Coming Soon: A New Perspective on Classic Video Games

Starting very, very soon, we will return and begin a new series focusing on old-school video games.  The tentative title of the series is the Classic Gaming Duel (that's "Duel" not "Dual") Retrospective, in which my friend Craig and I will offer two parallel opinions and perspectives on classic titles spanning multiple platforms.  The articles will be broken down to provide a complete chronicling of our return experience to the game and will also include a final opinion and an individual score from both of us.  We will also occasionally provide insight into the titles’ development teams, important contributions to the medium and other notable elements.  As some games are longer than others, naturally articles could span multiple publications and visitations.

If you love games, and you love to know more about where today’s games were born, you will love what we have in store.  The first game has yet to be named but the first article should be ready this week. 

A Little-Late Film Review: Skyline (2010)

Oh, boy. Well I should probably start off with the following statement: I hated this movie. That said, let me go into some detail as to why. From start to finish, Skyline is a predictable, uninspired mess of a movie. This thrill-free thriller spends it’s whole 90 minute run trying to look “awesome” and feigns cool by inserting cheap special effects, possibly in an attempt to overshadow the horrible screenplay.

Skyline’s paper-thin plot follows Jarred (Eric Balfour, who spends the movie looking like he just stumbled out of a party at Charlie Sheen‘s house) and Elaine (played by Scottie Thompson, who looks as though she stumbled out of a Calvin Klein catalog into Charlie Sheen’s house) who arrive in L.A. to meet their friend Terry (Donald Faison; the other guy from Scrubs) who is newly wealthy (because the plot says so). After a big party at his high-rise suite, bright lights begin to hypnotize unwitting people who’s veins turn black… or something. From here the action intensifies and the lights are replaced by vehicle-crushing giants and flying tentacle monsters (these guys watched a lot of anime) and the characters try their best to fight off the unprecedented fiends. Will they survive?

I almost didn’t. I sat through this movie in utter amazement. I asked myself how this piece of crap actually got a major release. It seems all you need to get a studio release these days is a disproportionate amount of computer-generated visual effects. The problem is, the visual effects in Skyline aren’t good. Some of the creatures’ designs are pretty cool, but the way they are rendered looks like something out of a medium-budget television commercial. CGI never looks good, but here it looks even weaker and more unconvincing than some of the more successful action flicks of recent years.

The problem with Skyline is it forgoes plot entirely for action. This is not good. When will these “writers” figure this out. IT’S NOT A FREAKING SECRET!!! The Lord of the Rings movies are loved by millions, Van Helsing isn’t. What’s the difference? The Lord of the Rings has a plot!!! Ah-ha!!! GET IT?! Argh! I’m so sick of plot-free, idiotic movies passing themselves off as “awesome” because there’s about an hours-worth of computer animation splashing like diarrhea all over the freaking screen! Good action films from the past like Die Hard and the greatest action film ever, the Seven Samurai, didn’t need CGI to make them “better”, but today it seems as though anyone who makes a movie with a gun in it feels like they need to stick some ugly computer effects in it too. I’m so sick of this crap! So, so sick of it!

Moving on, another issue I had with Skyline is the screenplay. It’s bad. It’s really, really bad. There are a few points (very few though) where the “action” lets up for the characters to execute their banal dialogue. During these scenes the actors try to season their stupid words by breathing heavy or using an “evil voice” which gave me a few laughs, but it never quite gets to so-bad-it’s-good territory. Almost every character and line in Skyline is a cliché, and some of the lines are so predictable they caused me to roll my eyes.


Skyline is a piece of garbage. It will be forgotten, hell, it probably already has been by most, and it will not matter in a few years. One of the writers worked on the special effects team for Avatar. I didn’t like Avatar either, but for slightly different reasons, but the special effects in that movie weren’t THAT bad; they still weren’t great, but they didn’t suck like they do here. Skyline is a sloppy, poorly-acted, even more poorly-written mess and is one of the worst films of 2010. Keep away from this piece of garbage. Far, far away.

The Results:
Performances:  Since the actors are really just there to react to the alien attack, they aren't required to do much, and they really don't.  However, when they do act, it's often with unintentionally-hilarious results.  1 out of 5.

Screenplay: The moments of dialogue in this movie are so bad, so weak, and so uninspired that they almost had my banging my head against the wall.  1 out of 5.

Visuals: This is an effects movie, and even that sucks.  The designs aren't bad, but they don't really seem to blend into the scene well.  2 out of 5

Sound:
Not bad, but an afterthought.  The sound doesn't really elevate any of the action or tension in any way.  2 out of 5.

Novelty Value:
None.  This is a boring mess lacking any of the qualities of a cult-classic.  1 out of 5.

The Verdict:
1 out of 5.  This is a tremendous bore.  It slogs along and limps its way to a climax so stupid that it had me laughing so hard I started coughing.  What's worse: it teases a sequel...

G.F.E.M. - The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

If I had to pick one film from the last twenty-five years that could be considered the perfect cinematic achievement, I would probably pick the Shawshank Redemption.  While Pulp Fiction and Schindler’s List are truly great films, there is an ideology of hope and justice in the Shawshank Redemption that makes it stand out as the great cinematic experience of my generation.  Is it better than the other two aforementioned titles?  I don’t know.  That is subjective.  Still, one cannot deny accolade to director Frank Darabont’s wonderful use of imagery and metaphor to represent the underlying theme of the Stephen King short story: freedom from oppression; or just simply… freedom.

One man enters the worn and wretched prison of Shawshank.  His name is Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), and he carries with him the recent love for the world outside, a respect for life that is lost on the time-worn residents of the soul-crushing penitentiary.  Upon entering, he begins to captivate his fellow inmates with his unique perspectives, and his sheer and fearless honesty.  This becomes the bases of how he spends his time in Shawshank inspiring the inmates and sharing his love for life with all of those he considers his friends.

The story is told almost entirely from the perspective of a lifer named Red (Morgan Freeman) who, like most of the other prisoners, have given up on hope; given up on freedom.  They have allowed Shawshank to become part of their lives and have allowed the darkness of their surroundings to destroy their spirits.  However, during the years, Red begins to see the hope that Andy sees, and this hope ultimately redeems him as well as his friend.

From Andy’s initial incarceration to his triumphant escape, the Shawshank Redemption is filled with metephor.  Some are obvious: the bird “Jake” representing a connection to the outside, and the prison itself being lifeless and cold; some are a little deeper: the messianic ideas of Andy’s arrival and his effect on the men around him and his power over authority, and the way the men are child-like at times (take when Brooks carves his name into the beam as a young man would; right before his suicide).  We are faced with a reality in Shawshank.  It’s hateful, it’s ugly and it’s lacking any feeling.  The colorless, soulless building that houses the inmates seems to drain them.  The prison itself could be death, Andy: life (so to speak).  Or, there could be the equally complex ideas of oppressive authority and the ones who are passive to its powers, and how a single person can bring freedom to the people. 



There is a lot of imagery in the Shawshank Redemption but what is arguably the most striking moment in the film is when Andy bars himself in the warden’s office and broadcasts Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro over the loudspeaker system.  This act of defiance captures the attentions of all the men in the prison and frees their spirits, if only for a few fleeting moments.  This brings consequences upon Andy, but his smile shows that he is willing to sacrifice himself to share just a little bit of his love for life with his fellow man.  However, it is the warden who finds that Andy’s clever nature has another side, as he, the oppressive master over his evil palace is crushed and driven to his end by his own greed, and by some handy accounting by Mr. Dufresne. 

There are many subplots in the film as well, so many that I will not go into great detail as I’m sure most who are reading this have seen the film and are more than familiar with its complexity.  It is a masterfully-told epic representing life and death, the struggle to be one’s self against the force to conform and of the simple idea that men are individuals, and any attempt at forced equalization leads to a tragic end for those who would impose such an adjustment to oppose man’s free will.

G.F.E.M. - Once (2006)

Once is a strange film as it has an indefinable quality to it: a charm and a sort of peace and sincerity that make it seem entirely real. Occasionally, a film will come along, skip over audiences and will eventually grow a fan base via word-of-mouth, home video, and, in the case of Once, music. Once is not a musical per se, as the music is not exactly the showcase. Instead, it is part of the characters’ lives, and by extension becomes a character itself. Each scene where a song is played you feel the emotion of that character and you can feel how they feel. Once is a supreme cinematic achievement.

Once opens with quiet, and then fades into a soulful and saddened voice covering Van Morrison’s And the Healing Has Begun. His rustic acoustic guitar is tinny and contrasts nicely with its player’s rough and beaten voice. We see a street musician, standing in front of a store window, he then collects his tips with thanks. Later that evening, he is singing a wonderful song called Say It To Me Now. His acoustic performance is filled with pain, and when a strange woman approaches him and asks him who the song is about, she calls him on his lie that it is about no one. A brief meeting introduces us and then they two are brought together by, of all things, a broken vacuum cleaner.

At this point the two characters (who remain unnamed throughout the film; they are credited as Guy and Girl) begin to develop a relationship through music. In a music store the two begin to play together, Guy on the guitar, Girl on the piano. As a duet they play a song called Falling Slowly and they discover they have great musical chemistry, and they begin to further their relationship with each other on this foundation. The guy’s advances are met with resistance, however, and he discovers that the girl has a family back home. From here the two record with several other musicians they meet in a tavern and they the film ends the way it began.

Once’s male lead, Glen Hansard is the front man of an Irish band called the Frames, and he recorded along with the female lead, Marketa Irglova in a group called the Swell Season. The Frames’ former bassist, John Carney wrote and directed this terrific film and the love for music of all involved is apparent. Once is a different type of music film. It moves and feels like a documentary, as if we are voyeuristically following these two strange people around, examining their interactions. It is a very intimate and unique way of examining the characters in this sort of story. It has a distinctly indie feel, pushing the camera aggressively close to the characters giving it a claustrophobic feel. However, this is perfect for this sort of story. This deeply personal narrative is done great justice by this artistic choice.


Once is very unique. At first glimpse it may look like any film that popped out of Sundance but it is more than that. The deep examination and love for the characters, the way the music fills in the emotions of each scene, the way these two characters are never meant to be “together” but still seem perfect for each other, it’s all just so excellent. I recommend this movie a lot, and if you’re looking for a Friday night date flick, or a movie that is both entertaining and a little relaxing, this is a must-see. Hey! It IS one of the Greatest Films Ever Made.

G.F.E.M. - The Apartment (1960)

Those who have talked movies with me at length know I love Billy Wilder’s films.  As far as I’m concerned, they are all purely brilliant.  The Apartment is one of those movies that just stands out in the mix and is one of his best creations.  What is so different about the Apartment is the tone.  It is sincere and humorous while covering a very serious and often-ignored subject: the effect of empty, purely physical relationships on various subjects.

The plot of the Apartment is a twisting path of incident and accident, coincidence and bad luck.  An insurance agent named C.C. Baxter (played by Jack Lemmon) has gotten into the unfortunate cycle of lending his apartment out to various higher-ranking employees for their illicit affairs.  His key gets around like a juicy rumor and at one point the poor fellow is locked out of his apartment on a cold fall night because the wrong key was left under his mat, he catches cold as a result.  Meanwhile, a young elevator operator named Fran Kubelik (a lovely performance by Shirley MacLaine) struggles with being the mistress of the big boss upstairs: Jeff Sheldrake (played with lecherous menace by Fred MacMurray).

For a film from the early 1960’s, the Apartment is quite sexual, though not gratuitously so.  Instead, we see the effects of various office executives’ selfish adultery on the two flawed leads.  To further complicate this already convoluted situation, Baxter has grown smitten by the lovely Ms. Kubelik.  She is obliging to his attempts to reach out to her, but she remains somewhat distant.  Her secret is that she is one of the women dragged to Baxter’s apartment (though she, herself, does not know who the paying tenant actually is) and the events that lead up to her making this discovery are both tragic and redeeming.  Shortly before Baxter lends his key to Mr. Sheldrake, he discovers the woman he crushes on is one of the women pulled into this office’s adulterous trap.  After a bitter departure of Mr. Sheldrake from Baxter’s apartment, reality catches up with the lovesick Fran and she, overwhelmed with grief, attempts suicide, overdosing on medicine found in Baxter’s cabinet.  Upon returning home, Baxter is at first angry with her for breaking his heart, but then, upon discovering her true state, stays up all night with the doctor down the hall to save her life.  He then continues to aid in her recovery, and they are drawn closer together.


This is the state of the Apartment.  Baxter is angry with Kubelik at the start of the third act, but his deep-seeded love and kindness take over when her life is in his hands.  Fran’s love for Mr. Sheldrake goes form frustrated passion to bittersweet indifference and ultimately, she flees the cruel executive and returns to Baxter, though the film ends before we see exactly how their relationship turns out.  Could this be because we “get it”?  Or, is it because the cycle of relationships before have been so tragic that we are spared a similar outcome between the two protagonists?

The best way to describe the Apartment is pitch-perfect, brutally honest, and superbly written and performed.  It ranks high on my list of my favorite films of all time, in part because it spares no detail in the cruel cycle created by the prurient players in their tragic game, and also because the script is one of Wilder’s best.  It falls just behind Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity for me as my favorite Wilder screenplay, and it is also my favorite performance by Shirley MacClaine. 

I also like MacMurray’s Sheldrake, who could be called the “villain” of the film.  He is cruel, and outwardly uncaring.  When he learns of Kubelik’s suicide attempt when Baxter calls his house Christmas morning, he refuses to come to her side in fear of his family finding out, and then fires his secretary for spilling the beans to Fran about his past relations (herself included).  He threatens Baxter with termination for not being accommodating to his affair and offers promotions as reward for obliging.  In a cheer-worthy moment, Baxter turns down a top-floor office and an executive position from the vile Mr. Sheldrake and leaves is job to escape the torment of having to witness his Fran be torn apart from the inside out after learning of the boss-man‘s intentions to divorce then marry Fran.

I adore this film.  If you haven’t seen it, seek it out.  It is arguably the best urban drama of the 1960’s and is one of the best films of Lemmon’s career.  The screenplay is smart and witty and, despite the dark turn of events the film takes in the second act, remains mostly upbeat and clever.  This is flawed romance at its best, and one of the Greatest Films Ever Made.

A Little-Late Film Review - Hereafter (2010)

How do you bore me? Let me count the ways. You bore me with your pretense and manipulation. You bore me with your three converging plots, especially the one that is completely pointless. You bore me with a male lead’s performance so earnest that I wanted to punch him in the face. Alright, I’ll stop plagiarizing Elizabeth Browning, but I have to say, this movie frustrated the hell out of me, and I needed some emotion to contrast Hereafter’s lack thereof.

Hereafter is an excessive piece about the way we deal with death focusing on three plots: A psychic named George (Matt Damon) who really can speak to the dead but hates his gift, a tormented boy who is unable to recover from his twin brother’s sudden death and his subsequent separation from his junkie mother by the authorities, and a French journalist who survives the tragic tsunami in 2005 but is traumatized by the events. The film flashes between the three plots fairly evenly, and they are all equally tedious.

The scenes with George are slow, and extremely frustrating. He mumbles and shakes his head about; he is shy and nervous and tries to keep people at a distance. George is also tormented by his enterprising brother Billy (Jay Mohr), who wishes to turn his brother’s “gift” into a gold mine, but George feels his gift a curse and shies away from human contact to avoid triggering it. He develops a relationship with a new arrival to his home city of San Fransico who he meets at a cooking class taught by Steve Schirripa doing his worst Emeril Lagassi impression, which he subsequently ruins after she pressures him into giving her a “reading” and he digs just a little too deep.

The boy, named Marcus, is a London resident who begins foster care after he is taken from his mother. It’s obvious he’s traumatized, but the foster family is getting frustrated with his tendency to disappear, but these departures are his attempts to see various psychics so that he can speak with his brother. This character is just designed to illicit sympathy and his story is probably the most boring of them all. However, there is one pretty funny montage of him speaking to various hacks who claim to be able to speak with his brother, and he is wise to their act.

Though not as boring as Marcus’ story, the story of Marie is arguably the worst part of the film. She is a reporter who is in shock after witnessing a girls’ death as a massive tsunami crashes through a coastal town. She survives, reunites with her lover/producer and they return to France. She begins to display odd behavior and is asked to take some time off, maybe write a book. She gets a book deal and writes a completely different book than she promised, but is ultimately published (of course she is).


So in the end the three plots converge at a book fair. Marcus approaches the reluctant George and harasses him into giving him a reading and George meets Marie and they fall in love… or something. The frustrating thing about this part of the movie is this is where your find out that all of that emaciated, subtitled dialogue between Marie and her insipid cohorts was all for nothing. She has a book at the fair, she makes some sort of connection with George, and they go out on a date. That’s it!

Hereafter is a long movie for two hours. It drags and drags and limps along, largely due to the massive amounts of fat added to the film in the form of weak and disjointed subplots. Most of the events in this film have absolutely nothing to do with the main plot, but they seem designed to give us glimpses into these characters and how they contrast with “normal” people. This is completely unnecessary, however, as all of these characters are completely transparent and their emotional struggles are about as subtle as a 60-foot flaming neon elephant trampling an Iron Maiden concert.

I hated this film. It’s an example of how drama can fall victim to bad pacing and boring characters. Everyone in this film is so blank-faced, and I guess that’s the trauma they‘re acting but it makes for a very boring experience. What’s worse is this is a film directed by Clint Eastwood and written by Peter Morgan! Eastwood did wonders with Mystic River and Gran Torino, I wonder why this is so weak. Morgan wrote the Queen, Frost/Nixon, the Last King of Scottland, and the Special Relationship. All are clever, smart scripts with fleshed out characters and pitch-perfect tone. I don’t know what happened here, but I’m guessing it’s something kind of like what happened with Crystal Pepsi or that awful Friends spin-off.

The Results:
Performances:  The performances are flat and boring, either completely lacking in emotion or using dramatic pose to manipulate the audience.  2 out of 5

Screenplay: Not awful, but far from what we've seen from Peter Morgan before.  Therefore, I have to hold him to a higher standard.  3 out of 5

Visuals: The movie has the visual style resembling a high-profile funeral.  Overcast skies, lots of dark clothing and a generally solemn tone.  This is obviously symbolic of the characters' grief, but as the acting and writing is sub-par, it doesn't work at all, it's just heavy-handed. 2 out of 5

Sound: The score in Hereafter is fine, it suits the material, but it, like everything else just lacks energy. 2 out of 5

Novelty Value: None.  This film is too pretentious and too dull to have any sort of entertainment value beyond it's intention.

The Verdict: Don't waste your time with this one.  It is excessive, slow and all around boring.  The numerous subplots take it all over the place only to have it meet back up in the end and amount to nothing.

G.F.E.M. - The Hoodlum (1919)

Okay, okay.  I know the Hoodlum is not nearly as good as many of the other great silent comedies or dramas of film history.  I know it’s not even one of Mary Pickford’s greatest roles, but it is, undeniably, a great, great film.  The reason I chose The Hoodlum to open my Greatest Films Ever Made list is it goes back to the beginning, into the early days of cinema, and it stars the very first movie star.

Mary Pickford grew up on hard times, and acts of desperation are scattered through her early career.  I can only assume that she pulled a special something from inside her when she took this role.  The film follows a spoiled rich girl who is ultimately forced to live in crushing poverty by her father, who is concerned with her behavior.  It was a lesson from which she would grow and change.  The early days and nights in this hard-knocks neighborhood are tough for her, but over time she adapts and even becomes somewhat of a tough gal.

The Hoodlum was almost lost, and if it weren’t for the restorative efforts by the talented folks at the Mary Pickford Institute (yeah, she has her own friggin’ institute!) we may have never had the opportunity to experience her in one of her most radiant roles.  It’s not as well known, or even quite as good, as some of her more popular movies such as Less Than Dust from a few years before, but when you see it, I believe the Hoodlum shows Pickford as her most radiant. 




The transformation of Pickford’s character in this film just show how great of an actress Mary Pickford was.  But you may not know that, early in her career, she didn’t just show promise as a film actor, she invented acting as we know it today.  Due to the technical limitations of film at the time, it was difficult to express emotion and convey it in a way that the audience could recognize it.  Therefore, instead of using facial expressions, they used often exaggerated body language: hands in front of the face and wide eyes for shock or surprise, forearm to forehead for grief, arms in the air for frustration, hands at the chest for admiration or thanks, ect.

This wouldn’t do for Mary Pickford, who took a far more subtle, and thus more effective, approach.  Pickford’s lovely face and her gentle nature on screen (she was actually quite tough and even a little pushy in real life, a result of her early desperation in poverty), and she dared to act with her eyes, her mouth, and simpler movements.  She pushed the art of acting far beyond the flailing that was so common during the silent era.  In her earlier roles people were drawn to her radiance.  Her bright-eyes, and soft smile made her so famous, and as a result, she became the first real star of the still-new medium of film.  She earned, at the time, the equivalent of more than $10,000 a week by today’s dollars, and she was able to move her family out of disparity.