R.I.P.D.

It was difficult NOT getting excited for this movie upon initial viewing of the trailer. Jeff Bridges doing a zany accent is reason enough to get intrigued, but throw him into what appears to be another Men in Black movie, and you have my full attention. Granted, it didn't look like the best film ever, but it had a decent concept plus...Jeff Bridges doing a character.

Audiences and critics alike weren't on board though, as the movie definitely tanked at the box office during opening week. That's alright, because we were going to see it anyway. Was it disappointing? Not really: but the movie was capable of so much more. It had a lot of potential and I'm merely disappointed that it didn't take advantage of the framework that it laid down (or ripped off from MiB). Instead, it was a decent and short romp that will soon be forgotten and never heard from again. The terrible box office performance all but guarantees that no sequel will be produced, which is unfortunate as there could be some good story to be told here.

1. It's a comedy, but relies too heavily on one joke: that the main characters are dead, yes, but inhabit avatars that look nothing like themselves (a "super hot" blonde and an old Chinese man). I swear, every scene made reference to this, and it gets a bit tired.

2. Roy's (Jeff Bridges) death story has so much potential, but is squandered. In MiB, Tommy Lee Jones' character (Kay) has some emotional weight and mystery, that adds a bit of depth to not only his character, but the film itself as shown through his great dynamic with Jay (Will Smith) - it's what really makes the film work. In R.I.P.D Roy's character is kind of flat, although kudos to Bridges for doing something different and interesting. When it comes down to it, we find out how Roy dies but it's a joke that gets repeated (again) and lacks any real substance. Kay's background comes around full circle by the end of the trilogy, and invokes an emotional response from us viewers, something that RIPD doesn't do even in the slightest. Which brings us to the third point:

3. The characters are not emotionally involving. I'm not sure if this is because I wasn't able to relate to them in any way, or if they just weren't fleshed out very well.

4. The dead-o's, or monsters, didn't look that great. Again, this is a situation where there was lots of potential, but I couldn't get over two things. One, they looked like Play-Doh; just poor CGI perhaps but they lacked any weight and were a jumbled mess of flesh. Two, I didn't understand why they looked the way they did, aside from getting creative with monster design. Wouldn't it be interesting if they took on a form that was related to they way they originally died? I didn't see much of that, especially in the "final boss" transformation.

5. The 3D was poor. Like, really bad. My friend complained about it and said it was beginning to make him feel nauseous. I noticed it a bit too. Granted, this could be the theatre's problem with the projection, but I can't help but think it was a rush 2D -> 3D conversion for a film that execs saw - upon completion - didn't warrant a lot of extra financial investment. I wish they would just keep it 2D.

For a movie that seemed to be ripped from Men in Black (both of which are based on comics, mind you) I wish RIPD borrowed a bit more. Perhaps the magic just wasn't there. I certainly believe this film deserves a bit more than the 10% Tomatometer rating and poor box office results.

Mix 2008 I

Do any of you remember mix tapes? Or even mix CDs? It feels a generation ago that any of us were making these compilations. With the advent of the iPod and deluge of MP3 players afterward, the compilation CD was rendered obsolete and a memory of old tech.

There's a problem though, in that many of our cars don't have connections for digital music players. Sure, mostly all of them do now, but you go back a few years and they all lack that AUX jack that makes it all come together. Instead, we're stuck with a single disc CD player and the radio. My car is a 2008 model and has that AUX jack so I don't have much of an excuse to pop in a CD anymore, aside from that fact that it is infinitely more convenient than getting the cable and everything plugged in (especially while driving - a big no no) and navigating the interface to start playing something. With a CD, I pull it out of the visor storage area and pop it in, the music is playing immediately. So there is much to be said for the CD mix these days, although I recognize I am in the minority here.

It's been a few years since I've made a mix CD. The one that has stayed in my car and gotten the most play is entitled MIX 2008 I. Sadly, there was never a II, or even a follow up the next year. The only time I remember actually burning another mix is when my friend and I drove to Chicago. I created a couple of playlists from my iTunes collection using Genius. So based on one track, I would simply burn the remainder of Genius recommended tracks to the disc. We never listened to them. They are lost.

MIX 2008 I is representative of a transition from a car without AUX input to one with, and an ushering in of the new, digital player era. On long trips I no longer needed a binder of discs, but simply a cradle to put my iPod in and that 3.5mm cable to connect to my car. This also brought on the era of podcasts, as talk radio on a multi-hour drive was always important, and sometimes the CBC just wasn't that interesting.

I wanted to share the track listing of MIX 2008 I

01. Swan Lake - Widow's Walk
02. Sufjan Stevens - We Are What You Say
03. Franz Ferdinand - Tell her Tonight
04. Placebo - The Bitter End
05. British Sea Power - It Ended on an Oily Stage
06. Interpol - Roland
07. The Strokes - Reptilia
08.
09. The Killers - On Top
10. Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby
11. The National - Mr. November
12. Panda Bear - Comfy In Nautica
13. Andrew Bird - Fake Palindromes
14. Peter Bjorn and John - Let's Call it Off
15. Radiohead - Reckoner
16. Spoon - Laffitte Don't Fail Me Now
17. The Decemberists - Summersong
18. Barenaked Ladies - Lover's in a Dangerous Time
19. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Mercy

There are no liner notes, no track listing on the CD: I used Shazam to recognize most of the track names. It failed me on track eight, which I'm not surprised at. It was an impulse addition of a track I thought I enjoyed, but it's nigh implorable. For the past five years I've pressed the skipped button more times than I care to remember. The rest of the album, however, is borderline genius.

We start off with Swan Lake moaning; I've had friends wrinkle their faces in disgust and confusion as this title is a bit different to begin with. However, it smooths out into a more typical song and easily transitions into the other tracks. Mind you, it was not a completely random order of tracks either: I tried my best to ensure they come into one another, so that you are not too startled or taken aback by a change in pace. And this is proven in the last few tracks of the album, which wind you down from the earlier, more aggressive tunes that run from Tell Her Tonight through to Ruby. Mr. November by the National has a way to transition from powerful yet subdued, which sets up the second half of the album. And finally, the compilation finishes on one of my favourite tunes, and what I think is the perfect ending.

After five years, it's a very relevant mix of great music.

And now you can enjoy it too, if you're on Rdio that is. Or perhaps I'll take the time and link to the songs on Youtube, if possible.

Pacific Rim

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that demands that the group gets together and make it into an actual event. It can be difficult these days to the point where we barely try to get everyone on board to see one movie at a specific time, and it seems to work out now that once or twice a year, we make it happen. Last summer, Looper was the movie that got us all out. This year, Pacific Rim.

And unlike Looper, we all walked away excited and happy with the movie. Was there any doubt though? Really? Right from the initial teaser trailers, we were all hooked: giant robots fighting giant monsters. That type of movie - in my opinion - has been long overdue for quite some time. Growing up, I watched a lot of Godzilla movies with my dad, so I'm partial to the giant monster thing. Sprinkle in some robots and you have a film that taps directly into all of our childhoods favourite memories. We gobbled it up.

There is lots of fan service here: the giant monsters, known as kaiju, begin invading Earth through a portal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. We can defend ourselves but it's not easy, so we create giant, human controlled robots called jaeger and engage them in a straight up brawl. That's right, the jaeger are equipped with rockets and plasma cannons, but it's the fists that do all the talking. It's almost comical, if it wasn't so awesome.

Each jaeger is piloted by two people, whose minds are joined together - the task of piloting and operating these giant mecha is too much for one brain to handle, so we threw two at it. The melding of minds is referred to as drifting, as the initial meld has both users going through the others memories and feelings. They become linked in a way that any physical communication can't match. In the previews, I thought the idea was a bit silly, but in practice it makes sense and actually adds weight to the story: imagine sharing the mind of somebody as they die, then going on to share your mind with another and have that individual experience those through you as well. It's interesting, and is significant when two pilots simply nod at one another later on: no words need to be spoken because they know exactly where they stand.

Anyway, the combat - which we all came here to see - is superb. Guillermo del Toro doesn't fall into the modern day action movie pitfall of too much editing and quick cutting to see the action: the two towering behemoths duke it out in gorgeous CGI glory in near slow motion. We get to see it all, and I love it every second of it. Kaiju and jaeger alike have a real sense of being, of some real weight on screen, which can often be lost in CGI creations. The designs of the robots and monsters practically beg for trading cards, action figures and more. Cities get destroyed as they should, but it doesn't feel excessive. Seeing Man of Steel recently, I balked at the city destruction caused by two super powered tiny men (aliens I suppose). There is much less destruction on screen here between two giants, but it feels proper, if that's possible.

There are faults of course: kaiju and jaegers change size constantly to fit the needs of the scene; the acting is flat but acceptable, and the story is not wholly original. But these are minor complaints that hold little significance to the enjoyment of the film. We came to see monsters versus robots, and that's exactly what we got. It's fun, loud, bombastic and the perfect film to see in theatres with a bunch of friends.

Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go is a film that is destined to slip under the radar of everyone, and it certainly did on mine. Asing its praises, but is more subtle in its accolades, than I take notice. And I grab it. Unfortunately that's only one step of the process, as having the movie and actually sitting down to watch it is another issue altogether. I was browsing my collection last night and saw the film there, and wondered: what is this? The brief description coined it as a science fiction film, which immediately grabs my attention. This, with a combination of some of the actors in it (Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield) and the fact that I at one point added it to my collection, was reason enough to hit play.
Not until I read a small blurb in a magazine or a forum post that doesn't quite

I was confused during the first act, but intrigued. The film opens with a few lines of text stating that in the 1950s, a medical breakthrough has allowed the human life expectancy to surpass 100 years. We start the film in the '60s, following a group of children in a school that seems a bit different than your typical school. They are encouraged to produce art, more than other subjects, and they seem to be isolated. Scary stories of what happens to children when they go beyond the fence keep everyone inside and guessing, almost living in a bit of fear if it wasn't for the fact that every child seems pretty happy. We're introduced to these stories through the addition of a new teacher to the schools ranks, who after a short time tells the students what their purpose is in life. She tells them to live their lives to the fullest with this knowledge, and is promptly fired from the school.

[Spoilers throughout the rest]

It's quite unsettling: the children are there to provide organ donations as they enter adulthood, and their own life expectancy is about thirty years. Typically they make two or three donations, at which point they complete. The child actors they got here do a brilliant job - apparently they would watch their adult counterparts act, and the adults could model their own acting based on the children. This method comes through brilliantly on screen, as we transition into their late teens/early twenties when the children are now living in The Cottages and we're introduced to our adult actors for the first time. There is a love triangle between Kathy (Mulligan), Tommy (Garfield) and Ruth (Knightley) that begins innocently in childhood and becomes more complex when we jump ahead.

Dejected, Kathy seems to be the odd one out as she follows her own path of becoming a carer - one of the organ donators who accepts the task of consoling other donors as they pass through to completion. She doesn't see the other two for ten years, where the film advances to once more. She then runs into Ruth again, who has just gone through two donations. Her time is nearly up. And so is Tommy's.

I've spent a bit of time basically spoiling the film through plot reveal, but you must understand that there is much more going on here. This isn't about the big reveal in the end, it's about the journey getting there. While this may be a science fiction film, it is a better human story about love, and the journey that we all take to accept our own mortality. This is what really got to me: we have three characters dealing with their fate in their own unique ways. It is something that I have thought about a lot over the past few years, and struggled with. Kathy has accepted her role, and knows that she will complete soon. She understands the bigger picture here: that they are all clones bred for organ harvesting (sounds quite grim, doesn't it?) and has a certain melancholy about the subject. She doesn't look back at her younger romance, she doesn't try to defer the inevitable. But she won't deny them, either. The other two deal with it in their own way, representative of my own feelings: anger, resentment, sadness, acceptance.

It's also difficult not to draw comparisons to The Island, a 2005 explosion fest starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. The first half of that film was very interesting, before it devolved into a generic, extended action chase sequence with enough effects and explosions to numb yourself. The beginning held promise on the ethics of cloning, harvesting parts for the super rich and living in a false, controlled society. Never Let Me Go is set in the real world, where these characters know their purpose and are (for the most part) accepting of it. I could only imagine the rest of society's feelings on these, of which we don't spend much time on at all. The focus is on the three love interests and their story. Suffice to say, the more personal, intimate story wins out here, although both have their place.

Never Let Me Go also advances into the question on whether these people have souls. This is why they are encouraged to produce art as children, and its this creation of art that Tommy undertakes to defer his own donations: if he can produce art that definitively shows that he has a soul, he may be spared. Although the film doesn't address it specifically, we, the audience, know that they do. It's not about art, it's about who they are as people. They act the same way we do, they feel the same way. These clones are equals, if not more. It's summed up beautifully in the last lines of the film, as Kathy ponders whether her fate is any different than those who receive the donations.

Beautifully acted, and wonderfully shot, I would have to recommend to anyone.

Heavy Rotation

Rdio has taken a bit of a backseat to life these days; with a change in jobs I don't have as many opportunities to put in headphones and set my mind on a task. My fear is that my music listening will fall way behind, so I'm actively trying to keep a few albums open, and Rdio playing a shuffled artist station whenever I can.

So far so good, but I've definitely hit a snag, in that I just keep listening to a few albums that I discovered just a few months ago. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as its telling of the quality of these albums, right?

I was asked recently what I've been listening to, and this post has been sitting in draft for a while. So here you go, my top four albums this past month!

Sea Wolf - Old World Romance

John Grant - Pale Green Ghosts

Gold & Youth - Beyond Wilderness

Young Galaxy - Ultramarine

Six Months of Movies: Part 2: More Movies

I've been awaiting this day anxiously and with a certain giddiness. Six months have passed. That's six more months of movie watching and movie stats to extract from. More comparisons. And it shall be glorious, right?

Last time I chronicled the time period of July 2012 through to December 2012. Check out the post to refresh your memory, if you like. This time around, we'll be going over January 2013 through the end of June 2013. This is exciting.

Fig 1; January 2013 to June 2013

Figure 1, above outlines the total number of movies watched per month. We managed to hit a record high here of 16 in June, which is pretty exciting and a direct result of me doing split movies. This is the practice of watching half a movie one night, then finishing the second night. A part of me thinks this is cheating in some way, that a view should be encapsulated in one sitting. But, that's not how it works here right now. Sixteen may sound like a lot, but it seems to standard for June. You can see that in June 2011 I took in 17 movies, and rest assured there was little splitting going on. Quite simply, June is a major movie month with plenty of new releases coming to theatres. I went at least once a week every week.

Fig 2; 2011 to 2013 comparison

Now we can compare the same period in 2013 to 2011, in figure 2 above. As I mentioned before, June is a monster month for movies, with 16 in 2013 and 17 in 2011. While this year saw a steady decline of movies over the months, 2011 was more up and down. The decline this year is due directly to an increased consumption of video games, specifically: Borderlands. I typically spend my Friday and Saturday nights playing at my buddy's place, where before we would typically take in a movie or two on each of those nights. 

Fig 3; Year 1 to Year 2

A very basic comparison of a full twelve months of movies, from July 2010 to June 2011, and July 2012 to June 2013. Unfortunately I didn't record movies for an entire year; fortunately I started recording at the right time for an even comparison between two years. While figure 3 may illustrate a large gap, it's quite small: 134 in year one and 128 in year two.

And there you have it, an average of 131 movies per year. How does that break down?

• 2.5 movies per week.
• 10.9 movies per month
• June is the highest consumption at 33 movies
• August is the lowest consumption at 13 movies

Fig 4; Two Years of Movies

Finally, figure 4 shows us a combined total of movies, per month, between years 1 and 2. As noted above, June is the highest at 33. What is noteworthy here is the rollercoaster view appearing. A dip before and after June, when clearly most movies are released. August and March/April/May are lowest, as we ramp up to the summer movie season and come off it in August with a lull in releases. 

XBox One

A memorable moment in my gaming career has been watching the live unvieling of the XBox 360 on television with my friend. We had worked ourselves up into an excitement that neither of us have seen before, and there is no doubt that the viral marketing and hype that Microsoft put out there was to blame. The event came and went, and a few short months after launch, we both picked up 360s.

For the past seven years, we have enjoyed them immensely, but our gaming interests and habits have changed a bit, his more than my own (re: bachelor lifestyle). The rumour mill started up and we were looking at the announcement of new systems coming up pretty soon, and I found myself quite excited. May 2013 couldn't come soon enough, and when the day came, I was relatively glued to my monitor at work, watching the presentation and refreshing the live blog at the same time.

Disappointment.

The XBox One - as the name was announced that day - was something else; it was no 360, and it wasn't the natural evolution that I (and many more) were hoping for. The hour long presentation showcased how the One would take over your cable box and allow instant swapping between games, movies and live television. It talked about sports and the new Kinect. They talked about just a couple of games, with a major focus on the next Call of Duty. All of which, I had little interest in.

We quickly determined that this XBox was not meant for us, or at the very least, Microsoft has told me that I am not their primary target market anymore.

I cut cable years ago.
I avoided the Kinect and dislike motion gaming.
I don't buy sports games, or watch sports.
I don't buy or play Call of Duty (unless it's really cheap).

Fast forward a bit to the next Microsoft press conference (pre-E3 one) in the beginning of June and we get into the real juice of the next generation.

It's not good.

DRM all over. It's confusing. You have to install every game. You must keep Kinect connected at all times. Kinect is always listening. Privacy? You can't lend games - or you can, but it's restricted and complicated. You can't really buy used games - you can but you'll pay a fee. It's always online.

Everything. Has. Changed.

And it sucks.

The One was no longer a gaming console: it was an always listening mass-media consumption device that just so happened to play games, and the restrictions that were put on playing games was ridiculous (especially for us casual gamers). Always on internet connection? Seriously? The problem with it all is that it bore little relevance to myself: I rarely have internet problems, and I'm always online.

But it's the principle of it all, right? The worst offender is the Kinect, and why am I being forced to buy hardware that I don't have any interest in using. I listened to a great comment that noted that the new Kinect is an amazing piece of hardware, that eclipses the previous version. But there is no reason why this new hardware is being included, or how it's going to make our games better. We're just told it is, and we have to roll with it. If you're ever looking for an example of something being shoved down the throats of consumers, take this new Kinect as the prime. Judging by the number of titles on the shelves and the amount that people talk about the Kinect, it's safe for me to say it was a relative failure, and hasn't added much to gaming. So the bundle is going to drive up the price, which is sitting at $499.

$499 for the One, while the PS4 slides in at $399. That's just killer. Supposedly Sony removed their camera/Kinect from the bundle to get it down that low, so please Microsoft, do the same thing.

A couple of short weeks after all this nonsense, Microsoft pulled a one eighty and removed all the lending, used game and online requirements from the system. The backlash was that high, the consumer has spoken.

This is good news for everyone, but it doesn't heal the massive wound that Microsoft dealt out. It will take time for this to heal, and I'm not convinced that they are in a position to fully recover. And an important thing to note is that there is nothing to stop them from slowly rolling this stuff out over the course of the system's life.

A few people have spoken out to say that the reversal is going to deny us some neat new functionality. Like "family sharing" where you could actually share one game license to others as long as you don't play at the same time. It sounds like you will also need the disc in the tray while playing now as well. Basically it's back to where the 360 functions right now. Microsoft had some cool ideas, but didn't communicate these well: these new features may have been killer, but they didn't talk about how they would work. Instead, they left the hivemind to spin everything out of control and the internet being what it is, spun it into an abyss.

After all this time, I had much more faith that MS would do the "right" thing, and we would get a nice console that played games and had a similar controller to the 360. I just want some new graphics, really.

Sony is here to fill the void. They have been taking notes on every misstep they took with the PS3 (and there were lots) and worked to correct all of them. At least, from what we can see so far. The PS4 looks like a pure gaming machine, which is exactly what I'm looking for.

In the end, it's all white noise. I've always been of the mind to wait until the system launches and we see how things turn out. The good and bad of it, is that the system can dramatically change in a short period of time. The industry can react: sending out new firmware can open up or close down your system. When the dust settles, in time, I will own all of them. Or perhaps I'll move to PC? My 360 has lots of life in it, and there is a huge stack of games waiting to be played. After all, it's the games that matter, and the games that make or break it.