New Mineshaft Feature : Loving the Craft

Well I’ve yet to top my (unimpressive) Robotron score from a while back, so I need an ongoing feature to keep me coming back to the mineshaft. In addition to the normal posts, I will be spending a paragraph or two at the bottom to explore an H.P. Lovecraft story, since I think in general he is a writer that is known of, but not known well enough outside of a few key stories.

Some of the stories might warrant a whole post, though I’m sure I can capture how I felt about one of his short stories in a little blurb at the end of a post, taking the place of the Robotron Diaries (unless I top my score). We’ll be kicking this off in style, with a story that helped renew my interest in this author : “The Silver Key.”

This story is the third in the series of Randolph Carter stories. It’s not completely necessary to read the other two first, but if you wanna be hardcore about it, go for it and read “The Statement of Randolph Carter” and “The Unnamable” first. True Lovecraft fans will point out that in terms of chronology there’s really another one you should read first, “The Dream Quest Of Unknown Kadath”, but i’ve found that reading them in the written order to be more enjoyable than the chronological order. Plus, these first three stories are much more manageable in size and complexity for those who want to start reading a bit of Lovecraft and don’t want to plunge into Unknown Kadath just yet.

Randolph Carter is one of Lovecraft’s few repeating characters. By this story, he is an old man who has “lost the key to the gate of dreams”. Like several of Lovecraft’s stories, it begins with almost an essay that sets up the mind of the main character before leading in to the story itself. Carter makes several attempts to understand the meaning of the world around him, but finds himself unsatisfied, so he must find a way to retreat back into his dreams from childhood.

The story is both very different from Lovecraft’s other works and very typical for him. It very carefully walks the line between the total cosmic and ghoulish hopelessness of his stories and a kind of childlike belief in the sheer power of dreams and fantasy. It’s almost like Peter Pan with a fog machine… I love it.

Supposedly when this story was published, it wasn’t a big hit. It doesn’t have any monsters or Elder Gods or cults, so maybe that’s why. I can see how it could be less memorable and perhaps less shocking than some other Lovecraft tales. Still, this story is incredible, especially when read in the context of the previous Randolph Carter stories.

I won’t completely spoil the ending, but it is neither completely uplifting nor a total downer, but it does set up a sequel of sorts. I haven’t had time for it yet, but I’m really excited to read it and feature it soon!

Dumb shit people say after trailers.

I just watched the new trailer for “Paranormal Activity”, which is getting some serious buzz as the next big thing in the horror genre. I’ll cross my fingers for that, but that isn’t the point of this post. The trailer used night vision cameras pointed at a test audience freaking out to kind of build hype for the next “scariest movie ever made”. [Rec] did this too, and I’m sure some other horror film did it before that. I almost thought “hmm, kinda like that one [Rec] Trailer”, just in terms of how the film is pitched… but then I caught myself about to say something stupid.

What other stupid things can people say based on trailers alone? Well let’s list a few.

“A comedy with zombies? Totally rips off Shaun of the Dead…”

Example : Zombieland.

Shaun of the Dead kicked a whole lot of ass and I’m glad it got a huge audience instead of just the usual zombie loving cult people, but it was by no means the first comedy with zombies. In fact, Shaun of the Dead owes plenty of its style and tone to the Return of the Living Dead series, as well as several others. Great film, but don’t call others like it a rip off just because it’s the only zombie comedy you’ve ever seen. While we’re at it… who’s psyched for Zombieland?

OMG it’s like a documentary or something! IS IT REAL OR JUST FAKE LOL!?

Example : The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Blair Witch Project.

There’s a sub group for these people, the people that bash the movie because it’s “fake”. Selling a movie as “found footage” from a real event can sometimes lend it some real atmosphere, but the filmmakers are never expecting you to actually be fooled by this. Sometimes it’s done really well, sometimes it’s done really poorly, but it’s never bad because it pretends it really happened and it didn’t. Most movies pretend things happen.

This movie looks so scary can someone please give me a plot synopsis and spoil every scary part in great detail!?!?

Example : MANY.

This one seems to be mostly symptomatic of IMDB, and it seems to be relatively new. I don’t understand this at all. It seems to come from people that have a genuine interest in horror movies, but psyche themselves out to the point where they can’t bring themselves to actually sit through one. I don’t know how that can actually occur in someone’s head, since the curiosity in the story demonstrates a desire to see it, why would someone want it cheapened? If I told you I had a real interest in Tolstoy, but I don’t want to read Tolstoy, I just want to have it explained to me in great detail, wouldn’t you question that?

Maybe I’ll come up with more of these eventually, but those are the ones that jump to mind after spending a little too long browsing around online. Sorry this post was late, but I’ll keep on the normal schedule on Monday!

Tales of Monkey Island

What do you mean, you haven’t seen Annex’d episode 4 yet? It’s got some pretty talented people behind it… in fact, do yourself a favor and go back and watch ‘em all. I celebrate their entire catalog.

Today, we’re going to talk about the Tales of Monkey Island. Yahtzee recently did a video about it where he gave it the usual slamming, but I’m going to stick up for it just a bit.

Tales of Monkey Island has currently released two out of five new monkey island “episodes” that will tell one complete story over the course of the series. I’ve played through the first one and about two thirds (I think) through the second, and I have to say I find them quite enjoyable.

I hear some people weren’t comfortable with the idea of moving Guybrush around with the mouse and then using that same mouse to click on things. … ‘kay? I don’t know what the problem is with this one. Sure, occasionally you’ll get hung up on a doorway or whatever, but it’s not like Resident Evil where there’s a zombie chewing on your face if you don’t move quickly enough. It’s an adventure game! It doesn’t need absolutely perfect controls. I found them completely functional. The camera also did a much better job of showing which areas are accessible than Escape From Monkey Island, the last 3D game in the series.

While we’re talking about controls, they got rid of the verbs and completely streamlined everything. Guybrush can click on objects to interact with them. He’ll do whatever the appropriate action is, you don’t need to decide whether he needs to “push”, “open”, or “use” a door, he just does it. The inventory is also made much simpler, and this might be the only time I’ll say this, but here simple isn’t a bad thing. Previous games had you lugging around around thirty different thingamajigs, some of which you would use once and then just hang onto indefinitely, and others where you’d need to keep them for multiple uses.

The graphics and environments are decent but not great. They get the job done. Again, nobody expects Monkey Island to be completely cutting edge. It’s true that the minor character models are pretty boring, but Guybrush and the other main characters are surprisingly expressive.

How’s the writing? Better than Monkey Island 4. Like all the games, it’s filled with witty references to all the other games, and often to other unrelated LucasArts games. The story is pretty good so far too. It feels like the game is trying to walk that line between honoring the past games and still telling a new story.

I look forward to the next three games. In fact, this game makes me somewhat interested in some of the other games released by Telltale, such as the Sam and Max games. Perhaps I’ll give those a shot some day.

Oh and because every article written about Monkey Island needs to include at least one dorky reference… that’s the second biggest monkey head I’ve ever seen.

The City and the city

So I’m back… I apologize for my missingness lately. It’s okay though, it let my FF7 post get a bunch of hits. I’ll be back on the normal schedule from now on. Today, we’ll be talking about one of my favorite authors these days : China Mieville. I recently finished his newest book, The City and The City (the second “the city” is printed backwards on all the covers I’ve seen).

What’s it about? Well without giving too much away, it’s a detective story. Like with Twin Peaks or Veronica Mars, it opens with the murder of an attractive and bright young woman, and a detective needs to figure out all of the questions behind the killing. However, this is a China Mieville novel, so of course it’s much more badass than all that.

The story is set in a completely new fictional world for Mieville. It seems to be roughly in the present day in terms of technology and it even takes place somewhere in normal Europe. The weird part is that it takes place in two parallel cities, called Beszel and Ul-Qoma. These two cities run together and have a very strange “cross-hatched” border system. Their cultures are similar in many ways, but different in many others. For example, some colors and architecture styles are illegal in one city and legal in another.

This is done to keep the cities distinct and separate. There is a mysterious force in play known as “Breach” that steps in and removes anyone who crosses the border between the two cities illegally, or smuggles something from one city to another. Is all of this fantasy logic involved in the murder? You betcha!

The thing is, as weird and detailed as this all sounds… it’s relatively restrained compared to Mieville’s other writings. The supernatural aspects of the story are presented more as a fact of life and they draw way less attention to themselves than in his other work. The “imagination per page” ratio is much lower than something like Perdido Street Station.

That doesn’t mean the book isn’t good though, just that it’s different for him. He clearly has a tremendous respect for the detective story genre. This story follows much of the same basic formula, but has just enough interesting little twists on it. There’s a strange kind of bureaucratic justice system thrown in on top of the already bureaucratic justice system of the two cities that makes the book consistently interesting to read. Mieville has a gift for constantly implying an even bigger degree of “world building” while developing his detailed worlds, and that is totally on display with this novel.

I would recommend this book to the middle of the Venn diagram of detective fiction fans and fantasy fans. Of course, it’s an easy sell to a Mieville fan already, but for anyone else I would recommend checking out one of his other books first. Some will find this one a little too tough to get into, but fans will have no problem with it. Check it out if you’re at all interested.

Mineshaft boarded up.

This is one of those updates to explain the lack of updates lately. I happen to have a sickness that is one of the most undying and horrible that I’ve ever had. It’s nothing terminal or anything, but it’s been a diabolical mix of symptoms. I won’t get into details, but the last week has been absolutely miserable.

I apologize, but there will be no new posts until at least Thursday July 2nd.

Terminator: Salvation

I just got back from Terminator: Salvation. The quick review? I thought it was pretty good. Better than Terminator 3, probably worth seeing in theatres, but not completely stellar.

For fans of the other movies, this movie is very faithful to the previous ones. It has many little references to them, and not just in a throwaway Indy 4 kinda way. It manages to get in all the important terminator ideas, shots, and lines. The plot fits nicely with the other Terminator films as well, even with Terminator 3. In fact, it might actually improve Terminator 3 a little bit, offering a bit of legitimacy to it.

I was concerned when I first saw Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese in the previews. After seeing the movie, he did a pretty decent job of it, but I still would have cast someone else. Perhaps if there are more movies planned in the future we will see him grow further into the character from the first film. Bryce Dallas Howard is given VERY little to do as Kate Connor. Her character seems as if it was cut down in the editing process or something. Honestly, I was surprised to see Christian Bale do a kind of mediocre performance as the adult John Connor. It might have been the writing of his character, but he didn’t seem to be all that important until the very end. Even then, Bale has done much better work.

The special effects are kick ass… more kick ass than I expected. I rarely spend much time talking about special effects these days, figuring that most movies with a budget have the “good special effects” label attached to them already, but the effects in this were great. The robotic Terminators have never looked better and the Terminator makeup effects were fantastic as well. They introduce a couple new Terminator models, as they always do. They are quite cool, and quite consistent in style with the other Terminators we’ve seen so far. As many of you probably know, there is a cameo from the ol’ model 101 Arnold Terminator using CG. It looks better than The Rock at the end of The Mummy Returns, but they wisely don’t depend on this effect for very long.

Let’s briefly talk about the bad things. The script isn’t outright bad, but it doesn’t really break new ground like the first two movies do. It’s thematically consistent with the other films, but the actual story of the movie hits some pretty well worn science fiction territory. My one Terminator super nerd complaint was that they gave SkyNet a face and voice at one point in the movie, whereas I believe it should remain a faceless and unknowable enemy. Still, giving SkyNet some lines was required in order to get across a few of the plot points late in the movie, so I don’t know how else they would have done it.

I am kinda left wondering if the movie would have been better or worse had the trailer and all the promo material NOT revealed that Marcus is a Terminator. The movie is totally worth seeing, most likely in theatres, but it won’t replace T1 or T2 anytime soon. Did we really expect it to though?

“Honest” Ed Mirvish was not a funny man

I live in Toronto’s Annex… the setting for the awesome show Annex’d. One particular landmark that I’m not far from is Honest Ed’s. It’s a labyrinth of a store that sells shitty things for sometimes cheaper prices than other stores that sell shitty things. I hear it’s also used for settling the occasional duel between a hipster and an evil ex-boyfriend … but maybe I’m wrong about that.

What I’m going to write about is the HORRENDOUS gags that are all over Honest Ed’s obnoxious walls. Search out some Honest Ed’s pictures… it’s one of the most distinct stores you’ll ever see. Three out of the four walls are covered with terrible “signage” (I hate that word so much I had to use it). What’s really distinct is the new level of pathetically bad humor he’s able to create with his god awful puns.

For example:

 

Eeew...

 

Okay… so that’s kind of lame. It’s kind of a bad pun… the quotation marks are really irritating. You might think that one is fine though… so let’s continue.

 

Argh..

 

Okay even if you liked that first one… there’s no way you’re on board with this one. You can tell this was one of the last ones that either Ed or some joke writing idiot thought up. It’s also abundantly clear that they started at the ending and worked their way back. It also has those damn quotation marks again. 

 

WHAT!?

THIS ONE MAKES NO GODDAMN SENSE. This is fucking DEVOID of humor and it runs completely contrary to the wacky “hoho his prices are low” theme of all the other signs. It doesn’t work as a pun. It doesn’t work as a clever inversion of a normal sentence. There’s no solid connection between the punchline and the setup. This one is punctuated badly too, but in a whole new way! Here, the quotation marks actually make sense, but the whole thing is just one weak run on.

 

I wish it said "blood" instead of "bargains"...

While taking these pictures I realized that at one point they just ran out of gags and had to make up some nonsense to fill the space between the bright lights. There’s not even a pun here. It’s just a dumb sentence with an exclamation point.

 

... what does this even MEAN?

Now THIS one is really enraging. The punchline must be something from the 30s, because it’s a saying that almost doesn’t exist today. The setup also doesn’t make any sense. Why would Honest Ed be wet? Why are Honest Ed himself and his bargains always being compared literally? STOP!

 

Jesus... no...

Of all the signs I saw, there were THREE that had some kind “nut” reference on them. I’m surprised he didn’t also use “bananas”, “screwy”, “loony”, and “cuckoo”. I guess good ol’ Honest Ed never expected people to actually look at more than one of these awful signs. I figure most people look at one and move on, but they drive me NUTTIER THAN A BOX OF NUTS “THAT COME OUT OF MY EARS BECAUSE I’M NUTTY!”

The essence of good post design…

Movies… games… movies… games… I think sometimes we need to break things up here. Today let’s talk about the awful jargon and buzzwords that we fall into using when talking about movies, games, and a few other things. Sometimes these are words we use incorrectly, but often they are ones we stumble into.

 

First… “design”. People tend to throw this one around when they aren’t sure about using a more detailed term. You also encounter this from people who have seen way too many TED talks. Somehow, “design” has morphed to mean any aspect of anything, whether it was actually designed or not.
Example:
“This is not good website design!”
“Well, how would you improve on it?”
“It should be more animated… and it should display on my weird resolution”
“Oh, and how would you do that?”
“Through better design!”

 

Next up… “mechanic”. This one applies more directly to gaming. I see it in board gaming more than anywhere else. “Mechanic” refers to the underlying concepts that make a game work. It does NOT refer to a nifty little feature that you can find in a game. It’s kind of hard to avoid this one in discussion sometimes. I don’t know why this one bugs me, because there really isn’t a better word for it… it just seems to come up more often than it should.
Example:
“This ’stuff leaves blood on the screen when it blows up’ gameplay mechanic rules!”

 

“Elegant” is another one that pops up in game reviews. It isn’t so much used incorrectly as it is overused. We should save that word and use it to refer to something really special. It should also be used to refer to when every aspect of the game comes together in an elegant way, not to one piece that works particularly smoothly.
Example:
“The menus are elegantly configured, but the battle system is muddy and the control is sub-elegant at best.”

 

Let’s talk about “gritty”. This word sneaks its way into almost every piece of media that I see reviewed. It’s shown up in plenty of recent superhero film reviews, with Watchmen and The Dark Knight. I see it in video game reviews as well, particularly in first person shooters that have an emphasis on grime. The worst is when you see it in the promos for magic tricks. “Gritty” has become a sort of catchphrase to rope in street magicians.
Example: “The dark and gritty underworld of New York city”

 

“Purple prose” is a term that really bothers me. I’m an English student, so maybe I encounter this one a little more than most people, but it’s an awful cliche. Without getting into the various discussions about writing styles and hue angles… just don’t use the term unless you really know what you’re trying to say. I also don’t know how “purple” became the negative word of choice and “flowery” became the positive one.
Example : “His prose was more purple than a Chrysanthemum in the moonlight on All Hallow’s Eve. It lacks the rich floweriness that mine so skillfully exhibits.”

 

Okay… I might finally get around to seeing and commenting on the first three episodes of Dollhouse next post. We’ll see!

Iron Man Vs the Dark Knight

Alright so I get almost no hits from a review of a graphic novel on the DAY it came out, so I’m going to avoid being timely and reach back just a bit for this one.

Man a Dark Knight versus Iron Man comic would rule. Anyway… I’m going to dedicate this post to what a friend of mine referred to as a “movement” of people who are proclaiming Iron Man as better than The Dark Knight. Quick answer? It’s not. Long answer? Here we go…

To get the up front disclaimers in… I’ve always tilted a little more Marvel than DC. Just a tad. That doesn’t really affect this though.

The Dark Knight had it’s share of problems. Nolan still hasn’t really figured out what to do with Rachel that would make her at all interesting. The film kind of double climaxes at the end… and the action scenes, though improved compared to Batman Begins, were still pretty damn weak. Iron Man had tighter action sequences and a lighter tone… but don’t you worry Batman fans, I’m on your side.

The Dark Knight aims much higher than Iron Man. It tries to remain grounded in realism, which is a tough thing considering it’s a movie about a man in a bat suit. Iron Man has cartoony “foreign terrorist dudes” that kinda took me out of the movie. Cartoony really does seem like a good word for most of Iron Man, since there were several sequences that are there just to remind you that it’s a fun “popcorn film”. I guess Batman has always been known for psychological depth, while Iron Man has always been known for blowing shit up.

I think structurally the Dark Knight works much better as well. We watch Gotham descend into chaos as the Joker’s attacks get more and more vicious. Iron Man has an almost episodic structure, with Stark getting kidnapped, building and refining the suit, and then his feud with Stane at the end. It isn’t disjointed, like it doesn’t feel like three different films, but it doesn’t flow as nicely as the Dark Knight does.

Okay let’s talk about performances. I’m not breaking any new ground when saying that Heath Ledger was awesome. Robert Downey Junior also really does rule. I was disappointed that the film didn’t delve into the darker side of Tony Stark though, since he is one of Marvel’s more interesting characters. Of course, the Dark Knight delves into dark parts of characters in spades.

I mentioned my issues with Two Face at the end of the Dark Knight, but I have a similar one with Iron Man. I think Jeff Bridges did a great job as Obediah Stane, but I wish they had picked a different villain. I suppose that Stane fits better in the Iron Man chronology, but it’s a bit like picking the Green Goblin for the first Spiderman film. I suppose this is an issue with Iron Man in general, but it means that their fight scenes are impersonal, since they’re both hidden behind massive suits of armor.

They were both really great films. They both had their issues as well. I hope to see how the two fan groups continue the discussion once sequels are made for both films.

Oh, you crazy googlers…

In celebration of the end of the year, I think I’ll do what so many blogs do and post the various weird searches that lead people here. Ready? Here are some of my faves:

 

anna paquin	3
bullet hell system	2
bullet hell games	2
strange canadian mineshaft	1
“the wire” hbo	1
the reddingmineshaft	1
movie where a ring is left by a mine sha	1
quarantine drill scene	1
redding mine shaft	1
hbo game of thrones	1
zombie slaveboy	1
reddingmineshaft	1
redding mineshaft	1
“she can suck on sunlight”	1
quarantine brain	1
bullet ode	1
ode bullet compared	1
“interactive fiction”	1
redding computer	1
hitbox bullet hell   My comments? Well, it’s nice to see that a little bit of brand recognition is happening with the name of this blog. What I never would have believed is the amount of traffic generated by the bullet hell post. I figured that would be an obscure one that got no attention, but look at all those searches! Bullet Hell was evidently a hot topic. My absolute fave, and the reason I decided to do a post like this, is “zombie slaveboy”. This one showed up just the other day, perhaps in some veiled connection to the I Am Legend post That’s why these search posts are fun sometimes. They show you what’s inside the mind of people when they google. I’m thinking “Strange Canadian Mineshaft” must lead some other awesome places. It’s also very clear that I need to make more posts that feature Anna Paquin and her boobage.  We’ll be back to regular rant style posting on Thursday. I enjoyed taking the one day off posting last week, but I found it left me itching for a few entries… and I kept feeling like I was forgetting something. I’ll be back on the regular schedule of Monday and Thursday posts starting now as well. Happy New Year everyone!