Posted in: Brain Blasters, Regular Columns by David Annandale on September 6th, 2008
We have all encountered films that are less intelligent than they think they are. My favourite example of this syndrome would probably be Contact, the deeply serious Jodie Foster vehicle, directed by Robert Zemeckis, and adapted from the Carl Sagan novel. The film keeps the novel’s primary weakness (the ending, which, smacks of a writer who hasn’t worked out a full outline before starting) and introduces some unintentionally funny visual elements (the alien-inspired technology looks suspiciously like it was designed by Wile E. Coyote, and the first time out works like was designed by him, too). But the film’s biggest sin was not that it has some very silly aspects, but that it is completely unaware of same, and really seems to believe that it is Important Art. Similarly, M. Night Shyamalan has become the undisputed King of Movies Less Intelligent Than They Think They Are.
But what of the converse? Are there films that are more intelligent than they think they are? Or at least, less stupid? Let me put forward the modest proposal that there are. Exhibit A is Massimo Pupillo’s The Bloody Pit of Horror (1965, out on DVD from a variety of sources). This mid-period Italian Gothic tells the charming story of a busload of cover models who descend on a castle that happens to be the home of the obsessed Mickey Hargitay (best known as the husband of Jayne Mansfield, and these days, as the father of Mariska Hargitay). As the models pose to be photographed in and around various torture devices, their host flips out, becomes convinced he is the reincarnation of one Crimson Executioner, and starts using the devices for real on the unfortunate women.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on September 3rd, 2008
Learn by Death, More Fable items on the Web, and Europe becomes the real place for gaming? - Welcome to the column that thinks the more you punish a player, the less likely they are willing to take up bondage as a vocational hobby known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. The Labor Day weekend was full of watching various web pages to determine whether or not Gustav was going to come anywhere near by backyard of Texas. Thankfully, it did not and Louisiana despite damage avoided a tremendous disaster. The fact is that New Orleans could have possibly had another Katrina like disaster. They did not because 1)Gustav was much weaker than Katrina and 2)It did not suffer a direct hit on the levees. The barriers held and New Orleans can live and prosper once again. One has to be worried though that since New Orleans is under sea level (like a soup bowl), can it keep avoiding disaster? Well perhaps, but the team of army engineers need to come up with a real solution and quick. The levees in place would have not held anything above a 3 and history can only be rebuilt so many times before it is just that: history. The rest of the time? It was spent doing usual weekend chores and spending time together. We planned our trip to Ohio (airlines really really suck) and we will be required to stop in Atlanta for a connecting flight to Akron, OH. Atlanta? Seriously? I apologize to the people who actually live in Atlanta but what the heck do I do to deserve this? Maybe if they put a big sign over the archway that says “Welcome to some place that isn’t named Atlanta”, I can just pretend it isn’t one of the worst cities in the US. Well then again, it isn’t Detroit.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on August 30th, 2008
A few weeks ago, I nattered on about how Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace differs markedly from the very slasher genre it helped create. The same is true of Bay of Blood, though the comparison is rather more complicated.
The connection between Bay of Blood (AKA Twitch of the Death Nerve) and the slashers is one of the purest examples of superficiality one could think of. Many of the murders in Bava’s film were lifted holus bolus by the first couple of Friday the 13th films (machete to the face, love-making couple speared in bed, and so forth). However, the fact that the films have near-identical murders turns out to be as irrelevant as the fact that they both take place in similarly sylvan environments. For the uninitiated, Bay of Blood does not offer one killer, but many. Everyone is killing off everyone else in a battle to possess a valuable lake-front property. There is no motivation so pure as revenge here. Greed is what is driving the characters.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on August 27th, 2008
Y’s makes it to Virtual Console, Fable Pub Glitch to be patched, and Space Invaders recreating 9/11? - Welcome to the column that thinks bad ideas are fine as long as you take that rental chicken suit to the proper dry cleaners known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. Last Friday, I went to go see the Dark Knight with my girlfriend & one of our mutual best friends. What did I think? It was very awesome, however not as uber-awesome as my girlfriend and the best friend would lead you to believe. First and foremost, Heath Ledger as Joker did steal the show. This is utter fact. That performance alone will get me to buy the SE of the DVD on the first day it is released. However, I think Iron Man was the better movie if I had to pick between the Superhero movies I have seen this summer (with Hulk & Hellboy somewhere beneath those two). That’s because if you strip away Heath, you’re left with a merely decent Batman film. I’m still having trouble wrapping my hands around Christian Bale as Batman. When he’s Bruce Wayne, he seems lost and not really of the playboy image we have come to expect from the billionaire. When he’s Batman, he seems more of a gargoyle (what is with that voice anyway?) than the caped crusader. Furthermore, I had issues with how little the Two-Face villain was used. The special effects on his “face” were fantastic, but in the short period of time we were given to enjoy the coin-flipping lunatic killer wasn’t long enough. Perhaps I am too critical of Batman as I own all the movies (including the one from the 60’s), all of the animated series cartoons (not that newer crap) & even the complete Batman Beyond series. I have in my mind a certain feel for the dark man in the cape and unfortunately for me, the Bale Batman isn’t quite living up to that feat.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on August 22nd, 2008
Apparently, achieving just the right level of success can work against you. This would appear to be the case of the recent Spanish horror effort [REC]. Co-directed by Jaume Balagueró (who gave us the underrated Darkness and The Nameless) and Paco Plaza, this was one of Spain’s biggest box-office hits last year. Does that earn it a theatrical North American release? Not a bit of it. Instead, it earns itself a remake, under the title Quarantine. Though there are, apparently, some changes being made (the unfortunate jettisoning of the supernatural angle being one), from the looks of things, the new version is going to be a pointlessly exact retread (and speaking of pointless, why give us a trailer that shows the very last shot of the film?). Not only is [REC] not gracing the theatres, it is also being deprived, at least for now, of a domestic DVD release. But if I might speak a word to the wise, it is available as a Region 2 release, so those of you with region-free players know what to do.
Going through the effort of seeing [REC] is well worth it, because it is another example of the new wave of European horror at its finest. The set-up is becoming familiar by this point: in the vein of Cannibal Holocaust, The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, we have a verité conceit. In this instance, we are seeing everything through the lens of the cameraman for While You Were Asleep, and lightweight news program where the reporter follows around the people who work the night shift. Tonight, she is profiling firemen, and we are along for the ride when a call comes in about a woman trapped in an apartment. The routine assignment becomes everything but when the woman savagely attacks an attending officer. Then residents, media and rescuers are sealed in the building by the authorities. What follows is not unknown territory. We are basically in cannibalistic zombie territory, though these folks have the rage and savagery of the infected in 28 Days Later, and the manner of infection (not to mention the aforementioned pronounced hint of the supernatural) also echoes Demons. Once the bad stuff starts happening, it happens at a frenetic pace, and the skill of the directors in deploying familiar material is astonishing. What we have here is another example of how anything old can be made fresh and vital is handled with inspiration and brio.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on August 20th, 2008
Come Get Some Duke Nukem 3d, Wii is prime for Hardcore, and is there really a Hardcore or Casual division? - Welcome to the column that believes birthdays are kinda like the yearly edition of Madden football, you get all excited for release day only to find out nothing has changed from the year before known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. I had a birthday on Tuesday. I turned thirty-three. Yes, your favorite video game columnist turned thirty-three. The end is near; okay, okay not really. This year, I didn’t find myself reflecting all that much. I saw myself for the first time in a while looking ahead, looking to new avenues where I can expand my craft. I saw myself getting older, but gaining some grace and momentum. For you see my friends, my life is not destined to be trapped inside a cubicle typing away a column every Wednesday. Well, I wouldn’t mind the column part, it’s the cubicle portion that drives me up the wall. No, no, I’m not going to suddenly bust out and do construction or lay bricks for the rest of my life either. I’m way too accident prone for that scenario. Actually, I need to write and write more. This includes not just columns, not just dvd reviews, not just video game reviews, this includes primarily my spin on fiction. See, I didn’t start my craft with what I do now, I did it with writing good ole fantasy fiction. Give me a rogue, a town, a forest and a dungeon and let me weave my magic of a tale. My favorite three contemporary authors: Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore & Eric Lustbader are indicative of my writing style. From Terry Brooks I get my sense of how to shape a world and make it come alive. From R.A. Salvatore, I get my sense of how to forge a character and make the reader care. From Eric Lustbader, I just get how to create a good steamy sex scene. Hey, gotta make it sizzle babie!
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on August 13th, 2008
Gaming in the Olympics, Disgaea goes cheap, and the true reason why Final Fantasy is on Xbox 360 - Welcome to the column that is an Olympic gold medalist in Speed Snoring & Sarcasm (and did it with a broken friggin neck!) known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. 52/27/??/??. That’s right. Two of my characters this week are currently doing the limbo dance. Talloween & Magkick. Magkick was the recipient of a doomed server from the start while Talloween has been on again / off again because it is very hard to solo a priest. These characters are going to be recreated. Magkick will go off the PVP server and be re-created on my usual Horde place over @ Killrogg. His professions will change from tailoring & skinning to tailoring & leatherworking. (My hunter will do the skinning for him) The priest will be recreated and on the same server. But on a different account with different professions (currently mining & jewelcrafting). This will enable him to play with my girlfriend’s characters and get a reliable buddy to quest & get gear with. My girlfriend will also be creating one or two characters on the new account @ Killrogg so she can go quest with my three characters over there. I’m kinda trying this on a trial basis and we’ll see how it plays out. I’m not deleting my mains (52 Troll Rogue / 27 Blood Elf Hunter) and neither is she (70 Draenei Hunter & a multitude of others). We are just trying out what would happen when we quest together. Let’s hope it goes smoothly.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on August 9th, 2008
Mario Bava is undergoing something of a revival of interest these days, what with Tim Lucas’ magisterial book Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark and the recent Anchor Bay box sets. Over the last little bit, I’ve been re-watching some of Bava’s films, along with a friend who hasn’t seen them before, and I was struck by a comment he made about Blood and Black Lace: that this was the first horror film he’d seen where the victims had no existence other than as victims. This is true, and it made me think about some of the other things that distinguish Bava’s films from the films they would influence.
Released in 1964, Blood and Black Lace is an early giallo. Its Italian title translates as “Six Women for the Assassin,” which is an even more accurate description of what the film is all about. Allow me to quote Phil Hardy on the film: “Bava’s work operates almost exclusively on the level of cinematic style. His films are as plotless and scriptless as it is possible for non-avant-garde cinema to be, using the strict minimum necessary to motivate the mise-en-scène of lusciously flamboyant sado-voyeuristic operas. In this picture the audience is no longer asked to care about who gets killed – the title announces and summarizes the action – and the killer, in his featureless mask, is merely the faceless representative of the male spectator as he stalks, one after another, a series of women guilty of nothing less than provoking desire.”
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on August 6th, 2008
Death of Sierra, No Yoda vs Vader, and Pre-Owned Sales going extinct? - Welcome to the column that is about to start a rant the size of Barbara Streisand’s nose before the surgery known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. 52/27/22/14. Every character this week in Warcraft with the exception of my hunter got some love. My troll rogue marched and hit level 52 with help from the Hinterlands and earned his first useable trinket. My blood elf mage stormed six levels and made his way into the Ghostlands. Even the dwarf priest who had not seen action for at least a month got some good shoulders & found his way questing again in Redridge. I think my major accomplishment this week was what I learned about spellcasters. I hit a point with my mage this week where I died about 5 times in one hour. It was around level 9 ½. No matter where I went, I was clearly overmatched. So again and again I met my WoW maker. Each time, I learned more about the character and then finally I hit 10. Level 10 for a mage is a big deal early on and opens up the playing field. Frost Nova became my new friend and I only died once for the rest of the weekend. I also made the decision right there to go Frost Spec. Yes, I know most mages go fire spec until they hit 70 but have you ever known me to do what everybody else does? Let’s see, Troll Rogue Combat Spec (most go Subtlety from what I’ve seen). A Hunter, Marksmanship build (everybody and their dog goes Beastmastery). The Priest? Discipline Spec (most go Shadow). So, it’s little wonder that a Mage for me would go Frostie. Mmmmm, Wendy’s anyone?
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on August 2nd, 2008
Flipping through the latest issue of Rue Morgue, I happened on a capsule review that mentioned how most grindhouse fare (whether actual or neo) rarely delivered on its promises. This is, of course, absolutely true, and I don’t for a moment pretend that this comes as news to anyone reading these words. I do want to consider this factor from two angles, though.
The first is that the fact that we all know this is in itself telling. Many film fans of my generation would have likely grown up knowing ONLY of the promises. We would see the posters and the ads in the paper, but whether because we were too young, or the movies weren’t playing nearby, or for a dozen other possible reasons, we would never actually get to see the movies themselves. Result: near-mythical status for these forbidden-fruit films. But now, thanks to the magical world of the DVD, just about every film we could ever imagine is now available in immaculate prints. This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we can finally see these movies. On the other, seeing them invariably punctures the mythological bubble. Nonetheless, it is now easier than it has ever been before to see just about anything, anytime. How’s that for a golden age?
