“It started with an interesting disease, I guess. I started writing it in film school, which means I took eight years to write it, on and off. I was sick with the flu, and I had this fever dream. I was obsessing over the physical nature of my illness, and how I had something in my body that had come from someone else’s body, and how that was a weirdly intimate thing, if you think about it that way.
So afterwards, I was trying to think about a character who might see disease as an intimate thing. I thought a celebrity-obsessed fan might reasonably want Angelina Jolie’s cold as a way of feeling physically connected to her in some way. And then it developed into a metaphor, which I thought was an interesting way of discussing that culture.”
- Seriously, Lars von Trier’s newest film is called “Nymphomaniac“? I swear, that guy just lives to push people’s buttons. Which is awesome. I still haven’t seen “Antichrist”… and to be honest I’m a little frightened by the disturbing imagery within. I mean, I’m sure I wouldn’t be fainting or anything like that (as has been reported); but I’m not so sure about my psychological tolerance for self-mutilation of the worst kind. I did however really, really like “Melancholia”, part two of his “Depression Trilogy” (“Antichrist” being part one). Maybe I’ll give this new one a watch at some point.
- Robin Hanson over at Overcoming Bias posted an excellent little piece about why certain movies do better than others, the relationship between consuming fiction and our lives, and the status of known achievement:
“There’s an apt old curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Which highlights the fact that while we like stories with drama, we don’t actually want drama in our lives. If you ignore the very end, and the fact that the characters are very high status artists, Amour is quite realistic and by far the drama most likely to actually be experienced by many of you. Which is why most folks don’t like it, because they don’t actually want to see realistic ordinary drama.
Amour is about a women who gets sick and then dies. I was stuck by the fact that what most bothered her and her husband were the insults to her pride. They could mostly handle the pain, the drudgery, and the loss of opportunity. But the loss of status, oh that stung.“
- So Disney bought Star Wars. If you don’t know. Which is… meh. I mean, I’m not like a huge Star Wars fanboy or anything so I don’t have to strong of feelings either way. I do, like 80% of humans, love the old Star Wars movies; and I do, like 85% of humans, hate the new ones. From what I’m reading from people who know a lot about this stuff, there are novels that act as the official “post-Original Trilogy” story. Something to do with Han and Leia’s kids, Luke running a new Jedi order, and the resurgence of the Empire and the Sith. This could be decent I suppose. The problem with the new ones — and I’m sure this has been written about extensively — is the fear of treading new ground. This notion that they had to fall back on the old ones to be good. You can see that in everything from the bizarre and wacky coincidences written into the story, the way the ships are designed, even the way Palatine was scarred to look like a shitty Halloween costume of himself in Jedi. As long as they don’t do any of that, and focus on a new story, new characters, new designs, they should be alright I hope.
[But hey, I'm one of like 3 million assholes writing my opinions on the Internet about this so what the fuck do I know?]
- William Gibson’s seminal novel Neuromancer is being turned into a film as we speak. Little is known about the project. The IMDB page is empty, to say the least. Liam Neeson’s name is on the cast, which may or may not be true, but sounds awesome. If you don’t know about the novel it’s one of the best science fiction novels of all-time. It started the genre we call “cyberpunk”. It also featured characters “jacking into” the Internet which was obviously directly lifted for The Matrix movies. Anyways, here’s a new poster (the first):
I have the impression that this is the opinion the government wants to impose on people, their way of opposing the situation. I think that when a person goes somewhere, she reflects, she thinks about where she is going and why, because she is using her time and energy. It’s a conscious choice. I don’t go to a demonstration because it’s cool. It isn’t at all cool to go to demonstrations today. The forces of order are nearby. They can beat you up. The demonstration on May 6th proved that. Nowadays, many people find themselves behind bars solely because they went to a public demonstration.
If I mentally transpose the words “entertaining” and “sport,” Dylan’s sentiment gets close to what I’m trying to express (and what I want to feel, but can’t). There was a time when I watched football in order to not think about my day-to-day life, but fantasy sports slowly changed that — in fact, my affinity for fantasy only makes it worse. I turn the players I draft into tiny parts of my life, which stops me from remembering that they have no relationship whatsoever to who I am. It makes me unconsciously think of them as extensions of myself. And I wonder if this is more problematic than I want to accept. Do I have any right to get angry at Chris Johnson? Does anyone?
- The Trouble With The Mask. Great op-Ed on the inherent problems with the new Joker in Batman and featuring a brilliant Bukowski quote.
- Even more The Master revelations. This time in the form of the first full-length trailer:
- Though it is an interesting read, from a good writer who is clearly educated on the topic(s)at hand, I’m not sure I completely agree with the “choose one and only one” theme of John Patterson’s article at the Guardian’s film tab right now. The article delves into the greatness of legendary Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, but does so at the expense of Ingmar Bergman. Thoroughly. Not only is it subjective to call Bergman’s films “boring”, it’s a little bit unfounded. Slow, oh absolutely. But there’s nothing “boring” about a story of two women turning into one another at a remote cabin on the sea. Something that strange and obtuse can’t be “boring”, can it? Still, the article is a breath of fresh air when perusing the film sites. As is digging back into Antonioni’s movies, which were also far from boring. He is probably most known for his trilogy starting with L’avventura and ending with Eclipse. I have only seen one of his films, the second in that trilogy titled La Notte. Not that it’s my fault, finding his movies — especially in a world of “red boxes” (I fucking hate those things) — is nearly impossible.
Don’t let Patterson talk you out of seeing a Bergman film though… he was good too.
“The US reels from another horrific killing spree: at least 12 people shot dead and many more injured at a showing of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. Sickeningly, some in the audience reportedly failed to make their escape because they assumed at first that the disturbance was simply a special effect. And according to multiple reports, the gunman had his hair painted red and described himself to police as “The Joker”. So are we to see a revival of the debate about copycat crimes and the cinema?”
- Two good pieces on two albums that made their stamp on the musical world at Stereogum today.
The first is about the 1992 Sonic Youth album “Dirty”. One of — of not the — best Sonic Youth albums. I had been done before, certainly with the Pixies and back in the day with Velvet Underground and any number of bands in between and prior, but for me this album really helped to dispose of the notion that one needed notation of some kind to play an instrument. Traditionally, there are three subjects one to playing an instrument: notation, rhythm, and inflection. I’m talking at it’s most bare-bones. When you hear “Dirty”, you think, “holy shit I can play guitar with ALL INFLECTION?!?” Again, not that it hadn’t been done before… but this album really cemented inflection-based guitar playing as viable and artistically relevant ways to play. This does a few things. Perhaps it’s most important (and most overlooked) function is to encourage beginners to not quit. If you just got a guitar and turn on your amp for the first time and all you’re getting is noise in a world devoid of albums like “Dirty”, you probably think you’re doing something wrong and give up.
The other is about Appetite For Destruction, which turned 25 recently. Love it or hate it (the band or the album), AFD turned the music industry on its head upon its 1987 release. All throughout the 80′s people were told what was happening, with detail, on the Sunset Strip in L.A. through the lyrics of Rock bands (and their videos). But something about it was… off. It wasn’t perhaps that these guys weren’t living what they were singing about – we all know Vince Niel wasn’t full of shit when he wrote and sang Motley Crue lyrics. At least. But there was still something artificial, something plastic about everything prior to AFD. Not only that, but you didn’t even realize it until AFD came out, and you heard the “It’s So Easy” to “Nightrain” one-two punch. It sort of made everything prior to it — that was suppose to sound “dangerous” — feel like child’s play by comparison. This shit was L.A. rock & roll for REAL, for good or bad.
Over on WhiteChapel Mark Seifert (one of editors @ Avatar Press) posted a preview of Warren Ellis’ upcoming comic called Supergod. Apparently this comic will close out Ellis’ “superhero trilogy”: “Black Summer was about superhumans who were too human. No Hero was about superhumans who were inhuman. Supergod is about superhumans who are no longer human at all, but something else. The third leg of a thematic trilogy if you like”, he summarizes on his written introduction to the book. An introduction so mind bending, I’m not gonna paraphrase it I’m just gonna share it:
A superhuman is an alien life form. By definition. More than human means not human, not human anymore, not like us, something else. Our reaction to a superhuman in close proximity would be like our reaction to a spider: something so alien that it triggers a gut revulsion we have to train ourselves out of. Or, perhaps, our reaction to a serious schizophrenic. Schizophrenics smell different. They think different. You can see it in their eyes. They are Not Like You.
I remember the novelist Lisa Tuttle once saying on a TV show, “Every angel is terrifying.” Too perfect. Too alien. They don’t think like us.
Black Summer was about superhumans who were too human. No Hero was about superhumans who were inhuman. Supergod is about superhumans who are no longer human at all, but something else. The third leg of a thematic trilogy if you like.
Supergod is the story of what an actual superhuman arms race might be like. It’s a simple thing to imagine. Humans have been fashioning their own gods with their own hands since the dawn of our time on Earth. We can’t help ourselves. Fertility figures brazen idols, vast chalk etchings, carvings, myths and legends, science fiction writers generating science fiction religions from whole cloth. It’s not such a great leapt to conceive of the builders of nuclear weapons and particle accelerators turning their attention to the oldest of human pursuits. Dress it up as superhuman defense, as discovering the limits of the human body, as transhumanism and posthumanism. Stewart Brand once paraphrased Edward Leach: “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.” And, perhaps, there’s still that little scratchy voice in the middle of the night: I don’t want to be alone. I want there to be something bigger, something that moves in mysterious ways and wants only the best for us. And I will forgive it, the disgusting state of this world, and all the things in it that want to crush and kill me, and have faith that something incredible and invisible and unknowable will make things better. And so (in Supergod), just to make sure, I will build it and keep it by me. I will pretend it’s a weapon, a defensive capability, a computing object or a construction machine — but really it is a Messiah.
But the Messiah, remember, is a very naughty boy.
The thing about building weapons is that there are always accidents. In Supergod, one of these creatures gets loose. And what it does is completely unpredictable, pretty much insane to a human perspective — because it’s not human. Even if it’s programmed to rescue you, it will not perform that task in a way you understand. These dreams of flying men who will save us from the corrupt and deadly world we live in — those are our dreams. We project human desires upon them. If they were real, they wouldn’t think like that.
And that’s why Supergod opens on a government scientist called Reddin, in a state of almost Lovecraftian mental imbalance, sitting on the Embankment of the Thames while London burns in the background, and thousands of corpses float down the river. London got off easy. You should see Mumbai.
Warren Ellis
Burning England
July 2009
Yikes. And if that weren’t enough, here’s a VERY disturbing page from the comic (if you look closely, or perhaps just observantly, you’ll notice the scientists doing… well….):
A lot of gamers thought 2008 was THE year for the PS3. Sony released everything from Metal Gear 4, Resistance 2, Fallout 3, to Little Big Planet last year. They got murdered in shipped units however; not by Microsoft, but by the Wii, which is another can of worms for another day (if ever). I discovered a few WordPress Gamer pages this morning which are discussing the big, BIG titles being released for the PS3 in 2009. One of which, cited these games as examples (I’m not going to link anyone to this site however, because these assholes have the balls to ask people for “donations”. That’s right, they want your fucking money so they can tell you about video-games):
God of War III. Of course this game’s getting all the attention. It’s on the verge of becoming the FRANCHISE exclusive for the Playstation brand. No doubt it will kick a whole lot of ass. Many people stake the “God of War II= the best PS2 game ever” claim still; I disagree. The first was better. We’ll see if III can live up to 1. Typically “no”: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Prince of Persia, even the Nolan Bat-Films (I’m guessing obviously).
Killzone 2. I’d give this more of a “meh”. The first Killzone was cool, I’m not gonna lie. But as far as MMO-Shooters go in 2009, I’d be more on the lookout for a game like MAG, which promises to be one of the grandest undertakings in online gaming history. 50 bucks says they fuck up the programming and interface though. They’ll still release it, then a patch, then an upgrade, then they’ll charge us for new maps.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. The original Uncharted game delivered a punch to the gut of anyone who doubted the PS3′s sheer power compared to the 360. For a launch title, that game was one of the best there was at pushing a brand new, uncharted, beta, system to its very limits. Not to mention the game had a super sweet story and overall ambiance which flipped it from the “Industrial Light & Magic digital effects fest” side to the “holy shit these guys take game making very seriously” side.
Gran Turismo 5. What else could possibly be said about the Gran Turismo brand. This is the top of the line, the bar, for all realistic driving games out there. Me personally, I’d chose Wipe-Out before this in a heartbeat. I don’t like having to get my permits and license all over again in a virtual world. However, I’ve played lots of Gran Turismo in the past and will in the future. This will be perhaps the most realistic looking game ever when it’s released.
All these titles have three things in common: they’re all sequels of some sort, they all slip into the “been done before” file, and none of them really seem to be taking any chances. Now, this unnamed WordPress Page DID include a 5th “most anticipated 2009″ PS3 game in its list; one that surpasses all four of these titles in imagination, ambiance (which oddly reminds me of the German film “M”), risk-taking, story, and originality. The game is called HEAVY RAIN. It’s made by a French studio called Quantic Dream. This will be QD’s 3rd title after Omnikron: The Nomad Soul and Farenhiet. Little is known about the game, but creator David Cage has been quoted as saying “[it] will be a very dark film noir thriller with mature themes”. One very interesting little tidbit to the game is that it will supposedly feature NO super-natural elements at all. Themes, places, people, nothing. This is very interesting considering the game’s trailer. OK- wow, just read that the game’s trailer, below, is NOT a part of the game and is only a demo to provide a preview into the game’s content, visuals, and gameplay. Here are some Heavy Rain links:
Developers still are trying to produce the one game that breaks the barrier between just playing a story and actually experiencing it. Later this year, Sony plans to release “Heavy Rain” for the PlayStation 3, a murder mystery that touts detailed facial animation for characters. Also eagerly anticipated by gamers is “Alan Wake” (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360), an adventure game about a man who visits a new town that some are comparing to the TV series “Twin Peaks,” in the way that series created a mysterious place. “It’s just going to evolve. It’s getting better,” Dille said.
And here’s the 2008 E3 Trailer for Heavy Rain I referred to:
