Buys
DVDs arrived at my house by the ton this week, but that's expected since spring is usually when I stock up on new material for the summer. "What? You don't take advantage of the outdoors during your vacation, Siskoid?" And the answer is no, of course not, I'm a pasty geek cliché. Anyway, spring often has some warehouse-clearing sales, which I definitely took advantage of. Case in point, Amazon letting first seasons of shows go for 20$. I got Babylon 5 Season 1 (the price outweighing the problems with effects scenes on these DVDs) and Veronica Mars Season 1 (sight unseen, I've just heard good things). Star Trek fans will be glad to know I also got all four seasons of Enterprise at half-price, so that should round out my year of reviews.
After Mamet fever took me a couple of weeks back, I ordered and have now obtained The Winslow Boy (to feed my irrational attraction in Rebecca Pidgeon) and Edmond (written, not directed, by Mamet, and based on one of his plays). Speaking of writers and directors I like, finally got my hands on Daniel Clowes' Art School Confidential, and out this very week, There Will Be Blood and The Adventures of Baron Munschausen.
"Accomplishments"
First, DVD reviews. I decided to make it an Oscar weekend and watch both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, films that are in many ways similar. This year's big winner, the Cohen Brothers' No Country for Old Men, is an ingenious thriller in the offbeat, Cohen style that's really about inevitable change. Javier Bardem's cold-blooded killer is a force of nature, fate itself and the unexplainable violence of the modern era Tommy Lee Jones' tired sheriff struggles with. It's also to be commended for its minimalist (well, damn near absent) score. A movie without music that still resonates emotionally? How often have we seen that? The DVD doesn't have any of the quirky put-ons the Cohens usually put in (that I can see), but does a good job of discussing the book adaptation, the casting, etc.
[And the Geek in me can't help but chuckle at the idea that Tommy Lee Jones is in the same film as someone doing a much better version of Two-Face than he ever did.]
P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood looks to be his most mature work, in the sense that it avoids his usual cinematic gimmicks, and has the cleanest language out of everything he's done. It's also gorgeously filmed - the wealth of information on screen made me think of Ridley Scott at times - and as is usual for PTA, fairly long. But it's really Daniel Day-Lewis' show. He's magnetic and creates a vivid character in oil man Daniel Plainview. This story is also about a crucial change in the American psyche: The shift from religious faith to economic faith. Plainview is Free Enterprise's messiah, and a devilish one at that. The DVD extras are interesting if not exciting. Deleted scenes and research material mostly, with a silent documentary on the oil trade from the 1920s as the centerpiece.
Art School Confidential: I'm a big Daniel Clowes fan. I love his comics, how odd and full of anxiety they are, absurd yet relatable. But can he write directly for a movie? The answer is yes. I wasn't a fine arts major, but I had a lot of friends in it (students and teachers), worked at the university art gallery, and was even common-law married to an artist for a number of years. Heck, I've even modeled. So while the characters in this film are totally bonkers, I can tell you they're still true to life. I chuckled throughout. And Sophia Myles (Doctor Who's Madame de Pompadour) in the buff? Totally objet d'art. The DVD extras are worth it just for the many deleted scenes, but are otherwise pretty thin.
In non-movie news, Monday is RPG night at the Siskoid household, and last Monday was a one-shot espionage adventure set at the very end of the Cold War, starring an old, senile Bond villain and plenty of Russkies, based on something I read in Pyramid magazine a while back. Slow to set up, the last act was played at breakneck speed, which was great. I still can't believe one of the characters survived being thrown down Victoria Falls (well, he didn't make it to the bottom, which helps), and the beauty of the one-shot is that you can suddenly activate sleeper agents from the PCs' group.
Plus, started in on World of Warcraft again after a three-month hiatus, and made half a dozen cards for the Unauthorized Doctor Who CCG, including a Donna from the first episode of Series 4. Speaking of CCGs, Decipher has invited me to join their new Fight Klub project, a card game that takes its characters and elements from theoretically any license (so you can have Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs fight Peter Petrelli from Heroes or something). The game is invite-only and reads like a pyramid scheme, which is why I'm still mulling it over. There's just not enough game play information to really grab my attention at this point.
Someone Else's Post of the Week
Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep features a brilliant retrospective of Atlas Comics' Targitt in its Tales From the Quarter Bin feature this week. Rated PG for violence. Wow.
DVDs arrived at my house by the ton this week, but that's expected since spring is usually when I stock up on new material for the summer. "What? You don't take advantage of the outdoors during your vacation, Siskoid?" And the answer is no, of course not, I'm a pasty geek cliché. Anyway, spring often has some warehouse-clearing sales, which I definitely took advantage of. Case in point, Amazon letting first seasons of shows go for 20$. I got Babylon 5 Season 1 (the price outweighing the problems with effects scenes on these DVDs) and Veronica Mars Season 1 (sight unseen, I've just heard good things). Star Trek fans will be glad to know I also got all four seasons of Enterprise at half-price, so that should round out my year of reviews.After Mamet fever took me a couple of weeks back, I ordered and have now obtained The Winslow Boy (to feed my irrational attraction in Rebecca Pidgeon) and Edmond (written, not directed, by Mamet, and based on one of his plays). Speaking of writers and directors I like, finally got my hands on Daniel Clowes' Art School Confidential, and out this very week, There Will Be Blood and The Adventures of Baron Munschausen.
"Accomplishments"
First, DVD reviews. I decided to make it an Oscar weekend and watch both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, films that are in many ways similar. This year's big winner, the Cohen Brothers' No Country for Old Men, is an ingenious thriller in the offbeat, Cohen style that's really about inevitable change. Javier Bardem's cold-blooded killer is a force of nature, fate itself and the unexplainable violence of the modern era Tommy Lee Jones' tired sheriff struggles with. It's also to be commended for its minimalist (well, damn near absent) score. A movie without music that still resonates emotionally? How often have we seen that? The DVD doesn't have any of the quirky put-ons the Cohens usually put in (that I can see), but does a good job of discussing the book adaptation, the casting, etc.[And the Geek in me can't help but chuckle at the idea that Tommy Lee Jones is in the same film as someone doing a much better version of Two-Face than he ever did.]
P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood looks to be his most mature work, in the sense that it avoids his usual cinematic gimmicks, and has the cleanest language out of everything he's done. It's also gorgeously filmed - the wealth of information on screen made me think of Ridley Scott at times - and as is usual for PTA, fairly long. But it's really Daniel Day-Lewis' show. He's magnetic and creates a vivid character in oil man Daniel Plainview. This story is also about a crucial change in the American psyche: The shift from religious faith to economic faith. Plainview is Free Enterprise's messiah, and a devilish one at that. The DVD extras are interesting if not exciting. Deleted scenes and research material mostly, with a silent documentary on the oil trade from the 1920s as the centerpiece.
Art School Confidential: I'm a big Daniel Clowes fan. I love his comics, how odd and full of anxiety they are, absurd yet relatable. But can he write directly for a movie? The answer is yes. I wasn't a fine arts major, but I had a lot of friends in it (students and teachers), worked at the university art gallery, and was even common-law married to an artist for a number of years. Heck, I've even modeled. So while the characters in this film are totally bonkers, I can tell you they're still true to life. I chuckled throughout. And Sophia Myles (Doctor Who's Madame de Pompadour) in the buff? Totally objet d'art. The DVD extras are worth it just for the many deleted scenes, but are otherwise pretty thin.
In non-movie news, Monday is RPG night at the Siskoid household, and last Monday was a one-shot espionage adventure set at the very end of the Cold War, starring an old, senile Bond villain and plenty of Russkies, based on something I read in Pyramid magazine a while back. Slow to set up, the last act was played at breakneck speed, which was great. I still can't believe one of the characters survived being thrown down Victoria Falls (well, he didn't make it to the bottom, which helps), and the beauty of the one-shot is that you can suddenly activate sleeper agents from the PCs' group.
Plus, started in on World of Warcraft again after a three-month hiatus, and made half a dozen cards for the Unauthorized Doctor Who CCG, including a Donna from the first episode of Series 4. Speaking of CCGs, Decipher has invited me to join their new Fight Klub project, a card game that takes its characters and elements from theoretically any license (so you can have Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs fight Peter Petrelli from Heroes or something). The game is invite-only and reads like a pyramid scheme, which is why I'm still mulling it over. There's just not enough game play information to really grab my attention at this point.Someone Else's Post of the Week
Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep features a brilliant retrospective of Atlas Comics' Targitt in its Tales From the Quarter Bin feature this week. Rated PG for violence. Wow.
Comments
Decipher's games were always about more than simply combat - Star Trek had you solving missions, Star Wars had you controlling space, and Lord of the Rings, which probably had the highest level of fighting of any game they've done, made you go on a quest to destroy the One Ring. It was way more creative than Magic, or a lot of other games at the time, and now it seems like they've thrown out the concept of creating a good product in order to create an impenetrable subculture - which is quite the feat when you consider that CCG'ers are already a pretty insular clique.
Besides, I'd rather go down to the local comic shop and buy cards, even if I have to hold my breath to avoid knocking over boxes of Heroclix or stepping on the cat. Without a regular gathering place (because really, the stores have no incentive to offer FK tournaments because you can't buy the cards from them - I'm sure some will try it out, but they'll stop once they realize we're just scaring away the indie comics crowd), finding new opponents is going to be tough.
Decipher also claims that Fight Klub games will only last around fifteen minutes. Hmmm. Seems like they're going for "lowest common denominator" here. Hey! I have an attention span longer than twenty minutes! What about me?
Well, that turned into a bit of a rant. And I left out the part when I signed up for the "Mentor" program, anyway, and left several messages on the forum asking for cards based on "The Prisoner" and "Captain Canuck." But I'll probably only buy a few kilos...
Fight Klub's innovations seem to be all about distribution, open licensing, etc. It's interesting, but I just can't tell how it is as a game!
And great choices by the way.
I really enjoyed There Will Be Blood (moreso than No Country, but that's a whole 'nother rant) yet the idea of religious faith (Eli) being replaced by economic faith (Daniel) at the turn of the century never occurred to me. And I consider myself a fairly astute viewer of film.
Thanks for adding another level to an already intriguing and thought provoking film. I am eager now to rewatch it with that in mind.
Taken in mytho-religious terms, there's plenty to look at. The fall into the shaft, to an underworld; the bastard in a basket; the killing of a meek brother; etc
Yeah, I finally saw Art School Confidential recently, and didn't see why it got such poor reviews.
I loved it too. It'll get here one day.
Is the quality jump with the SFX shots really, really obvious, or can you live with it? I'm a bit worried that the non-amazing quality of B5's effects work will become even more obvious on DVD.