This could be anywhere really, couldn't it?

This review is a continuation of Tomorrow, When The War Began (Part 1: the book).

Tomorrow, When The War Began is a welcome change in direction for Australian movies. After the glory days of Australian cinema with iconic titles such as Mad Max, Crocodile Dundee, and Picnic At Hanging Rock, the industry seemed to spiral into a mire of navel gazing, self-indulgent, and boring films (with the rare exception, such as Kenny) This led to a palpable tension between film makers, who were fighting for their integrity in trying to tell uniquely Australian stories, vs. the critics who were arguing that audiences were becoming disillusioned with local movies that may have artistic merit but aren’t popular and bomb at the box office. Hence the hope is that this big budget production (purportedly $20 million) heralds the beginning of a renaissance in locally-produced cinema.

For that reason, Tomorrow has a very clean, “Hollywood” feel to it; the actors look shiny (glossy, even) and glamorous, and besides Chris’s long drawl during his little monologue, the cast’s accents are fairly neutral (at least to my Aussie-tuned ears anyway – international audiences may very well feel strongly otherwise). Ellie, Homer, Corrie, Kevin, Lee, Fi, Robyn and Chris are all competently rendered by their aptly chosen actors, but what I found disappointing – in spite of what I said above – was that the most important character of all was missing: Australia. The story could almost have been set in a small rural town of any country. Because the script attempted to cram as much of the book’s action into the 103 minute running time as possible, there was precious little time for lingering shots of the beautiful Australian outback, or scenes showing the laid-back, rustic lifestyle of the residents of Wirrawee.

From left: Lee, Fi, Homer, Ellie, Corrie, Kevin and Robyn

The script is an exacting adaptation of the novel, never quite rising to the level of its source material, and not bold enough to take more than the most trivial liberties to make the story better fit the medium. There’s even a line in the movie where Ellie says that movies are never as good as the book, which didn’t really seem like a joke so much as the writers’ self awareness of the quality of their effort. One particularly low point was a cringe-inducing moment between Ellie and Lee at Chris’s house: the pair are sitting at the window, and Ellie has these few strands of hair in front of her face that she inexplicably neglects, allowing Lee to come in with the stinker “I always used to look forward to geography class” before brushing it aside and kissing her.

Because the script followed the book oh-so-faithfully, there was zero tension for me as I knew exactly what was going to happen next. Jenny quite enjoyed it though, and constantly joined in with the cinema’s refrain of gasps during the pivotal scenes. Maybe if I had watched it with fresh eyes like her I would have enjoyed it much more. Hopefully it does well and brings about a revival of great Aussie movie productions.

An epic of epic epicness indeed.

In some ways Scott Pilgrim vs. the World‘s is like a Pilgrim’s Progress for Gen Y – a modern morality tale about love and self-esteem cleverly masked by fast-moving scenes and dialogue dripping with wit and irony. In order to win the girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers, Scott must defeat her “seven evil exes” in videogame styled combat.

Scott Pilgrim is directed by Edgar Wright – the guy behind Spaced, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead – so as you would expect, the movie is a triumph of fan service, pop culture references, comic-book cred and general awesomeness. The unfortunate side-effect of this of course, is that the movie has only very limited appeal to anybody who’s mental age is more than 16 – evidenced by its terrible box office earnings (in spite of largely favourable reviews).

Michael Cera in the lead role is a contentious but unsurprising choice, since he must be the only currently bankable actor with the right amounts of charisma and dorkiness to play the role of Scott. Other highlights were Ellen Wong as Knives Chau, who looks like she stepped right off the pages of a Japanese manga, and Kieren Culkin as Wallace, Scott’s gay roommate, who deadpans all of his (hilarious) lines and steals every scene that he’s in.

Frenetically paced and possessing of the highest meme density of any movie I’ve watched so far, don’t forget to put on your 80′s geek hat when you go and see it.

Here’s the trailer:

The game retains the cel-shaded visual style from Wind Waker on Gamecube

I had a minor epiphany while playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii, and it was this: all of the Zelda titles are essentially the same game with different puzzles. About three-quarters of the elements are common to all of the games in the series: Link, the boy with the green clothes and pointy hat (mostly referred to as Link); the eponymous princess; the various races (Gorons, Zora, etc.); the weapons (the sword and shield, bombs, boomerang, hookshot/claw – which tend to accumulate from sequel); and of course the sound effects. The remainder are innovations in either the puzzle design or the interface. As the first Zelda title on the Nintendo DS, it should be patently obvious which way The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass leans.

Gorons... check.

The question is, are these differences enough to make the game fun? Happily for me, the answer is a resounding “yes!” but I now have a vector for understanding why others might not like it. Zelda is not the franchise for you if the story matters, or you find that familiarity breeds contempt. The Zelda framework here – because that’s what it boils down to – is but the thinnest veneer of gloss holding a bunch of random puzzle elements together, making Twilight Princess seem like Lord of the Rings in comparison. At least it’s better than the Professor Layton games where they make almost no attempt to hide the fact that the “story” is an inconvenience that gets in the way of the game’s brain-teasers*.

Fairies... check.

Phantom provides a fresh take on old favourites, for instance the ability to draw paths for the boomerang, and lots of drawing and tapping puzzles making full use of the stylus interface. The cel-shading graphics style borrowed from Link’s Gamecube outing, Wind Waker, is a love-it-or-hate-it affair but are at least functional and reliably consistent in quality throughout.

The puzzles aren’t at all taxing, and if weren’t for the baffling decision of the game designers to make you play through one of the key dungeons several times throughout the course of the game, would be a rather short adventure. The side quests do provide some challenge for those interested enough to pursue them (I did a few of the easier ones and then gave up).

When all’s said and done, I greatly enjoyed the light intellectual diversion provided by Phantom Hourglass, but came away from it with an empty feeling. I do like my stories, after all.

—-

* I’m not saying that these games are bad, by the way. I actually have both the original and the sequel, and hope to get around to reviewing them soon.

Just look at that comma lurking there, ominously...

The movie‘s just around the corner, and I just so happen to have a copy of the book lying around, so I thought I’d give it a quick read so that I can do one of those movie vs. book comparisons. The Tomorrow series rates amongst Australia’s top young adult fiction, as well as being a common school text, so I have no idea why I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Cultural cringe, possibly.

As the blurb describes, John Marsden wrote Tomorrow, When The War Began to address “a complete lack of interest in reading among his Year 9 students” while teaching English at a school in the Australian bush. Looking at it from a critical perspective, I’d put it in a similar category as Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code – deeply flawed writing yet with an unputdownable quality of storytelling.

Tomorrow is written from the perspective of Ellie, a well-rounded, level headed young farm girl, who organises a camping trip with a small group of her friends in a deep, secluded area of bush named Hell. While there the town of Wirawee where they live is invaded and occupied by an unknown military force. The group is plunged reluctantly into war, and become guerrillas fighting to free their friends and family, and to save their town.

Whether consciously or not, Marsden created a cast that represents the multicultural melting pot that is Australia – both ethnic and social class – and worked in several slightly preachy episodes of moralising. If you can look past these contrivances, Marsden does otherwise produce a fairly convincing depiction of both an idyllic rural lifestyle (not hard for him I guess, seeing as he actually lives in the bush), and the fear and terror of finding yourself suddenly in the midst of a war.

And so the movie. It comes out on Thursday, 2nd September (although I’m a lucky enough to have scored tickets to a preview screening on the Monday prior) and from the trailers, it seems that the producers have taken the safe route and stuck very closely to the book. Practically every scene is accounted for exactly as I remember them. Check it out for yourself:

Look out for part 2 of this review soon…

Kratos is one angry dude...

A quickie review of God of War 3 to finish off the week. This game probably deserves slightly more verbiage than I’m willing to dedicate to it, but suffice to say that there are many ardent supporters of this ground-breaking series (often literally) that blends together 3D action platform gaming, excessive violence and Greek mythology.

The game borrows heavily, but largely successfully, from other genres: there are bits of Shadow of the Collossus, Street Fighter, and even bits of Echochrome, all seamlessly integrated into the overall narrative structure. This game closes off the the storyline from the previous games, which sees the “Ghost of Sparta” exacting revenge on the Olympian gods for causing him to accidentally kill his own family.

The plot is driven along by crappy, but mercifully sparse, dialogue and finishes with a climax that leans quite heavily on existentialist claptrap. But the point of the God of War series was never the story; it’s about dishing out retribution with extreme prejudice, and in that sense the game delivers in spades. In this final instalment Kratos is not content with  taking down monsters and gods, but also Titans of such immense proportions that they form entire game levels by themselves.

By the way, was it just me, or did the lyrics for the Ominous Latin Chanting in the final battle sound a lot like “Kratos, Kratos, Kratos, ha ha ha…”?

It’s a 1923 Tauchnitz Edition of H.G. Wells’ A Short History of the World (it was first published a year before in 1922). I’ll say beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it is older than anybody that will ever read GeekReads (but happy to be proved wrong, if there are any 87+ year olds out there reading this please drop me a line).  If you’re like me, which is to say a complete and utter ignoramus when it comes to history, then here’s some context: it is 9 years after World War 1 ended, 6 years before the Great Depression, blues and jazz music was starting to become popular, and sliced bread wasn’t invented yet.

Despite the terrible inconvenience of having to carve his own baked goods, the time in which H.G. Wells lived was much like ours – there was electricity, television, cars, skyscrapers and planes. And if you thought that atheism was a recent development:

Over a large part of the civilized world it was believed and taught that the world had been created suddenly in 4004 B.C., though authorities differed as to whether this had occurred in the spring or autumn of that year. [...] that the universe in which we live has existed only for six or seven thousand years may be regarded as an altogether exploded idea.

Anyway, enough marvelling – I feel like a kid in awe of how old his grandpa is, and how much he knows. But that’s exactly how I felt reading A Short History, that I was being taken on a grand tour of history by somebody much older and wiser than I. Wells’ style may not be as affable as Bill Bryson, who undertook a similar effort in the similarly titled A Short History of Nearly Everything, but the book reflects his skill as a writer with the occasional poetic turn (this is where I wish I took notes like a proper reviewer, so that I could quote something that illustrates what I mean).

Although the book helped me to better understand the reason behind why the world is the way it is today (basically, the whole world is just made up of various outposts of a few European countries) it hasn’t cured my ignorance of geography. The book comes “WITH TWELVE MAPS” as it states on the title page, but they were all reproduced in such a way as to be largely indecipherable (particularly the ones that rely on various shadings).

Finally, I found that because his perspective on history is not too far removed from our own, the comments he made about his own time, towards the conclusion of the book, are still a valuable message to us today:

[...] we are still in the stage of the first-fruits in [humanity's mastery over matter]. We have the power, but we have still to learn how to use our power. Many of the first employments of these gifts of science have been vulgar, tawdry, stupid or horrible. The artist and the adaptor have still hardly begun to work with the endless variety of substances now at their disposal.

It’s a message that some of the more prideful members of our time should heed well.

—-

If you were to update this book to include the achievements between H.G. Wells time and the present day, what would you include? I can think of: World War 2, space exploration, computers and the Internet (obviously) and nuclear power.

Ewan Macgregor looks a wee bit like Ben Stiller here, don't you think?

It might be considered a bad thing that I mistook the start of the movie for BMW ad, but a lack of the usual plethora of studio logos and the egregious product placement aside, The Ghost Writer turned out to be reasonably compelling viewing.

Ewan McGregor plays the eponymous ghost writer (who’s never named throughout the movie) who is hired by a publishing firm to tackle the unfinished manuscript of the memoir of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), former British Prime Minister. The previous ghost writer died on the job, and “The Ghost” – as he’s often referred to throughout the movie – finds himself caught up in circumstances that puts his safety at risk.

This isn’t usually one of my genres so I had to do a bit of reading to convince myself that it was worth watching (it was Jenny’s idea to go see it, based on David and Margaret both giving it 4.5 stars). It’s old school, which is actually refreshing in a retro-cool kind of way. The linear plot starts at a pedestrian pace, and continues ratcheting up the intrigue and suspense right until the climax delivers the “ah hah!” moment. The script does tend to plod along a bit, and I wouldn’t go so far as to label it a thriller ‘coz it wasn’t ever particularly thrilling. I’d liken it more to a slow-burning whodunnit (and being of that frame of mind quite early, I ended up accidentally guessing the ending – yay me).

Being completely ignorant of the controversy surrounding the director, Roman Polanski, I came out of The Ghost Writer thinking that it was yet another Hollywood movie that suffered from that great bugbear of mine: the American superiority complex. But for those of you who like me didn’t know (or didn’t care to know), Polanski is currently a wanted man in the USA on charges relating to sexual abuse of a minor back in 1977. He has been “on the run” so to speak (avoiding countries that are friendly with the Americans) since 1978. Given that context, maybe it’s not so much of a superiority complex as Polanski’s criticism of the insidious power of the United States in regard to global political affairs. Heavy stuff.

Onto rather more superficial matters, Olivia Williams and Kim Cattrall play the Prime Minister’s wife and mistress respectively, and while in the movie you get a full side-on of a gloriously naked McGregor, there is only the merest hint of flesh from one of the leading ladies – you can guess what demographic this movie is aiming for. Not that I was expecting anything… ahem.

But yeah, keep your wits about you, and remember: when you see the BMW ad, the movie has started.

Not the most exciting poster ever...

As a species, we’re remarkably preoccupied with issues of life and death. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? The Burden of Being. Religion, philosophy and art are only barely enough to contain our collective existential angst. We hardly need help in that area, yet our natural curiosity pushes us ever onwards in exploring the outer fringes of reality through various media.

There are bound to be comparisons between Inception and The Matrix, the two most notable examples of such works in recent memory, so let’s get it out of the way first. Both movies depend on the concept of layered reality – that is, what we perceive to be real may actually be a dream or a computer simulation, respectively, and other layers exist that sit above or below what we mistakenly believe to be singular. They both also rely on the notion of shared reality, where many people are able to simultaneously participate in the same dream or illusion.

So even though the plot, style and pretty much everything else is completely different, their philosophical underpinnings are pretty similar. Both movies lead us, the audience, to question the nature of reality and what we believe to be real. Yes, Inception is deeply intellectual so don’t go into it without your thinking hats on, lest you end up falling asleep and dream about the movie instead (or was your dream the real movie?)

Jamiroquai, eat your heart out!

Dominic “Dom” Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an Extractor – a thoughts thief if you will, who has the ability to hack peoples’ minds to steal information. He’s also trying to clear his name from the murder of his wife so that he can see his kids again. A powerful and influential businessman, Saito (Ken Watanabe), offers Dom redemption in return for successfully implanting an idea into the mind of competitor Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy) – an inception. However, this impossible task is made even moreso by Dom’s inner demons.

Many people who’ve seen Inception think it’s the best thing ever. Based on the strength of the story alone, it definitely is, but like a lot of reviews that I’ve read, the movie seems to lack a certain… something. For me, it’s the casting.

Why so serious?

Leo. Not much needs to be said here. The guy’s a great actor, and I’m sure some of the ladies find him very attractive, but as usual his performance carries with it too much gravitas. It makes the emotional experience of watching movies with him in it a lot like trying to swim through jelly. Then there’s Ellen Page (Juno, Whip It). While I adore her, her appearance in Inception was an odd casting choice. Alongside the other older (and taller) members of the ensemble, the combination of her mature demeanour and her impish youthfulness makes her appear as a little gnome. A different casting choice might have allowed for a more nuanced interpretation of Dom’s relationships, although I can see why Nolan might have deliberately wanted to avoid that, given that there’s plenty enough for the audience to keep track of without adding even more layers.

What does it mean?

Last but no means least, the ending. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil it for you, but debates rage on as to the relevance of the final scene. Personally, I think that focusing on it takes away from what I believe is the real question that the movie is asking – why aren’t we satisfied with our own reality?

Awkwardly, they've dropped the "4" from "Call of Duty" for this sequel

Imagine somebody put a gun in your hand, and ordered you to kill innocent civilians. Could you do it? The latest game in the Call of Duty series asks the player this, and other tough ethical and moral questions, as it propels you through a narrative of conflict in the context of today’s society. It’s a continuation of the plot originally kicked off in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which paints the US as the saviour of the barbaric ways of Russia and the Middle East.

American hyper-patriotism and ethnic clichés aside, Modern Warfare 2 isn’t merely a game, it’s another example of the new breed of games that offers an interactive experience. The main difference between the two is that while previous video games simply used story as a device to explain a game mechanic or to give the protagonist a raison d’être, these new, more mature offerings are beginning to layer in complex emotions and philosophical considerations, integrating them directly into the gameplay in a more fundamental way, than the odd rhetorical poser in the cutscenes between levels.

The example touched upon in the beginning of this review is a stage, early on in the game, in which the player takes on the role of an undercover agent posing as a Russian terrorist, and on order to progress, must participate in the slaughter of innocent civilians. Even the player refrains from firing and simply watches, he or she will still see their collaborators shooting stragglers, execution style. It’s a heavy moment, and highly controversial.

Having only recently arrived in the world of First Person Shooters through Transformers: War For Cybertron, the pedigree of the Call of Duty series is evident. MW2 takes the spit and polish up a big notch – the interface is well thought out and snappily responsive; the graphics are impressive and the sets amazingly detailed (e.g. in one scene set in an airport, you can shoot pieces of luggage that are strew around, and random pieces of clothing and underwear come flying out); and the game mechanics much more refined.

In multiplayer, there are a wealth of game modes (Free-For-All, Search & Destroy, Demolition, Sabotage, Domination, Team Deathmatch, and Capture The Flag) and several players can play together on a single TV in split-screen mode. Along with the downloadable map packs, MW2 offers exceptional replay value.

I’ve never been a big fan of FPS – especially anything war themed – but I found Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 so imaginative and stimulating that I barely noticed. Definitely one for the collection.

2D Mario up to his usual tricks...

I’ve been a keen follower of Paper Mario since the original first appeared on the N64. What’s unusual about this franchise is that it’s developed by a third party, Intelligent Systems – unusual because Nintendo is as fiercely protective of its core characters as Disney is of theirs. It’s a pretty smart move though, because the outsider’s perspective gave the designers the ability to poke fun at the parent franchise (the core Mario games), and as a result there’s plenty of hilarious references at the expense of the source material.

For those of you who haven’t heard of this series before, the basic conceit and the primary gimmick is that the characters are essentially flat 2D sprites. Therefore when Mario turns from left to right, he literally flips over like a piece of paper. It’s also different to the parent franchise in that the story plays a much more important role in the proceedings (as evident in the Japanese title of the original game, being “Mario Story”).

Super Paper Mario is the third game in the series – with a single appearance on each of the key Nintendo platforms thus far: Paper Mario on N64, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door on Gamecube and now this. Sadly, third time’s not the charm here. The usual schtick has become tired, and is even starting to look a little bit cynical. For example one of the levels pokes fun at geeks – talk about biting the hand that feeds you!

The game suffers greatly from a lack of freshness and innovation – the characters are a bit thin on personality, and the plot was flat (har har). The new gimmick is that now Mario can flip into 3D – at the press of a button the flat 2D background turns into a full 3D world. Except that it isn’t full. It’s sparse, empty and largely devoid of interest or gameplay value other than to force the player to do so at various points just to get past certain obstacles. The game is divided up into sections, mimicking the original Super Mario Bros. “world 1-1″ style of level design, resulting in the majority of the game being a bland and uninspired 2D platformer.

Enemy character designs are unimaginative to the point of being downright bad, and the highly repetitive and very short background music grates after a short time. It also contains a bunch of recycled side-quests from earlier incarnations (e.g. recipes), which are completely superfluous for all except the most obsessive-compulsive fan – it’s a serious step backwards from the fresh, funny and exciting Thousand Year Door.