Great Movies: Dead Man (Jarmusch,1995)

 "It is preferable to not travel with a dead man."

                    My relationship with Johnny Depp is a complex one. One one hand, I respect his considerable range as an actor, his ability to shift between varied roles and infiltrate the sometimes complex psyches of his characters. He's been in some pretty good movies. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a phenomenal adaptation of a visceral, unapologetic novel with a ridiculously talented cast and Terry Goddamn Gilliam at the helm. Edward Scissorhands was a colourful, entertaining film, though it never covered any ground that hasn't been thoroughly trodden before. But among these hits are several misses. The abhorrent reboot/sequel of Alice in Wonderland is one of the worst films I've seen in a long time. His portrayal of Willy Wonka was a bit better, but still wholly unremarkable considering the massive shoes he was trying to fill. Pirates of the Caribbean started off innocently enough as a decent, mindless Hollywood pirate movie but has turned into a cash cow that keep pumping out unnecessary sequels. Additionally, for the past several years Depp and director Tim Burton have been working together far too much. It seems like Burton wants to typecast Depp as the same eccentric character in film after film and it was funny at first but now the joke is old and no one cares except the delusional fans. Sweeney Todd was alright though I guess. OK. Enough about Depp. Every bad film he has ever starred in is redeemed by Dead Man because it is absolutely incredible and he TOTALLY KILLS IT in this one.

                    I suppose Dead Man could be classified as a western. I mean, it takes place in the west and there's outlaws and guns and stuff so I suppose that's the easiest label to stick on it. But instead of being about cowboys and indians (even though those things do appear in the film) the movie is about the main character, William Blake. Like many of Jim Jarmusch's other films, Dead Man is about the journey of the individual, the experiences and evolutionary arc of a person as they go through life. William Blake is a clean, well dressed, city-bred accountant, on his way to a job promised to him out west. Suffice it to say that things don't work out as well as he hopes, and after committing a murder he finds himself on the run from bounty hunters. After being shot early on in the film, Blake learns that he has shrapnel in his chest that cannot be removed, effectively sealing his own death in a matter of time. He meets an Indian named Nobody who takes him on a journey that ultimately leads to his death with him sailing out in a canoe to the spirit world, the way people from Nobody's tribe leave this earth. As I said before, one of the most remarkable things about this film is the progression of Depp's character. He goes from being a normal person to a cold-blooded, poetic killer. He effectively learns to live as a dead man, or the dead man he knows he will become shortly. These motifs of death start right at the beginning of the film, on the train to his new job a mysterious stranger shows up and tells him that he is likely to find his death where he is going. He sees skulls and coffins immediately after arriving in the town. Nobody essentially treats him like he is dead (or will be soon) for the entire film. Dead animals, dead plants and dead people dominate  the imagery of the film, accentuating the theme of mortality that runs throughout the entire plot. And as I mentioned before, Johnny Depp is excellent in this lead role. He plays the uptight city accountant and the apathetic unemotional murderous husk of a man equally well. It just goes to show that with the right director he can really excel.

                     On that note, Jim Jarmusch did an incredible job with this movie. At this point in his career he already had a few solid films under his belt, and that experience definitely shows. I really, really like his choice to shoot Dead Man in black and white, as opposed to colour. It gives the film an older feel, and makes the use of light and shadow that much more important. It's also more visually restrained, allowing us to focus more on the emotion of the story than the visuals. That's not to say the camerawork is lacking however, it's the same level of quality anyone familiar with Jarmusch's work would expect. Not overly showy or complex, but perfect for its context. There are certainly some great shots here. Another thing that Jarmusch is famous for that he injects into this movie is his love for music. All of his films contain music that is absolutely brilliant, perfect for the mood of the scene. Dead Man is no exception, the music in this film is completely original, a hallucinatory, haunting electric guitar soundtrack recorded by none other than Canadian rock icon Neil Young. Jarmusch is also known to cast musicians themselves in his films, Down By Law's two main characters were played by musicians Tom Waits and John Lurie, who created the music for the film as well. Iggy Pop makes a guest appearance in Dead Man. 

                     It's also been said that Dead Man is one of the few films ever made that very accurately portrays the culture and personality of First Nations people. There are conversations in native languages that aren't even subtitled, which keeps us as in the dark and as confused as William Blake, a technique I rather like. It was smart of Jarmusch to cast an actual Aboriginal actor (Gary Farmer) as Nobody to keep it as realistic as possible. Farmer frequently says the line "stupid fucking white man" in English, a line he reprises in a cameo in Ghost Dog, another phenomenal Jarmusch film I'll write about another time.

                      Above all, what I love and respect most about Dead Man is the emotion it evokes. At the end when Blake floats away in a canoe dying, I feel connected to him, having witnessed his entire journey and the events that brought him there. There's a real sense of progression and development in the character that not a lot of films can really achieve. William Blake is an entirely different person at the end than he was in the beginning, and you can't help but feel what he feels. There's a lot to be said about this film, and I may post a more in-depth analysis in the future. 

That's it for now though.

Just Watched: 8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963)

             OK, I'll admit right off the bat that I've seen this one before. Normally the "Just Watched" tag denotes a film I've just watched for the first time and consists of my initial reactions to the movie and thoughts  after the first viewing. I watched Fellini's beautiful masterpiece 8 1/2 a few years ago, but I don't remember it because I was completely stoned out of my mind, which means I appreciated the visual ingenuity of the film but wasn't paying as much attention to the plot as I probably should have been. Still liked it a lot though, just watched it again and here we are. Anyways, 8 1/2 is brilliant in the fact that it is basically a movie about a movie and the movie the movie is about is 8 1/2. Seriously. Charlie Kaufman must have been channeling Fellini when he created his own meta masterpiece Synecdoche, New York, which is sort of similar in concept, but also incredibly brilliant in its own right and worth watching several times. I'll write about that one later though, this post is about Fellini.

             In summary, 8 1/2 follows the struggles of a film director with writer's (or director's) block. He's achieved success in the past and has huge plans for his next film, but has no idea how to proceed. People are watching him and he doesn't want to let them down, but his greatest concern is creating a masterpiece, an emotional, personal, flawless piece of work. The feelings of Guido Anselmi, the protagonist, are established right from the start. The film begins with an ethereal dream sequence. First his car begins to fill with smoke and suffocate him while everyone nearby stares enthused, and then he flies through the sky only to find himself floating above a beautiful beach, and subsequently pulled down as he desperately tries to free himself from the rope that tethers him to the ground and the people below him who want to bring him down for good. These opening scenes symbolize Guido's (and Fellini's) desperation for creative freedom, to be able to create something personal and perfect without outside interference. Guido is constantly inundated by people asking him how his work is going, trying to help him speed things along, or attempting to change things about his film altogether. A writer Guido asks to edit his screenplay eviscerates his work, saying it has no point, no conflict or statement to give it a purpose. No one seems to understand his level of creativity and what he is trying to do. As a result of this, Guido spends more and more time in his own brain, closed off from the noise of the outside world. People talk, but he's lost in thought, barely listening. This, and some very clever framing and cinematography illustrate his separation from others very well.

            One of the things that makes 8 1/2 succeed so well at what it does is the intimacy in which it is made. Every thought of Guido's is made clear to the viewer, we get to explore his very dreams. Abrupt dream sequences and unannounced flashbacks may create a feeling of disorientation at first, but they also give us incredible insight into Guido's mind and accurately represent the unpredictable nature of memory and thought. Seeing his relations with his parents and the escapist fantasies of his subconscious mind let us project ourselves onto him extremely easily. Anyone who has struggled with any form of artistic block should be able to relate. And that's really one of the main points of the film, isn't it? That art is more than just production. It's expression of one's inner self created by their experiences and personality. Guido's producers try to stifle this creativity, claiming that his vision is arrogant or flawed, inconsistent with the state of cinema and what is culturally accepted to make a financially successful film. They tell him his film in inaccessible to the audience, his expression is indiscernible to the layman who will watch it. Therein lies a dilemma as well. Should Guido be creating this film for his own sake, or for the sake of the viewer? If the movie is perfectly consistent with his vision for it and turns out to be exactly what he wanted it to be, does that make is a success even if no one else understands it? Who is art for? The creator or the audience? Hollywood would say the audience, but this is a film of passion created by Fellini, born from the depths of his own creative mind. I, for one, think it's pretty cool that he took us along for the ride.

I'm Pissed Off Today, Let's Talk About Video Games

               God, I hate Call of Duty. If you play it and buy the games every year, I probably hate you too. If you pirate the games and play them, I still hate you because you have horrible taste in video games and if you're going to pirate stuff at least make it stuff that's worth having. Every year Activision insults the intelligence of the gaming community by releasing the same game, and every year you retards fall for it. It wasn't always this way though, Activision used to publish some pretty kickass stuff. Remember Tony Hawk Pro Skater? Those games rocked, until they ruined it by releasing a rehashed sequel every 10 minutes until they got so bad that no one cared anymore. The same thing happened with Guitar Hero. The first few games came out and were totally wicked, bringing a whole new gaming subgenre into existence. After that they started releasing far too many sequels far too often, with no real changes to the core game mechanic other than adding drums to compete with EA's Rock Band which was the same thing as Guitar Hero only much better. Wipe that smirk off your face EA, you're guilty of this too.

                The problem with strategies like this is that it places absolutely no value on the customers, and relies on the quality of the previous entries in the series to motivate consumers to buy the newest one, even if it's a half-finished, hastily thrown together copy of the great older games. There's no innovation, the reasoning is "well, it sold well last time so let's do it again". It seems like Activision is acting using Hollywood logic: if it makes money, milk it until there's no more money to be made. This is the logic that gave us a Spiderman reboot less than 6 years after the last one ended, or 4 damn Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Endless sequels, reboots, re-imaginings and remakes have been showing up in the last few decades, and it's reached a point where it's getting pretty ridiculous. I'm not trying to say that all of these are inherently bad, some of them are pretty great. I'll admit that I enjoyed Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, and the new Planet of the Apes reboot. I'm interested to see Superman this summer and the recent 007 movies (with the exception of Quantum of Solace) have been pretty impressive.There are some franchises that deserve to be re-imagined, considering the leaps and bounds technology in film has made in the last several decades. But not everything that was successful in the past needs (or even deserves) to get remade (lookin' at you, Michael Bay). You'd think after the steaming pile of crap that was the Star Wars prequel trilogy they'd leave it alone, but nope. There's money to be made, so here we go with another trilogy.


            Video games are taking the same path. Instead of new, fresh games coming out every year we're getting sequels, remakes and reboots. And that's not necessarily a bad thing either. Far Cry 3 came out this year, and it turned out to be one of the best games of 2012 because it's easy to tell that the studio learned from the previous games and used that knowledge to make something special and memorable, not to mention incredibly immersive and outright horrifying (goddamn sharks). Last year also saw the release of Hitman Absolution, a reboot of a much beloved series that had been idle for quite a while. The game was great, staying true to its challenging roots while adding replayability and that aspect of creativity that thinking gamers crave. Sequels aren't a bad thing, but there has to be some evolution in them. A sequel should feel somewhat like the game that came before it, but it needs to have enough new ideas to distinguish it as an improvement over what came before. Some games hit this nail right on the head (see Mass Effect 2) and some games fail at this horribly. Which brings me back to my original topic, how bad Call of Duty is. I believe that creating a worthy sequel takes time. The developers need to reflect on what went well in the last game and what didn't, find out what the players liked and hated, and use that information to improve upon the last game. I think a really good example of this is Rocksteady's Batman games. There have been a lot of Batman games in the past, but none have even approached the level of depth and immersion that these have attained. The first game, Arkham Asylum, was fantastic, blending easy to learn but hard to master combat with hidden secrets, puzzles, clever boss fights and a tight, focused story that consisted of interesting, iconic characters and a great setting. Even after beating it there was a lot of stuff to find, and really hard challenge maps to master if you really wanted to get into them. Arkham City came out more than two years later and improved upon the formula a lot. It took place in a huge open world, with a lot more maps and enemies. There were a lot more boss fights and literally hundreds of riddles, secrets and collectibles to find. It also contained more subplots and character development for Batman himself, which was excellent. There were even more playable characters available as DLC, with Catwoman coming free with the game. City was just a massive improvement over Asylum, which is a huge accomplishment considering how great the first game was. This is an instance where thought and creativity brought forth a fantastic sequel.

             But in Call of Duty we see no such thing. Every year in the fall, in time for the Christmas rush, we see a new COD game come out. And they're all essentially the same. If you put any two of them side by side you won't be able to tell which is which because they all contain the same guns, virtually identical graphics, the same perks etc etc. I have to give credit where credit is due though, COD4 was a great game that brought life into a dying franchise. It was innovative, and cool. But Activision has been milking that once cool military game for far too long now. If they had taken time to think about what they were doing instead of rushing out the same game every year then maybe they could have released a few worthy sequels by now. But they didn't. And they haven't. The single player campaigns have arguably taken the biggest hit in this respect. They last around 3-4 hours in each game and just basically consist of running around shooting foreign people the whole time while stuff explodes. No replayability, no variety. It feels tacked on compared to the multiplayer modes, which is what everyone apparently buys it for. The multiplayer consists of running and gunning, twitch-based gameplay. Whoever sees the other player first gets the kill. Whoever sets up the most mines and find the best place to camp wins the match. There's no teamwork involved because it's all about getting the highest score. It's complete repetition. Don't feel bad though, if you're a Call of Duty fan. Most people that play it are younger and this generation of game consoles is their first gaming experience. People who grew up playing games like Quake, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six know how great shooting games can be, and how shallow and narrow COD is compared to these games. So it's not your fault. You probably just don't know better.

               Another thing that really pisses me off about this game series is the amount of downloadable content that they release for each game. When a Call of Duty game comes out, it has multiplayer maps on the game, but throughout the year Activision releases more maps and game modes, usually around four packs a year at a modest 15$ each. This is an absolutely stupid practice. I'm not saying that DLC in itself is a bad thing, but Activision and a lot of other publishers release too much of it at too high a cost. It's cool to download extra levels and stuff for games that extend the playtime you'll get out of the game and enhance the experience, but paying another 60$ a year (the same cost of the initial game) just to have all the maps is ridiculous. And an obscene amount of people fork over the cash every year. Guess what Ubisoft did a few months after releasing Far Cry 3? They put out some new co-op maps for the 4 player game mode (which is excellent) for  the very reasonable price of FREE. Rockstar released new content for Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption, also free. Activision doesn't do this because they think of their fanbase as sheep and want to squeeze every cent they can out of them. To get the full experience of one game, you have to pay for it twice over. And they do this every year. And people still fall for it and somehow enjoy the games.

             Reader, you can play any game you want. If you want to throw down 120$ on Call of Duty every year and line the pockets of these Activision execs while they laugh because they can get away with it, cool. I just want you to think about what you're playing, and question whether the Call of Duty series is really worth all the money and time people dump into it.

*SPOILER ALERT*

It isn't.

The Walking Dead Game

I'll say it right off the bat. Zombies in pop culture is getting stale. Actually, no, it's past that. It's getting tired and old. The horse passed away a while back, came back as zombie horse, died again and now they're giving it a pretty thorough beating. If I hear one more person say "OH MAN I HOPE A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE REALLY HAPPENS DUDE I CAN TOTALLY SURVIVE I'M GONNA DO THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND BE THE ULTIMATE BADASS BLAH BLAH BLAH" I'm going to go crazy. Everyone thinks they'd survive a zombie apocalypse, and realistically it wouldn't be an apocalypse if everyone survived it so shut up and accept the fact that you'll be part of the 99.9% of the population that dies  shortly after the event begins (which it won't). It just pisses me off that zombies are a sure-fire way to make money, and that fact is being exploited in every corner of the entertainment industry that is capable of capitalizing on it. The games are getting repetitive, the movies are derivative, and it's just getting boring, to be honest. It's not that I hate zombies, the original Night of the Living Dead film still scares the hell out of me. I thoroughly enjoyed games like Dead Rising 2, Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare, and Dead Nation. There's just a point where they need to either cool it or stop, and that point has passed.

So why do I love The Walking Dead game so much then? 

Some people think Telltale Games is clinging to a sinking ship. I mean, creating point-and-click games on PC and consoles in the technologically developed gaming climate of today? It's definitely old school, a genre that is pretty much dead in commercial gaming. There's more of an emphasis on high action setpieces, realistic graphics and fast paced gameplay these days, and The Walking Dead isn't particularly huge on any of those things. If you're not familiar with the gameplay style, I'll elaborate a bit. Basically you walk around, examine your environment, solve puzzles and most importantly, engage in dialogue with the other characters. You play a convicted murderer named Lee who gets caught up in the middle of a zombie outbreak and encounters an innocent little girl named Clementine who he protects along his journey, with the ultimate goal of bringing her to her parents. These are the two main characters, and the rest are fairly interchangeable. Why? Because Telltale sees fit to kill several characters off in every episode and bring in new ones. Normally in horror movies I'm fairly good at predicting who is going to die and who will live. But in The Walking Dead, not so much. In the last episode alone I can think of 4 moments where my jaw literally dropped and I was saying "Dude. no way, like seriously?". The best part of this game is by far the story, and the level of unpredictability that is there. Lee and Clementine and their various companions are on an incredible journey and by the end of each episode you really feel like you've made some progress, whether you've fixed up a broken train, escaped from a farm inhabited by horrible cannibalistic rednecks, or decided who to save when the building you're in is being overrun. The Walking Dead thrives on immersion, dragging the player with it on its insane, unpredictable journey. And I gotta say, it's been amazing so far. I also like the way they decided to release it, as an episodic continuing game. This is season 1, hopefully  implying that there will be more seasons to come, and there are 5 episodes that go for $4.99 each. I bought the season pass when episode 1 was released for $20, so if you bought early you even save money. Every episode takes 3-4 hours to complete which is a pretty nice value for 5 bucks, especially considering the quality of the content. Every single episode has improved upon the last, and best of all, the episodes are extremely replayable.

Free choice is something that a lot of games advertise, but not many actually do right. It's one thing to give the player a bunch of black and white choices and then give them 1 or 2 endings depending on what they pick like Infamous or Bioshock, and something else entirely to let the person playing make hundreds of small choices throughout the game in the form of dialogue and scripted actions. Every episode of The Walking Dead contains a lot of conversation, and every single thing you say to anyone impacts the story, the way they think about you and how they're going to treat you in future episodes. I have one guy in my group right now that doesn't trust me and won't help me anymore because I didn't take his side in a particular argument like 3 episodes ago. The characters in The Walking Dead remember everything you do and say, even the order you complete objectives in will affect your interactions. Most of these choices aren't just choosing sides either, a lot of them have multiple options and you have to think very carefully about the possible repercussions of what you might do. I remember in one episode I had 4 pieces of food and I had to decide who in the group to give them to. It was a really hard decision, and I could have approached it multiple ways. Even the characters in your game are determined by your choices. I can think of several people that have died along my journey that I could have saved by making a different choice, and several people in the group now that are only there because I chose to keep them alive. The sheer amount of choice in this game makes it well worth the price, after I finish episode 5 I plan to replay the entire thing again making different choices in every episode. But even after 2 full playthroughs there will be a lot I still have to experience to say I have seen everything. 

The graphics in The Walking Dead are not amazing (on the PS3 version I've been playing at least), but they stay true to the franchise's graphic novel roots. The zombies look great, and the character expressions are very well done, which is good because how a person feels about you is usually indicated by their expression when you're talking to them. The scenery changes a lot throughout the story, which is more than I can say for the TV show. The characters in this game have goals greater than just staying alive, and while some of them are inevitably unlikable, you put up with them anyway because sometimes you get to tell them off or even decide whether they live or die later on. The Walking Dead is really what you make it, and if you go with your personal morals when making decisions you can become incredibly emotionally invested in it. I feel really involved in the lives of the characters in the game, and if Clementine dies in episode 5 I'm going to cry like a baby.

Play it. 

Review: The Cabin In The Woods (2011)

Horror is a pretty overpopulated genre these days, which is kind of a double edged sword. On one hand, if you're a huge fan of the genre then there's no lack of material for you to feed your addiction with. On the other, however, it means that although there may be a lot of good horror movies, there are a lot that also suck really hard. And if you're not a die-hard horror fan such as myself, that means that it can be fairly rare that a really good horror film crosses your path. So in a genre inhabited by a huge excess of remakes, sequels, reboots, zombie movies, "found footage" films and torture porn gorefests, The Cabin in the Woods is an original movie that I found surprisingly impressive.

Spoilers ahead.

The basic premise of Cabin in the Woods is nothing too original. A group of young adults go to a cabin in the woods for a weekend of partying and relaxation. You've got all the typical horror movie character archetypes: the promiscuous party girl, her athletic jock boyfriend, the relaxed stoner, the average, nice, normal girl and the smart guy. I suppose it's missing the token black dude that gets killed off first but I'll just assume they decided to forgo that cliche to save time and create unpredictability. Anyways, these five kids head off to the jock's cousin's (allegedly, he doesn't appear in the movie at all) cabin for a few days. On the way they encounter that age old foreshadowing device of a creepy old man that plays no real role in the film other than to give the characters directions and vaguely predict their demise. Of course, they assume he's just been alone out in the middle of nowhere too long and continue to their destination. Once there, they find a few spooky things in the place but generally just chalk it up to an old house built by someone strange. Big mistake. This is where the other subplot comes into play. The kids are being watched the whole time, and their entire experience is being controlled by people underground who are drugging them and controlling them to complete a mysterious ritual. While playing truth or dare that night the cellar door suddenly bursts open. Just like the classic stupid horror movie characters they are, the victims enter. They find a strange diary and read some incantations out of it, causing zombies to rise from the ground. While the jock and his dumb blonde girlfriend are outside making love, encouraged by pheromones that the technicians controlling them released, the zombies appear and kill the blonde. This is when things start to go downhill. The zombies bust into the house, killing the stoner shortly after he finds a camera in his lamp and believes he's on a reality TV show, and the jock, the smart guy and the other girl escape in the RV they came in, only to have a tunnel collapse in front of them, detonated by the technicians trying to kill them. After this, the jock tries to jump across a nearby ravine on a dirt bike to get help, but hits an invisible wall and falls to his death. After this, smart guy and normal girl go back the way they came, only to realize that one of the zombies is in the RV. He kills smart guy, and almost gets average girl too but in a startling change of events, the stoner had previously survived and saves her. They go back to the cabin and discover an elevator under the floor. This takes them down into the secret base where all the people are that are controlling them and trying to kill them. Here they see hundreds of monsters that have been used in previous rituals, and it is revealed that the monster that each group of people get is determined by what object they select when they go into the cellar full of weird old stuff. This group got the zombies because they read the diary of the family that the zombies used to be. Once the technicians discover the kids got into their secret lair, they send troops after them. Thinking on his feet. the stoner opens the containment cells and the monsters all come out and massacre everyone. The two survivors eventually make it into a secret vault where Sigourney Weaver mysteriously appears and tells them that it was all a ritual to appease ancient gods that will destroy the world if they don't get very specific sacrifices that correspond to each victim's personality: The Whore, The Athlete, The Scholar, The Fool, and The Virgin. All of them have to die but the Virgin can survive, her life is left up to fate. So basically, Sigourney Weaver dies and the two survivors chill out smokin' a J while a giant god awakens and presumably destroys the earth because they failed to complete the ritual. (This is a very rough summary, watch the film to get the finer points.)

One of the things I liked about Cabin in the Woods the most was fairly formulaic for its genre, but it had a reason to be. It's one thing to write in characters that are stereotypical of horror films (stoner, jock, slut etc) just because that's become standard, and another thing completely to use those archetypes for a purpose that helps drive the storyline. Those students were picked and chosen to go to that cabin by the people orchestrating the ritual because they fit the descriptions of the people they needed to sacrifice to appease the ancient gods that are really insecure and require validation in the form of human sacrifice to feel good about themselves. It's sort of a horror film inside a horror film. The victims dying is freaky enough in itself, but the story takes itself to another level in the form of questions involving reality and freewill. Am I really sitting here typing this right now? or is some guy watching me waiting for me to get up and leave the room so a werewolf can jump out of the shadows and devour me? I'm pretty sure that the next generic slasher film I watch I'm going to be thinking the whole time about those technicians underground, controlling the environment and the people in it, betting on how and when they are going to die but at the same time making sure things to according to plan so their ritual goes off without a hitch and they appease the ancient gods.

Cabin in the Woods can be seen as a critique of the meta that slasher films generally tend to follow, and some would say that some of the more contrived plot points suggest that the main goal of the movie is to satirize its own genre and reveal how stupid slasher movies really are. I think it's partially that, but it's also something more. It's a new lens for people to view the horror movie genre in, giving purpose and reason to why the current formula is the way it is. It expands outside of itself to create a whole other dimension of horror, and in that aspect is succeeds. The concept of being controlled by mind altering drugs and forced into situations that all but guarantee your own demise is pretty scary in itself, not even counting the hundreds of horrific creatures that the technicians have in store for anyone who is part of the ritual. When the stoner let all the creatures out and they started killing everyone in the underground bunker, a clown came out. I'm freaked out by clowns. Just the prospect of people being able to drug me up and send a killer clown after me is pretty horrifying. There was also one scene where the kids were playing truth or dare and the Whore is dared to make out with a wolf's head that is mounted on the wall. Watching that happen, I was completely sure it was going to come to life and eat her head right there, but it didn't. Cabin in the Woods understands the value of restraint as well as excess, and how necessary it is to create tension and suspense as well as using violence and gore to scare an audience. And in that  aspect as well as several others, it succeeds.

Casino Royale: A Feminist's Nightmare

So in preparation for Skyfall's North America release next week, I watched Casino Royale again. I'm no Bond expert (not really much of a fan, either), but for what it's worth I would definitely say that this is probably the strongest 007 film I've seen. Also, Pierce Brosnan is horrible. Needed to be said. Anyways, Daniel Craig's debut performance as the famous James Bond is really quite impressive, and a taut, well written story along with Eva Green's smoking-hot-ness really brings this film together into something special.

But the quality of the movie isn't really what I want to talk about, what I really want to touch on is how masculine, borderline sexist and misogynistic (sort of, depending on who you ask) Casino Royale is. Bond has always been a masculine, strong manly man with a thing for the ladies, but damn Daniel, you could have toned it down a bit in this one. In the first hour alone he crashes the car of a rich dude who pissed him off by mistaking him for a valet (partially to create a distraction, but still, dick move), takes huge amount of money away from a dude in poker including his absolutely gorgeous Aston Martin, before proceeding to (almost) bang his wife and then later looking straight into his eyes as he pushes a knife into his gut in the middle of a crowded museum. Now that's how you kick a guy while he's down. Bond seems to be a very primal person in this movie, eager to assert his dominance over every foe he encounters, and even more eager to get with every woman that crosses his path.

Our hero 007 has been a ladies man in pretty much all of his movies, but this movie is the first I've seen where they actually have some exposition as to why. Bond says himself that he is pretty much only into married women, so he obviously enjoys the thrill of the hunt, going after women who are unavailable or hard to get, and especially ones who won't get attached to him because that's the last thing he wants. Women are disposable to Bond, and when one he was getting romantic with is killed because of her involvement with him he doesn't care. Why? Because he's JAMES BOND, that's why! He can just find another one and start over. And he does, the one he's working with to bring down the bad guy. Or does he? the very woman who abhorred him at first sight for his objectification of women and his massive, uncontrollable ego falls for him, only to stab him in the back and end up dying because of it. When asked how he felt about it Bond replied with his signature sentimentality, he said "It's over. The bitch is dead." They were apparently in love, but he got over that one pretty quick, probably because he's mad because he thought women were just stupid objects and he got outsmarted by one.

In summary, James Bond probably had mommy issues

Probably going to post a Skyfall review after I see it, stay tuned.

Play This Game: Dark Souls

Dark Souls is the best console game to be released this generation (in my opinion, which is correct), and one of my favourites of all time . Every single aspect of this game is near flawless, and in a sea of derivative, unimaginative, laughably lame mainstream games it stands head and shoulders above everything else. It's challenging, emotional, immersive, addictive, beautiful, and completely amazing. Why should you play it?

1) The high level of difficulty.

Dark Souls is not for children. If you're a typical Call of Duty playing, Nickelback listening, Transformers watching douchebag, then don't even think about playing this game, because a) you're not worthy, b) you'll most likely ragequit early on and c) I hate you. Dark Souls is for people who want a challenge, want to die a lot and actually THINK for once in a video game. Right on the back of the game it says "PREPARE TO DIE" in huge letters, and you're going to. A lot. Hundreds of times most likely. In my 400 hours of playtime, I've died hundreds of times, probably thousands. But the thing about Dark Souls is that every death is a lesson. When you die, you learn about hazards in the environments, the attack patterns of enemies, what they're resistant to or weak against, when to charge and when to be careful, etc etc etc. This is one of the greatest successes of Dark Souls. It defies the modern conventions that games have (d)evolved to. There's no mini-map on your screen telling you where to go, no arrow giving you directions, very few tips and free items. The only advice you're gonna get is the messages that other people playing online leave behind to help you, and a lot of those are made by trolls that just want to mess with you. Dark Souls does not hold your hand in the slightest, and that's one of the reasons playing it is so satisfying. When you figure out how to open a shortcut you previously couldn't get to, or beat a ridiculously hard boss (which are common in Dark Souls, the bosses are insane) or even just make it to the next save point you feel amazing. So many times in this game I've found myself holding my breath without realizing it, and then when I finally make it to safety I let out a sigh of relief and feel awesome because I just did something really difficult and I feel good about it. Sure, it's really hard. Most of the enemies can kill you in seconds, regardless of your gear. But when you finish the game you have an amazing feeling of accomplishment that very few games can give, you feel like you actually DID something.

2) Atmosphere/Immersion.

Atmosphere is something that a lot of games miss the mark on. It's that immersion factor, the way a game can drag you right in, to the point where there is nothing but the game and your attention is totally consumed. Because of the aforementioned difficulty, Dark Souls requires that much more concentration to play (also because you can't even pause the game). You won't be able to play it while texting, you won't want music on, and playing it drunk is probably a bad idea too, although I've heard of some cool Dark Souls drinking games. Since the game autosaves constantly, everything you do is final. There are no do-overs. You can't load up your previous save and try whatever it was you were doing again like in Skyrim. This made me play really carefully, and care about what I was doing. Constantly assessing risk and strategically planning your battles is a key to success in this game, and since you play the game with your mind you are so much more immersed and invested in the game. You have to read the enemies and know your surroundings everywhere, because the game developers did an amazing job here. They set up traps, put enemies in the most inconvenient spaces and made incredibly difficult levels to traverse, because they hate us all and don't want us to beat the game (notice I said beat, there's a difference between beating a game and finishing one). So when you do finally destroy the final boss and beat Dark Souls, you feel totally badass. I remember the first time I beat it, I was strutting around the house like I owned the place and wasn't a loser living in his parents' basement until he finished college and finds a job, it felt awesome.

In addition to this, the atmosphere in the game is enough to creep anyone out. The world you're in is completely bleak and hopeless. Everyone there is depressed, and everyone else wants to kill you. The areas you go through in the game are dark and dreary, devoid of sunlight and filled with murderous creatures that sometimes come out of nowhere. Some of the levels are riddled with traps, others are dark, hopeless labyrinths. The mood of Dark Souls is incredibly depressing, and after playing for a while you certainly feel its effect on your psyche. It's not a happy game, and when you become hopelessly addicted to it you get fully immersed in this nightmarish world, never to return until you turn off the game, which you won't want to do because you're hooked.

3)The absolutely brilliant multiplayer/co-op

Dark Souls' multiplayer is like nothing else on the video game market today. There's no invites, no lobbies, no matchmaking. There's just the game world, and whoever gets brought into or comes into it. When you're running around dying, killing, looting and dying more, you can randomly get invaded by other players. This person comes into your world as a red phantom, and basically hunts you down and tries to kill you. You either win or die. There are also clan-like groups known as covenants that you can join that give you special abilities and advantages in the PvP system, which spice things up a lot. Being invaded is scary. When it happens, your heart skips a beat and you wonder who it is, what kind of character they have, how good they are etc. There are hundreds of weapons in Dark Souls that you can upgrade and create, and they all handle differently than others. Finding a weapon that you like and are comfortable with is key to being good at PvP. Some people are incredibly good and kill you easily, but most of the time it's a pretty fair fight since you're always around the same level. Defeating an invader or hunting someone down and killing them is very satisfying, adding to the gratification Dark Souls offers to those who take on the challenge. 

Even more fun is the co-op. When someone wants to help another player out, they leave a sign on the ground. This appears in the worlds of other players and they can summon the other player as a white phantom to help them get through the level or finish the boss off. Helping people out is awesome, and certain boss fights are really insane to do alone, so the co-op is a welcome addition to the bleak, depressing atmosphere of the game. Hooking up with a friend and running through the levels quickly is incredibly fun.

I could write pages and pages about Dark Souls because I truly believe that it is one of the best games to come out in recent memory, but it's better to experience it yourself than read about it on some stupid blog. So I encourage you, give Dark Souls a try if you're brave enough. It's coming out for PC soon with new content, so everyone, console and PC gamers alike, can experience this amazing game.