Catching Up

Winters where I'm from are a bitch. No one, not even Yours Truly, is immune to their crushing bleakness, the merciless, enervating grind of cold and snow and slate-gray skies with no horizon. Have I written lo these many far gone months? Yes, but nothing close to what I should, either in quantity or quality. A draft of something big is in the can. Draft Two is well under way and looking way better than the first. A short story. An essay. But the reviews and other timely things that were/are the de rigueur of Warehouse admittedly fell by the wayside as I huddled in my third floor Fortress of Solitude, riding out the stresses of a new job amidst a six-month stay at Ice Station Zebra, a winter already in the record books for its persistence if nothing else. It was fully one month later this year compared to last that I was able to sit comfortably outside in a mere three layers and enjoy a pipe without losing blood in my extremities. To compensate, I spent a lot more time indoors hunched over my laptop in light either too poor or too bright, hammering away at what I could and sharing it with exactly no one.

A well-crafted excuse for not writing more. Harlan Ellison would kick me right in the taint for uttering such twaddle.

So, to catch up, some Pez-dispenser reviews of some things from the last half-year, diligently pared down from a larger list of less memorable fare:

Games

Infamous: Second Son – I probably should have mentioned this one months ago, but the hype for it had died down and I decided to bruise my fingertips with a 2,000 word analysis of Destiny instead. Suffice it to say the latest Infamous iteration from Sucker Punch games is a blast: fun, frenetic, freeing, and colorful. And I enjoyed it way more than Destiny. This game was a showpiece, too: the first exclusive standalone on the PS4, tasked with flexing as much processor muscle as possible so as to entice salivating next-gen consumers. The result is a virtual Seattle so real you might find yourself flipping on a completed game just so you can hang out there for an hour before work. Oh, and you can turn into smoke, fly on a zipline made of light, AND turn into a rock monster. 'Nuff said.

Dragon Age: Inquisition - I think the pitch meeting for the third Dragon Age started something like this: "Guys, I'm thinking length is the name of the game this time..." and the next hundred meetings were less about epic fantasy and more about how to ruin men and boy's (and girl's too, of course!) lives by robbing them of human interaction and sunlight. Yeah, this one was gigantor, a mammoth of a yarn, with a ruefully predictable main story but stunning visuals, fine combat mechanics, and BioWare's continued devotion to nuanced, likable characters occupying a lived-in universe that drips details and backstory.  If you want any more proof that next-gen systems are swinging for the sandbox fences, you need only spend, oh, fifteen hours or so on the FIRST major play area in the game, only to realize it is just one of more than a dozen such areas as big or bigger.  Then you kinda cry a little, partly for the sheer beauty of the world of Thedas, and partly for the death of your social life.    

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor – A cracking good hack-'n-slash that does Tolkien proud. Sure, this is a cinematic property and as such has all the same Peter Jackson-approved visuals we now take for granted on anything labeled LOTR, but this is a grim tale with blood to spare and a smart, strategic approach to combat that forces you to work on your long game – planning, stalking, exploiting weaknesses – rather than mashing buttons. The land of Mordor pre-Sauron's return is a joy to explore, and just when you're getting Fallout Syndrome and starting to tire of all the bleakness, the story takes you to a whole new area as big or bigger than the first complete with green trees and an inland sea. Add to that it is also a pre-novel prologue that actually makes sense and doesn't contradict the canon and you've got a winner.

Far Cry 4 – More of the same from UbiSoft, not that that's a complaint. Our neighbors to the north decided not to fix something that wasn't broken, essentially copying the format and game mechanics of the stellar Far Cry 3, polishing them a bit, and plopping them down in a mountainous Asian setting instead of an uncharted island. Though the play map is approximately the same size, it's a deeper, more stratified environment that requires more invention and aggression to move around. It does not, however, have as compelling a story, which I admit only reluctantly for two reasons: first, the designers said themselves they wanted to change the pace from the last game to encourage the player to immerse himself in the world more, and second, because the villain was played to sadistic perfection by game-voice wunderkid Troy Baker. Alas, immersion was traded for a decided lack of urgency and a confusing string of sub-plots, and Baker was absent from most of the game anyway, mostly popping in via radio to mock and goad the player ala Handsome Jack. The franchise got a freebie with this one – no one wanted much to change from FC3 – but should they continue with this series some real innovations will likely be due for the next one.

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag – Nope. Still can't do it, folks, Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me two more times with other games that claim to be different but regurgitate the same dreck, shame on the folks pumping these re-skinned clones into the market every year for easy cash. There is nothing inspired about these games save the magic bean juice of mediocrity they've managed to parlay into a billion-dollar franchise. Stultifying mechanics. Stiff controls. Nonsensical plots. Glitches galore. And Jeebus Christmas, is it boring. Holy God, I could forgive all the rest if it wasn't so painfully dull. Black Flag earns credit for capitalizing on the one good thing rescued from ACIII, the ship-based activities and yardarm-to-yardarm combat, but it can't resuscitate a wandering story with no momentum and to-do list of mindlessly repetitive tasks meant only to pad the playtime.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls – I'm wary – nay, allergic – to the idea of paying for the same game twice, but in this case I made an exception. RoS is not Diablo III 'done right' as many reviews have suggested, but Diablo done better, done best, done proud. To Hades with the forgettable story: this one's always been about leveling and loot. To that end, the good people at Electronic Arts expanded the layout of the original game to include an new act (feels like an epilogue and an anticlimax, but quibbles), a new Hero Class (the badass Crusader, sort of a Paladin-meets-Jedi), and a adrenaline-soaked new Adventure Mode scaled for high-level players that basically throws everything including the kitchen sink at you. They already pumped the conventional level cap up to 70, but now added the Paragon system, a post-70 metric for beefing character stats even more and turning your Heros into nigh-unkillable gods. In short, plenty of reasons to dive back into the world of Sanctuary and slaughter more demonic hordes. The game looks better than ever on the next-gen platforms, and ample chip power means the screen can jam with enemies without fear of lag.

Movies/TV

The Dark Crystal – I'd never seen this Jim Henson/Frank Oz joint, but as a child of 80's fantasy it was time to add this to my repertoire. Shockingly dark for a 'kid's movie', it's a reminder that fairy tales aren't always cheery and not all the cute little critters survive. The masterful puppetry alone is worth the watch.

The Machine – a meandering British-made sci-fi allegory about humans and the machines that (might) love them, with fifteen minutes of blood at the end. It tried a bit too hard and attempted too many lessons at once, but it was fun watching blonde stunner Caity Lotz morph from a Valley Girl scientist into a pretty convincing android. She ain't Pris, but then again who is?

Ip Man – I love Chinese martial arts films – most of my favorites never made it into wide US release – and this ranks among some of the most entertaining I've seen in years. The (only slightly) embellished biopic of the real Ip Man, trainer of Bruce Lee, and his struggles to survive in his Japanese-occupied hometown, it features gorgeously choreographed brawls that showcase Man's trademark Wing Chung fighting style.

Snowpiercer – Hey kids, are you depressed? Wanna be more depressed?? Well, who doesn't??? Then watch Snowpiercer!! Seriously, as post-apocalyptic yarns go, this one would make Hitler sad, which is saying something 'cuz he never seem like a very happy guy to begin with. It's well-trod earth with a fresh twist, taking place entirely on a world-spanning train that must never stop or else freeze in place, along with the last vestiges of humanity, and the story proceeds as fast and arrow-straight as the choo-choo itself. Can society ever truly transform itself into something better? Or is class inequality a necessary evil ingrained in our very chromosomes? The answer will make you glum, and then Ed Harris shows up.

Continuum – Oh, Canada, you are such a lovely country, and Vancouver, you are a truly lovely city, and you borrowed one of the very loveliest of our American ex-pats, Rachel Nichols, to star in this surprisingly good series about a time traveling cop. Nice mix of police procedural and 'what if...?' speculation, Continuum utilizes an effective ensemble, impressive visuals, and taut writing to make a casual viewer into a real fan. While it has been a joy to watch Nichols evolve from third-string hot chick into an actress with real chops (and more gorgeous with age), the low-key star is Erik Knudsen as Alec Sadler, a teen genius destined to become the tech-emperor of the future who may or may not be trying to alter history out of remorse for the soulless landscape he helped it become.

Dear Mr. Watterson – A love letter to the celebrated recluse who gave us Calvin and Hobbes, arguably the greatest comic strip of all time. Watterson didn't participate in this documentary, but you can feel the love coming from every frame, and the reverence bordering on awe emanating from his colleagues when they speak of him is something to behold.

The Incredible Hulk TV Series – Netflix: Reliquary of Nostalgia. It's a hell of a thing, that break-pumping effect you get browsing through a thousand thousand contemporary film and television titles, never settled, never quite sure what to choose, only to find this and know, suddenly and with a the certainty of a Crusader, that you've struck oil. This is more than just good comic book schlock; it's a grainy Instamatic snapshot from my youth. I was touch too late to watch the original series when it first aired (I missed the disco era by a handful of years), but thanks to older relations I filled in the gaps later on, especially with the NBC TV movies made in the late 80s and the magic of VHS. My favorite of these was The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, largely because it functioned as a (rejected) back-door pilot for a Daredevil tv series that featured a decently dark and well-rendered interpretation of the Marvel vigilante. Turns out all I had to do was wait a mere 26 years...

Daredevil – Hells, yeah, who says patience isn't a virtue?? I'm not a binge watcher, so I have not completed the new Netflix original series, nor do I have any desire to plow through the remaining episodes simply so I can deliver a holistic review that is only going to agree with nine-tenths of the blogs I've read so far anyway. Whatever your misgivings prior to the debut – and that looming law-of-averages fear that Marvel's got to fuck up eventually – this show's got the goods. The writing burns like slow match beside a gunpowder cannon, patiently sizzling its way up to the priming pan ready to explode. It's dark and ugly (save for the exceedingly attractive cast) and doesn't flinch from healthy doses of R-rated violence that actually serve the story without being grotesque. Okay, Kingpin chops a guy's head off with a car door. That was a little gross. But it served the story. Cough. Point is, Netflix doesn't have to worry about lead-ins, local affiliates, and diaper ads, so they can take their time with building the arc – and they have – without pandering to the action figure-buying 8 year-olds. This is Mommy and Daddy's Daredevil, sweetheart. Wait twenty years and maybe you'll get a show like this that you can love, too. The delivery is so grim and slick it's easy to forget this is part of the Marvel Multiverse. In fact, I missed the first few references to 'the incident' and other allusions to the Battle of New York (during the climax of Avengers), but, as with Agents of SHIELD, the showrunners incorporated that defining moment into a domino effect of future plots. City-wide destruction courtesy of alien invaders leads to embezzling schemes during reconstruction. And where would that be taking place? Why in Hell's Kitchen, a downtrodden neighborhood that just happens to be protected by a blind vigilante with Daddy issues. The fight scenes alone are worth the price of admission, as they have spared no expense with meticulous choreography that looks neither meticulous or choreographed, but jars the screen with controlled chaos as the Man Without Fear tackles foes who might possibly be able to beat him if only they could match his conviction and, let's face it, rage. But that's not going to happen. I have high hopes. That 8 year-old with the action figures? He was me, and he drove his sister crazy endlessly watching and quoting The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, never dreaming there would one day be a show like this were every episode feels like a movie and the payoff is second -to-none.

Books

A Wizard of Earthsea – Screw Harry Potter; this is the original young wizard learning the ropes. Ursula LeGuin writes like a medieval bard, not so much telling a tale a weaving it. It's ostensibly a teen novel, but it's worth it if you've never sampled her elegant prose.

Raylan – Elmore Leonard pens three separate stories featuring his Kentucky Marshall character made famous by the Justified tv series. He's done better, but fans of the show will enjoy.

The Northworld Trilogy – David Drake's modern interpretation of Norse heroic modes, this features his trademark lean, action-heavy style at its best. A lawman in the far future is sent to investigate the disappearance of several research vessels in deep space, only to discover they have all been subsumed into a pocket universe with multiple planes of time existing parallel to one another. The original crews have somehow morphed into gods akin to the Greek pantheon and now use this world-in-a-bottle as their plaything, first banishing the lawman to a pre-tech plane where he must fight Braveheart-style battles with kilted savages, then turning him into a god when he proves a useful ally. A tad confusing at times even if you're a sci-fi vet, but Drake's descriptions of old-timey brawls with suits of Iron Man-like armor are loads of fun.

The War for Late Night – a blow-by-blow chronicle of NBC's disastrous attempt to retire Jay Leno by force and christen Conan O'Brien as the new face of late night. Even if you're an early-to-bed sort, this is a fascinating – and often revolting – case study of something most of us can relate to at one time or another: incompetent management. For anyone who missed the drama back in 2010, NBC – floundering in the ratings, hemorrhaging money – tried to mastermind a hat trick that would allow them to retain both Leno (happy where he was) and Conan (looking for greener pastures). The result called for a shift in the late night lineup designed to placate affiliates, boost advertising, draw young viewers, and build up a perpetual motion machine of ratings momentum no other network could touch. The outcome was a five-alarm debacle. Probably the most intriguing takeaway from Bill Carter's exceptionally well-written account is that there were neither any winners nor pure victims in this drama. Everyone was guilty of some degree of arrogance or cowardice, stupidity or presumption, though none more so than the tone-deaf studio heads who fancied themselves managerial puppet masters but in truth were (mostly) bean counters and paper-shufflers who never understood comedy, talent, or the tidal ebbs of the audience. In the heedless pursuit of maximum profits, people do dumb things.

The Region Between – Harlan Ellison was just one of many participants in this round-robin style experiment in which numerous sci-fi writers penned their own contributions to a single story. Ellison, because he's Ellison, did his as a 70-plus page metafictional fever dream that incorporated dizzying changes to the typeset, switching the font styles and sizes and at one point even doing an entire chapter in an ever-diminishing spiral that was a pure pain in the ass to read. But it's a brilliant piece ruminating on the uniqueness of the human soul and the power of asking “Why?”

Far from a complete list, but those constitute the highlights while not going too top-heavy in the nerdly vein. It's warmer now. I spend the mornings on the deck serenaded by fleets of returning bird species and the din of trucks downshifting near the traffic circle, writing. This is the time when people from my neck of the country reap our reward for enduring the Long Night. We're imbued with a manic fervor in which time feels especially precious and there truly aren't enough hours in the day, lengthening though it may be. Frankly it makes the idea of getting up and going to work feel downright absurd, the equivalent of trading a rocket ship for a unicycle. Alas, the unicycle pays the rent, and allows me to retain the deck on which I write, and smoke, and watch, and think, and feel alive. It's good to be back.