Getting Warm and Fuzzy at PAX East

Revelers on Boston’s Boylston Avenue last week may have seen something unusual about the bar crowds: some were wearing Pikachu hats. Others were wearing kilts. And they all looked like 5-year-olds on Christmas Eve, jacked up on the promise of something infinitely, indescribably cool.
They were there for PAX East, a convention started by a squat bald man and a tall, skinny man with anxiety problems and a noticeable lisp. They are gods to the hundreds who gathered at the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center to test-drive new games, play Dungeons and Dragons, and hear panels on how to build a role-playing game in an hour.

I was different from most of the PAX crowd on Sunday, March 29 in that I wasn’t playing the new Pokemon on my Nintendo DS. Nor did I self-identify as a nerd. But I did leave with a big, stupid smile on my face.

PAX (Penny Arcade eXpo) began as an offshoot of ur-webcomic Penny Arcade. If you’re reading this, and you haven’t heard about Penny Arcade, congratulations – you’re that crescent sliver of our Venn diagram who hasn’t heard about what is the most prolific, and certainly best, webcomic on the internet. Commenced in 1998, Penny Arcade is a madcap stage for the antics of Gabe and Tycho, cartoon alter-egos of real-life artist Mike Krahulik (tall, anxious) and writer Jerry Holkins (squat), respectively.

While Krahulik’s art has evolved exponentially over the past decade – really, it’s a school unto itself – Holkins’ acid wit and florid prose probably did more initially to earn Penny Arcade its rabidly loyal following. Penny Arcade ripped apart videogames, tech-culture and geekdom with gleeful abandon. It provided a commentary much-needed in the early Aughts.

They held PAX in Bellevue, Washington in 2004, drawing a crowd 3,300. At PAX 2009, the total attendance was 60,750. Krahulik and Holkins decided to point their scepter eastward. PAX East, held Friday, March 26 through Sunday, March 29, was a mob scene. Official numbers have yet to be released, but given population densities, I feel safe saying it was the biggest PAX yet.

So what do nerds do on the weekend, anyway?

My friend Shawn picked me up outside the Hynes on Sunday. We ate at the food court in the neighboring mall, where two slices of pizza were decidedly less expensive. He briefed me on my day: the videogames journalism panel I wanted to attend wasn’t until 2:30, giving me three hours to tool around the convention and see what I wanted. There was one game in particular he wanted me to see, Split Second: Velocity, which he described as Mario Kart as directed by Michael Bay.

Ascending the escalator into PAX proper, my ears picked up on snippets of nerd conversation around me, shop-talk for the indoor crowd. Words like aliasing, dev, clipping error, waggle gimmick, or names of exotic Pokemon buzzed in my ear. It was like a Twitter fog of hash-tags, each reading #NERD.

For a blinking-lights addict like me, the main floor was a playground. High-definition flatscreens were set up in groves according to the game they played; when I first entered, I saw a crop of kids playing cooperative missions from Splinter Cell: Conviciton.

Shawn parked himself in front of Split Second and waited for his turn, explaining the game’s fundamentals: you can charge up event meters, unleashing environment-based catastrophes upon other racers, etc. I was too busy looking at the people around me to properly pay attention. Behind me, a cluster of people on couches were test-driving Crackdown 2. A few feet away, people were playing Just Cause 2 while wearing 3D glasses. A man clad in authentic-looking commando-wear was explaining Atomic Games’ upcoming shooter Breach.

Over at the Ubisoft demo stage, an announcer was revealing the Splinter Cell’s “Deniable Ops” mode for the first time. The player, a pretty girl named Brooke, had ninja’d behind a bad guy undetected.

“How would you like to kill him, guys?” she asked the crowd (which was, yes, predominantly male). “How would you like Brooke to kill him?”

They chose to kill him silently, with Brooke’s proxy-hands. Later, I heard them shouting “SPLINTER CELL!” from across the room.

It was more than flashing lights and glitzy demos. Before the journalism seminar, I crept into the last few minutes of a Q&A with Krahulik and Holkins. As I entered the theater, a girl was at the mic. Her voice was even at first, telling the webcomic gurus how much their charity, Child’s Play, meant to her; how bored, depressed, bedridden children were essentially saved by the simple gift of a gaming console. She started to tear up. As the audience quietly awww’d, Krahulik quietly hopped off stage, walked down the center isle and hugged her.

“This is precisely why we do it,” Holkins said, firmly validating why many claim the word “nerd” as a badge of honor.

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Taking Baby Steps into the Future

We've all seen (or heard of) Tom Cruise in Minority Report navigating through a virtual desktop by simply waving his hands in front of his face. He resembles a conductor of an orchestra - a fact that director Steven Spielberg mercilessly drives home by setting the scene against the strains of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony - one who manipulates information rather than music. Not only does this method of computing have a more majestic look than your normal keyboard/mouse/monitor system, it also looks like it's just infinitely more comfortable and natural.

Working on my laptop all day has certainly caused me to fantasize about society in 2054, the moral implications of pre-crime aside. No more sore wrists and fingers from using the trackpad. No more bleary and bloodshot eyes from staring at a 13" screen sitting a foot and a half in front of your face. No more unsightly dirt and grime buildup on your once-pristine pearly-white Apple keyboard. Sure, a laptop has the benefit of portability, but continued use reveals it as a rather uncomfortable and demoralizing workspace.

Now, I know Philip-K.-Dick-esque virtual reality is nowhere near actual reality. But, as I've always said when dealing with the development of technology, you've got to take baby-steps. And judging by some new and recent developments, we're currently on the path (though, admittedly, not too far along on the path) toward seeing something that somewhat resembles what Spielberg/Dick envisioned for Tom Cruise/John Anderton. Based on the available (or mostly available) technology, here's what I envision as my ideal computerical environment.

MONITOR: Call the folks at CNN!

Last November we saw unprecedented visual analysis of election demographics through CNN's use of their now-signature Smartboard (TM). It was an absolute joy to watch newsroom reporters interact directly with a high-end-television-sized screen simply by touching it. The staff seemed overwhelmed at first, and the new hardware sometimes appeared a little buggy, but as the technology improves and the reporters and analysts get more experience, the sky's the limit for what the Smartboard can accomplish.

An Example: We start with a map of the United States, each state colored a different shade of red or blue, depending on its liberal or conservative leanings. Touch one of the states, and we automatically zoom in, the selected territory occupying the entire screen. Now we see the particular state divided into counties, each one of those individually shaded. You can zoom in or out with the same interface as an iPhone (by squeezing your hands together or spreading them apart, respectively), you can draw directly on the screen, or you can "right-click" on any item to have the 'board display more information... all without picking up another device or pushing a single button.

The Smartboard is great because it lets you interact directly with the information you're looking at. Under the current system, you have to bring your hand in contact with an object on your desk, move that object, which moves a digital representation of where you want to be on the screen, then manipulate that object to interact with the screen. If you try to touch your computer monitor like a Smartboard, you'll only end up with annoying and obscuring smudges on your screen. Any time you can remove an intermediary from your information-interactive process, you're left with a faster, more satisfying, and more organic experience.

KEYBOARD: Why not put a desktop... on your desk top?

Of all the innovations shepherded in by Apple's iPad, the keyboard-as-a-movable-part-of-the-desktop is perhaps the most intriguing for me. Granted, I haven't actually seen or touched one in reality, and I'm sure it doesn't compare speed-wise or accuracy-wise with the old-fashioned clickety keyboards. But, again, baby steps. I'm sure it's a lot less frustrating to use than trying to type full documents text-message style like on the smaller iPod. And from here on out, the technology will only get more streamlined and easier to use.

Imagine if you had, in place of a keyboard, a large iPad style screen that essentially acted as a second desktop... on top of your real desk's top. You could still type on it, but the keyboard would function as an application that you could move around, resize, or even minimize to make room for other applications. If you had a stylus, you could even write on your computer desktop as if you were writing on your actual desktop! Having your keyboard behave as a miniature computer of sorts increases the level of interface you can have with your device, making computing that much more efficient.

But can you take it with you?

This setup would surely be a lot of fun, but it doesn't seem like it would travel very well. Sure, there are ways to make it more portable: think two iPad's connected longways with a hinge so you could set it on a table like a laptop or hold it like a book (just think how this could be used to sell its e-reader functionality). But then you lose the benefits of an all-immersive technological environment.

But I think it's almost better this way. The necessity of setting up a full-time workstation to reap the greatest possible benefits from modern technology might be the only thing keeping the human race even remotely connected to reality. If we could take our Internet and our applications with us wherever we go, we would have to make a conscious effort to interact with the outside world.

I'm sure the time will come when even this hurdle will be overcome, and every aspect of our lives will be inundated with electronic feedback. Until then, let's just sit back and try to enjoy watching the baby that is virtual reality slowly learn how to walk... Continue...

24 in 24 Words: Day 8, Hour 14

Episode 14 - “5:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.”

Spoilers after the jump!

Jack time travels through NYC traffic.  Cherry finally gets to act.  A White House Young Gun faces moral dilemmas.  Terrorists want their own Millanaire!

You can catch up on our concise 24 coverage here.  Did we miss something?  Leave it in the comments!

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This Week on Audiosurf Radio – Russian Surprise Edition

What plays in your minds ear when you think of Russian music?  Soviet Union propaganda?  Tchaikovsky?  21st-century memes?  Had I given you hours to brainstorm genres and styles, I doubt you’d have been able to come up with this surprise: Russian ska.

And yet that’s what’s on tap today.  100PydOFF is actually a Ukrainian ska group formed in 2005.  According to their website, their name “actually cannot be translated, but means something like ‘dead sure.’”  I can respect a group willing to use bizarre idioms as band names.  Maybe I should start a band called A Monkey’s Uncle – fine, nevermind.

Also on the playlist is a track of Indian percussion and some super short songs from Gaby Cardoso.  I’m not kidding when I say super short.  They’re each under a minute long.

Kind of a grab bag this week.  Hit the jump to see what’s worth surfing.

Recommendations

You must ride “Proschay” if only for the opportunity to hear Russians playing the saxophone.  I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that in my life.  The closest I’ve ever come was probably in high school, when the saxes in my concert band covered the horn part in Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony – and yes, I realize Dvorak isn’t actually Russian.  “Proschay” prescribes to the stereotypical ska feel of unbridled, shameless joy.  But not Hallmark card joy; smile on your face in the mosh pit joy.  The trumpets and saxes punctuate every phrase, while distorted guitar crunches and wails (when appropriate) underneath.  What are they singing about?  No clue.  Not interested (for those who are, ‘Proschay’ means ‘Goodbye’).  I’m more interested in the steep hills and valleys along the overall downhill thrust of the track.  It’s unrelenting until the end where devolves into simple traffic patterns as two vocalists get goofy and make each other giggle.  I could have done without that part, but I’d still play this song again.

Let me quickly express my gratitude to all of the Audiosurf users who did their best to clue in everybody as to what this songs were about.  According to them, “Pivo SKA i Football” translates to “Beer, Ska, and Football.”  Things I’m sure Russians enjoy in amounts equivalent to the average American intake of beer, country, and football (not their football).  Well, maybe not as many Russians like ska as much as I’m assuming.  Then again, I only know a few people who really dig country.  Despite its simple message, “Pivo SKA i Football” is super dramatic, with an Aquabats-like opening of galloping guitar and alarming horns.  From there the hectic bass line pretty much takes off, preventing the song from ever taking a breather.  No huge surprises in the ride itself.  Just buckle your seatbelt, grab a beer, crank up the ska, and think about football – again, I mean soccer.

Other Selections

“Drummers – Kerala” starts without a warning.  Not a second’s passed and you’re already knee deep in traffic, wading through a sonic assault of drums and jangling bells.  It’s one of the most disorienting openings I’ve experienced on Audiosurf.  Imagine being given your first pair of roller skates, then shoved onstage in front of a sold out crowd expecting you to freaking tap dance.  The learning curve is that steep.  I’m not sure of my position on the piece’s musicality (or lack thereof), but many fellow surfers took none too kindly to what many likened to children wailing on pots and pans.  The winning quote, however, comes from GodHandZ-XL: “if god had a kidney stone he passed, it would sound like this.”  “Llanto Allegre” features a dude with an incredibly leaky woodwind whistling along to a stringed instrument.  They share a boring melody for the duration of the song.  If you mistakenly booted up “Drummers” and need a palette cleanser, this track’s got you covered.  Otherwise, nothing to see here.  If you’ve been waiting for forty-second song featuring a man speaking over a lonely harmonica, “Claraboya” is the ride for you.  If not, again, move right along.

Author’s Note

All songs were played at least twice on the Pro difficulty using the Vegas and Eraser characters.  Lots of ire on the boards this week as many reacted negatively to the world music and ska.  Thankfully, one guy decided to lighten the mood.  On nearly every song, User Comander Shepard commented, “This is Comander Shepard, and this is my favorite store on the Citadel.”  His lighthearted Mass Effect 2 reference helped bring me back down with a chuckle after each ride.

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Why Bother? Clash of the Titans Is Gonna Hurt Me

We as a nation are fast approaching the release date of the brand spankin' new remake of the beloved classic film Clash of the Titans. I could spend the better part of an afternoon typing about the wrongness of the 3-D "upconversion" of the movie (it's a rip-off and an attempt to rob you of an extra four dollars, save your money and buy a bag of Skittles, kids) but that's been done plenty already.

What gets my goat about this thing isn't the fact that a spring studio tentpole is being made into a two hour moving Viewmaster slide, but rather that it is indeed a brand spankin' new remake of the beloved classic film Clash of the Titans. Plenty, in fact all too many, remakes, reboots, and "re-imaginings" have been made in the decade now past and all of those have their detractors and defenders, but as far as my addled mind can recall, none have hit home for me like a remake of Clash of the Titans promises to.

You see, 1981's Clash of the Titans is a movie I love. I like it more than I like most people. Choose one random friend or acquaintance of mine, it doesn't matter how close or estranged, and present me with the option of either watching them die or losing Clash of the Titans from our cultural memory, and I will gladly end the life of someone I care about in the defense of that movie.

Clash of the Titans is of course an adaptation of the story of the ancient Greek hero Perseus and his slaying of Medusa and the sea monster Cetus (here given the somewhat more generic and confusing name, for those of us with an interest in cryptozoology, of "the Kraken"). As far as story and direction goes, it's slightly above-average at best, nothing special really. What makes it so goddamn awesome is the special effects contributions of the master himself, Ray Harryhausen.

Harryhausen is widely held to be the greatest stop-motion animator in Hollywood history. He's responsible for such classics as Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms among many others. Even if his name doesn't ring a bell, you will definitely recognize his work.



The animated creatures provided by Harryhausen, coupled with some awesome appearances from classically-trained thespians like Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith as the gods of Olympus, make what could be a fairly unremarkable sword-and-sorcery flick into a movie beloved by most people of taste born after 1970.

Clash holds a special place in my heart because it was the movie that teachers would show you in middle school history class to teach you about Greek mythology. It was your reward for sitting through a week of learning about augury and how Athena burst out of Zeus' head. And most importantly of all, it was a PG-rated movie from that glorious pre-Gremlins, pre-Temple of Doom days, meaning it featured brief instances of female nudity. Schwing!

Maybe it's because I'm a fanboy of Generation X children's fantasy films, but I just can't help but be a little more wary than usual of the approaching remake, due out this Friday. While I suppose any movie about Perseus has to be called "Clash of the Titans", there seems to be something extra-heinous about turning the best of Ray Harryhausen's oeuvre into a (not even real) 3-D CGI-filled action movie that looks more like God of War than something from the man who brought us 20 Million Miles to Earth.



So I really have to ask, "why bother?" Why not give us a Bellerophon movie? You still get Pegasus, and I think everyone would love to see a CGI chimera.

There was something great about the Harryhausen style, and indeed most stop-motion and practical effects-based movies. By using something that actually physically exists for an effect, as opposed to something that only really exists as code inside a computer, there is something in your brain that buys it, or at least appreciates it more than any computer-generated imagery. At least to me anyway, I was after all the only person I know rooting for Fantastic Mr. Fox to beat Up at this year's Academy Awards.

Maybe the new Clash will win me over; hell, I'm sure it will. From the moment they announced that Liam "throatpunch" Neeson had been cast as Zeus, I was on board a hundred-and-ten percent. And besides, the trailer embedded above makes it look like Dragonforce: the Movie. Still, I'd like to go on record and utter a single cry of "Hollywood is raping my childhood!" for posterity's sake. Continue...

Thoughts of an Aspiring Music Snob: Week 52 - Sonic Youth

Chris is trying to compensate for his lack of musical knowledge by immersing himself in one new artist each week. At the end of the week, he will write up a brief summary of his opinions. You can read about the origin and parameters of this project here.

As this project goes on, several of my friends of have pointed out something I suppose could be considered a bit of a problem. I tend to like everything I listen to.

It's true. On any given post, my impression of the group of the week is generally a positive one. There are several reasons for this. The first is that I generally tend to groups that I think that I will enjoy. While I'm doing this to explore new sorts of music, I'm not necessarily looking to torture my ears for a week with a band that I know I won't like. (This is the reason I will never do a week on The Smiths. Or Chicago. Ever.)

Secondly, it's easier to articulate what I like about a band after listening to them for a week, rather than what I dislike. Compliments are easy to dish out, and after a listen or two it's usually apparent as to what these artists do well. Criticizing an act, on the other hand, takes a lot more guts. There may be things about a specific group that I don't like, but I find hard to put into words.

Also, when criticizing an artist, one has to be ready to defend these criticisms and argue why they're not very good, and often times I don't feel prepared to do that after a mere seven days of exposure. Our impressions of art change over time, and this project is no exception. I've been finding myself returning to artists I wasn't completely enthralled with to begin with, like Radiohead, while artists such as Bob Marley, who I initially liked, I've found less interesting after the honeymoon has passed.

Still, if I want to be a music snob, it's probably important that I find some things that I don't like. What makes a snob, after all, is the ability to dismiss entire movements with a single condescending quip. So this week, I decided to try something different and choose a band of which my impressions weren't necessarily the best. The last time I tried this, with Vampire Weekend, the results were fairly positive - though I wasn't a full-fledged convert, I liked them more than I thought I would. This week, unfortunately, my opinions on Sonic Youth did not change nearly as much.

WEEK 52

ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Sonic Youth

WHAT I KNEW BEFORE: With the understanding that Daydream Nation was one of the seminal albums of 1980s alternative rock, I checked it out of my public library last fall. I couldn't make it through the entire CD. Other than that aborted attempt, my only exposure to Sonic Youth was the one time they had a cameo appearance on Gossip Girl.

MY LISTENING: I listened to Daydream Nation (1988) every day this week. I also listened to Sister (1987) and Goo (1990) twice, and EVOL (1986) once. I'm currently listening to Dirty (1992) as I write this.

WHAT I LIKED:

This week wasn't a complete disaster, and there are some things about Sonic Youth that I did like quite a bit. Most of their music tends to be this schizophrenic battle between a laid-back, quiet, section, and an extremely loud, dissonant balls-to-the-wall section of noise and reverb. The loud sections weren't really my thing, but I'll admit that when Sonic Youth was playing their quieter stuff they managed to convince me. Take the beginning of "Teen Age Riot", which is the opening track of Daydream Nation. The song comes in almost hypnotically, with some light guitar strumming and Kim Gordon's voice quietly speaking in the background. The opening to tracks like "Beauty Lies in the Eye" or "Tuff Gnarl" are a little more ominous, but here the band still succeeds at this quietly crescendoing mode of music.

It's just when the whine and reverb come in that they lose me. I'll admit that the group has some really interesting guitar lines, and if I played guitar I might be interested in what sort of experimental things they were doing with the instrument. But as it stands, I think this sort of avant-garde virtuosity is more interesting from a conceptual angle than an aesthetic one.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:

"I bought another Sonic Youth album and it sucked," gripes the main character of the 2007 movie Juno. "It's just noise."

This sort of statement is not real criticism. It's pithy, provides no real argument, and no real effort to appreciate what the music is trying to achieve. Nonetheless, I think it accurately sums up how I feel about most of the Sonic Youth music I heard this week.

The group is really big on utilizing these experimental guitar sound effects, providing a dense texture of fuzzy reverb for their music. This sort of timbre experimentation just didn't work for me - scordatura tuning and using tricks like jamming a screwdriver in between your guitar strings might impress some teenager who doesn't know jackshit about experimental music, but it just seems desperate and tired to me.

To the band's credit, I don't think they use these dissonant sound effects and technical tricks as a mere gimmick - the music really does mesh with the kind of aesthetic they are trying to achieve. But it's not an aesthetic I necessarily like - after two or three tracks, I always got tired of the incessant buzz and hum. Sonic Youth is using these effects to express angst and alienation in the modern world, and these are often feelings that I find interesting in music. But the use of this dissonance signifies a raw, nihilistic anger that just doesn't connect with me, and I'm annoyed by the notion that I have to buy into a whole emotional package just to appreciate the music.

Using noise to sum up these feelings just seems juvenile and pretentious to boot. Their songs have actual structure and melodic content, and could be good music in other circumstances. But Sonic Youth seems to delight in pouring feedback over everything, ruining any attempt at emotional subtlety. The only time this aesthetic of noise is interesting is when it is contrasted with the softer melodic riffs I talked about above, but this doesn't happen nearly often enough.

Rather, too often, it's just a bunch of angry musicians who think they're too cool for the rest of the world, utilizing noise for something not nearly as groundbreaking or even profound as the group seems to think. The group's lyrics are as opaque and dense as the actual music, and while some clicked with me, too many are akin to angsty teenage poetry or using the opportunity to throw a big middle finger at the world. When Kim Gordon starts shouting "Does 'Fuck You' sound simple enough?" in "The Sprawl", I roll my eyes and cringe, and the sheer noise of "Total Trash" made me want to turn my CD player off. I'm sure their anger and raw power is sincere, but it does nothing for me, the lyrics and loud guitar noises failing to connect on both an emotional and intellectual level.

All the reviews I read of Sonic Youth praised the band for their expression of mid-1980s anger and revolution, I might have pretended to like this music when I was seventeen years old, but at this point in my life I have no qualms with saying that the music doesn't really express anything but its own solipsistic ideology of noise. This sort of rock music is experimental, even ground-breaking, but that doesn't make it less boring.

Finally, Kim Gordon's voice is grating and she can't sing.

WHAT I LEARNED: I learned that not all music necessarily grows on you. I've always been a big proponent of art that doesn't necessarily reach you on the first take - I think some of the best things in this world are things you need to acquire a taste for. Coffee, beer, 20th century classical music - all of these are things that I didn't necessarily appreciate on my first try, but now I consider some of the best things in the world.

So I kept expecting the Sonic Youth to click, hoping that I would reach some sort of profound revelation. But I never reached that stage - Sister was probably my favorite of the albums I listened to (Daydream Nation being far too long), and even that has tracks like "Pacific Coast Highway" that just bore me. At this point I don't feel like wasting more time trying to like Sonic Youth. There's plenty of music out there that I like better. I've learned enough that I can appreciate why others like them, which is probably the important thing.

BEST SONG YOU'VE HEARD: "Teen Age Riot"

BEST SONG YOU HAVEN'T HEARD: "Star Power", which is a beautiful song even with the aforementioned awful vocals by Kim Gordon.

NEXT WEEK'S ARTIST: Metallica

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After the Jump: These Aren’t the Droids You’re Looking For

Subscribe to the podcast via the feed, or find us on the iTunes store!

Rob was otherwise engaged this week, and while Craig and I normally just muddle through ourselves when he’s MIA, this week we called in air support – our own Alex Boivin joins us for the discussion this time around, and the Star Wars references fly fast and thick (much like Boivin himself! Ha!).

We run a little long this week, but amongst the diversions we cover more about China and the Internet, the Droid phone, the Mars Rover, 24, the Nintendo 3DS, Gamestop, TV/VCR repair, or get your degree!

Music this week is the overworld theme from the oft-maligned The Legend of Zelda: The Adventure of Link. Shut up you guys, it’s great.

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Writer’s Jukebox – Potpourri

Each week brings a different musical cornucopia to the table.  Only rarely do the staff’s various listening habits coalesce into some vague semblance of a theme.  Thus, I often spend this preamble attempting to subordinate the collection to my organizing will before throwing up my hands and hitting the Publish button.

This week is no exception.

Gene, despite living in the Big Apple, is high on a Bay Area indie act.  Steph digs through her library and comes up with the handful of songs that remain unskippable.  I’ve been listening to an imperial ton of podcasts. 

Hit the jump to find out more.

Gene – Oh Yoo-jeen

I have been listening to Thee Oh Sees from San Francisco.  They are the Type B to frontman John Dwyer's Type A garage rock band Coachwhips, which doesn't make music as much anymore.  Thee Oh Sees started out that way at least.  Now it is a full-fledged band owing as much to The Kinks as Man or Astroman and The B-52s.  Lots of distortion and nasally choruses.

I am of course, also listening to Jan Terri's "I Don't Want to Lose You Tonight" on a dependable routine.  It gets me in the mood to um, not lose you tonight.

Stephanie – Staying Alive

My music-listening world has been somewhat tumultuous recently. I haven’t had the patience to try new music, but lately my old music has felt sort of lifeless. Even my good ol’ standby favorite has been failing to motivate me. I’ve been seeking solace in audiobook recordings of novels that I’ve already read because they offer a sort of comfort that soothes the piling pressures of my work days, but that’s hardly worth mentioning in this jukebox post.

When I asked myself the question, “What have I really been listening to?” I began to thumb through my off-brand mp3 player for songs that I would never-without-a-doubt-ever get tired of hearing. While these are not songs I’ve actively sought out, they’re the songs that I don’t ever actively skip through either. Many of these are by obscure local bands that no one has ever heard of, and though I tried to find meaning in that trend, none revealed itself.

These songs, in no particular order were “Grace is Gone” and “Grey Street” by the Dave Matthews Band, “Black Hawk” by Misty River, “Flake” by Jack Johnson, “Honey” by The Hush Sound, “Changes Should Come Easy” by Taarka, “The Sinister Minister” by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, “Limbo” by True North, “Never Give Up On The Good Times” by the Spice Girls, “Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand, and the entire Original Broadway Cast soundtrack of Les Misérables. Does this list make me a tool? Probably. Unfortunately – and perhaps the final clinching blow to my case for being extremely lame – I realized that “Still Alive” from Portal is also on that list. I don’t honestly ever get tired of hearing it, even when it’s nerd-overkill. Does the fact that it was available as downloadable content on Rock Band make it more or less lame? I’ll leave that up to you.

Craig – Casting Pods

I’ve been knee deep in podcasts lately, which has meant a decline in the amount of music I can consume on a daily/weekly basis.  Theoretically, I could just keep discussing how much I’ve grown to love the Abbey Road medley, but I do try to keep things fresh around here.

Baseball season is fast approaching, and I couldn’t be more excited to resume fantasy baseball with some of my Charge Shot!!! cohorts.  ESPN’s Fantasy Focus podcast is a great way to get fantasy-relevant headlines, as well as listen to a half-hour of failed screenwriter-turned-fantasy expert Matthew Berry.  Plus, the show’s new theme song comes courtesy of Eric Hutchinson, a kickass songwriter whose music actually deserves and owns its Pop/Rock label (need proof?).

Also, a friend recently turned me on to Daily Show Brit John Oliver’s podcast The Bugle, which he runs with a British comedian I’ve never heard of named Andy Zaltzman.  It’s a delightfully British twist on the faux news format – more Weekend Update than Daily Show.  Two men on opposite sides of the Atlantic Skype about the week’s news, trying their best to make each other laugh with outrageous hyperbole, groan-inducing puns, and witty fact-fudging.  There are drastically worse ways to spend forty-five minutes.

Oh, and the March 20th episode of NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! used “Trololo” for transition music.  Epic win.

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Charge Shot!!! Cranston In: A Stern Bear on Bear Stearns

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The Greatest Movies Never Made

The 1960s were a good decade for director Stanley Kubrick. 1964's Dr. Strangelove was already considered a classic of political satire; four years later came 2001: A Space Odyssey, considered by many to be one of the best science-fiction films ever made. By the time Kubrick was working on A Clockwork Orange in 1971, he had a slew of awards under his belt and was considered one of the best filmmakers in the world. He began gathering his resources to produce what was to be the crowning achievement of his life - a massive biopic based on the life of Napoleon, complete with historically-accurate battle scenes featuring thousands of extras.

There's just one problem - the film was never made.

Instead, Kubrick's Napoleon was to become one of the greatest might-have-beens in cinematic history. Kubrick, ever the perfectionist, had done meticulous research into the time period, reading hundreds of books on his subject and collaborating with eminent historians in the field. He personally complied a massive cross-referenced index with over 15,000 entries, which the cast and crew of the movie could consult it in order to ensure historical fidelity. He watched every other film ever made on Napoleon, noting the strengths and weaknesses of each one. In the early seventies, Kubrick even began to personally scout out different European locations, comparing them to the actual sites of Napoleonic battles, noting their geographic similarities and their suitability for filming. He developed new camera equipment that allowed for filming scenes using only natural lights, meaning that scenes shot in candlelight would actually look that way.

It sounds like Kubrick had this endeavor under control. So what went wrong? First, Sergei Bondarchuk's adaptation of War and Peace hit American shores. Accounting for inflation, the four-park movie is the most expensive ever made, a cinematic masterpiece that Kubrick felt he could not possibly match. Then, the release of the box-office flop Waterloo in 1970 sealed the fate of Kubrick's Napoleon. Despite Kubrick's box-office draw, movie producers were reluctant to funnel millions of dollars into a historical epic, especially as such movies were selling less and less tickets. Kubrick notoriously demanded complete creative control over his films, which most likely did not help matters.

Kubrick cobbled together a draft of script, which you can probably find making its way around the Internet if you know where to look. The script ends with an addendum in which Kubrick seems to be trying to convince himself that the film is financially feasible, quoting the prices for military extras and the cost of producing thousands of historically accurate uniforms. Kubrick planned to save money by hiring little known actors. "I think sufficient proof must now exist that over-priced movie stars do little besides leaving an insufficient amount of money to make the film properly, or cause an unnecessarily high picture cost," he wrote. Unfortunately, the producers felt otherwise. Kubrick took his historical research and revolutionary cinemographic techniques and went and made Barry Lyndon, a well-received historical drama in its own right, but not the historical epic to rule them all that he had been planning.

But what might Kubrick's Napoleon have been? It's fun to contemplate. Kubrick is arguably one of the few directors whose career never had a misstep - his weakest movies are head and shoulders above 99 percent of everyone else's productions. Would Napoleon have been what Kubrick anticipated - the greatest movie ever made? Or would it merely be what the script already hints at - another mediocre melodramatic historical epic with an unlikely number of kinky sex scenes? Or, even worse, a disaster of Alexandrian proportions?

We'll never know, and I think it's better that way. There's something I find captivating about an artist who spends one's whole life planning some sort of magnum opus. The whole endeavor seems so hopeless, so likely to fail. The artist never thinks so, usually convincing themselves that the impossible is somehow feasible. But, more often than not, if these works ever see the light of day, they tend to be disappointing. It turns out it's difficult to stew on one piece of art for a lifetime and still have it come out as something halfway digestible.

But if these masterpieces are never actually made (and there's a surprising number of unfulfilled lifetime dreams), then they can exist in the mind's eye as a piece of genius - a work that would have been the Best Thing Ever Made if only a few things had gone differently. This view is false, of course, but it's more fun to believe that there are a bunch of unproduced perfect movies out there. It speaks to the creativity and ambition of directors such as Kubrick that they're willing to consider such massive projects and keep returning to them over their entire life (Kubrick was considering returning to Napoleon as late as the post-Full Metal Jacket era of the late 1980s).

Kubrick is not the only director to fail to produce his magnum opus by any means. The Monty Python alumnus Terry Gilliam provides another example. For years, Gilliam was planning his own adaptation of Don Quixote, one of the greatest novels ever written. Gilliam spent two years casting the role, and spent even more time finding independent financing from Europe, as he didn't want any pesky American studios mandating what he could and could not do with his movie. Filming began in 2000...only to have a freak flash flood ruin the shooting location and equipment, then have actor Jean Rochefort be diagnosed with a double herniated disc, severely inhibiting his ability to ride a horse. The entire project was scrapped, to retreat into a litigious purgatory as lawyers scrambled to determine who, exactly, owns the rights to what part of the project. Gilliam is apparently trying again, beginning to rewrite the script in 2009, but I'm not holding my breath. And a Don Quixote movie, like most of these wildly ambitious projects, is probably much better on paper than on the big screen anyway.

Finally, there's the curious case of Terrence Malick, the reclusive Rhodes Scholar-turned-filmmaker who has directed such works as Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line. Malick has supposedly been working on some sort of mysterious project since the 1970s. Originally known just as 'Q', the movie was rumored to focus on the relationship between father and son in a family in midwestern America in the 1950s.

Sounds simple enough, and not particularly ambitious. But then the rumors began to get weirder. Scenes were shot in the Middle East and in India. Stories leaked out that some of the characters in this movie were immortal. Special effects gurus were called in to create dinosaurs living in a primeval wasteland. As it turns out, Malick was also creating a cinematic version of the entire history of the universe, and this supposedly meshes with the father-son story to create some sort of coherent narrative that tackles the meaning of life. The movie is now called Tree of Life, and it features Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. After over 30 years of gestation, it is supposedly going to be released in 2010. It might even be all right, but I can't pretend that the movie that I'll see in the theaters will be anything as close to as good as the movie that's in my mind right now. A movie tackling the perennial problems of the human condition and the history of the universe sounds amazing…but experience has led me to believe the end result will be less than convincing.

And that's the problem with these masterworks. Artists strive their entire life to create some sort of masterpiece, to leave one work behind that will sum up their entire career and say everything that they want to say. As a concept, this sounds like a great idea. As actual works of art, they almost always fail as bloated, messy enterprises. More often than not, they come out nothing like they were envisioned, as the artist discovers that it's hard to transfer decades of mental planning into an actual work of art.

Jean Sibelius is one of the twentieth-century's most underrated composers. He wrote seven symphonies, each one well-regarded in the musical world. He promised his eighth symphony would be ready for a premiere in 1930; however, the composer kept making excuses, kept going back to revise the work, kept worrying that the piece wasn't good enough and it was nothing like what he had hoped. No one knows for sure what became of the work in progress, but Sibelius' wife has a memory of the composer throwing sheets of music into a fire in 1945; it's likely that the last remnants of the never-produced Eighth Symphony went up in smoke then and there.

I would have liked to hear the Eighth Symphony, of course. But there's a certain mystique to these works that we will never see, works that were a creative itch for the artist's entire life, works that ended up existing only in their head. There's no disappointment with this kind of art - only wild ambition and creativity, a testament to the wonderful and crazy ideas that humans come up with. There's something inspiring about this sort of art. It will never find an audience, but I like to think that's beside the point. Kubrick's Napoleon was never shown in a single theater. There was never a single shot taken. But the movie still exists, in the minds of hundreds of ambitiously creative artists, as some sort of ideal to strive for. It's an ideal that will never be reached. But better to try and create an overly ambitious piece of art than to be nothing but an underachiever.

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The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom, An Odd Piece of Pie

Last month, Leigh Alexander updated her blog with a brief riff on the current trend of difficulty in indie games.  Speaking with developer and author Ian Bogost prior to the Independent Games Festival, she asked him for his thoughts on the indie scene.  She writes, “His answer was, ‘You mean the puzzle platformer scene? It's awesome, isn't it?’” 

It may sound reductive at first, but Bogost is not spouting falsehoods.  One of the most well-known independent releases was Jonathon Blow’s Braid, a game that is nothing if not a puzzle platformer.  And a pretty damn difficult one, at times.  But that difficulty can be incredibly rewarding.  Discussing the value of brevity in game design, Andrew wrote:

“I could only wrap my mind around four or five of Braid’s puzzles in one sitting – playing much longer, I just couldn’t think the way the game wanted me to think. It’s a game that rewards patience and thoughtfulness in a way that Mario never has – rather than quick, precise button presses, Braid demands creative thinking and problem-solving skills.”

And those processes of creative thinking and problem solving are integral to the game’s albeit indirect narrative about a man learning from his mistakes.  A man attempting to bend time to fit his version of the story, only to find out that he’s been mistaken all along.  In Braid’s case, difficulty is required to make the overcoming of the obstacles that much more rewarding.  And without pointless repetition, the puzzles retain unique flavors, imparting their own gifts at their own pace.

So far I’ve been discussing Braid exclusively, but it’s about time I opened things up to include the newest time-bending indie platformer on the block: The Odd Gentlemen’s The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom.

You see, Winterbottom is also a game that requires creative problem solving.  It, too, is a puzzle platformer.  There’s even a central character who bends time to accomplish his goals, only to realize his misdeeds after it’s too late.  Fortunately for both Braid and Winterbottom, the similarities stop there.

Whereas Braid and other games centered on time mechanics (PoP: The Sands of Time, for one) often include the rewinding or fast-forwarding of time, Winterbottom deals exclusively with the creation and manipulation of clones.  Blurst’s Time Donkey, the Clank levels of the most recent Ratchet & Clank, and the browser title Chronotron all come to mind.  Spawn a clone or two, navigate their level with their help, achieve your objective.  In P.B.’s case, the objective is pie.

I can’t boil it down any further than that.  The dude loves pie.  I can’t confirm if this is actually the case, but P.B. may just as well stand for “Pie Burglar.”  The guy lets a town nearly burn to the ground because he’s too busy stealing pies.  I have to say I admire the dedication to his craft.

Everything goes awry one day when P.B. gets a taste of a crazy time pie, which sends him through some kind of wormhole into a world where he can create clones of himself.  It’s crazy, I know.  But it’s all lovingly rendered in a black-and-white silent movie style, replete with humorous title cards and kickass music.  Whenever you create a P.B. clone, the sound of film passing through an old reel-to-reel projector plays.  Sets of levels are grouped into “movies,” complete with their own charming posters depicting one of P.B.’s various misadventures.  Levels are cleared by collecting all of the pies in each scene of the movie.  The film motif culminates in the final world: a behind-the-scenes look at all of the mischief P.B.’s caused on his hunt for the magic time pie.  The fact that said magical pie looks like it has a face posed to perpetually taunt the pastry thief seals the deal. Wisely, Winterbottom innovates with each movie.  At the beginning, clones do your bidding perfectly.  Then you must collect pies in numerical order.  Then the pies can only be snatched within a certain window of time.  Then your clones start disappearing when a timer runs out.  It gets crazy.  To further discuss clone mechanics would ruin some of the game’s more delicious surprises, but be prepared to hit a few logical walls as you acclimate yourself to each new mechanic.  I often felt overwhelmed by the introduction of a new gameplay wrinkle, but I grew to believe it was more awe at the ingenuity than an actual inability to comprehend.

Were I to nitpick upon compulsion, I’d point to the discrepancy between levels with open-ended solutions and those with single-track solutions.  Each puzzle imposes its own constraints – whether it be a clone time limit, the number of clones, or something to do with pie collection – and successfully improvising within said constraints conjured a specific type of joy in my heart (and taxed brain).  Some levels, however, did not allow for a lot of leeway.  There was a right way and about a billion wrongs ways.  Guess which were easier to find.  I’ll confess to checking YouTube walkthroughs on two of the fifty story levels, simply to confirm that what I was attempting was correct – I was just bad at the execution.  Puzzlers often succumb to the “Guess what the developer wants here” problem, and Winterbottom’s at its best when it eschews that pitfall by affording the player options.

Pie-burgling aside, I’d be remiss if I neglected to comment on Winterbottom’s superb opening sequence.  Watch the video below, paying careful attention to how the world changes beneath P.B.’s feet.

A different type of time-bending is at play here.  Even though the player’s platforming remains unbroken, the environment constantly shifts, creating the sense that P.B.’s embarked on a substantial journey to track down this pie.  He’s dashed out of his house, run along rainy rooftops, jumped off a cliff, and clambered up steps to a magical clock.  It’s a montage, one of the oldest techniques in film, rendered in fluid gameplay.  I’d say I want more people doing this, but then I’d know they were just copying Winterbottom.  It has to start somewhere, I suppose.

On paper, Winterbottom sounds simply like the next logical step in difficult, time-traveling indie platformers.  But the whimsical presentation and fresh mechanics set it apart from the pack.  It’s not subverting genre conventions as a means to deliver narrative (Braid’s got that covered).  It’s taking you on the strange journey of a burglar with one hell of a sweet-tooth.  It’s silly.  It’s brain-teasing.  Plus, there’s pie.

You can pick up The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom on Xbox Live for 800 Microsoft Points – that’s $10 for those of us in the real world.

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Finding the edge

Last Sunday, The Observer published "Videogames: The addiction," by Tom Bissell, a story that deserves a read, despite what its title would suggest. It is a document of the author's descent into a state of crippling addiction, one in which perpetual scapegoat Grand Theft Auto IV plays a commanding part. It is also a heart-wrenching self-investigation, one that reconciles the writer's the author's attraction to cocaine and his fascination with the unique experience contemporary videogames offer. There are of course, the unavoidable parallels between Bissell's downturn and the imposed degeneracy of his favorite on screen persona, Niko Bellic. But these are ancillary to the author's relationship to the game that characterized his time in the wilderness (and it is apparent that this part of his life is not necessarily behind him).
Perhaps given the amount of time that has elapsed, Bissell handles the particulars of his decline matter-of-factly. From 2001 to 2006 he led a productive, disciplined and invigorating life, devoted almost entirely to the pangs of his literary appetite. At the time he wrote this piece in 2010, he could barely put his 360 controller down long enough to park himself in front of his keyboard before deadline. He is however resolute in his simultaneous reverence for his once superlative writing capacity and the avenues of experience his more recent gamer lifestyle has afforded him. He does not discount the damage his addiction has obviously wrought: "I do know that video games have enriched my life. Of that I have no doubt. They have also done damage to my life. Of that I have no doubt." The GTA games that preceded it captivated him with their promise and partial delivery of near absolute freedom. The parameters of the games provided boundaries within which certain sensations of freedoms were profligate. They appealed to Bissell overwhelmingly, at the eventual expense of his actual freedom. He began to literally flee his videogame addiction, moving around the world in a vain attempt to jumpstart the rigor of his former studies. He would find his games at each new location. He describes how his move to Las Vegas would also introduce him to cocaine, exacerbating his affliction. The ensuing meditation on his experiences with videogames and cocaine both individually and in tandem provides a decidedly sober affirmation of his respect for gaming as a medium. It is difficult to imagine the depths of addiction would yield such eloquent and concise thinking on the role videogames serve for their players. But Bissell has found an enlightening sense of the relationship, which he is expanding on in a book from which this passage is excerpted, Extra Lives: Why Videogames Matter. I will certainly be looking forward to his other discoveries.

Olly Moss's other classic video game covers can be found here.
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My Petty Grievances

Here at Charge Shot!!!, sometimes we like things. Other times, we hate things. It’s a balance that works for us. I know what you’re thinking, though – why can’t I read a Web site where people hate everything?!

Well, first I’d make the obvious joke and point you to Pitchfork, but right after that I’d tell you to go read My Petty Grievances.

Shannon, a dear friend of the blog and the site’s proprietress, definitely has a healthy helping of disdain for lots of stuff, including leashed kids, people who are dicks, and emo Facebook statuses – you should really go over and read for yourself. Keep the hate alive!

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Deceptively Deep: The Undercurrents of Pokémon

We’ve been at this blogging thing for nigh on a year-and-a-half at this point, so I feel that you and I have established a sort of trust, a bond. I feel like I can be honest with you.

For nearly twelve years, I have bought, played and enjoyed many Pokémon games.

I never got into the cartoon or the spin-offs or the shameless merchandising, though, only the main RPGs. I’ve always been properly ashamed of the whole business, buying games from the Internet instead of in person when at all possible – when seventh-grade Andrew bought his first game, a beat up copy of Pokémon Yellow, from a classmate, he did it so he could give it to his little brother, not because he was going to play it himself.

Thing is, my shame has never been great enough to keep me from liking the games. They’re damn entertaining, and they’ve got a truly astounding amount of depth to them. Follow me down the rabbit hole, and I’ll show you just a few examples of how insane these games really are.

The basics

Most gamers are at least peripherally aware of the surface gameplay of Pokémon, which can be described succinctly as “rock-paper-scissors meets cockfighting.” You’re allowed to carry a team of up to six Pokémon, and each of them can be one or two of seventeen possible types.

These types are the core characteristic of most Pokémon – some types do extra damage to other types, or less damage, or none at all, and the same is true in the reverse. The key to winning the game is building a team where all of the members cover for each others’ weaknesses.

Each Pokémon can learn many different moves, but can only know four at once. Each of those moves is also associated with one of the seventeen types, and most either temporarily change the stats of yours or your opponent’s Pokémon, or do damage to your opponent’s Pokémon. The attack moves do a base amount of damage, which is multiplied or divided based on the type of the Pokémon being attacked – a Water-type move will do double damage to a Fire-type Pokémon, and so on.

In typical RPG fashion, Pokémon gain experience points by fighting other Pokémon, and gaining a certain amount of experience will make your Pokemon go up in level. This in turn raises your Pokemon’s statistics, of which there are six: HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed.

Nurture vs. nature

Those are the basic building blocks, and most people could play and eventually beat the game without knowing much else about it, but those seeking a real edge will have to go further down.

The games introduced another element in the Game Boy Advance versions of the games, namely Pokémon “natures” – each individual monster has a certain temperament, and most of those temperaments slightly raise one statistic while slightly lowering another. Many will continually catch the same Pokémon over and over until they get one with the exact nature they want. I believe there are twenty-five different natures, so that can take awhile.

Pokésex

Also a little nuts is the concept of Pokémon breeding, which was introduced in the second iteration of the series. Like so much of the game, it starts simple – put two Pokémon of opposite genders in day care together, put on some Barry White and see what happens. Of course, you’ll only get a Pokémon egg if your two monsters are in the same “egg group,” which dictate which Pokémon can breed with which.

Going a little deeper, each hatched Pokémon inherits some things from its parents – the Pokémon you get is determined by the mother, while the moves it knows is determined by the father. This way, it’s possible to concoct a low-level Pokémon that has moves it has no business knowing. Of course, there are some moves that a Pokemon will never learn on its own – only through several generations of careful breeding can you get certain Pokémen with certain moves, and there are in-depth guides to help you with this all over the Internet.

And that’s just the stuff you can see – Pokémon can also inherit random “base stats” and natures from their forebears. The craziest stuff in these games is never expressly mentioned to you as you play – you can only decipher it by doing extra independent research, which is a phrase often applied to homework but rarely to video games.

The point of no return

Speaking of invisible – Effort Values, or EVs, are a great metric by which you can determine how far past the line of no return your are – if you know about them, there is no hope for you as a productive member of human society. You are also over this line if you have ever traded a Pokémon with yourself.

EVs are like secret points that you get along with experience when you fight enemy Pokemans. Every Pokémon nets you a certain amount of a certain EV in one of the six statistics, and three EV points equate to one extra stat point. Insidious Pokémon trainers (did you know that people do this competitively?!) fastidiously battle only certain types of monsters in order to max out these points, which are never ever referenced once in any of the games.

Yes, but what is your point?

The extra, hidden complexity which pervades these games is a double-edged sword of considerable proportions.

On the one hand, it contributes to the games’ already high replay value. There are several games embedded in the larger package, and some people spend hours trying to get creatures that are just right for their purposes. It’s also necessary that the game’s systems be this deep, because on the surface every Pokémon game is nearly identical to the ones that came before – if they weren’t built on something more complex, the franchise would have run out of steam by now.

On the other hand, there are people who spend hours messing with these statistics and meta-statistics that exist only once you tear away the simple, cartoonish veneer. It often feels more like work than fun, and the trouble is that once you know about all of this it’s hard just to go back to enjoying the game in and of itself.

Yes, I am and always will be immensely ashamed of my unconditional love for these games, but they shouldn’t be dismissed as the shallow, kiddy adventures they’re often derided as. As games, they’re addictive and deep and satisfying, and that’s more than can be said for more reputable franchises.

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It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World: "Mad Men", Season 3 Review

My litmus test for TV shows is pretty rough: if they're not The Wire, I'm generally disappointed. You'd know this if you read our decade-end retrospective, and, if the comment boards are any indication, you didn't.

Although AMC's Mad Men unfortunately does not pass the test per se ("This version of The Wire has no black people!"), the show happens to be my favorite thing on TV right now and proves how stupid that test is.

Mad Men, if you've had your head completely up your ass, focuses on fictional Manhattan-based ad agency Sterling Cooper as it gets buffeted by the cultural sea changes of the 1960's. It was during this decade that all the morning boozing, chain-smoking, and blatant misogyny we see on the show started to look a little sketchy. Science started, uh, doing its job, and women realized they could do stuff.

Smack-dab in the middle of all this revolutionary social change is the impossibly handsome Don Draper (seriously, how did Jon Hamm not work before this show?). Don's a creative visionary, a womanizing jagoff, and a profoundly tragic figure all rolled into one deceptively smooth package. One of the most brilliant things about Hamm's performance (and casting) is that we're sold on the fact that such a perfect-looking man could be so tortured.

His past is famously mysterious: a stolen identity here, a forgotten family there. At some times, the severity of the trauma in Don's past is enough to excuse his quixotic behavior. At others, we practically scream at the TV, "STOP SCREWING WOMEN THAT AREN'T YOUR WIFE."

Betty Draper (January Jones, seemingly brilliant, but suffering from Scarlett Johannsen's disease, where I can't tell if she's underacting perfectly or not acting at all) is almost equally problematic. She plays the victim for much of the show, but despite how drop-dead gorgeous she is, Betty's still a hard character to love. She is, by turns, cold and immature, prone to insensitive outbursts at her children and general pouting.

While the relationship between Betty and Don is at the center of Mad Men in general, it takes up an even larger chunk of the third season. We, accordingly, see less of the show's cast of secondary characters this time around. Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) gets considerably less screen time; perhaps creator Matt Wiener thought the story about her illegitimate child with Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) had run its course? Peggy's character seems to have two purposes on the show: to deal with the poor treatment she sometimes receives as Sterling Cooper's first woman copywriter, and to feel guilty about accidentally having a kid. Unfortunately, Peggy has already "done her dramatic job" on Mad Men, and she's consequently being pushed to the margins.

Roger Sterling (John Slattery), Joan Harris/Holloway (Christina Hendricks), and the aforementioned Pete Campbell, however, aren't in the same boat as Peggy. That we get less of them this season is more distressing.

But if Don and Betty take up an inordinate amount of this season, at least they justify their upgraded presence with fascinating storylines. The conflicts over Betty's father moving into the house, Don being forced to sign a contract with Sterling Cooper, and the continued shakiness of their marriage never failed to keep me fascinated.

The show's trademark mysteriousness remains firmly intact: unexplained dreams, flashbacks, and hallucinations abound. It's wonderful to watch a show where the creator is confident enough in his vision not to hold the audience's hand the whole time. A friend once said, of Harold Pinter, that "he walks the line between mysterious and inscrutable perfectly." Creator Matt Wiener strikes that same balance.

But the thing that makes this season of Mad Men perhaps my favorite is that stuff is actually starting to happen, if only by the season's end. Without giving too much away, I'll just say that all those social changes we saw bubbling at the show's margins are finally starting to leak in to the lives of the characters (that photo of Don underwater really does sum up the season perfectly). The men and women of Sterling Cooper have thus far been content to let the '60s happen around them; the decade is finally happening to them. As I watched the season's stunning finale, I couldn't help but wonder what Don might be up to 10, 20, or 30 years in the future. What would he look like if he were still alive today?

The unhurried pace of this show is finally starting to speed up. Maybe the best is yet to come. Continue...

The Truth Shall Set You Free: Green Zone Review

Green Zone is an action movie set in Iraq, directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Matt Damon. How can we not see this as Bourne in Baghdad?

Damon plays Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, a solid-jawed soldier tasked with finding WMDs in the chaos and bustle of post-invasion Iraq. As his mission dissolves into a personal quest to discover the meaning behind his mission, here’s little to discern him from Jason Bourne, the amnesiac assassin who made Greengrass famous. It’s all shaky camerawork, grit-smeared lens and loaded silences.

But Green Zone wants to be more. It strives to recreate the cocoon – both mental and physical – inhabited by American officials during the days of the Coalition Provisional Authority, which set up shop in Saddam’s lavish Republican Palace and operated in isolation and denial until 2004. It wants to say something powerful about the hoodwinking of the American public. It wants to draw catharsis from indignation.

I’m not sure what’s worse – that Green Zone thinks it achieves catharsis, or that it can’t, and never could, because its viewers know the truth: this is the Iraq War. There is no happy ending.

(Mandatory spoiler alert: Green Zone is entirely predictable, but if you want to protect yourself from the obvious plot twist, quit reading here).

Green Zone opens with Miller en route to a supposed WMD site. The war, at least the part involving tanks driving through the desert, is over. Saddam has fled and Baghdad is in the hands of American soldiers – who, under orders, do nothing to stop the wholesale looting of the Iraqi capital city. Miller arrives at the site, jousts with a sniper, slips into his chemical warfare gear and enters the site to find nothing.

Tired of chasing after bad intel, Miller decides to go straight to the source – Al-Rawi, a Baathist general known to American officials as “Magellan,” the man who gave Americans the smoking gun they needed. Along the way, Miller runs afoul of Clark Poundstone (played deliciously by Greg Kinnear), a pentagon weenie struggling to install a corrupt and unpopular puppet. Despite Poundstone’s best efforts, Miller is aided by Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson!), a grizzled CIA chief dismissed by the pentagon tie-wearers as burnt-out and old-school. Unlike Poundstone, Brown and Miller aren’t trying to hustle some stooge into power – they’re trying to validate the American mission in Iraq.

The scenes in the Green Zone, a posh enclave barricaded from the surrounding city by huge blast walls, are understated and powerful. Americans in khakis and oxfords scurry through hallways still cluttered with debris from aerial bombardment; they lunch beside glittering pools, talking shop over Budweisers. Baghdad may be dissolving around them, but all they see are clean roads, green grass and the well-manicured image of an occupying force firing efficiently on all cylinders. The atmosphere is one of delirious denial and naïveté – nation-building treated as a postgraduate exercise.

Green Zone draws heavily from Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a 2006 book that dissected the Coalition Provisional Authority’s dream-world. Greengrass proves a lucid lens for Chandrasekaran’s journalism, and Green Zone is strongest when it sticks to its source material.

It is, however, a Greengrass movie. As an action movie, Green Zone offers few surprises. We’ve seen Matt Damon chase bad guys before, and if you’ve seen any of the Bourne movies, you’ve seen this. The camera is shaky. You either love it or hate it; I, for one, had re-watched Casino Royale only hours before, and Greengrass’s signature touch suffered in comparison. I mean, I get it – this is war, this is gunfire, this is chaos. This is also a headache. I sometimes had to squint to tell what was going on, and if that’s kinetic filmmaking, I’ll pass.

Jarring camerawork aside, Greengrass is a master of maintaining momentum, and Green Zone is nothing if not a kick-ass action flick. Its director applies violence and subtlety as contrasting tones, using one to enrich the other.

But as an Iraq War film, Green Zone is a failure. Miller eventually tracks down Al-Rawi only to discover that there were no WMDs – there never were, and the Americans knew. He told them. They invaded anyway. Betrayed by his government, Miller writes a tell-all expose and leaks it to the press. The movie ends with him driving into the desert.

Slate’s Dana Stevens compares this fantasizing with Inglorious Bastards, which presented an alternate history where Jewish commandos machine-gun Hitler’s face into spaghetti sauce. Hitler’s death wasn’t quite so climactic (/awesome), but he did die. Greengrass zooms out just as Miller blows the whistle on Magellan, leaving the blowback to the audience’s imagination.

Here’s the problem: in the real world, there was no blowback. Magellan was real – he was called “Curveball” by American officials, and he was then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Exhibit A when he told the UN Saddam was actively building WMDs. The revelation that Curveball was wrong came not with a bang, as Greengrass imagines, but with the squeaky hiss of a balloon slowly deflating, audible to those who cared and ignorable to everyone else. When Miller grabs Poundstone by the collar and growls “The reasons why we go to war always matter,” he gives audiences a satisfaction they were denied by history.

Ending Green Zone on a note of false triumph is not only wrong, it’s facile, which scans as cowardly in this context. Greengrass could have challenged himself to show the news breaking slowly, like high tide, upon the American people, who then sigh and turn back to reality television; he could have shown the CPA packing up and leaving their Emerald City, leaving Baghdad worse than they found it; he could have shown the ultimate insignificance of the reasons we went to war.

It would make Green Zone a different movie, perhaps not the revenge fantasy Greengrass set out to film; but it would make it true. Maybe then we could share Miller’s moment of catharsis.

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