-year-old girls? He teaches her how to kill other human beings and of course she gets pretty good at it, but Léon still needs to save her from the bad guys in the third act, which is cool, because she's given him something to live for.

There's really nothing special or unique about the plot; it's about as generic and predictable as they come. Does the girl get revenge on the guys who killed her family? Of course she does. Does her father figure crush risk everything to protect and save her after originally wanting her to go away? You bet. Does he wind up regretting nothing, despite all the trouble she has caused him by entering his life, since he's finally found someone to love and something to live for? You better believe it. Did all of this admittedly unoriginal plotting still make for a compelling movie? Indeed it did, thanks largely to the actors.

Oh, lastly - the main villain in the movie? A younger Gary Oldman, also barely recognizable. He was great, too.

JFK

Hahaha... Last I touched this one was back in November. Oh, sweet Jesus. What do I have to say about it?

Best editing I've ever seen in a movie. (Truly deserving of the Oscar it won in this category.)

Yeah, there's some good performances, music is by John Williams (so, of course, that's amazing -- another Oscar there, I believe), and -- in general -- I really enjoyed this movie. Though, it really does feel a bit more closer to a documentary than a piece of historical fiction. What I mean is not that I take Oliver Stone's account of the JFK assassination as truth, but that dramatic narrative begins to wear away after sometime and the film gradually begins to feel as though it's trying to educate me on these events rather than tell me the story about one D.A.'s struggle against the system in an effort to uncover the truth. (Not that it's boring or anything, just an idea that stuck me.)

I remember I went out to see this film (once again, back in November of 2013) during the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination when it briefly reappeared in theaters. I'm glad I got the big-screen experience of this gem, but I highly encourage anyone to see this film regardless on what size screen it's being viewed on. 

I will say this, Oliver Stone makes some fairly bold claims in this movie. There have have always been many, many theories about who was truly "responsible" in pulling the trigger to the assassination, but Stone, more-or-less, takes a stance on the culprit. Some say it was the communists. Some say it was Oswald acting alone. Stone, his stance is that the American government (mainly Vice President Lyndon Johnson and the heads of the Pentagon) plotted to kill Kennedy so that they would be able to carry out their war against the Communists and Vietnam which would be extremely lucrative to the Military Industrial Complex. In the end, we still don't know what really happened and the film ends with our hero D.A. losing his case in court, but at least it places the idea in the audiences head to question everything in search of the truth. 

Can't wait to post another artist's theory on the JFK assassination, Stephen King's 11/22/63.

Boogie Nights

My Paul Thomas Anderson familiarity prior to watching this movie consisted of Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, and Magnolia, two movies I throughly enjoyed and one I just didn't understand at all. Unfortunately, Boogie Nights didn't quite reach the levels achieved by Punch-Drunk Love or There Will Be Blood. It made for an entertaining story about the porn industry in the 1970s and '80s and never really wore out its welcome. I was shocked by how Mark Wahlberg and John C. Reilly were able to carry the film while virtually drowning out the performances of Don Cheadle, Burt Reynolds, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. And the music and costumes felt incredibly appropriate. Still, there just wasn't a ton to love about this movie. Lots to like - just not much to love.

Downton Abbey Season 4

Despite there being a lot of changes by the end of season 3, this season, more than any other, was uneventful. We spend a whole season with Mary ignoring her child and trying to help run Downton. Edith's story is worse. I dunno. It didn't lose anything that appealed to me, but this season just seemed to fill space. A lot of things were hinted at, but nothing actually happened. We've spent two seasons with Daisy liking Alfred and Alfred liking Ivy. How are we still on that? And why does Daisy talk about it being nice just to be noticed even though she spent the first season hating being noticed by William? Anyway, the one bright spot of this season was Paul Giamtti's valet. He was really annoying, but for some reason I just couldn't get enough of him. Whatever. Still not proud of this. I will still be watching come season 5. Or series 5. Whatever.

Downton Abbey Season 3

Well Season 3 finally gave viewers what they wanted. And then took it away. It was an eventful season, but I got the feeling that it used big events to mask the fact that most of it was boring. More boring than the previous seasons. Mr. Bates as a character is really getting annoying. He is so illogical in so many ways. He just seems unnecessary at this point yet is heavily focused upon. Whatever, still worth watching. I'm not proud of it.

Downton Abbey Season 2

Look I can't really differentiate between seasons other than the fact that characters I dislike become more dislikable and characters that I like do very little changing. I think I like this show, but mostly because it's somewhat mindless yet dramatic and well done.

Thanks to Steve I remember this: Set during WWII, Season 2 sent most of the season not giving the viewers what they wanted. That had me coming back for more. Because of that, I think I was tricked into really enjoying this season. I've got nothing bad to say about this series, but I am not going to go as far as to say it's really good.

Crackdown

Crackdown was also posted by Stan a few months ago under similar circumstances- Xbox was giving it away for free, and neither of us can resist a free game with a good reputation (I'm avoiding the adver-games that Xbox has also been releasing free of charge). And there's not much for me to say about the game that he didn't cover already. It's another sandbox game where this time you're ostensibly playing for the "good guys"- sure, you slaughter civilians indiscriminately, but this time the game gives you a stern warning when you do! It does have high points that harken back to the glory days of Grand Theft Auto 3, where you could just spawn and start causing massive carnage within 5 seconds. There's a joy anyone can get out of making dozens of cars crash into eachother on a highway, and Crackdown ups the ante by letting you upgrade your character with super-human abilities, while oddly enough never making it feel like a "superhero game" like the similar (but much better) Infamous series. The more you play the more athletic your character gets, until he's jumping from the streets onto rooftops, or picking up minivans and throwing them off of bridges. You're supposedly "cleaning up the streets" of your city as you "crack down" on gangs who are all very clearly just groups of minorities and whose district names are all conveniently turned to English words when the gangs are overthrown- I found it a little funny that the citizens of Latino-run "Los Muertos" would react so positively to the city changing it's name to "Green Bay", but that almost feels deliberately counter-intuitive. Still though the gameplay mostly checks out, as the developers refuse to hold your hand and simply let you decide how you want to progress through the game. Rather than a strictly-ordered set of missions with different parts of the city opening up as you progress, you get the entire city and all "missions" available from the start, including what would be the "final boss" in more structured games. The levels themselves are really just 21 different assassination missions, and sometimes you barely even need to enter whatever building your next target is in before offing them. It's completely up to you how you want to take them out, which saved the developers' time from making big elaborate missions, but also provides a more open-ended experience than other sandbox games. You can enter into a warehouse shooting everything in sight and working your way to the big bad guy, or you could stake out the building and try to find a potential secret entrance. This can unfortunately lead to the game's biggest downfall, it's half-baked platforming segments in which your protagonist, literally the most athletic man in the world, has difficulty jumping backwards more than a foot or two; and often you'll just have to take your chances guessing whether a ledge is grabbable or not- I could find no real pattern in that. Aside from that Crackdown was mostly a fun time-waster, and I'm on board for the series- there's a second game out already, and a third seems likely soon on the Xbox One. They got me hooked, so it seems like Microsoft's plan of releasing old games for free actually works. Hey I guess there was plenty for me to say!

The King in Yellow

Here's a pretty obscure book from 1895 that recently shot to the top of the Amazon best sellers list thanks to some references made to it by the new HBO hit, True Detective. I've watched a bit of that show and loved what I've seen, but it's a real slow mover and one I've let build up a backlog on the DVR. I figured I'd give this book a shot before returning, and while it's yet to be determined if reading this will positively influence my enjoyment of the show going forward, I'm pretty comfortable calling the book itself totally skippable.

It's a collection of ten short stories, of which the first four are eerie and macabre and share in common the idea of a fictional play called "The King in Yellow." The story is thus a "book within a book" except that we the readers never do get to find out what's written in "The King in Yellow;" only that it makes people go crazy with its absolute eye-opening truths. I got various mileage out of the different stories, and I give the book and its author credit for getting out in front of the "weird horror" genre - apparently this book and its mythos were a direct influence on H. P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu mythos - but at the end of the day nothing ever grabbed me or pulled me in. So, yeah. The King in Yellow wasn't a total dud, and it may prove helpful in my enjoyment of True Detective, but it's far from essential reading. Worth the five bucks and three hours I spent on it, sure. Check it out if you want!

Army of Darkness

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed The Evil Dead a few years back, you may recall. It was tongue-in-cheek enough to find amusing but also just cleverly frightening enough to feel like a true horror movie. Evil Dead 2 was a lot more of the same, really, to the point where it felt like more of a remake than a sequel. It was slightly more over the top as well. But here, Army of Darkness - which is the conclusion to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy - just goes completely off the rails and over the top, hardly even qualifying as a horror movie in my mind and coming across much more as a straight up spoof of sorts.

I liked it. Some of its lesser gags and moments made me cringe - a bunch of shrunken men giggling out the refrain to "London Bridge is Falling Down" come to mind here, as does the time where Ash gets his face half-sucked off by a book and has to rapidly shake his head - with babbling noises, of course - in order to fix it. But most of the rest of the complete absurdity made me chuckle. Dude makes a prosthetic hand and a helicopter out of fourteenth century technology? I love it. Everyone does like three backflips every time they get punched or shot? Hilarious.

A coworker of mine - an older guy, well into his fifties - considers this his all time favorite "three beer movie," and while I've never attempted to define or measure movies in terms of beers, that seems like fair praise. Had I been just a tiny bit drunk while watching this one, I could have only possibly enjoyed it more, I'm sure.