Cross Fire

It all ends here.

Friday Night Lights

In the past year or so I've finished off the tv series Friday Night Lights, which I believe was based off of a movie Friday Night Lights, which itself was based off H. G. Bissinger's book Friday Night Lights. FNL the book covers many of the same concepts that I saw in the show, but what's really noteworthy here is the difference in tone. The television series takes place in fictional Dillon Texas, which on the surface represents a fair comparison to the book's very real Odessa Texas- a town out in the middle of nowhere in western Texas where high school football reigns supreme. While it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking the tv series glorifies escaping your small town roots and getting out to see the world beyond high school football, it really should be viewed on a case by case scenario- we're ok with the fact that Tim Riggins is still living in Odessa at the end of the series, and I think everyone who grew attached to the show wishes Coach Taylor had done the same. What's more, the show really does glorify high school football as being more than a game- it's a place where Coach can help mold young men's minds using lessons that would never work in a classroom. It's in these regards that the book and the series differ. While Bissinger claims to have fallen in love with Odessa by the end of the book, the preceding 350 pages are a harsh critique of an awful, backwards town full of racism and misplaced values, where the heroes are the ones who try to get out. The lessons learned on the gridiron at best amount to vague ideas of 'brotherhood' that few can even agree on. Take, for instance, the star linebacker Ivory Christian who struggled throughout the season with whether it's even worth it to remain on the team, ultimately deciding that anything that gets him closer to a college scholarship is worth it. Or Boobie Miles, the superstar running back who had college recruiters knocking down his door until he tore his ACL in his senior year, resulting in a painful departure from the team and a lengthy feud with the entire town of Odessa. The population of Odessa appears to be completely misguided in so many different ways- the racism is constant and casual; they rise and fall economically with the oil industry but never seem to learn any lessons from it; they place a much greater emphasis on high school athletics than education. Seriously, this book is not about a community putting aside differences to root for a football team; it's about the football team exacerbating existing problems, and was quite a shock after enjoying the feel-good tv series. It's a thought-provoking piece of journalism, and an afterword written ten years after publishing serves as a nice justification for writing the book in the first place- Bissinger returns to Odessa and finds that the controversy the book created has led to a more diminished fan-dom of the football team; it's a nice closing to see that a town that had basically gone football crazy was slowly but surely turning itself around.

Les Misérables

At long last, here it is. I've loved Les Misérables (the musical) for a very long time, and had often considered reading Victor Hugo's source material but always wound up balking due to its extreme length of 1460 pages and 365 chapters. That's a year-long book if you're reading a chapter a day! I ended up finally getting the book last Christmas and began reading it in either March or April. I continued the effort intermittently - a few days "grinding" my way through a couple hundred pages or so, then a few weeks off - before finishing it off once and for all earlier tonight. I enjoyed it, but not any more than I expected to. It would have needed to be an incredibly poorly written book or me to dislike it since I already loved the story and the characters so much. And it wasn't! It was 19th century literature, and you all know how much I've struggled with that stuff in the past. But this was actually one of the better-written "older" books I've read. Maybe some of that is due to the translation from French to English. Maybe Hugo's just a good writer. I'll never know, but it's not really that relevant anyway. The big question, I suppose, is whether or not the novel lived up to its own musical. Obviously, there was a lot more going on in the 1460-page book than could fit in the four-hour musical. But plenty of that extra stuff was historical context and filler. I mentioned in my Moby-Dick post that Melville would go off on philosophical tangents throughout the narrative in a way that was very provocative and well-written, but also in a way distracted heavily from the story at hand of Ahab and the whale. Hugo definitely has a similar flair for philosophy and "larger picture" reflection, but his tangents on concepts like love, rebellion, revolution, and society were all much more in tune with the stories of Jean Valjean, Javert, Cosette, and Marius. I didn't necessarily find it interesting when Hugo would spend fifty straight pages recounting a certain battle of the Napoleonic Wars that didn't involve any characters from the rest of Les Misérables, but at least I understood that he was just doing his part to provide a tonal and historical background for revolution in France. (This was written in 1862, after all, well before curious readers could go read about world history on Wikipedia.) Nonetheless, there was plenty of relevant character background and development in the book that was absent in the musical version of the story I've become so familiar with. So I guess ultimately I treated the novel like an extended edition of the musical. If you're unfamiliar with Les Misérables in general, I don't think this novel is the right place to start. The musical is amazing, and now, at long last, there's an official release date (December 2012) attached to a film version of the musical. Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, and Geoffrey Rush? If I wasn't sold already, I'd be sold five times over with that cast on board.

Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball

With my girlfriend out of the house tonight, I figured it was a perfect time to do a little bit of logging. (And making grilled cheese sandwiches.) Here's another really short and mostly pointless game from the Sonic Mega Collection. In case it wasn't totally obvious already, it's a Sonic pinball game. ("Spin"-ball - get it?) There's not a lot to say here. The game consists of four gigantic pinball tables that you must traverse by, well, playing pinball. Each table has a boss fight that only gets unlocked after you collect three chaos emeralds scattered around the table, and all of the boss fights more or less consist of bouncing your Sonic-ball off Robotnik's head. I have to say, at least this pinball spin-off makes sense; way too many video game franchises have received pinball spin-off games - Mario, Pac-Man, Metroid, Kirby, Pokémon - and at least Sonic has always been a fast-moving ball-shaped character. So the concept doesn't even feel like much of a stretch in this case. The game couldn't have taken me much more than an hour to beat, and there are plenty of YouTube videos of tool-assisted ten-minute runs; I didn't exactly relieve myself of an enormous burden by beating this game. Still, a logging is a logging, and the backlog is now another step closer to completion.

Blindness

Sweeney enjoyed this book, I found this book on a "best books of the 20th century" list, I bought this book for six dollars. Sweeney has already explained the gist of the book, everyone goes blind suddenly, the blindness spreads like a pandemic, Will our seven unnamed heroes survive? If you're wondering why I'm using such piss-poor grammar, It's because this is the way Saramago writes, using sentence fragments, Lots of commas, few conjunctions, no quotation marks, Sometimes capitalization of the first word in a fragment. This was easily my biggest problem with the book, A decent book otherwise, Not an easy book to read, Who is talking? No one knows who is talking. No characters are named, no quotation marks are used, the dialogue flows freely and chaotically, I suppose there's an element of style to that, But still that is annoying. Sadly I cannot say I loved this book, the concept was nice, the characters well-made, But why the piss-poor grammar? Originally written in Portuguese, the book could have been much easier to read and digest had the translator done the reader a favor by beating the shit out of the narrative with some serious Strunk & White. But no, the aimless syntax remains, I can't say I enjoyed it, I'm glad Sweeney did at least. This will be my last attempt at Saramago, maybe I'll see the Blindness movie, hard to imagine that version of the story giving me headaches and confusion.

My Name Is Earl: Season 3

Well, that was terribly uninteresting. After two seasons of Earl, I was ready for the show to deviate from its formulaic tendencies. And when Season 2 ended with Earl getting incarcerated, I was hopeful that a shake up would make Season 3 into something more than a series of "Earl rights a wrong he did unto another in his past" episodes. But you know that adage about being careful what you wish for? It applies here. This season occurred during the writers' strike, and there are two pretty distinct "halves" that it was split into. The first half consisted of Earl doing hard time. The post-strike half saw him get hit by a car and go into a coma. The prison half was a deviation from the norm that sort of worked and sort of didn't. The second half was a real chore to get through, even on DVD with an Internet-connected laptop in front of me capable of providing me all kinds of distractions. I don't want to imply that Earl turned into a bad show during Season 3. I just think this is the season when it became clear that the potential the show once had (but had never quite lived up to for more than an episode or two at a time) would never end up fulfilled. You know how it is. Something is so-so, but you've convinced yourself it can be more than so-so, and then when you finally realize it's only so-so, you almost overcorrect yourself, pretending that it's less than so-so. (I've been here before, notably with J.D. Drew and the Greek pizza place up the street.) But ultimately, Earl is so-so. It isn't terrible. It just isn't great, either. Thus, I'll head into the final season with no expectations whatsoever.

Cronos

Guillermo del Toro is recognized as one of the main powerhouses here in Hollywood. More than just being praised as a true visionary genius... he's got more money than God and - at this very second - is producing a baffling number of movies (Spielberg baffling). Aside from Pan's Labyrinth, I'm not a huge fan of his movies (movies = meh; character design = un-fucking-believable); however, people have kept telling me, "Oh, but have you seen Cronos, his break-out film? That shit's off the chain!" Well, maybe they don't quite sell it like that, but I have had several recommendations to check this guy out... and seeing as how I seem to be the B-horror nerd here, it's my duty to enlighten the rest of you simpletons of my findings.

As I've said - or as others have said to me - this was del Toro's first film. And like most major directors of today, his debut was in the horror genre. Actually, horror might be a bit of an overstep here. This film is not scary, even in the slightest. In fact, there really is no attempt to even try and be scary. On the contrary... it's heartwarming. Here's the plot: In Mexico (or was it Spain?)... In some country where people lack Burger King and speak Spanish, an old antique dealer discovers one of his statues is secretly hiding this fancy-looking gold device - Cronos. With his granddaughter by his side, the old man begins tinkering with the device until some sharp prongs pop out of it and pierce into his hand. The guy's fine... no harm; but next morning he wakes to find he's healthier, younger in fact. Turns out this device is home to some weird-ass bug that somehow sucks in your blood, filters it, and injects it back into you making you super healthy... actually it makes you immortal. The old man finds this out when Ron Perlman (some thug sent out by his dying, rich uncle to find this legendary device) runs the man's car off a cliff and kills him. The old man then awakes in a funeral parlor to find he's all zombified and gross, but never-the-less alive. The film finishes up where the man, with the help of his granddaughter, returns to the dying uncle who wants this Cronos device where they - and Ron Perlman - duke it out, and the film pretty much wraps up from there. (Even though I doubt anyone will see this - who knows? maybe you have already - I'll keep myself from spoiling the ending.)

Now, while the film revolves around this undead protagonist who needs to drink fresh blood to live (oh, yeah... probably should have mentioned that earlier) this is really a sweet film about the relationship between this man and his granddaughter (who also never once freaked out when she saw her granddad show up at her front the day after they buried him all decomposing and shit... I guess that's true love?). Anyways, it's because of this relationship that I back away from calling this a horror. It's actually endearing to see the grandfather look out for the kid in the beginning, then seeing how the girl cares for her grandfather near the end when he needs help after returning to the world of the living.

But let's cut to the chase... did I like this movie? Just like most of del Toro's other flicks, it's a "meh". Aside from Ron Perlman (this man is the shit, and if you haven't seen Drive in theaters yet... see it) the movie didn't do a whole lot for me. It was well made for the indie that it is and has a fairly interesting premise, but I wasn't really that captivated by it... just like all of del Toro's other movies (sans Pan's Labyrinth). However, next year he's coming out with Pacific Rim (some movie about aliens and fighter jets, I think?) and it's got Charlie Day in it. Enough said. I'll be there.

The History of the Siege of Lisbon

Well, here's my first taste of just straight up not liking a Saramago book. Like the previous three (Blindness, Seeing, The Stone Raft) it has a simple and interesting hook- a proofreader working on a non-fiction books called The History of the Siege of Lisbon deliberately adds a single word, thus changing the entire meaning of the book. As a parallel to this story, Saramago offers up his own interpretation of what happened during the siege of Lisbon, chastising the proofreader's inability to get it right, resulting in three different levels of meta-story that I'd normally eat up and beg for more. But I don't know, something about the tone here just didn't sit quite right with me. The run-ons and lack of punctuation that usually work fine seemed especially grating, and the interesting concept didn't end up going in any particularly interesting directions. I'd normally blame this on History being one of Jose Saramago's first books- perhaps he simply hadn't perfected his writing style- but this came out a few years after The Stone Raft, which, while odd, I found at least decent. Well, there's 8 more Saramago books on my Kindle, so unlike before I'm going to temper my expectations from the rest of them, aside from maybe the one Stan commented on- The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.

Assassin's Creed

The Assassin's Creed universe is expanding pretty quickly lately- this year will mark the third in a row with a full console game coming out for the holiday season. I really enjoyed Assassin's Creed 2 when I played it nearly 2 years ago, but if I have any hopes of catching up by the time Assassin's Creed 3 rolls around, I had to get the original Assassin's Creed out of the way quickly. For those who don't know, the background behind the series isn't to simply play as an assassin in a few different time periods, although that is the real meat of the game. The actual protagonist isn't simply Altair during the Crusades in Assassin's Creed or Ezio in 2, but Desmond Miles- a modern day supposed last living descendant of an order of assassins stretching back throughout history, who is being hunted down by the Knights Templar and forced to relive 'genetic memories' in a machine called the Animus to aid in their nefarious schemes. This provides an interesting framework for the game- for instance, the player doesn't have a health bar, but a 'syncing' bar- the better he follows along with Desmond's genetic memory of Altair, the better he syncs, but messing up (getting hurt, killing innocents) can deplete the bar to a point where Desmond literally needs to 'reset' the Animus. I found it an interesting way of tackling certain video game tropes- Desmond doesn't die, he 'resets.' Don't want Altair to reach a certain part of the city? That section of memory is 'locked.' Of course it all revolves around an interesting but completely bananas storyline about the end of the world in 2012, but it's told in such a fresh way that it manages to overshadow the innovative core gameplay. So many third-person adventure games tack on unnecessary stealth missions that break up the flow of the game, but Assassin's Creed manages to make the stealth angle feel so natural that normal combat begins to feel out of place- the high points of the game involve running undetected across rooftops and swooping in for a one-shot kill, while the low points involve long-winded counter-heavy battles that really only come about after the player has made a mistake and finish with little payoff. The game certainly had a bit more structure here than 2, it reminded me of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes's ability to make some sense out of a giant environment compared with Metroid Primes's freewheeling exploration- there may be a little less sense of wonder, but it provides you with an easy way of keeping track of progress, which becomes more important with more backlogging. The scenic viewpoints I liked in 2 were handled better here too- although there was less variation of towers to climb, they actually played an important and fun factor in the gameplay rather than being a slightly more interesting collectible for OCD completionists. That said, there are just so many huge improvements made between here and Assassin's Creed 2 for me to call it the better game- some fun platforming sub-levels, a fantastic economic system, and frankly 2 ran a lot faster and smoother. So while Assassin's Creed has a few things going for it, it wasn't until its sequel that things really kicked into high gear and became must-play.

My Name Is Earl: Season 2

I'm halfway through this series now, and frankly, I'm not in love with it. That's okay, of course. Not every show out there is a gem, and someone who wastes as much money and time on DVD sets as I do is well aware of this before every purchase. Earl is decent. It's funny enough to be the kind of show I sued to watch now and again (but not regularly) and the characters are likable and unique enough to keep you coming back for more. (Because our affinity for certain characters, more than anything, is what keeps us coming back for more TV. Right?) But if the characters in Earl are the show's biggest strength, then the show's inability to find a tonal center for itself is its greatest weakness. The show started out with a formulaic premise - Earl has made a list of all the bad things he's ever done, and one by one, he's making amends and crossing items off the list. Easy enough. The show has stayed consistent in its overall "purpose" in Season 2, but the writers have now begun to dabble in longer story arcs. Because of this, Earl's list often takes a backseat to, say, Joy's court date or Randy's affections for a motel cleaning lady. I'm fine with this. By paying less attention to the list and Earl's karmic quest for redemption, the show is capable of being much funnier and expanding its scope much more. That said, this new and expanded approach in Season 2 only made the list-centric episodes all the more boring and one-note by contrast. I should point out that I sued to occasionally watch Earl in college, but only in this second season. The remaining two seasons on DVD, then, are still complete mysteries to me. The only thing I know is that the show got canceled after the fourth season, and that the fourth season's finale was in no way an adequate series finale. I've also heard there's a huge deviation from the "Earl's list" format coming up in Season 3 that left some people satisfied and some people wondering what the hell was going on. And based on the way this season ended, I've got my guesses - as well as my own suspicions regarding whether or not I'll enjoy it. Time will tell!

Scarface (1983)

Well, that was long and entirely predictable. There seems to be an affinity for organized crime movies that has infected nearly everyone on the Internet. But as readers of this blog know, I was underwhelmed by several movies from the genre in the past, including the Godfather saga and Goodfellas, to name a few. Forgive me, but the same old story, time and again, just gets a little tired. Ambitious up-and-comer makes waves, kills people, earns respect. He makes it big, betraying (or being betrayed by) close friends and mentors in the process. Power and success go to his head. Soon he loses everyone and everything he loves. And so the story goes, time and time again. Scarface was a fine movie - a good one, even, with another memorable performance from Al Pacino - but it was also just another movie about organized crime where even the greatest performances couldn't overshadow the same old story. Perhaps I'm being unfair in my critique. Aren't all war movies more or less the same? All romantic comedies? All political thrillers? All stoner comedies? Genres are "generic" for a reason, after all. I guess I'm at a point in my life where I'd rather see a unique movie - even one that doesn't totally work - than a particularly well-executed timeless classic. Scarface is probably better than most movies I've seen, but that doesn't mean I found it to be one of the most interesting, compelling, or well-made ones. Remove a few iconic lines and scenes, and frankly, there's nothing left to Scarface. That's my take, anyway.

Flicky

The hardest part about this game was simply unlocking it. Flicky, a 1980s arcade game from Sega, was a bonus inclusion on my Sonic Mega Collection compilation. To unlock it, I needed to "play" four different games thirty times each, which simply meant loading from the main menu - and then quitting back to the main menu - 120 different times. Each time probably only took about ten seconds, but still. Tedium, no? Fortunately, the game itself, which could have been all kinds of tedious, wasn't. The premise is simple enough. You're a bird. There are baby birds. There is a hungry cat. Run, jump, and attack, one very small level at a time, until you've rescued all the baby birds. Repeat the process a lot. The end. This YouTube video of the first few levels sums up the entire experience very neatly and simply. I don't have much to add about Flicky. It was brief and mildly enjoyable, but it was certainly nothing I'd have ever gone out of my way to play were it not included on this Sonic Mega Collection. Regardless, I'm one step - a very small one, no doubt - closer to emptying out that backlog of video games. And no matter how small the step itself was, it puts me at 59 games remaining. Still plenty, sure, but the first time I've dipped under the sixty mark in at least a year and a half. Like a dieter who slips under a certain threshold, I never want to be on the "wrong" side of 60 games remaining ever again.

Community: Season 2

Yeah, so this might be my favorite show on network TV. I've been watching the second season (for a second time) with Marissa, and we've both agreed that there simply isn't a bad episode in the entire season. Not one dud. Twenty-four for twenty-four. That's impressive for any show, but for one like Community, which has no consistent tone and takes some pretty big "risks" almost every other week, it's just an incredible feat. Whether the study group is re-enacting an old Western with paintballs, surviving a zombie apocalypse, or reminiscing over memories from adventures we the audience had never seen, Community is always entertaining. But a lot of shows are funny. What sets Community apart is that it's very capable of being touching. And not in a traditional "family sitcom" type of way, like a Full House or Brady Bunch, but in a very quirky (yet inarguable) way. That claymation Christmas episode? Perfect. I'm not ashamed to say that it... touched me. Twice now. And in the weirdest and funniest of ways, of course. Season 3 starts this week, and I couldn't be more excited. Here's hoping for six seasons and a movie!

Breaking Bad: Season One

I was home from work for part of last week with some gnarly coughing and really had nothing better to do than just surf around on my iPad. Looking for some (any) entertainment to free me from my prison of an apartment I came across the oh-so-recommended Breaking Bad. Without much on the horizon, I said, “Eh, fuck it. I’ll give it a look over.”

Holy shit. I put the first season down in two days (only seven episodes, but still...), and have season two coming in through the mail. This show is up there with Lost as having the best, most intriguing pilot I’ve ever seen. I forget who here’s already been watching this show (probably the whole lot of you), but once again I’m slapping myself for not getting on this sooner. The writing, the acting... it’s all top notch. I think what I find most impressive is Bryan Cranston’s performance. Prior to this past week, I could only name two mediocre roles this guy has played. There’s the pervy dentist in Seinfeld and the panic-stricken father from Malcolm in the Middle - I didn’t care for this show that much either. Regardless, taking these two COMEDIC roles and then having Cranston become this shell of man who looks to break from his weak, pathetic life to become the King-Pin of crystal meth in Arizona is just... astounding.

There’s nothing more I need to add. If you haven’t seen this yet... well, I find it hard to believe you can’t appreciate this on at least some level (the story, suspense, acting... you name it). The only other thing this show has me pondering is how are my reactions going to be when I finally get off my ass to get on my ass again and catch up on all the other great gobbly-gook that’s out there. The Wire? Mad Men (I swear I’ll make it to the second episode one of these days)?Justified (I hear good things)? Dr. Who?

Fuck no. Sorry Webber, but there’s no way I’ll ever allow myself to watch an episode of this catastrophe. Whenever someone mentions this abomination to me, I just want to take their damn Whovian face and smash it through the next phone box I see. Arrrgghh! It make me so angry just to think about! I mean why are there so many doctors? They get regenerated? Bullshit. It’s just a tactic used so that this money machine and keep chugging along like the Energizer bunny. You want to know what makes a good story? An ending. Why the hell won’t this damn show just die already. It’s been going on since the 60’s and has over 200 episodes or something, I mean Jesus Christ. Soon it will overtake The Simpsons and their worn out welcome.

Speaking of which... Groening you’re on thin ice too. Consider yourself warned.

What was I talking about again? Oh, yeah. Breaking Bad. It’s worth a watch.

Bioshock 2

Bioshock was a fantastic game that came out in 2007 to rave reviews across the board- to me it's the only game I've played that really pulled off the RPG/FPS hybrid flawlessly, leading to a game that not only relied on your shooting skills, but careful choices in grinding and upgrades. It got heaps of praise for its Ayn Rand-influenced storyline and immersive environment- Rapture, an art-deco utopia gone wrong located at the bottom of the ocean. The whole thing was just really fun, and to bring up the argument Stan mentioned in his Ico post, it's a major player in the "games as art" debate. My expectations were originally high for its sequel, 2010's Bioshock 2, but they were tempered as news came out of delays and members of 2K Marin abandoning the game for other projects. The resulting game ended up being still very good, but unfortunately just "more Bioshock". Bioshock 2 plays in relatively the same way with some small improvements- plasmids, the game's form of magic, can be dual-wielded with guns and other weapons, greatly improving the oft-forgotten spells from the first game; the introduction of the Big Sister added a nice element of tension to the usual grinding; and everything felt much more streamlined, allowing for me to fully explore some aspects of the first game I overlooked (remote hacking, researching enemies to gain an advantage, etc.). The story was good for FPSes, but really had nothing on the original Bioshock. But, well, that's a predecessor that's hard to top. I have a feeling that a complete change of setting will do wonders for the series, as the next sequel (prequel? spiritual successor?), Bioshock Infinite, abandons the underground world of Rapture entirely and takes place in a city floating in the sky. I won't get to it for a long time, but my hopes are high again.

Sons of Anarchy: Season 3

All caught up at last (save for Tuesday night's Season 4 premiere that is still on my DVR and awaiting a viewing, that is). A number of people were disappointed in the third season of Sons, and I can completely see why that was. It becomes clear in the first episode that the club is going to need to head overseas to Northern Ireland to take care of both business and personal interests, but they spend half of the season just preparing for the trip. By the time they get there, they spend three or four episodes there, then return home to deal with more business and personal interests. The main conflict stems from an out-of-nowhere cliffhanger that Season 2 ended on, and I guess the whole ordeal kind of serves as an example of "cliffhanger clean-up gone sloppy." All of this is not to say that I personally was disappointed in Season 3. Of course, I'm sure it played out a lot better on DVD than it did in weekly installments; I didn't have to wait two months for the club to get to Northern Ireland, as I could get through seven episodes in a few days' time. The writing felt a bit sloppy and rushed at times, but only compared to the normal higher standard I've come to expect from the show. It's certainly one of the best dramas I've seen and warrants consideration for placement in that elite tier that includes Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and perhaps Boardwalk Empire. Season 1 pulled me into the world of this motorcycle gang, Season 2 raised the stakes with multiple conflicts for the Sons both internal and external, and Season 3 kind of took its foot off the gas and veered off course for a chance of pace and style. Not everyone was a fan, but I'd rather see showrunners try new things than let a good show turn stale with formulaic story arcs. (If you think I'm excited for another season of Dexter, think again.) This'll be the last time you hear from me on this blog about Sons of Anarchy for at least another year, so I'll end with one tiny pitch: watch this show. It's worth catching up on and it's something you'll enjoy. Yes, you.

The Sopranos: Season 3

I'm not even halfway through this series, and already I know that I want to watch the whole thing through all over again once I've finished. In and of itself, that statement doesn't say a lot, but considering my ambition to reduce the rest of my backlog, any time re-spent on previously logged items is a sacrifice indeed. And The Sopranos seems to be worth it. There's a lot of subtle stuff going on in every episode. Everything has some kind of meaning behind it, from musical selections to the way scenes are shot to the way certain lines are delivered. Three seasons in, I think I've finally realized what this show is really "about." It isn't about a mob overlord and his family anymore than Breaking Bad is about meth or Parks and Recreation is about, um, parks and recreation. Instead, it's a show full of characters that suffer from basic human flaws such as arrogance and distrust. The young and the old, the "made" and the unfortunate, they're all just living in the decadence of turn-of-the-century America (in a pre-9/11 world, still, at the end of this season). It's not quite Wire-esque, with that show's depiction of America as a series of corrupt and inescapable institutions. It's more of a cynical take on America at its apex, if that makes sense. I'm sure it's no coincidence that the DVD box art seen above is autumnal in its color scheme; the show - and this season especially - is so full of loss, death, and darkness, that I fully expect the rest of the ride to be an ever-increasingly cold and desolate winter. How many more of Tony's friends and family members will betray him? How many more of them will Tony have to deal with in the most morbid and permanent way possible? At any rate, this may have been my favorite season of The Sopranos yet, but it was much more episodic than the previous two. Each hour-long segment of the show was more or less an independent story that could stand alone amidst the very muted seasonal arc. In that regard, it wasn't unlike a typical season of Mad Men, although that makes perfect sense since Mad Men was created by Matthew Weiner, one of the higher-ups behind The Sopranos. There's an episode where the FBI bugs the Soprano household, and we mostly observe the day-to-day lives of its four occupants. There's an episode where two mobsters get lost in the snowy woods after chasing down a guy they were supposed to whack, and nearly freeze to death. There's a Christmastime episode focused primarily on Tony's Christmastime memories of an old friend who he recently had to kill. So many different individual stories going on, and yet they all felt connected, at least tonally speaking. At any rate, the show has impressed me all along now (at least, once I got over some of the dated parts, like DVD players and flat screen TVs being high-tech stuff, and the majority of Mrs. Soprano's wardrobe in the earlier seasons) and I'm looking forward to finishing it so that I can read up on it all over the Internet without fear of spoilers and, more importantly, so that I can watch it all over again.

My Name Is Earl: Season 1

Back in college, I watched a lot of TV on Thursday nights. There was The Office, Scrubs, and Parks and Recreation. There was Survivor and 30 Rock. There was Always Sunny and there were isolated seasons of both Lost and The OC. One show that I watched occasionally, but never regularly, was My Name Is Earl. I was usually amused, though rarely floored, by the characters and subplots. For all intents and purposes it wasn't a show I'd have considered a favorite at any point in time. But when I found the third and fourth seasons on sale for $10 each (and the first two for $15 each) earlier this year, I decided to give the entire series a go from the beginning through the end. Not the wisest move I've ever made since beginning the Back-Blogged project, but by no means did it burn a hole into my wallet. For those of you unfamiliar with the show's concept, it's a rather formulaic one. Jason Lee plays Earl, a morally reprehensible man who one day learns about the concept of karma and concurrently wins $100,000. Earl decides then and there to change his ways, making a list of all the bad things he's ever done to other people and then trying to go around making things right by whatever means necessary. The set-up allows for the show to be very formulaic when it wants to be; Earl decides to help someone on his list, attempts to do so, usually runs into some sort of setback, and then things all work out in the end. I say "formulaic when it wants to be" because I know of episodes (in later season) that ignore Earl's list entirely. But here in the first season, I can't remember any episodes that didn't deal with Earl's list of karma in one way or another. Overall I'd call it an okay first season. It definitely took a little while for a lot of the supporting characters to hit their stride, but they're absolutely the driving force of the humor in this show. Earl is just too sweet and good-natured for his occasional "white trash" confusion to evoke many giggles from me on his own. All in all, this is a solid and unique sitcom that I look forward to watching the remaining three seasons of, but I'd stop short of telling anyone else to watch it.

Red State

Though technically the blu-ray version of this movie does not hit shelves until October 18 (three weeks after it hits theaters on September 25), I saw it fit to backlog it because I just watched it on iTunes. Yes, I don't own it yet, but I do have it pre-ordered.

Because my commute to work ranges from 40-60 minutes on any given day, I had to find a way to fill it. Podcasts seemed a natural fit, and as an avid Kevin Smith fan, I got hooked on the hours and hours of podcasts he has available at smodcast.com. Though his podcasts are quite funny, they come with a price. On every podcast, you have to listen to 7+ minutes of commercials for everything Kevin Smith. Though annoying, as this guy whores himself out for your dollars like no one else in Hollywood (pick up your autographed copy of his Degrassi DVD at http://viewaskewmerch.com/jaysibobdode.html), these commercials also clued me in to the upcoming release of Red State. Suffice to say, I was eagerly awaiting Kevin Smith's first foray outside of the comedy/romantic comedy genre.

Let me just start out by saying that this movie is like nothing else he has ever made (it reminds me of a Quentin Tarantino movie, which isn't surprising, as Smith idolizes that guy). It's not funny, it's not sappy, it doesn't make reference to any of his other movies and it doesn't star Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, Brian O'Halloran or even Jason Mewes. What it is, however, is the best film he has ever made.

Though this movie begins in typical Kevin Smith fashion with graphic sex talk between three teenagers, it is clear early on that the real star of this movie is Abin Cooper (played by Michael Parks). As head of the Cooper family (inspired by the Phelps family, a fanatical Christian clan who pickets gay funerals, etc), he has brainwashed his children and his children's children to believe in a much more vengeful God than we might be used to. He "fear[s] God, you better believe [he] fear[s] God" and because of that, his family does, too. The similarities between the Cooper and the Phelps families end there, as the "Phelps are suers and the Coopers are doers." Whereas the Phelps are armed with protest signs, the Coopers are armed with AK-47s. Though I won't get into much more detail, because I think everyone should go out of their way to see this movie, I will say that the movie gets violent, sometimes disturbingly so.

Surprisingly, the scenes of action and violence in this movie are quite believable (hard to believe considering the same man who directed those scenes directed Dogma). The dialogue is of course spot on. However, perhaps the best aspect of this film is the acting (if you ignore the presence of his wife). Whether it's because Kevin Smith has become a better director (doubtful) or if it's because he is working with trained actors for a change(Michael Parks, Melissa Leo, John Goodman, that girl from 24 who dated Behrooz), I could finally find some of his characters believable and relatable. Still, based on the extreme violence, I don't see this as everyone's cup of tea. But, if you have seen other Kevin Smith movies, I think you owe it to yourself to see this one as well. It's good, really good.

Ico

I've got several different things to say about this game, and perhaps more importantly for Back-Blogged, the experiences associated with buying and beating it. So bear with me as I take a very rare break from the norm and head into paragraph-based formatting.

First, why did I buy this game in the first place? A year and a half ago, I became fixated on finding and familiarizing myself many "best video games of the decade" lists. Ico was on several of those lists, and that was enough reason for me to locate a copy and buy it. However, due to the rarity of the game - it came out in September 2001, nearly a full decade ago now, and never sold well at all - I had to shell out $50 including shipping in order to secure my own copy. Not six months after I'd done so, Sony announced that Ico and its spiritual successor Shadow of the Colossus (which I'd also purchased, but only for $20) would be ported in an HD package to the PS3 in 2011. And just like that, I'd spent $70 for the PS2 versions of two games I'd soon enough be able to get for $30 in HD. But that's the price I paid for being overambitious in my acquisition of these games, I suppose.

Second, how long did it take me to play this game, and how did I go about doing so? The answer to the former question is both nine months and six hours. To explain myself, I'll answer the latter. I first popped Ico into my PS2 in early January and experienced the first hour of gameplay. I never touched the game again until last night, when after literally months of telling myself, "I should really get back to Ico," I finally got back to Ico, knocking the rest of the game out in five more hours. So, why the sudden followthrough on my two-hundred-day-old promise? Because the aforementioned Ico/SotC HD combo pack has a release date of September 27th. If I didn't beat Ico before that date, then the extra $40 I'd spent to acquire the game would have been a complete waste. At least now it's "worth" the three weeks sooner that I was able to enjoy Ico. I won't pretend that's even close to an even trade-off, but at least it's something, artificial though it may be.

Third, and most importantly, did this game live up to the hype? It did. It wasn't the best game I've ever played, or even the best adventure/puzzle PS2 game I'd ever played (a title that still belongs to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time). It was brief, simple, and lacked many memorable puzzles, moments, or scenes. But with its minimalist approach to plot and dialogue, and with its vast and beautiful environment, and with its mysterious protagonist, sidekick, and villain, it was very much a game that elicited emotional reactions from me, throughout. Wonder. Fear (especially early on). Hopelessness (whenever my partner, the ghostly princess Yorda, was attacked by ghouls). Frustrated anger (at said ghouls). Exhaustion (when I finally got to the game's end and fell asleep before the final cinematic was over, and needed to watch the ending on YouTube this morning to finish off the full experience). Companionship (as I came to appreciate what Yorda could do for me). Gut-punching sorrow (when it became clear, at the end of the game, where the ghouls I'd hated so much all game, and killed with malice and glee, had come from). I've had more fun while playing games and I've felt more rewarded for beating games and I've been more interested in the stakes at hand in the stories of many games, but I'm not sure if any game has managed to make me "feel" so many things in so short a time and with so few characters and plot points as Ico did. Again, not a perfect game. I've only given it a four out of five on my backloggery.com page. (I've also marked it "complete" since there is absolutely nothing to collect or do beyond the basic linear narrative at hand.) Ico doesn't crack a list of my ten, twenty, or perhaps even fifty "favorite" video games of all time. But it was certainly a unique experience worthy of a special sort of recognition. In a way, the game feels seven or eight years ahead of its time. In the present, short "indie" artistic games get high praise all the time as DLC releases. If Ico was a couple hours shorter, it'd fit right in with the likes of Braid and Limbo as minimalistic gaming gems. The third quarter of the game, roughly speaking, was extremely repetitive and reminiscent of the second quarter of the game; I could have done without it entirely. Also, the combat was frustrating and lengthy, mirroring my biggest complaint about Sands of Time. For a while I felt like the intermittent attacks by the ghouls, trying to recapture Yorda, were ruining the flow of the exploration-based game. But in hindsight, I recognize that they filled me with negative emotions, and that without the constant threat of their presence looming, the game wouldn't have "felt" nearly the same as it did. So in a weird way, while I enjoyed the game less because of the poorly-varied hack-and-slash combat portions, I respect the game more for including them.

Finally, one more question: can video games really be a form of high "art?" It's a growing debate. My problem with it has always been that "art" is poorly and loosely defined. The Mona Lisa is art, for sure. Few would say it isn't. Yet, who decided that it was? Is a three-panel comic done by a professional cartoonist also "art?" And is a poorly-made drawing by a kindergartener "art?" If not, why was it made in something called "art class?" If so, is there any drawing that isn't "art?" It's a nearly pointless debate. It's like arguing over how interesting a series of sentences must be in order to tell a "story." I have heard one guy on the Internet - a blogger and critic whose opinions I usually at least respect - try to come down heavily on the "yes, games can be high art" side of the debate, only to use Super Mario Bros. 3 as his ironclad case in point. Seriously? A level-based platform game with little variance or emotion-inducing... anything? I've never been back to that guy's blog ever since. Anyway, I'm not here to answer whether or not video games are truly artistic. But I will say that Ico is one of the best examples on the "pro" side of the debate. (I swear, I see no way in which Super Mario Bros. 3 is anything but a "con" example. What a joke.) The non-American cover art for the game does its tone and feel so much more justice than the shitty generic cover art seen at the top of this post. Ico is minimalistic. For all intents and purposes, the fortress-like castle that serves as the games environment is the primary antagonist of the game. Everything around you portrays melancholy and decline. Even the ambient sounds - no background music except during cut scenes and combat, but plenty of chirping birds and blowing breezes - signify the utter lonesomeness of Ico and Yorda. When Yorda is taken from you by the ghouls, you try to get her back not even primarily because it's "game over" if you don't, but because she's the only thing keeping you from being utterly lost and alone in a bewildering labyrinth wrought with isolation and despair. This isn't a masterfully-told story here. There is very little "character development" because there is very little characterization at all. But then, going back to the Mona Lisa, would it be half as famous as it is today had Da Vinci written a three-paragraph explanation for the painting? Of course not. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then you cheapen it by trying to capture its essence in anything less. In Ico, story and explanation and even actual gameplay are afterthoughts to setting, tone, mood, and feel. I wouldn't even say I've "played" Ico. I've more so "experienced" it. And that won't sound even the slightest bit pretentious if you've experienced it too.

In closing, I'd like to reiterate that Ico wasn't an incredibly fun game, nor is it one with any replay value whatsoever. It is entirely linear, despite its vast environment, and there's little to no sense of accomplishment once the final credits roll. But it's a unique and special game because of what it does to the gamer, and not what the gamer does with it, so to speak. If video games can be art, then Ico is as artistic as they come.

Radiant Historia

Late in high-school, early in college, there was one rule of thumb that I usually followed when buying video games. If Atlas published it, I would love it. Now in recent years, that always hasn't been true, but for Radiant Historia, Atlas is showing my some love that I'll never forget. Some people will call this game a Chrono Trigger clone. I would call this a challenge to Chrono Trigger.

The game's time travel took into place the idea of multiple timelines. One big decision you make on early in the game makes two separate worlds, that you can travel back and forth from, learning from different perspectives. The game also ends about thirty different times. Sometimes you make a decision and everyone dies or the world ends or the world ends and everyone dies. So you have to travel back to 'nodes' or important parts of your personal history. When you go back, you're the only one that knows the future events, but all of your party retains the experience of those events. So travel to the beginning before the final boss, and you'll be tearing up enemies like no one's business.

The turn-based style of RPG is pretty unique. Instead of selecting enemy 1, 2 or 3, you actually fight them on a 3x3 grid. Your attacks push them or pull them or shift their positions, moving creatures onto the same square in the grid. Their you can perform combos and cast magic that will hit everyone. I've seen this before in Megaman Battle Network, but that was real-time, and you had a 3x3 grid you needed to move and dodge on. This one was way more chill, and make it a puzzle to plan and think out your future attacks.

The story isn't new at all, hero, princess, some bad guys destroying the world through evil blah blah blah. But the characters really wow'ed me because no one fit in a technical stereotype. There was no healer, no all attacker, no all magic user. They all were spread very evenly across the usefulness rainbow. Some healed stronger than others, some used more magic and some had unique abilities that moved the enemies around or laid traps. It was nice that I didn't have to pick my favorites and only use them, because everyone brought something to the table.

There is a lot more to say about this game, but I really don't want to. Instead I'm going to leave it like this: If you're a fan of RPGs, this is a game for your library.

Final Fantasy II

If anything can really get me in the mood for more video game logging, it's a situation like the one I had this week. Most Final Fantasy games take me around a month to get through. Final Fantasy II however was started up on Sunday and beaten early Friday morning (or late Thursday night really). I went into this one expecting the worst- most of my friends rank it among the worst of the series. But actually, I liked it way more than I thought I would. I dare say I'd rank it ahead of I, III and V. Perhaps the fact that it was easy and quick is making me like it so much. But that's not to say difficulty level is the only thing the game had going for it. I liked the leveling up system here- you only gain experience based on your actions in battle. If you keep hacking away with an axe, you'll get better with an axe than any other weapon. The drawback here was that by the end of the game characters ended up unbalanced- my superpowerful characters were still barely healing themselves at all with cure spells, and the 'ultima magic' that plays such an important role in the story ended up getting tossed to the wayside as I kept fighting physically. But then, it's on the player to decide how balanced they want to make their party. It wasn't as nice as some of the more recent installments, but it's much better than the overly simple FFI and needlessly complex FFIII. The story is pretty basic, but it was at least consistent- aside from a few cheesy death scenes that force a connection to characters I never liked in the first place, you get a basic story of rebels vs. an empire (apparently there was a heavy Star Wars influence) with some interesting subplots- saving an enslaved village, rediscovering 'extinct' races, taking down huge airships, etc. Maybe the fact that I didn't feel like my time was being wasted is why I enjoyed FFII. When the game starts to wear out it's welcome, you've reached the end. Anyway, next up on the list? Final Fantasy VIII.