My First Doctor Who Experience

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Since the summer premiere of Doctor Who, BBC America has been asking viewers to tweet their first Who experience. While I’m following the spirit of the campaign, I’m afraid I can’t stick to the letter of the law. (Well, they’re really more like guidelines…) You see, I’ve had several first Doctor Who experiences. I think the Doctor would be proud that I violated the rules and kept to the spirit; the show and the Doctor deserve as much…

When I first heard of Doctor Who, I was a teenager in the mid eighties growing up in Detroit, Michigan, where I once again reside. There were no American broadcasters showing the TV series here in Detroit, however, on the occasional random evening, without any sort of rhyme or reason, a Canadian station would periodically come in just clear enough that I could watch whatever they happened to be broadcasting at the time. Until the U.S. digital television switch over, we in Detroit could easily pick up CBC channel 9 from Windsor, but this channel of which I speak was decidedly not channel 9. If I remember correctly, it was somewhere in the 30s… Anyway, I recall one day stumbling across Doctor Who and watched two or three episodes in a row trying to figure out exactly what the hell it was all about. I couldn’t pick out the Doctor any of the episodes, at the time, and couldn’t understand why. I now realize that the station had been running a marathon at the time, and showing different Doctors played by different actors. But at the time it left me very confused and I didn’t try to figure it out. So, for the next twenty years or so, I’d hear murmurings of Doctor Who and the TARDIS, but I really didn’t get it. I respected it, but I didn’t get it. It just wasn’t my thing.

 

When the channel formerly known as the SciFi Channel started showing the rebooted — or should I say, regenerated — incarnation with Christopher Eccleston, I decided to give it another try. I don’t remember which episode was my first episode… It might have been Dalek or Father’s Day, I’m really not sure. I just remember thinking that I once again didn’t understand it, and I didn’t watch it all the way through. There were other shows on, in the same time slot that I knew something about and cared more for. Looking back on that first season, however, I think the problem was that I never latched on to Eccleston, though I certainly liked Billie Piper as Rose. I kept wondering why he kept treating her like an idiot. Now, it’s no fault of Eccleston’s, but I think that incarnation of the Doctor was intended to be something of a jerk, but nonetheless, I’ve generally disliked the actor ever since.

 

At this time, I still didn’t know much about the show in all honesty. Hell, I’ve been watching Doctor Who since 2010 and understand a tremendous amount about it now, but I still don’t know everything. That goes to show that there is an incredible amount of depth to it and its mythology. I love depth and history in a show. Especially one that bounces around real and imagined history…

 

If I had to, if I absolutely positively had to pick a single moment as a definitive first experience with Doctor Who, I think it would have to be the David Tennant and Martha Agyeman episode Gridlock. That is the earliest specific episode I can honestly recall that I watched any significant portion. I still didn’t know what was going on, but I found it fascinating. I thought Tennant’s performance was spectacular, and it was written in such a witty and zany style as to just mock criticism of the absurdities. I still wasn’t hooked, per se, but I started to see the beauty of the show.

 

Sadly, I didn’t get hooked on the show until after Tennant’s term was up. By that point in 2009, I’d moved back home, gotten laid off from my job, and got enrolled at Oakland University, in its Cinema Studies program. On mornings when I had a late class, I would get up, turn on the TV and browse around the channels looking for something to watch while I got ready for class. And that’s when I fell in love with the show and David Tennant’s performances.  Tennant’s energy, activity, underlying excitement, warm embraces and occasional cold and calculating performances drew me in day after day, even when it was an episode I’d seen several times before. Not to mention the Scottish accent… I’m not a Scot nor am I homosexual, but there are times listening to David talk — usually as the Doctor but not exclusively — that make me wish I were… But, I digress… Regardless of the companion du jour,  I’m a Tenth Doctor Man. David’s performances varied from excited to cocky to tired to moody depending on the companion and the situation, but Piper, Agyeman, and Catherine Tate all felt perfectly at home by his side. And to this day, I get choked up watching the final minutes of The End of Time, especially when he says his final words as number ten: “I don’t want to go.”

 

So that brings us to my final first Doctor Who experience, with the most recent incarnation, the eleventh Doctor played by Matt Smith. My experience with this Doctor, however, really isn’t about him. I like Matt Smith, and I think he’s doing a great job as the Doctor, and frankly, I love the feel that his Doctor is a paradox in and of itself: an incredibly old being lying beneath the surface of a young body. Matt does an outstanding job, but my final first experience isn’t about him or the Doctor. It’s about his companions. Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill as Amy Pond and Rory Williams are the first companions I have genuinely loved as characters. Their relationship and interactions with each other and the Doctor have been absolutely amazing since day one, and I am so very, very sad to see them leave the show. As the summer finale just went off a little more than an hour ago, I’m not going to comment on it, but Amy and Rory have been the most spectacular characters I could have imagined on the show, and considering they were “merely” companions of the Doctor, as many have been before, I find myself wondering how anyone could possibly fill their shoes or the spots they left in my heart and the Doctor’s hearts. As clear as it is that the Doctor was in love with Rose, it’s clear to me that the Ponds will be missed much, much more. Clara Oswin, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman, will have two pairs of really big shoes to fill by herself… While I loved her early appearance in the show, I think it’s too early to really say how well she’ll mesh with the newly heartbroken Doctor.

 

And so, those are my first Doctor Who experiences… Decades after my earliest experience, I can now say I’m a fan of the show, and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for the Doctor. Mr. Moffat, Mr. Davies, Mr. Smith, Mr. Tennant, Ms. Tate, Ms. Piper, Ms. Agyeman, Ms. Gillan, and Mr. Darvill: THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH FOR ALL THE ENTERTAINMENT THAT YOU’VE PROVIDED ME!

 

Ms. Gillan and Mr. Darvill, I hope to see you both in something else in the very near future, preferably together if you can swing it!

Ghaddammit, Ted!!

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Tonight, courtesy of a very good friend with all the right connections, I managed to see a preview of the film Ted (Seth MacFarlane, 2012), which opens this Friday. The film, in case you’re unaware, is about a grown man John (Mark Wahlberg) and the teddy bear, Ted, which came to life when he was a lonely 8 year old kid. Obviously, the bear has been around the block after 27 years, and this film is really about them, and John’s relationship with Lori (Mila Kunis).

Before I go any further, let me emphasize this as best I can:

DON’T FUCKING TAKE YOUR KIDS TO SEE THIS MOVIE!!

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Early E3 2012 Impressions

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I should actually make this post about my impressions about Sony’s pre-E3 conference this year, but I want to talk about at least one game that had nothing to do with Sony’s conference so I decided to just make this about E3 showings in general… Although I own an Xbox 360, it rarely gets turned on, I just use my PS3 a lot more than the 360 and enjoy it more as well. I’m a PlayStation man, what can I say? Needless to say, I didn’t watch the Microsoft pre-expo conference.

Nonetheless, the game I want to mention that wasn’t covered in Sony’s conference is Dead or Alive 5… I had absolutely no idea until today that it was in the works and I have to confess I’m really excited that it’ll be one the PlayStation after the franchise’s long absence from the platform. I’m even more excited that Team Ninja is responsible for bringing it; although I haven’t had the opportunity to play too many of their games in recent years, I always remember the fun I had with my buddies playing the original Dead or Alive on the original PlayStation! Now, I’ll confess there was the legendary breast physics that drew me to the game at that time and has left a huge impact on me since, but the characters were fun to use, and I’m amazed by the interactive fighting stages in this latest installment! While I’ve mainly been a Street Fighter kind of guy for the last few years, I think DoA 5 will fill that gaping hole that Soul Blade/Edge/Calibur left in me with it’s previous installment: when Soul Calibur V was announced, I found I just had no interest in the series any more. IV let me down that much despite not doing a thing wrong… But, I digress… DoA 5 appears to be the pseudo-3D fighter I’ve been waiting for on PS3, and I’m eagerly awaiting the chance to play it!

Being a Sony guy, I have to confess I was let down by Sony’s conference. The Wonderbook for PS Move is interesting and all, but I wouldn’t have made a fuss about it in today’s conference. Even the audience at the auditorium was less than thrilled by it. Now, I know they were excited because they get to have a tie in with J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore and Harry Potter universe, possibly as an exclusive, via Wonderbook, but frankly, that’s not the sort of announcement that I, as a 40 year old gamer, was looking for. I have the Move, and I’d consider getting the Wonderbook and Book of Spells as something to do with my five year old, but that did not get my heart pumping… Especially when the captions, purposefully or accidentally, indicated that the gameplay was not live and the speaker specifically stated moments later that it was. For me, the demo players looked like they were having difficulty getting the game to do what they wanted, when they wanted, which could very well mean that it was pre-recorded footage that was out of sync with the players demonstrating it on stage. If it was indeed live, then the application (because I wouldn’t really call it a game) was laggy, and it’s still not something that should have been demoed prior to the official start of E3.

There were some games demoed that did get me excited and interested, however. The first is Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls, which, simply put, looks amazing. That alone is nothing out of the ordinary for that studio… I never played Heavy Rain, but every little bit I saw of the game looked amazing, and I regret never having had the money to spare for it. The Kara technology demo was also amazing and I suspect heavily laid the groundwork for Beyond. It’s still way too early to see what Beyond is going to be, but I’ll tell you now that I’m excited about it! I love a game with a great story line, and this is going to be one that has so much to reveal! 15 years in a character’s life?!?! Holy shit! Even more remarkable is that the lovely Ellen Page will be voicing the game’s main character, Jodi Holmes.

I love role playing games as much as I love air, but when I want to truly unwind, I like to kill things in first person shooters. I won’t even begin to cover the FPS games I’ve played, loved, and mastered over the last 20 years, but today’s press conference had me eager to play Ubisoft’s Far Cry 3. This is a franchise I never played beyond a beta or demo, so I don’t know anything about the story line, characters, or quirks that make it any different from any of the others. But the 4 player co-op caught my eye… In some ways, this game’s co-op mode reminds me of Valve’s Left 4 Dead series (the primary reason I bought my 360), and in others it reminds me of Insomniac’s Resistance 2‘s co-op mode. Considering I love both of those games, I got pretty interested in the game play on Far Cry 3 and I could see myself buying the game simply for that if three of my PS3 owning friends also get it… I did a bit of reading on IGN’s web site about what they thought of FC3‘s co-op mode, and it was hardly favorable, but I think it’s something that I’ll keep my eye on. According to IGN, the game is 3 months away from release and they were pessimistic about the chances of it improving before then, but I’ve seen a lot change in a final release in shorter time. Not to mention that the game as it exists at E3 today may very well be weeks or months old code.

There will be those that are extremely excited over God of War: Ascension but I saw it, more or less, as desperation. The God of War series has been an amazing seller for Sony, and it has done some pretty amazing things over all, especially with #3 which included combat on the back of a titan climbing mount Olympus, but this new one really didn’t seem to do anything particularly groundbreaking. Maybe I’m just not that into Kratos and his adventures — as a matter of fact, I’m not, I’d much rather see a follow-up to Heavenly Sword than another God of War entry — but it really looked like Sony decided to make another GoW game to keep money flowing into the coffers while they prep for the next generation. By this point, I was fairly disappointed in Sony for only having one strong, original title in the line up prior to the official start of E3, but then they reminded me of exactly what I needed to be reminded of…

Naughty Dog has been impressing me since the day I bought my PS3. Before then, actually, because I saw video and screenshots of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune long before I had the money to buy my PS3. One of the first games I bought was Uncharted, and I still play it and its sequels on a regular basis! I still haven’t found all of the treasures in any of the three games, and I’m not about to stop looking! (I refuse to use a guide for most games, and especially these.) Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, sadly, felt like a goodbye to me, that Naughty Dog was ready to move on to bigger and better things. If that’s the case, then I can think of nothing more suitable as a follow-up than The Last of Us. There’s no need for me to describe The Last of Us because I’m sure there are a thousand blogs out there doing just that, and a couple hundred game magazines doing the same in print and electronically, but it looks to be just the kind of game I’ve been waiting for. As I watched the demo for the game tonight, I was reminded of playing the original Resident Evil game on my PlayStation back in 96 when I would get creeped out to the point that I couldn’t play the game at night. While Last of Us may or may not involve zombies, genetic engineering gone bad, and betrayal like RE did, it frankly looks like another amazing work of art weaving extreme attention to detail, an engaging and thoughtful storyline, and brutal realism from one of the premiere PlayStation developers. In my humble opinion, this is a game worth buying a PlayStation 3 to play!

Between Beyond and Last of Us, I think Sony could have let a team of monkeys throw poop at the audience and still pulled off a positive conference this evening. The other games didn’t hurt [much at least], but those were the two stars. The PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale looked interesting, and got even better when it was revealed that Nathan Drake (from the aforementioned Uncharted series) and the Big Daddy (from BioShock) were going to be gracing the game as playable characters, but I was unusually uninterested for most of the conference.

Farewell 38 Studios

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I’ve mentioned a time or two here that I’m a big R.A. Salvatore fan, and I recently wrote about a game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, that a company he helped form released earlier this year. Frankly, I enjoy the game very much and I had thought it very successful, even if it was being overshadowed by Skyrim. A few days ago, 38 Studios released some footage from what I believed to be the MMO follow up in Amalur, Project Copernicus, and it, too, looks amazing! Possibly the World of Warcraft killer that people have been trying to make for the last 5-6 years…!

But alas, it is not to be apparently… Today, all the staff of 38 Studios and Big Huge Games were laid off, and Rhode Island’s governor has been quoted as having said that the game, Reckoning, failed. It’s possible that Copernicus will eventually see the light of day still, but without the talent to deliver strong and compelling storylines and inspire us with amazing artwork, the game will never be what was once envisioned.

The worst thing is that people will forever claim that Reckoning failed. That’s the part I can’t live with. The game only failed in one area: generating enough revenue to keep the companies afloat. What it did do, however, is manage to be a completed project of a pair or amazing dreamers, Todd MacFarlane and R.A. Salvatore, and a future hall of farmer, Curt Schilling. What it did do was sell hundreds of thousands of copies at a time when Elder Scrolls: Skyrim was still on the tip of many people’s tongue! What it did do was provide steady employment for over 300 people for a period of years during a major recession. What it did do was draw me into the game at a point when I was so stressed out over my final college semester that I didn’t care about gaming at all, barely tried to do any creative writing, did no reading for pleasure, and honestly thought that death would be a sweet release!

No, I don’t see Reckoning as a failure considering that there are so many games that are developed every year that never see the light of day, let alone reach the hands of a consumer… I’m something of an “almost insider” with the game industry. One of my two best friends has worked in the industry for 15+ years at some of the big companies. I’ve talked and eaten with a lot of his coworkers over the years, and I’ve seen first hand  projects that never even got close to being finished, let alone released with a major publisher. Developing games is hard work, but the real work is in the post development phase: finding a publisher and working out a deal, finding a marketing company and working out a deal, getting a deal with a distributor, and ultimately getting the attention of gamers to actually convince them to buy the game. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that despite the vast number of games that do reach consumers, the vast majority never do. If for no other reason than that, Reckoning did not fail.

So to all employees and family members of 38 Studios, I want to say thank you for your work, dedication, and sacrifices that you’ve made to bring me this game, and for working to bring me Copernicus! I wish there was more that I could do to show you my appreciation!

Trayvon Martin, LZ Granderson & Police

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I’m not going to recap the case because just about everyone on the planet has probably heard about it by now. In fact, I’m barely going to talk about it at all because it’s a tragedy that touches some very raw nerves. What I am going to address is LZ Granderson’s opinion piece on CNN entitled “Why black people don’t trust the police.” In his commentary, Granderson states his experiences with the police, including being handcuffed and harrassed by police for no reason, and generally makes the sweeping statement that blacks don’t like police. I respect Mr. Granderson’s work and opinions, and I understand that he wasn’t attempting to speak for everyone, but I want to point out that there are a lot of us that do like the police.

In my case, I’m a little biased. Although I grew up in and currently live within the city limits of the city of Detroit, my father was a police officer, my mother worked at the Detroit House of Corrections, an uncle was employed as an officer with the Wayne County sheriff, and my sister is currently an active duty sergeant with the Detroit Police Department. When I was a child, our house had been broken into a number of times, the thieves were never caught. Back in the 80s, a neighbor next door was shot while sitting in his living room because of something his grandson had done. I witnessed a drive-by shooting at the corner of my block in the early 90s, in which — thankfully — no one was apparently injured. I remember the Malice Green and Rodney King incidents clearly, as well as the whole O.J. Simpson affair. A young woman was accidentally killed by a handgun by her boyfriend just a year or so ago on my block a few houses down the street. And less than two weeks ago, a woman apparently defending herself from her boyfriend shot and wounded him across the street.

I’ve seen crime and I’ve seen law enforcement.

What I have never seen is a police officer pull me, my family members or friends over for no reason. I have no tales of my black friends and family being unjustly accused of anything, either while I lived 29 of my 40 years in Detroit, or when I lived in various parts of California. I have lived in fear of being accused of breaking some law some where but have never actually experienced it. I have walked through predominantly white neighborhoods in California late at night by myself, where I could easily be considered a suspicious individual and I’ve driven around all parts of the Detroit area late at night, but never once have I been stopped and investigated beyond a speeding violation or a car accident. Even when I’ve been pulled over, without having car insurance, I was not taken out of my vehicle, searched, or had my identity checked for outstanding warrants. And believe me, my connections to law enforcement agencies haven’t had anything to do with this “fair” treatment.

There’s been a long standing fear in the black community that police officers are out to get black people. Some of that was reinforced by historical and suspected infiltration of the law enforcement agencies by members of the Ku Klux Klan decades ago, not to mention the struggles during the civil rights movement during the 50s and 60s. This fear has lingered, sometimes rightfully, sometimes not for decades. We tend to forget that there are a substantial number of black people working as police, sheriffs and deputies, FBI agents, secret service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other law enforcement roles around the country. Blacks are just as much a part of the system that we supposedly don’t fear as non-blacks are.

I’m not going to say that black law enforcement agents don’t cause as many problems as white law enforcement agents sometimes do, or that they’re any more or less racist or difficult to deal with than any others, but the bottom line as I’ve seen it over the years is that enforcement officers are generally looking out for the best interests of everyone. We can’t forget that these officers are people too; they make mistakes and have bad days just like the rest of us. They sometimes hate their jobs, wish they could afford a better lifestyle, send their children to military school to keep them out of trouble, and wish there was more they could do to make their cities safer than they really are. They’re our neighbors, our friends, our families, the nice guys that let us have a parking spot, and occasionally the pains in the ass that cut us off on the freeway. What they aren’t, in the same sweeping generalization that Mr. Granderson used, is out to get us.

Getting back to the Trayvon Martin case, I’m really sorry that the boy was placed in the situation that he was, and that he died for no reason. I’m sorry that it took his death to bring a spotlight to that law, and make us question how its good intentions can be so woefully abused. But we can’t forget that the confessed shooter, whether we was right or wrong, murderer or not, is not a part of the local law enforcement community. We don’t know how his own injuries were sustained, but George Zimmerman did not work for the police department, and the officers on the scene did make some assumptions based on his injuries and statement that seemed to validate the local law. I’m not going to attack those officers for doing their job; they accumulated the statements and evidence as they saw it. They were not privy to the information the 911 calls gave the dispatchers. They could only see what looked like a man defending himself from an attacker. The officers responding to the scene, based on information they acquired from the shooter and his condition, made the only reasonable assumptions they could at the time: Zimmerman looked like the victim, not the attacker. It was and is up to the detectives that work the case at a later time to determine what really happened. With all the evidence that has come out as they worked the case, the evidence that has built the picture we’re now examining: it’s clear that Zimmerman should have been arrested. But that’s the advantage of 20/20 hindsight.

Should we — blacks, whites, Latinos, or Asians — trust the police? Only as much and as little as we trust anyone else. The police may be there to protect us, which generally means we should trust them, but they’re made of people. You should be questioning whether you trust people more than you should be questioning whether you trust the police.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

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Whether you’ve heard of this game or not, it comes out Tuesday and the demo has been available for a week or more. If you’re a gamer or a geek, chances are you’ve heard of it and have been anxious to get your grubby little hands on it for quite some time. I am such a geek, though I’ll confess I’ve only had a wait and see attitude regarding Kingdoms of Amalur for quite some time.

The reason is kind of simple. Despite the creative genius behind 38 Studios, I’ve usually found that people that are good at one thing are seldom good at anything else. I’ve been a fan of R. A. Salvatore for the last 20 years, and I’ve respected
Todd MacFarlane as a comic and toy genius for almost as long. Add in a baseball player (sorry! I can’t recall his name and I’m too focused to look it up right now) and I figure that they might make great figureheads for a company seeking investors. But what do they know about video games?

Before I give you my answer, I’ll tell you that in principle, Kingdoms sounded intriguing from the very beginning. It’s a completely new property, unburdened with intellectual property rights of any of the past works of the company’s top name talent. Launching a new world is risky business even for the top talent and established developers. That’s why Activision keeps going back to the Modern Warfare cash cow, and even Blizzard takes a long time to launch new products within their proven franchises and is slowly, almost reluctantly prepping this new one, project Titan. So three guys famous for doing other stuff getting together to first form a new video game company and launch it with a completely original title is pretty fucking ballsy if you ask me.

That said, Kingdoms isn’t perfect. I played the demo all the way through twice last night on my PC, and most of the way through on both Xbox 360 and PS3 today, and I found a few rough edges that need to be polished, especially on the PS3 version. (Most notably the load times are longer and the particle glow effects seem to be toned down on the Sony system.) The PC version ran well on my nearly uber modern PC (AMD FX-8150, 16 GB RAM, and, wait for it, Radeon HD 4870!) but the control scheme felt like it was adapted from the console version and only recently someone said “Wait a minute guys! We have a fucking keyboard!” I never did get comfortable with the Xbox controller so I have to say that the PS3 seems to have the most precise and comfortable control scheme. Of course, it might also have to do with the fact that I played that version last… But there was something missing with that version… As I played the other two versions, there was a sense of smoothness to the animation that I just didn’t get on the PS3, though the animations and artwork were virtually identical to my untrained eyes. It took me trying to describe it to one of my best friends to figure out a possible suspect as to what it was; my video card, the Radon HD 4870 is about 4 years old, and the 360 is at least 6 years old… I think the gpu in those beasts were straining at some points giving the game a feel of smoothness that wasn’t really there. The PS3, though no youngster itself, seemed to just power through the graphically intense game as if it were walking through air instead of a river. At least I think that is it…

In any event, I have to say that I like the game very much. I love that it’s an original fantasy story that’s displacing, at least for now, some of the old familiar faces in the fantasy genre. Though there’s a race called the Fae that is probably akin to the various interpretations of the elf, in the demo, at least, elves are no where to be found. Neither are dwarves. Humans are present as are gnomes, but I’m not entirely sure what the species the player characters are. In some ways they appear to be elves t with their pointed ears, but that’s about where the resemblance ends. I personally kept getting drawn to select a female character of the bottom most subspecies because I found them gorgeous. And I love how the actual customized character model, utilizing the correct equipped equipment, is used in the cut scenes instead of being either left out or made generic.

The magic system is different from the traditional implementations in fantasy, and I love the idea that the character can alter the path of the world’s destiny [in theory]. The game’s mythology is also unique and engaging to the point that, despite intending to stop playing as the night grew long, I kept finding myself wanting to play for just another few minutes. Even now, without touching the game in 12 hours, I want to play it. The more I think about Kingdoms the more convinced I am that it’s what I’ve been seeking in an RPG for a long time.

I never got into Fallout 3. I’ve played Oblivion and I got lost rather quickly, and fear the same from Skyrim. I do play World of Warcraft but sometimes I feel like I’m just grinding away with little or no fulfillment; I sometimes play merely for some social interaction with people that I’ve known in-game for years. Star Trek Online has improved considerably in the last two years, but I still hate anything that has to do with an away mission, and I wouldn’t call any of it a role playing game. I haven’t played a Final Fantasy in 10 years and Fable, while amazing, is more of a technology demonstrator than a game to me. Kingdoms of Amalur brings me back to the old school computer role playing games that are long gone and yet manages to satisfy my hardcore gamer itch.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a pretty great game in my opinion.

Luc Besson: You’re My Hero!

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For the longest time, I’ve considered novelist Robert A. Salvatore to be my mentor. I can’t say that he’s my friend, though I’ve met him, met his wife, and I’ve written him and been written to by him. I’ve read nearly all his books, and I love his writing style.
However, as I slip more and more into the filmmaking world, I’m really becoming a follower of another man. I’ve loved the work of Luc Besson for a very long time. The first film of his that I know I watched and loved was Leon the Professional, which introduced the world to Natalie Portman and the United States learned of Jean Reno. I didn’t know Luc Besson at the time; I didn’t know who he was or what the hell a director was. I just knew I liked the movie a lot!

Later, he did the Fifth Element with Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich, and again I was in awe. Although I nearly consider myself a devotee to the religion of Star Wars, when I’m asked what my favorite movie is, I state early and in no uncertain terms: The Fifth Element. Yes, it can be cheesy. Yes, there are some special effects flaws that bother me. Yes, the costumes are outrageous and Chris Tucker can be irritating as hell in it. But you know what? I love the hell out of that movie! There are lots of reasons why, but the story, the themes, the ironies, the mise-en-scene, the music, and far too many other things all just hit me in just the right fucking way. Would I give a kidney for the Fifth Element? No, but I willingly watch it every opportunity I have!

Over the last two weeks, I’ve come across two films that Besson wrote, though he didn’t direct them: Wasabi and Columbiana, and they have equally amazed me! Wasabi tickled me in all the right ways because it was decidedly French, which I found to be clever and cliche in a refreshing way, colliding with Japanese culture which I have a complete love for. Columbiana, on the other hand, tickles that part of my consciousness that loves strong female characters that just happen to be utter badasses…

In some ways, Wasabi and Columbiana are the Professional and Fifth Element draped in different clothes; there’s definitely a similarity between the films respectively. But I rather than say Besson is being lazy, I would actually declare him an auteur instead. The guy is quite rapidly becoming my hero as I get closer and closer to attempting to enter the film industry…

I’ll be frank… The way to get into the film industry is apparently by becoming an intern someplace and working your ass off for little pay for a long time, looking for just the right break while you put your dues in. I get that, and I’m not going to complain about it. It’s just the way things are. I don’t think I can handle that, mind you, and I’m hoping I can find a break via another path, and I’m looking to explore those meager options, but in all honesty, if I had an opportunity to just sit down with Luc Besson and work as an intern for him for a few months, I really think I’d strongly consider it. I’m liking his style, and I’m thinking that he’d really approve of a particular character I have in mind, perhaps a second as well.

Hell, even without the opportunity to work for the man, I think I’d like to sit down with him for a while and pick his brain on the Fifth Element and Columbiana, and see how I can apply his French perspectives to my own work! Mr. Besson, if by some miracle you read this, please drop me a line! I’d love to just talk with you for a while!

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

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Although I’ve more than once on this site screamed that “this will be the last spoiler warning I ever give” because I generally just don’t give a damn, since this film has not yet been released, I feel obliged to at least warn folk this time around. I’m not going to say that I’ll never give you a heads up again, but I think it’s unlikely that I’ll care as much to do so in the future. Any how…

So, there’s a book. It’s called “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.” It’s been out for a few years and it’s garnered a lot of attention. Ever hear of it? Yeah, I’m sure you probably have. We all knew this movie was coming. Well, anyone that vaguely heard of it the book at any rate, so I’m not going to go into any details about the plot. But I will say this right off the bat:

WHAT THE HELL IS SONY DOING WITH THE OPENING?

Ok, let me back up a bit, and explain a few things. I saw the movie tonight, Monday December 19, legally and for free with a number of friends. It was a preview showing they were doing in Birmingham, Michigan, and the head of my program at Oakland University alerted the department students that this preview was happening. So, a few of us independently got ourselves passes and guests and made our way to the theater to watch this film. After nearly getting killed on the escalator due to bad planning with regards to admittance to the theater, we all surrendered our cellphones and all other recording devices prior to entry into the exhibition room. (By bad planning, I mean they allowed the line of people passing through security to grow long enough to block the top of the escalator where people were basically being thrown into the line by virtue of no place else to go and the irresistible force of the heavy machinery deciding you can’t stand still…) Surviving the chaos, we turned off our phones, had a metal detector run over us, and handed over the phones. Fine whatever.

Then we got a verbal warning as a collected audience about the slim chance that we might have managed to sneak a recording device into the theater. If there had been time and room for a strip search, I’m sure it would’ve been conducted as well. At the height of our boredom and wandering minds (mostly wondering what time it was since we all had to surrender our phones), the theater darkened and the movie began.

And I began to wonder how bad this film was going to be.

I didn’t jump on the Millennium Series bandwagon until kinda late. In fact, I didn’t read Dragon Tattoo until early this year, and I haven’t read the other two books yet, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect out of this film. I generally avoided the previews and trailers, because I wasn’t sure I was going to watch this film. My expectations were really, really low that they could pull it off. And the opening computer generated animation with the techno music reinforced my fear that this was going to be a shitty film enjoyed with friends. As speechless as I was with the opening, I was just as speechless with the abrupt end of it and the shift to the much slower pace that I expected of the film. If I had to describe this transition, I’d have to say it’s like using one of the openings to a James Bond movie — perhaps “Casino Royale” with Chris Cornell’s “You Know My Name” blaring — and then suddenly finding yourself in “The Da Vinci Code.” That’s the God’s honest truth: the opening is so out of place with the rest of the film that I honestly think it was bolted on by some Sony exec that thought it would liven the film up.

In reality, the film doesn’t need it. I think Sony would be better off dropping that opening, and use something more at home with the film’s actual pace, utilizing bits of footage that they undoubtedly shot but didn’t use in the film… Perhaps some news coverage of the Blomkvist trial… Really anything connected to the film rather than some abstract music video. Don’t get me wrong, it was interesting to watch, but ultimately it’s a horrible way to open the film.

Once you get past that opening, the movie is overall very good. There are a number of *REALLY* uncomfortable moments in the film, however. Maybe the film is taking a European ethic with regards to sex scenes, maybe it was just in an effort to be faithful to the book, but there are a couple of key sex scenes in the film that you wouldn’t normally see in a Hollywood film. In both cases, my “trained” American film sensibilities screamed that the sex acts would be cut at a certain moment, and we’d be on to the next scene or at least jump a few minutes or hours in time to the aftermath. That’s how Hollywood has trained us for decades; we don’t see people having sex, typically, for longer than a few seconds except on very rare occasion. THIS is one of those rare occasions, and it’s very uncomfortable, even for someone that was expecting them like I was. They were [mostly] faithful to the book, but they made even me uncomfortable.

That said, all in all, this is one of the more accurate film adaptations of a novel that I’ve seen. There were differences, naturally, some of which my dear friend E. and I predicted before the film as a way of “dumbing” down the story, others we suspect were done to eliminate possible confusion. As I seem to have guessed a few things incorrectly in the book that were apparently told correctly in the film after all (despite my proclamations otherwise to E. on the way home), I won’t go too far into them, but fans of the book: you will notice the differences, but you probably won’t be too upset with them. The quality of the film and the story outshine the sometimes significant discrepancies, and in the end, no harm is done to the story.

Rating… I think I used a 10 point scale previously, so I think I’ll stick with that here… I’d give it a 9.5 our of 10; I have to knock half a point off for that opening, but otherwise Stieg Larsson’s work is too good to be muddied by the differences between novel and film.

Perhaps Verizon will open its eyes now

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So, in my note last week chronicling the Verizon Wireless and the Galaxy Nexus Saga, I stated that the phone isn’t the iPhone. And clearly it isn’t. But, according to various reports, the Galaxy Nexus has sold out at some Verizon Wireless, Best Buy, and Radio Shack stores, and it was listed as backordered for 8-9 days on Amazon.com until this morning. For a while today, on Amazon, it’s was backordered for 1-2 months! (Having just checked it again, it’s back to 8-9 days, so someone at Amazon must have entered a huge order for them! ) No, it’s not an iPhone, but considering how badly Verizon was treating the phone maybe this will wake their asses up and perhaps, just perhaps, if Google gives them another exclusive on a Nexus phone in the future they’ll be a bit more responsible about its release.