Climbing for Dollars

Don't lie! You'd watch it.

Partial Retraction HD

Got my mitts on Earthworm Jim HD yesterday, and I'm happy to report it isn't quite the mess I predicted. It's not perfect: to the best of my knowledge neither the Mega Drive nor the SNES version is lurking away in any partitioned vault section, the music remix stresses anonymous, a secret stage has been removed, and Jim's playmobil pistol doesn't register as a death spewing hate machine anymore. Those issues aside there is much to like. Gameloft have woven in elements from the Mega CD Special Edition, finally allowing (relatively) unspoiled children to sample Shiny's original do-over. The Mega Drive exclusive Intestinal Distress level is in, and the additional stages loudly trumpeted by the trail are tucked away as bonus content in the main menu. Phew! In all Earthworm Jim HD is a successful reheat of a 16-Bit classic, it reintroduces you to all the things that made Dave Perry's platformer special, the playful structure, the joke bosses and nob-joke sound effects. 16-Bit Earthworm Jim took a skit sketch approach to platformer aesthetics. Levels were short and snappy and usually ended on a gag of some sort. This is the same. Earthworm Jim 2 now please!

WJC ABC

Warwick Johnson Cadwell has posted his take on the ABC Warriors over at his blog. Check it out! The strip was produced for issue 1 of Will Kirkby's Nu-Earth fanzine - hopefully the first of many. For my money, this meknificent five haven't looked quite so awesome since Mike McMahon stopped drawing them. If Tharg had any sense he'd throw money at Mr Johnson to chronicle an ABC mega-epic. Disaster Year's dream scenario would involve a bickering Blackblood and Joe Pineapples teaming up and betraying each other across all the known universes. WJC's Blackblood looks sneakier than Bugs Bunny.

A Short Film Made From Red Dead Redemption

What's interesting about much of this John Hillcoat designed short, created to advertise Rockstar's latest Red Dead Redemption, is a nagging sense of passive observation. The viewer feels once removed. Is that because Hillcoat, by his own admission not too au fait with the video game medium, is struggling to engage with the material, or because the viewer is seeing sequences they would usually control presented as a brief feature? The virtual camera keeps Red Dead's lead John Marston at the kind of distance that would allow a player a fair approximation of his surroundings, and an ability to judge how best to play. In the context of a film though, the disconnect feels slightly disinterested, revolted even. There is a persistent lack of intimacy. Rather than implicate Marston as the lead, the construction stresses the viewer.

Is that an accurate reading or just a hang over from knowing where the material springs? Much has been assembled from in-game story sequences where this sort of visual language would go more or less unnoticed. You wouldn't detect how much of what you are seeing is being ordered for your schematic benefit, because you are the lead. John Marston is your toy. The stressed physical distance between audience and lead could equally be read as a tool to build a sense of mystery around John Marston. Like most revisionist Western heroes, Marston has a brutal past. This idea is supported by how the camera's behaviour changes when Marston begins to talk about his old life, it pushes right in on the back of his skull as if forcing its way into his thoughts. Another explanation could simply be that these avatars are not as engaging as real people, that the edit needs to diverge visually because watching a polygon figure shuffle through a environment doesn't grip like a prowling person. It's too artificial. If nothing else this short illustrates some of the key differences in visual grammar between the two mediums. Films can move throughout on visual signatures and motifs. Turns out games are all about geography.

The Empire Strikes Back

The Empire Strikes Back is Darth Vader's movie top to bottom. George Lucas has spoken at length about how the prequel trilogy firmly contextualises the entire Star Wars saga as a redemptive arc for Anakin Skywalker, but a substantial amount of those threads begin here. The film moves on Vader's whims and desires. Armed with a continent sized spacecraft, the Sith lord scours the galaxy searching for his son, and other Force sensitive, Luke Skywalker. Vader's hold on the film is such that eventually his image begins to bleed out into the world. At his most powerful Vader is surrounded by tense, screaming, industrial facilities, all cast in his piteous pitch black.

Popular culture usually identifies Vader as an insoluble leader figure in the Galactic Empire so it's interesting, when actually watching the films, to see that this isn't quite the case. In the original Star Wars Vader is more of a henchman to Peter Cushing's lizardy politician. Rather than sit high in the imperial hierarchy, Vader seems to be a brutal wizard barely tolerated by his fascist contemporaries. Likewise, in Empire Vader issues orders, but subordinates wait for a nod from their actual superiors before proceeding. Vader is a phantom, drifting about observation decks, punishing those whose mistakes keep him from his child. He exists in an untouchable bubble, separated from any notions of rank or military bureaucracy. He is hated and feared by all.

The only figure Vader answers to is a projected image of the Emperor. In the 1980 mint of this sequence, Vader communes with a boggle-eyed witch that wishes to transform young Luke into a corrupted ally. This Emperor delights in his minion's aggressive immorality, smiling at Vader's impassive solution. The recent DVD remix of this scene adds Ian McDiarmid, and a few lines to clarify some duplicity on behalf of Vader, lending the sequence an element of pleading. Beats of silence warp the intent and intonation of Vader's speech, stressing a yearning paternal interest. It's just about the only addition these films have been subjected to that demonstrates any sort of dramatic impulse.

Ice Cube - It Was a Good Day

BULLET-MAN

Cacophony shill for the latest in Shinya Tsukamoto's machine-man series, Tetsuo: The Bullet Man. As with previous sequel Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, this new release is more a reshuffling of ideas that narrative continuation. Half-delivering on a series of promises made in the 1990s, director Tsukamoto hasn't shifted the action to the United States, but he does appear to have assembled an English language cast to flail about in Japan's concrete capital. Hopefully the culture clash is handled with a little more grace than Takashi Shimizu's dreary Ju-on retreads.

"4-PLAYER CO-OP!"

Other mediums have it good, or at least better. For the most part, when films and albums get remastered the original elements are simply buffed and cleaned. If they're lucky they might even get centre-pieced in a box-set full of relevant off-cuts and documentary material. This process isn't perfect, modern foley has fouled up many a recent film re-release, but there's an underlying respect for the original work.

What happens to vintage games? They get turned over to third parties to be yanked apart and put back together in a form that pleases the idea of a modern consumer. It's not so much that this HD reissue of Earthworm Jim is bad, it's that it disregards aspects central to the original game's appeal. Seeing fluid, cartoon like animation running on the Mega Drive was a considerable boon in 1994, it defied the accepted limitations of the system. That's what made Earthworm Jim special. What we're seeing here is just a re-drawn approximation of those 16-bit assets. You don't re-shoot films for a Blu-Ray anniversary release do you? The introduction of new stages - including Keyboard Cat? - is a bit of a cheek too. I've never heard of contemporary sound engineers creating entirely new tracks to be roughly sown back into a classic album. Who would want that? Why should this be any different?

Remaster squads should be custodians, not creators. Above all though, there should be choice. If properties really do have to be tinkered with, at least give the audience the opportunity to have the lo-fi experience. Tuck it away somewhere in the package. Some people want the pixellated 16-bit mess, or the dull Mono soundtrack. Limitations, even outright mistakes, have value. Don't destroy them.

"This guy is such toast. Doesn't he know that Scott's the best fighter in the province?"

Seriously, go read the comics.

Dennis Hopper

Tomer Hanuka's The Warriors

via Mondo.

Jamie Lidell - Compass

Martyrs

Martyrs never sits still. The film plays with a variety of standard horror tropes, from home invasion and spectral doppelgangers to total identity extinction. Scenarios are played out to completion then twisted and recontextualised, jumping off from an idea implicit to the previous sequence. This new stage is then spun to exhaustive conclusion, before the process begins again. Each beat is satisfying in seclusion, but taken as a whole Martyrs becomes faintly mind-boggling. Writer/director Pascal Laugier swerves neat nihilistic zings to press deeper into a mounting, pervasive state of horror that eventually becomes the totality of the experience. This is not to say that Martyrs is simply a series of expert riffs on horror aesthetics, the film routinely plays around with a variety of modern nightmare scenarios, ideas like a determined individual intruding into your 'safe' world, or being unfairly cast into an incarceration system that treats despair as industry. Horror in Martyrs is never a gag or punchline, it's another tool in a thesis that grapples with absolute, systematic misery. Martyrs is a thorough, almost overwhelming trip around the darkest, bleakest states of the human animal.

Justice - Stress

"Jupiter's Cock!"

Basic cable packagers rejoice! Bravo begins broadcasting Starz network's delightfully venal take on socialist superstar Spartacus this week. Spartacus: Blood and Sand is everything you could ever want from a pre-Christian potboiler; it's avowedly anti-classical, brimming with endless body destruction, and incessant period cussing. Season 1 has concentrated largely on Spartacus's time as a commodity, his owned life consists of endless gladiatorial drilling, brief spells in lethal arenas, and occasionally being put out to stud for Rome's wealthy. This is where the series excels, after a few eye-catch episodes full of insane gore and non-stop fucking, the focus narrows to a portrait of brimming revolt. Spartacus's world balances on whims; slave masters emulate their bloated, petulant Gods for larks, shagging and destroying their perceived inferiors for parlour play.

Season 2 is a bit up in the air at this time, show lead Andy Whitfield was recently diagnosed with lymphoma. Production has shifted to a six part prequel series, shooting this summer to air early 2011 in the United States. Disaster Year wishes Mr Whitfield a speedy recovery.

"Coming to your Galaxy, next Summer!"

Today is the 30th anniversary of the US cinema release of The Empire Strikes Back. To celebrate, here's a vintage trailer! That's Harrison Ford on the shill, contemptuously struggling through mandatory ad copy. Eagle eyed viewers may notice a brief fragment of an unused scene at the 1:32 mark - C3PO vandalising a sign that marked a Wampa Ice Creature holding pen in the hopes of wrong-footing advancing Snowtroopers. Hopefully, Mr Lucas will get his shit dry sometime soon and release a BD set of the Original unaltered Trilogy. Anamorphic this time please.

Invoking Phil Collins

Caught the Ashes to Ashes finale last night, wasn't Daniel Mays good as Old Scratch? I didn't keep up with the series, so discussing content would be a bit of a dead end. Instead, I just wanted to make a quick comment about the musical quotes littered throughout the show. They're a bit of a waste aren't they? Why feature a track like In the Air Tonight if you're only going to play a twenty second micro-snatch, then fade it null? Why risk conjuring up an audience comparison with the above sequence from Miami Vice if you're not going to do anything new or subversive with the piece?

Miami Vice moves entirely on image and a sonic thematic resonance. Phil Collins swallows this sequence, creating a protracted doom mood as the two leads drive towards an idea of extinction. Image and sound are combined to create a profound sense of desperation. Ashes to Ashes used the cue for a similar moment - the protagonist Alex risking her own life to discover the nature of her superior officer / love interest - but only spliced it in for a fleeting flourish then your standard fade down for dialoguing. It's anti-cinematic, and arguably anti-organic. It mugs audience attention away from a moment, creating a dramatic dead space where viewers internally remark about how much they enjoy the 'drum bit'. No mood is established, other than perhaps a kind of dreary nostalgia. At its worst, this kind of slight juxtaposition recalls the assembly of winsome holiday shows where a bored editor fades in something aurally peculiar as a kind of meta-wink to anyone paying attention. Yuck.

Twit

Fan of inane bleating? Why not follow me on Twitter! Oh look, here's my page thingy. I wouldn't expect much. Content tends to skew stream of consciousness witterings, usually concerned with whatever media product I'm currently gorging myself on. The current series of Junior Apprentice has exerted itself as a bit of a topic mainstay already. Hooray!

The Offence

After allowing himself to be dragged back to United Artists and the Bond fold for Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery was given the chance to instigate a feature or two of his own choosing. The sole result of this opportunity turned out to be 1972's The Offence, directed by Sidney Lumet and based on a play by John Hopkins. The Offence is a tense, claustrophobic thing; a series of fraught overlapping interviews dealing with the fallout of a particularly revolting series of crimes. The film begins as an indistinct blur that drifts in and around a police station. The frame is blighted by a glaring superimposed lamp, speech muffled and warped as if underwater. A rash of lurching thuds ring out, and everyone starts to panic, racing to a secluded room. We arrive at the conclusion: a confused cornered Connery glaring at several prone bodies. He's tense and prowling, like a startled animal.

We're taken back through events that begin to explain a fairly standard sequence of reactionary violence - Connery's Detective Johnson creates an opportunity to question a suspected child molester. Convinced of his guilt he begins to physically intimidate him to force a confession, going too far and critically injuring him. At this point we are allowed to understand Johnson as a plodding avenger performing equaliser violence. The audience is notionally pleased upfront, but The Offence delves deeper, essaying the psychological make-up of such sure and steady thuggery. Opening reel aside, the film is primarily constructed in the form of your average police procedural. Drama is confined to dour utilitarian spaces, and confrontations spin on reams of raw, wordy dialogue. When Johnson is sent home to cool off the film begins to change tact, brief snatches of appalling violence begin to intrude, poking in from Johnson's fracturing psyche. Memory and fantasy mix and become indistinguishable. Initially The Offence seems to be digging into this horror as a way of explaining Johnson's brutalised state. Slowly though The Offence begins to ration out the extent of Johnson's damage, puncturing any idea that Connery is playing another variation of a male ideal. Peculiar behaviour and dead-end mutterings take on ever changing mood and meaning, escalating into a profound sense of disquiet.

Beck - Jack-Ass

Graham Coxon - I Wish

Frank Frazetta

Hercules in New York

Appalling in nearly every conceivable way, Hercules in New York still reveals a couple of interesting corners when viewed in the wider context of Arnold Schwarzenegger's career. Schwarzenegger is Hercules, a stroppy Demigod sulking about the Big Apple in a film that presumes to parody a then recent cycle of Italian action yarns. Niche upon niche. Fresh off Mr Universe fame, a 23 year old Schwarzenegger is cast as a buffoonish curio. His lines are short, delivery clipped, and heavy with accent. His body is enormous and rounded; in his Olympian briefs he resembles a gigantic infant, an effect exacerbated by his petulant line readings.

Hercules in New York is shot with an eye for the dull. Sequences are barely framed, and ramble on like leaden, unsophisticated TV skits. The film does occasionally spring to life though, especially when considering Schwarzenegger's physicality. The frame shrinks into a roaming eye, poring over the star's veins and muscles. Attacks are frequently shot from the perspective of Schwarzenegger's victims, his monstrous body swamping the point of view. Tone wise, the film holds back on any of the mechanised horror inherent to Schwarzenegger's body, aiming instead for campy giggles. Fights are grab-ass push contests with an emphasis on burly men made weak in Hercules' presence. At times it seems as if Schwarzenegger is being objectified as a dim-bulb dom, able to easily overpower any man and have his way with them. His companion for the majority of the film is a flustered fey little man, always on hand to gawk and splutter when Schwarzenegger tears his shirt off for the umpteenth time. There is a female love interest, and all the Goddesses fawn and slink whenever Schwarzenegger is about, but the film's heart isn't in it. The relationship with the girlfriend never evolves beyond exasperated culture-clash sight-seeing, and when Hercules finally does bid his farewell, it's his male companion he fobs off with empty platitudes.

William Shatner - Rocket Man

Mexican't?

Ain't It Cool News broke this a few days ago, the first legitimate trailer for the forthcoming Machete feature. The bones of this trail are much the same as the phoney shill that appeared in Grindhouse - Danny Trejo is hired to assassinate a politician, and is betrayed by his WASP taskmaster. Unfortunately, since the property is now destined to be a legitimate theatrical release, the idea of a Machete film has shifted conceptually. An actual audience must be accounted for! Hence, this new ad is filled out with B plot eye catches, various stunt cast nudges, and a slightly more sympathetic portrayal of women.

The advertised Machete has transformed from something nakedly exploitative into something mindful of focus groups and test audiences. The Grindhouse clip sold a one-note mangler, brimming with extermination violence and three-in-a-hot-tub sexuality. This promises a multi-lead action ramble with a cursory nod to America's wonky immigration policies. Gone too are the scratchy Grindhouse post-production imperfections. Celluloid no longer seethes and mutates while Trejo is tearing his enemies apart, instead this has the glassy digital shimmer of any modern TV cheapy.

UPDATE: Robert Rodriguez has since gone on record to state that this ad was produced as a satirical comment on Arizona's recent dabble in racial profiling, and does not represent the actual form of Machete. Disaster Year been duped!