Destiny

It pains me almost - but not completely - by how much I was dismayed and on the fence about Bungie's latest epic, Destiny, just a short two weeks ago. The game didn't sell me initially, but I persevered. Persevered mainly by my friends who were well advanced into the game: they confirmed some of my complaints, but they also intrigued me to continue onward. So I did, putting a few hours in over the course of a few days, then the flood gates opened and I was pouring myself in - all the way in.

First off, is the story, or lack thereof. Yes, I know that it's not necessarily the focus here, but I've quite enjoyed playing through the campaign mode of these first person shooters, especially the Halo series. The story is here, but it feels like it's officially in the backseat here, with the focus being on the "open world" concept that they've built here. The world is impressive, and I'll talk about it more later. It just doesn't feel like anything is happening on the main story campaigns, perhaps because I'm encouraged to go into the overworld and do side-missions and patrols to help level my character so that I can, in fact, progress through the story without it being overly difficult. In those patrols, I would revisit areas over and over, then again (or previously) in story missions. The big open world feels a bit smaller when I've gone there a few times already. This is exactly what happened on the Moon, where I performed the first mission, then did a dozen or so patrol missions with my friend. We went all over the place and yes, it was great fun. The next day I would start a story mission that took me into the exact places I had just explored, but they were now filled with different enemies, narrative and cut scenes. The oomph of the story - of the reveal - was diminished.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

The setup of the game is simple, but don't let that deceive you: we open on a small boy mourning
over a grave, then a cut scene that tells us the grave belongs to his mother, who was lost at sea. He was there: he tried to help, but couldn't save her. The boy is interrupted by his older brother, who is with their father. The father has fallen ill, and now it's your first task to bring him home in a cart that requires the two brothers to work together to operate. This is where you're introduced to the game's core, innovative control scheme. The left side of the controller (that is, the left stick and left shoulder trigger button) control the older brother, and the right side of the controller belongs to the little brother. Your viewpoint is akin to a bird's eye view, but will zoom in and out as necessary and to always display the two brothers on screen at once.

I must say, I don't think I ever fully got used to the controls. There were many, many moments though when the control scheme synergized and felt incredibly natural and fluid, allowing me to solve puzzles and claim a sense of accomplishment. Other times, I was acutely aware that my brain wouldn't allow the little brother to run left unless he was behind the big brother - like the left stick had to be "first" on the screen. The opposite holds true: when moving the two brothers right, the little brother (the right control stick) had to be on the right of the screen. But you could move them completely independently, and often times I would. There are many moments - many puzzles - that has one of the brothers staying put while the other throws a switch. The puzzles get more complex, and involve timely use of the action triggers. Swinging the two from point to point in later levels required concentration and thought.

As a result, I became conscious of how careful I would become with various puzzles. This is in stark contrast to other games, where typically you're rewarded with going through things as quickly as possible, or you just feel the need to do so on your own anyway. Patience was abundant while playing this game. You're rewarded with beautiful vistas, incredible environments and wonderful small touches throughout. As the brothers begin their journey for medicine, you run through the town and can interact with people and things, including a small girl with a ball. You can throw the ball around, play "monkey in the middle" and even throw that ball down a well, if you're so inclined. There are benches all over the world, representing an opportunity to view the world you're about to enter, or give you a break from adventuring to appreciate the beauty of the landscape.

All the characters speak in gibberish, so it's up to you to identify the subtleties in their mannerisms and their interactions with the environment to progress. It's not a difficult game by any means: clocking in at around three hours, the game is more of an experience than anything else, one which I highly recommend. And from here, there will be spoilers. If you plan on playing, I recommend leaving the article now.

PlayStation 4

The other day, I bought a PS4. It seemed initially to be a result of the perfect combination of peer pressure, (too much) disposable income, peer pressure and finally, peer pressure. While I'm eager and always willing to blame my friends for my seemingly absurd purchases, I have nobody to blame but myself. This allows me to step back and look at the long, storied history of factors that put myself in a Wal-Mart at 7:20am on a Thursday morning, asking for - and subsequently - purchasing the latest iteration of Sony's home video game console.

Six Months of Movies: January to June 2014

Another six months has gone by and I didn't even notice, hence the late nature of this post. It's not exactly a high priority either, but decided to get around to it. Instead of just giving boring old numbers, I figured I would provide some information on the movies I watched this past six months. But first, the numbers.

Fig 1. January 2014 to June 2014

Nothing too exciting to report here, aside from consistency. No more than 15 movies in a month, and no less than nine. If I knew I was dipping into single digits, I would have picked up the slack.

Fig 2. January to June Year by Year Comparison

This comparison between the same period in 2014, 2013 and 2011 speaks more to the consistency I mentioned before. 2013 had a major dip in it, and 2011 was very much more up and down, whereas 2014 has been less prone to those fluctuations. In terms of total viewed, it's pretty steady throughout the years.

2014: 73 movies
2013: 67 movies
2011: 70 movies

What type of movies did I take in for 2014? We can start first by speaking to the quality of the film, as when I record a view, I also record a rating to it, on a scale of one to five stars.

Four movies scored 4.5/5, those being: Inception, The Dark Knight, TRON: Legacy and Senna.

Quite a few more scored 4. Many of these were movies I've seen before, save these films which have a late 2013 or 2014 release: Edge of Tomorrow, Gravity, The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Wolf of Wall Street.

In the first six months of 2014, I've seen 12 movies actually released in 2014, 23 from 2013 and 16 from before 1995.

The worst two movies I saw in this period were Nurse 3-D and The Art of the Steal, sitting at 1 and 1.5 stars respectively. There are quite a few movies sitting at 2 stars, which I don't believe: Critters and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai were good, fun movies but somehow got a low rating. Pompeii and Robocop (the remake) got a deserved score of 2, and both were released in 2014.

The overall average is 3.1 stars, which makes sense.

When will I watch a 5 out of 5 movie?

Fan Expo 2014

This year was going to be a bit different. Mainly, I wasn't going to lie to myself. Every year before The Expo, I tell myself that I'm going to inventory my comics, and create a list of "wants" for the show. It could be as simple as filling in some gaps to complete a run, or a hunt for a specific storyline that I'm interested in. One year, I actually did an inventory, one that I refer back to at times, but one that is also incomplete in both accuracy and details. Over the years, I've picked up a few items but have failed to update that inventory. The end result is often aimless wandering and random purchases - if I can bring myself to purchase anything at all. Twenty fourteen though, this year will be different. And it was.

The Amazing Spider-Man issue #300 can be considered a holy grail for my collection, if you will. When I
was younger and started collecting, the run of comics done by artists Todd McFarlane and Erik Larsen were fresh in the back issue bins. I saved up my allowance over the course of a few weeks to buy Amazing Spider-Man #316, with a brilliant cover by McFarlane, depicting Venom taking down our titular hero. It's an aggressive cover, which also happens to be Venom's first "cover appearance," with bold colours, fast action lines and great peril. I couldn't really buy more than that, but would slowly pick up issues where I could, resulting in a perfect candidate to complete at something like the Fan Expo.

In the weeks leading up to the Expo, I decided I would complete the run from issue #300 to #400, which would take approximately forty issues - more than I thought, but quite attainable. The main obstacle, would be #300. Over the eight years I've been attending Fan Expo, I've kept an eye on the price - it was high, then seemingly came down for a bit but has now steadily rose again. I believe the advent of grading and the general age and increased interest in comics contributes to the increase in price, but mainly grading. At the show, I saw graded issues ranging from $240 to $900, and ungraded issues from $130 to $600. I was hoping not to spend more than $100 on the single issue. Something that could be done, perhaps through eBay, but I wasn't certain on the condition that the comic would be in for such a price. Indeed, I hadn't thought of condition at all for anything.

At the Expo, I undertook my task and picked up six issues, all early 300's with McFarlane's art. They were half price, their condition looked decent and they were serving their purpose for my task. It felt good. It felt great, actually. Rifling through back issue bins, on the hunt, transported me back to the prime of my collecting days. I kept an eye out for #300 and saw it everywhere, but the price was something I wasn't prepared for. Then I saw something: a Marvel Omnibus that collected The Amazing Spider-Man issues #296-329, and one issue from Spectacular. The collected works focuses on the collaboration of writer David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane, but also features some other artists (including Larsen). It happens to collect many of the issues I am looking for, including the holy grail itself.

The book is massive at over 800 pages. It has substance. It would intimidate the other books on the shelf. It was also $100. Breaking that down, would be a decent value for each issue inside, and quite the value, considering that many of those issues go for more than $10 or $20 a piece. I put it back on the table, looked around, then picked it up again. Could I do this? I've never spent so much on a book before. I put it down, and walked away. My mind needed to be cleared up, but it was full of questions. Did I want individual issues? Was having the originals that important? Was it a waste? Did I want to collect, or read? Both?

I came back to the vendor with my mind mad up: I was going to buy it, and I did. The lady handing the cash gave me a big smile, said she saw it in my eyes that I couldn't resist the book. I really couldn't. In my walk, I looked the book up on Amazon and saw that it was selling for more than the asking price at the show, and it could very well have been out of print. One commented that it's in your best interest to sell your individual copies and buy this with the profits. The pages are glossy, the colour has been reconstructed and the ads stripped away. There is a small amount of bonus content - not much, but that wasn't the point. You got everything here, in better shape and clarity than you would the individual issues.

When I got back to my friend's place I quickly opened it up, and was able to compare the same pages within to one of the issues I bought separately. The difference was astounding, and I knew then, that I made the right decision. It would be read, enjoyed and displayed on the shelf, instead of hidden away in long boxes that haven't seen the light of day in years. I was no longer needing to collect every issue in the run from #300 to #400, although I will certainly keep an eye out for issues that I'm missing and are not covered in this collection. It was the right thing to do: I knew that I wasn't the same collector as I was twenty years ago, and didn't need to recreate that person. For the first time, I've acknowledged and accepted where I am and what I was doing in terms of comic collecting. The moment of clarity occurred in the seething masses of comic book fans during the Fan Expo: a chaotic environment, to be sure. It's on that show floor that decisions are made, and boys become comic book men.

As a result, my experience at the Fan Expo this year was absolutely positive. I picked up a few other nice items, and my friend Cale fulfilled his goals. We tried something a little different this year, in that we split up a couple of times to tend to our vices. Cale, in the hunt for video games and merch, and Ryebone, on the hunt for deeply discounted comics. We lost ourselves in time. We arrived early at the Expo, and stayed later than usual. Not until we found ourselves in the car heading home did we pay attention to the screams of our aching feet, or feeling the pain in my shoulder from carrying around a bag full of hardcover comics. Like children, we got home and splayed our bounty in front of Cale's wife, gushing over the deal and significance of each item. It was a ritual that I was fast falling in love with: a modern incarnation of showing your parents your haul from the comic book shop, only to be met with rolled eyes and bemused laughter.

It's time to cross some items off the list, and add new ones. We're only a few days past the event, and I'm ready for next year.

Cloud Atlas

You know what really sucks? Roger Ebert passed away over a year ago now. There are very few movie reviewers that I would actively go out and read on a regular basis, or hunt down their opinion on, but Ebert was the top. We didn't always agree, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for his writing, his knowledge and opinions on all things movies. In the past few movies I've watched, I make a cursory Google search for that film. I land upon the basic sites, like iMDB and Wikipedia, where I can gather some information. Then, I see just below those results, articles from other sites, including reviews. And Ebert's articles always seem to be on the first page. Reading his reviews on movies that I'm just discovering now brings about mixed emotions: sadness, that he is gone and can't hear his opinions anymore, but happiness as well, for the contributions that he shared with us. Cloud Atlas is the latest movie where I sought out Ebert's column, and was again pleased to find a well written article that didn't try to pick apart the film or attempt to explain how it all comes together. This particular quote stands out to me:

I gave up any attempt to work out the logical connections between the segments, stories and characters. What was important was that I set my mind free to play.

His approach to simply consume the movie as is stood out to me, and made me realize that I perhaps tried to watch it incorrectly - if such a thing is possible. Halfway through the film I did just this though, as I consumed without the concern of trying to delve into secret meanings or even trying to tie the pieces of the film together. I quite enjoyed it, and yes, will be making plans to watch it again.

Cloud Atlas was a difficult film to finally sit through. It was difficult to find anybody to go see this movie with initially, so I resolved to go - on a Sunday afternoon - by myself. It's lengthy, clocking in at just under three hours, but the buzz surrounding the film sold me. I grabbed a quick lunch and made my way to the theatre, at which point my phone buzzed with a phone call, which was a bit different than the typical texts. It wasn't anything important, but a simple invitation from a friend to spend the afternoon visiting local sites. In an effort not to decline social invitations, I accepted, and put Cloud Atlas off. I never had a chance to go back to the theatre to see it.

After some time, it became available for home viewing and my same friend from before said we need to watch it together, which I would love to do. But schedules happen, days slip by, followed by months. Finally, something gives, and my friend cannot wait any longer - I don't blame him, and he tells me he would love to watch it again. Unfortunately there were more pressing things, and it never came to be. Vdio launched, and I signed up. It was the video offshoot of Rdio, which I absolutely adored. However, Vdio wasn't the same all you can eat monthly cost like Netflix was. You had to buy movies, which I had very little interest in doing digitally (I maintain a selection of physical Bluray films). The service was struggling, so they gave me $25 of credit to buy anything on the store. I went and immediately spent that credit on Cloud Atlas. However, it wasn't meant to be: Vdio went under a few months later and I lost access to the movie.

Visiting with my parents, they decided to give Cloud Atlas a try. I think we got about thirty minutes into the film before they wanted to turn it off. It seemed complicated, jarringly cutting between time periods. And it was three hours long. I was beginning to think it wasn't meant to be. That was, until a couple of weeks ago, when I stumbled upon the Bluray copy of Cloud Atlas at a very reasonable rate. Another friend said, without question, purchase the film and watch it. So I did.

I wasn't blown away. Expectations had grown over the past two years to a degree that wouldn't allow me to reach that level of satisfaction with the film. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of the film either, or really what type of movie it was. The actors each play many different roles in the film, which is composed of six core time periods. You get an introduction to each time period, just as you would with any story. They seem unrelated to begin with, and we keep jumping from one to another. We discover that each timeline is its own story, and slowly, we star to see parallels running between them. Maybe they are related. Events in some timelines seem to have an effect on others. Is time a loop? Do they run in parallel?

The entire thing is masterfully put together. Following each story is effortless - for the most part - and before you know it, the film comes to a conclusion that seems to pull it all together. The actors do a fantastic job, and are often unrecognizable in their various roles. When the credits roll, they give you images of each of them, and I was pleasantly surprised as many of them I had no idea were acting in a part that I had just watched for the past three hours. The film is ambitious, and delivers on different levels. No, I didn't understand everything, but I know now that I don't need to. I'll finish with another quote from Ebert's review, which can be found here.

But, oh, what a film this is! And what a demonstration of the magical, dreamlike qualities of the cinema. And what an opportunity for the actors. And what a leap by the directors, who free themselves from the chains of narrative continuity. And then the wisdom of the old man staring into the flames makes perfect sense.

The Stuff

Starting a story can be difficult, I understand. It's an important part of the story structure, and when done properly or even differently, can draw you in, turn you away, or set the tone for what is to come. Years ago I had a thought that I should put together a web site that featured the opening credits of various movies. There must be a neat history lesson to learn here, but what I saw in many modern films is the complete lack of opening credits. Oftentimes, you don't even get the title of the movie until the very end, which can help immerse you into the film from the beginning then slap your face at the end to wake you up from the alternate reality you've just sat through to remind you that it's been a movie the entire time. A final blow to follow up on perhaps a revelatory ending. Or maybe the title comes up slowly, to ease you back into the real world.

When you put a movie on, before the beginning of the story, you get all the logos of the various studios involved in the creation of the film. This has become an art form upon itself, as more movies have taken it upon themselves to modify the logo a bit to suit the film's tone. The logos are typically animated, and run for ten to fifteen seconds. On some productions, you'll sit there for an entire minute before the movie starts, which is either frustrating, or a helpful aide to ease you into the experience.

The Stuff does it a bit differently. As it casts aside any association with production studios, the first frame jumps into the setup of the story, producing a jarring effect that doesn't really let up for the rest of the story. I guess, you could say, it helps set the tone for the rest of the movie, as it does away with any pretense that this is a legitimate film. Or maybe the copy of the movie we were watching had that element cut out - which is highly unlikely as it's never happened before. The scene is pretty simple and plays out the brief description of the film I read beforehand: a miner discovers a white ooze coming out of the ground, tastes it to find that it's delicious, then immediately declares that he can make a fortune selling it. Then we get a bit of overlay credits, including the title of the film, which affirms to me that we didn't just start the movie ten minutes in.

We're quickly introduced to Mo, a corporate saboteur who takes a contract from the ice cream industry to look into how the white ooze is made, as it is now packaged and sold as The Stuff. Mo is played by Michael Moriarty with an absolute genius performance, nearly breaking the fourth wall in scenes so ridiculous that they must have gone through many takes to get. He works with what he gets though, with some truly ridiculous dialogue, but is also given an opportunity to improvise in many of the scenes. So much of his dialogue is delivered through a half smile, that it's either a perfectly content, smug, confident character or it's just that laughable. Either way, it's an absolute treat to watch.

A young boy sees The Stuff moving on its own inside his family's refrigerator and freaks out - of course, but takes it to a whole new level by going on a rampage in the grocery store. The kid really plays it up, and tries to evade his family who are now under the control of the white ooze. It doesn't take long before he teams up with Mo (and is quickly abandoned without much thought) to discover the source of The Stuff and what it's doing to the populace of the country. They're joined by the woman who spearheaded the advertising campaign to make The Stuff as popular as it is, although at one point she mentions that it practically sells itself. The crew is also joined for a bit by "Chocolate Chip Charlie," who if I can recall was a CEO of a cookie company who has been kicked aside. So he fights back with his fists, which leads us into some nice comedic, gruesome fights.

The film moves along at a good pace, typically getting right into the substance of each scene. I think the movie achieves more than it's B-Movie goals, providing us with cult movie fuel by embracing the absurd and running with it. Larry Cohen, the director, was aiming to put a bit of commentary in on consumerism in the 80's, with an exaggerated parallel to the cigarette and alcohol industry: it may be bad for us, but we can't stop ourselves from consuming more and the overbearing advertising serves as a reminder and push to use/drink/ eat more. Just as in Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, victims of The Stuff become zombies, their minds controlled and bent on spreading the ooze to more carriers. Messages of corporate greed, control and corruption are hammered home, especially after the day has been saved. The film has been described as a bit of a time capsule for the decade, so it's a fascinating way to look back at the years where I was just a child, oblivious to it all but still very much part of it.

"Enough is never enough"

Computer Build of 2014: Murney

All the parts were spread in front of me on the table. They beckoned my name, but they felt disjointed; like
they didn't belong where they were. They knew their place and were confused why they weren't there, and it's entirely my fault. On a slow Thursday at work, I took the plunge and began ordering computer parts online. Months of research had thrown me into analysis paralysis. It took one post - a recommended system - to snap me out of it into the purchasing mode. It was quick; it was furious; it was expensive. Twelve hours later my credit card would be locked, and I would spend twenty minutes on the phone taking quizzes about my credit history and my shopping habits over the past twenty four hours. My credit card company was staging a kind of pre-intervention before my habit spun out of control too quickly.

Enemy

I wasn't aware of the term 'ambigious cinema' until after reading some reviews of Denis Villeneuve's latest
film, ENEMY. After seeing the term, I was washed over with happiness as it instantly set alight to a list of films in memory that would instantly fall under the label. Those movies were ambiguous enough, that I didn't want the added stress of having to file it away in my mind some where. The way I see it, the distribution of people that enjoy these films is polarizing, although, I will attempt to buck the trend and put myself in the middle (and upon further thinking, skew myself toward enjoyment moreso than hatred). You see it happening more often, but not in Hollywood. Films like THE GREY slip by with an ambiguous ending, although it was easier to process and interpret your own ending. I presume that everybody in the audience who groaned at the lack of the ending are not fans of this type of cinema. With THE GREY, you could easily draw your own meaning. With ENEMY, the task is not so clear. In fact, the film works against interpretation, creating abstraction with the intent to bewilder. As the credits fade onto screen at the end of the film, you're going to sit there, staring blankly with your mouth open. Your brain goes into a desperation mode, as it reaches the far corners of your cob-webbed mind looking for meaning.

This is especially true for the very end scene of ENEMY.

Again, you're either going to really like that, or absolutely hate it. I can sympathize with both, although be warned, I really did enjoy the ending. One of the first thoughts you grab onto was one my friend said: "you can see why it didn't have a wide release." It's almost a shame, but it's also the harsh truth. You know there must be meaning, right? You're just missing it. You try to draw the line from beginning to end, connecting some of the strange imagery, story and characters together. This may be the first mistake: lines don't always connect, and they don't always run straight. Consider time, for a moment. It's linear: past, present and future. But expand into the idea that time is not straight. Time is cyclical, perhaps. Time overlaps on itself. I really don't want to get too much into what I drew out of the film, so as to not spoil the experience for you. I knew next to nothing about this film, aside from Jake Gyllenhaal's killer beard and it being filmed in Toronto. The tagline reads "A man seeks out his exact look-alike after spotting him in a movie." It seems simple enough, and it is - but it's not. It truly was an incredible experience.

So in the spirit of ambiguous cinema, you may be reading an incredibly ambiguous review, if you can even call it a review.

Jake's performance is top notch, as he plays two characters in one film where the subleties between the two are incredibly important. They are look-alikes in the most literal sense of the term. There are times when you're not sure which one you're seeing, especially early on. And when you discover that they are identical, your mind will race back to see if you've been fooled earlier in the film. It won't have much time though, as you become preoccupied with the current scene. ENEMY does not do what you expect, as you sit on the edge of your seat throughout. I couldn't stop thinking about what I would do if I came across my doppelganger in a situation like this. The movie is vividly coloured yellow. What does it mean? Is the movie about one man's struggle with himself? Is it a struggle against a greater power? The film moves slowly about, although the pacing is actually quite tight, as is every scene.

Just like that, I'll end this entry. ENEMY is a movie that begs to seen multiple times, and it deserves it too. It's not meant to be understood immediately: like a fine piece of art you can revisit it to discover something new, or look for further meaning. Discuss it with friends, read reviews. Watch it with an open mind. It deserves to be seen.

Feed the Voices: The Book

The trip up to see my family is a long one; clocking in at nearly six hours, it leaves me quite a bit of time for thought (which can be dangerous) and listening opportunities (be they podcasts or music). I was making the journey in February of 2013, when my thoughts drifted toward one of my good friends and how I've neglected his birthday nearly every single year. We have done a bit of a gift exchange in the past, which was always a book or DVD/Bluray, but the guilt for not actually being there on the day itself was starting to tear at me. And instead of apologizing (again and again) I decided to buy my apology in a heart felt gift.

We started blogging around the same time, and have encouraged one another to continue throughout the years. There would be long talks on content, site statistics and generally: doing more with the blog than simply write and post. We played around with the idea of putting our posts together into a book. Creating something physical out of the virtual was a noble goal, and brought with it a certain weight to what we were spending our time doing. In this online world, the printed word is still held with a regard of realism.