Friday, February 13, 2009
Gomorrah
A courier carrying money to the families of imprisoned gang members. A middleman and his apprentice facilitating the illegal dumping of countless tons of toxic waste. Two teenage wannabe gangsters obsessed with Scarface. An even younger boy going from observing the clans' drug trade surrounding him to a participant. A tailor making haute couture for a pittance in a blackmarket factory. All lives inextricably tied to the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia.
Gomorrrah isn't a movie that bothers to spell things out to its audience. After opening with a seemingly unrelated massacre in a solarium, it heedlessly plunges into these five story threads, and observes them with a documentarian's eye. Even when the director pulls out obvious cinematic tricks like completely killing all the sounds in a scene, it never ceases to feel authentic. Small wonder, since it's based on journalist Roberto Saviano's exposé that landed him in police protection when published, and has a completely convincing cast compromised of local amateurs. (Some of which have apparently since been arrested for their ties to the Camorra.) It's grungy, gritty and thoroughly unglamorizing of its subject matter, with violence shockingly casual and ever-threatening.
The movie gives a good sense of the poisonous web of crime and corruption that permeates everyday life in Naples, but the complete dedication to the characters' viewpoints comes at the expense of clarity with regards to the bigger picture, both withing the mafia and society at large. Saviano's book, for all it's flaws and tendency to ramble, never shied away from pointing out the way the Camorra's operations fit into the greater economy. And inside the movie itself, there's a war brewing within the clans, a splinter group of malcontents causing tension and an increasing bodycount, which initially seems to come completely out of left field. That is, until you remember the massacre that kicked off the movie an hour earlier.
Still, Gomorrah is an easy recommendation to make for anyone who doesn't mind their crime movies filled with uncomfortable amounts of real life.
Escape From City 17, Part 1
As someone who greatly enjoyed Half-Life 2, this made me smile. Youtube's low fidelity helps the bits cribbed from the game blend in better, but it's still pretty nifty, especially considering it was put together for $500.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
...and we exhale, and roll our eyes in unison
Goodbye to that ignorant, venal, criminal fuck. But credit where credit's due, that was quite a legacy:
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Today's recipe is liver, darling
A new year, and along with the customary Don't Be Fatty McFatass, You Fatty resolution, there's a corollary Cook Properly, You Lazy Bastard resolution.
My first go was at that unfairly maligned organ, the liver. I know, I know, I've suffered through the same school kitchen horrors, and the Finnish maksalaatikko (approximately liver casserole, if we consider casserole a superset of all things thrown into a pan in an oven) is an abomination, but when properly done, liver is bloody delicious. And like so many other dishes, what is needed to do it properly is bacon*.
It is also extemely easy. You will need:
Chop the onions and sautée them together with the bacon in a pan over medium high heat, until the bacon is done and the onions translucent. Remove. Quickly rub your spices onto the sides of the liver - I went with simple salt and pepper, but there's no reason you can't get more exotic - before tossing into the pan to fry in the bacon fat. Be careful not to overdo it, liver should preferrably be a little bit pink inside.
Aaand - you're done!
Well, you'll need something to serve it with as well, unless you fancy an all-protein diet, but I'll leave that up to you. I went with potatoes and lingonberry jam.
If you're a closet alcoholic like me, you can also grab that bottle of red wine and use all the flavour in the burned bits in your pan to improvise a red wine sauce. Brown a bit of flour to get your basic roux, add red wine, and boil off while loosening the bits in the pan until you have a consistency that pleases you.
Just make sure the bottle's a screw top, otherwise you'll *have* to drink all of it to make sure it doesn't spoil. And that way lies intoxication, madness and posts on the internet.
*If you think you've spotted a conflict between resolution A and corollary resolution B, you're mistaken. Bacon is a vegetable, and vegetables are good for you.
My first go was at that unfairly maligned organ, the liver. I know, I know, I've suffered through the same school kitchen horrors, and the Finnish maksalaatikko (approximately liver casserole, if we consider casserole a superset of all things thrown into a pan in an oven) is an abomination, but when properly done, liver is bloody delicious. And like so many other dishes, what is needed to do it properly is bacon*.
It is also extemely easy. You will need:
- Bacon
- Onions
- Liver
- Spices
Chop the onions and sautée them together with the bacon in a pan over medium high heat, until the bacon is done and the onions translucent. Remove. Quickly rub your spices onto the sides of the liver - I went with simple salt and pepper, but there's no reason you can't get more exotic - before tossing into the pan to fry in the bacon fat. Be careful not to overdo it, liver should preferrably be a little bit pink inside.
Aaand - you're done!
Well, you'll need something to serve it with as well, unless you fancy an all-protein diet, but I'll leave that up to you. I went with potatoes and lingonberry jam.
If you're a closet alcoholic like me, you can also grab that bottle of red wine and use all the flavour in the burned bits in your pan to improvise a red wine sauce. Brown a bit of flour to get your basic roux, add red wine, and boil off while loosening the bits in the pan until you have a consistency that pleases you.
Just make sure the bottle's a screw top, otherwise you'll *have* to drink all of it to make sure it doesn't spoil. And that way lies intoxication, madness and posts on the internet.
*If you think you've spotted a conflict between resolution A and corollary resolution B, you're mistaken. Bacon is a vegetable, and vegetables are good for you.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Cansei de Ser Sexy Is My Hot, Hot Sex
So I get home after a week of too long days and too little sleep, tired, cranky and with a fierce desire to drink, and announce this to the world by misquoting lyrics. Lyrics I annoyingly can't quite place, so I set out to track down the source. Not a hard thing to do, since I know the Gillen is responsible for putting it in my head, and quickly find Brazilian party rockers CSS with Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above.
And then I watch it again. With wine then beer then more then again. And again. And again. And all desire to hear Marilyn Manson wail about spiders washes away in a rush of nonsense lyrics and bouncy synths. It's impossible to stay miserable listening to it. It's fucking brilliant. And thanks to the wonder of the electric internets, the entire album is swiftly purchased and secure on my harddrive, and it's almost as good throughout.
There's some throwaway songs on there, and bits of it are in Portugese but that shouldn't turn anyone off in the slightest, because there's an overwhelming sense of playfulness and fun driving the thing, even on the angry parts. And even when the lyrics are in English rarely make sense. Meeting Paris Hilton is borderline incomprehensible because Pixie-like vocalist Lovefoxxx (yes, Lovefoxxx) pronounces beach and bitch identically. And when they do make sense , they're ridiculously punny, like "suck, suck, suck my art-hole" on the spiteful Art Bitch.
They're also rather naughty, which can only be a good thing.
Really, you should go give them a listen.
And then I watch it again. With wine then beer then more then again. And again. And again. And all desire to hear Marilyn Manson wail about spiders washes away in a rush of nonsense lyrics and bouncy synths. It's impossible to stay miserable listening to it. It's fucking brilliant. And thanks to the wonder of the electric internets, the entire album is swiftly purchased and secure on my harddrive, and it's almost as good throughout.
There's some throwaway songs on there, and bits of it are in Portugese but that shouldn't turn anyone off in the slightest, because there's an overwhelming sense of playfulness and fun driving the thing, even on the angry parts. And even when the lyrics are in English rarely make sense. Meeting Paris Hilton is borderline incomprehensible because Pixie-like vocalist Lovefoxxx (yes, Lovefoxxx) pronounces beach and bitch identically. And when they do make sense , they're ridiculously punny, like "suck, suck, suck my art-hole" on the spiteful Art Bitch.
They're also rather naughty, which can only be a good thing.
Really, you should go give them a listen.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Quantum of Solace
Remember Casino Royale? Of course you do. It was a fantastic reboot of the Bond franchise, cutting away the camp of the later Brosnan movies, and Daniel Craig creating the definitive Bond by sweating, bleeding and being hit on the balls a lot. It could've used a bit of trimming, but overall it left me really excited about Bond for the first time in a really long while.
Quantom of Solace completely pisses that away.
Let's pause for a brief wanky beret moment. Closure is the act of observing the parts but perceiving the whole. Filling in the blanks. Everytime you move between panels in a comic, or an edit happens in a movie, you're relating the frames spatially and temporally, as well as extrapolating from the visual elements in the frame. This takes brain power, and audience involvement. Knowing how to use it is absolutely key in visual storytelling.
At some point, someone had the idea of making more agressive use of this, sacrificing clarity in favour of getting in close and giving a more impressionistic view of action sequences in the hope that it would increase audience involvement. And you know, people complain about shaky cam a lot, but I'm fine with it when in the hands of a skilled director. Remember the Tangiers chase in the Bourne Ultimatum? Ten minutes of Bourne running after Desh, Desh closing in on Nikki, and the audience completely pinned to their seats.
Marc Forster is not a skilled action director. So he just throws a bunch of frenetic edits of moving bits at the screen, without little regard for establising spatial relation, in the mistaken hope that we'll mistake the confusion for excitement. There's a particularly egregious sequence kicking off the film, a car chase where it's fucking impossible to make out who's chasing who until it's over and you realise that Bond was in the car in the front becasue he's still moving and the car behind crashed.
This is a problem when the movie is 90% action. It's even more of a problem when the script gives the action sequences little purpose other than being loud, noisy padding.
Oddly for a movie that literally picks up an hour after Casino Royale, it has little interest in what made that movie good, or the fraught emotional state Bond was in at the end. Oh, there's some lipservice about how angry and hurt he is, but anytime there's danger of a real character moment, the movie panics and hurtles along to the next action sequence as if slowing down would put it in danger of being accosted by rape-goblins.
It's a real pity, because Daniel Craig is still as great in the part as ever, Judi Dench is in fine form, and Olga Kurylenko is a good Bond babe, but the script doesn't put them to good use. The only weak link among the principals is Mathieu Amalric as the hilariously ineffectual and unmenacing villain.
It's not worth writing off the rebooted franchise completely yet, but they'll have to do a lot better next time around.
At least it's better than Max Payne, which has an appealing performance by Kurylenko for all of her five minutes of screentime, and then goes back to being completely useless, lumpen pap. You'd think it wouldn't be too hard to get a pulp tale of revenge for murdered loved ones up to acceptable standards, but alas, the video game movie curse struck again.
Quantom of Solace completely pisses that away.
Let's pause for a brief wanky beret moment. Closure is the act of observing the parts but perceiving the whole. Filling in the blanks. Everytime you move between panels in a comic, or an edit happens in a movie, you're relating the frames spatially and temporally, as well as extrapolating from the visual elements in the frame. This takes brain power, and audience involvement. Knowing how to use it is absolutely key in visual storytelling.
At some point, someone had the idea of making more agressive use of this, sacrificing clarity in favour of getting in close and giving a more impressionistic view of action sequences in the hope that it would increase audience involvement. And you know, people complain about shaky cam a lot, but I'm fine with it when in the hands of a skilled director. Remember the Tangiers chase in the Bourne Ultimatum? Ten minutes of Bourne running after Desh, Desh closing in on Nikki, and the audience completely pinned to their seats.
Marc Forster is not a skilled action director. So he just throws a bunch of frenetic edits of moving bits at the screen, without little regard for establising spatial relation, in the mistaken hope that we'll mistake the confusion for excitement. There's a particularly egregious sequence kicking off the film, a car chase where it's fucking impossible to make out who's chasing who until it's over and you realise that Bond was in the car in the front becasue he's still moving and the car behind crashed.
This is a problem when the movie is 90% action. It's even more of a problem when the script gives the action sequences little purpose other than being loud, noisy padding.
Oddly for a movie that literally picks up an hour after Casino Royale, it has little interest in what made that movie good, or the fraught emotional state Bond was in at the end. Oh, there's some lipservice about how angry and hurt he is, but anytime there's danger of a real character moment, the movie panics and hurtles along to the next action sequence as if slowing down would put it in danger of being accosted by rape-goblins.
It's a real pity, because Daniel Craig is still as great in the part as ever, Judi Dench is in fine form, and Olga Kurylenko is a good Bond babe, but the script doesn't put them to good use. The only weak link among the principals is Mathieu Amalric as the hilariously ineffectual and unmenacing villain.
It's not worth writing off the rebooted franchise completely yet, but they'll have to do a lot better next time around.
At least it's better than Max Payne, which has an appealing performance by Kurylenko for all of her five minutes of screentime, and then goes back to being completely useless, lumpen pap. You'd think it wouldn't be too hard to get a pulp tale of revenge for murdered loved ones up to acceptable standards, but alas, the video game movie curse struck again.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Hello again blog
It's been a while, hasn't it? No, contrary to appearances, I did not disappear into a crippling WoW addiction. I rode out the trial and left it at that. I was just being lazy again.
The apparent irony of that last post was pretty funny though, wasn't it?
Even if it wasn't true.
I have to admit that I sometimes feel a slight temptation whenever I walk past a retail copy of WoW though. It's a very polished game, and Azeroth has a lot of sights to see. And I can definitely see why people get stuck in it. There's always a new little reward. *ding* You reach a new level. *ding* You get a new spell. *ding* You find a nifty item. *ding* You learn to make a better sandwich. *ding* You fi- *ding* Y- *ding* *ding* *ding*
It's a constant barrage of little happy pills of accomplishment.
It still can't escape the fundamental rubbishness of the genre though; the inability to affect your world meaningfully, all the while maintaining that you're super awesome one chosen hero of singleplayer rgps. But you can't fool me. I possess cleverness and functioning retinas. I can see that those nasty critters I genocided the minute before spawned back and nothing changed.
Which wouldn't be that big a problem if your genociding the evil critters was fun, but WoW's combat is neither visceral nor tactically challenging enough to make it entertaining. It's easy to do the math and see how an engagement will end the minute it starts, and then it's a dull couple of minutes to execute your plan. Unless of course an angry bear spawns in behind you, and then you die, because you're as fierce as a soggy kitten and can't handle angry bears in addition to the other enemies, and the camera refuses to let you spot their filthy spawning hides before you pull aggro. And then you swear copiously, while wondering why you're supposed to put up with this on the promise that it gets better after the first 20 or 30 levels.
Which leads you to putting the box back down in the store and move on to purchase other, more appealing games. Like Fallout 3. On which there will be many words later.
Unless shiny things happen.
You can't trust those shiny things.
The apparent irony of that last post was pretty funny though, wasn't it?
Even if it wasn't true.
I have to admit that I sometimes feel a slight temptation whenever I walk past a retail copy of WoW though. It's a very polished game, and Azeroth has a lot of sights to see. And I can definitely see why people get stuck in it. There's always a new little reward. *ding* You reach a new level. *ding* You get a new spell. *ding* You find a nifty item. *ding* You learn to make a better sandwich. *ding* You fi- *ding* Y- *ding* *ding* *ding*
It's a constant barrage of little happy pills of accomplishment.
It still can't escape the fundamental rubbishness of the genre though; the inability to affect your world meaningfully, all the while maintaining that you're super awesome one chosen hero of singleplayer rgps. But you can't fool me. I possess cleverness and functioning retinas. I can see that those nasty critters I genocided the minute before spawned back and nothing changed.
Which wouldn't be that big a problem if your genociding the evil critters was fun, but WoW's combat is neither visceral nor tactically challenging enough to make it entertaining. It's easy to do the math and see how an engagement will end the minute it starts, and then it's a dull couple of minutes to execute your plan. Unless of course an angry bear spawns in behind you, and then you die, because you're as fierce as a soggy kitten and can't handle angry bears in addition to the other enemies, and the camera refuses to let you spot their filthy spawning hides before you pull aggro. And then you swear copiously, while wondering why you're supposed to put up with this on the promise that it gets better after the first 20 or 30 levels.
Which leads you to putting the box back down in the store and move on to purchase other, more appealing games. Like Fallout 3. On which there will be many words later.
Unless shiny things happen.
You can't trust those shiny things.
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