2011 in games

1. Dark Souls(dev. From Software)[40+ hours; not beaten]
2. Gemini Rue(dev. Joshua Nuernberger)[7 hours; beaten]
3. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3(dev. Capcom)[100+ hours]*
4. Dead Island(dev. Techland)[15 hours, not beaten]
5. Dungeons of Dredmor(dev. Gaslamp Games)[1+ hour; not beaten]
6. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim(dev. Bethesda)[6 hours; not beaten]
7. The Binding of Isaac(dev. Edmund McMillen & Florian Himsl)[8 hours; not beaten]
8. E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy(dev. Streum On Studio)[2 hours; not beaten]
9. Deus Ex: Human Revolution(dev. Eidos Montreal)[2 hours; not beaten]
10. Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition(dev. Capcom)[170+ hours]
11. Saints Row: The Third(dev. Volition)[15 hours; beaten]
12. L.A. Noire(dev. Team Bondi)[12+ hours; beaten]

Need to play: Battlefield 3, Gears of War 3, King of Fighters XIII

*No point in ranking vanilla Marvel.

"Made" Films of 2011

Film Socialisme(dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
WATCHED TWICE

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo(dir. David Fincher)
WATCHED TWICE

Kaboom(dir. Gregg Araki)
WATCHED FOUR TIMES

Love Exposure(dir. Sion Sono)
WATCHED TWICE

Mysteries of Lisbon(dir. Raul Ruiz)
WATCHED TWICE

The Tree of Life(dir. Terrence Malick)
WATCHED TWICE

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives(dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
WATCHED TWICE

Up on deck: Go Go Tales
Missed the cut: Cold Weather, Hobo with a Shotgun
Might have been wrong: Certified Copy

"Made" Films of 2010

Dogtooth(dir. Giorgos Lanthimos)
WATCHED TWICE

Father of My Children(dir. Mia Hansen-Løve)
WATCHED TWICE

"Missoni"(dir. Kenneth Anger)
WATCHED FIFTEEN+ TIMES

The Runaways(dir. Floria Sigismondi)
WATCHED TWICE

Tron: Legacy(dir. Joseph Kosinski)
WATCHED 2.75 TIMES

Wild Grass(dir. Alain Resnais)
WATCHED TWICE

Up on deck: "I'm Here", "Lady Blue Shanghai", Shutter Island, True Grit

Still haven't seen: 45365, Audrey the Trainwreck, Boxing Gym, Life During Wartime, Ne Change Rien, NY Export: Opus Jazz, Our Beloved Month of August, Secret Sunshine, The Strange Case of Angelica

Missed the cut: Amer, Around a Small Mountain, "Brodyquest", Iron Man 2, It's Kind of a Funny Story, MacGruber, "Runaway", Soul Kitchen, Tooth Fairy

Fell by the wayside: Everyone Else, The Exploding Girl, The Girl on the Train, The Other Guys, The Social Network, Vincere

Might have been wrong: "Carlos", Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Nope, not wrong: Somewhere, Inception

Shutter Island

Talk about a movie that lives and dies by its ending. I need to rewatch it one of these days just to make sure it still works as a whole and everything preceding the finale isn't just marking time before the big reveal. But Jesus Christ, the ending kind of kills me. I don't think it's necessarily DiCarpio that does it for me. It's more the idea and the way Scorsese handles the "event." DiCarpio's wailing is just part of the soundtrack for a haunting set of shots. The couple of times I've seen the ending, I thought Ruffalo was fighting back tears just from the way his muscles fluctuate in his face, but I'm not so sure if that's true. But isn't that what acting is? Seeing something that's not really there.

The Kids Are All Right

People have compared this to sitcoms to death so let me partake. While watching this, I thought, 'this could easily be a very special episode of "Full House",' and then I thought, 'I wish this was a very special episode of "Full House."' I'll save the preaching about how "Full House" is a wonderful slice of familial fantasy and boneheadedness for another occasion, but really, this thing has a tendency to come off as pat bullshit quite often. It's interesting to note that according to Annette Benning she told the director that she didn't want it to come across as too earnest, which is an honorable position, but what other than its lesbian leads differentiates this from a myriad of other dysfunctional family dramas(that might actually be the point; a family with two mothers and no fathers can be just as bland as any other)? Well, good acting for one, but not from the two actresses portraying those said lesbian leads. Benning and Moore just seem to cry a lot. Mark Ruffalo, however, is great just for the sheer gusto he displays when he gets the opportunity to say, "Shut the front door." Mia Wasikowska is also quite good at being pissy and angsty as the teenaged daughter. The biggest fault with the film is its reluctance to dive in when things get messy. It seemed as if the screenwriters didn't want to tread that water just because they'd be afraid of possibly drowning in it and instead, conclude on a rather dry and boring note. Despite its simplistic nature, the hint at messiness has still made the film stick with me for some reason.

2010 in games

1. Team Fortress 2 Mann-conomy Update(dev. Valve)**
2. Limbo(dev. Playdead)
3. Battlefield: Bad Company 2(dev. DICE)
4. Heavy Rain(dev. Quantam Dream)
5. Final Fantasy XIII(dev. Square Enix)
6. Bloody Good Time(dev. Outerlight)
7. Pirates, Vikings, and Knights II 2.3(dev. PVKII Team)**
8. Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch(dev. Cutman Team?)
9. Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker(dev. Bioware)
10. Alpha Protocol(dev. Obsidian)*
11. Mega Man 10(dev. Capcom)*
12. Red Dead Redemption(dev. Rockstar San Diego)
13. Mass Effect 2(dev. Bioware)
14. Super Mario Galaxy 2(dev. Nintendo)
15. Alien Swarm(dev. Valve)
*Have not completed.
**Not a full release.

Need to play: Bayonetta, Bioshock 2, Dead Rising 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Dragon Quest IX, Etrian Odyssey III, Fallout: New Vegas, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Mega Man Zero Collection, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, Pac Man Championship Edition DX, Professor Layton, Scott Pilgrim, Starcraft II, Super Meat Boy, Super Street Fighter IV, Vanquish, Yakuza 3

The Social Network

Two shots stick out in my mind ever since I saw this. It was of the Winklevoss twins before and after visiting the Harvard president. It was a rather scant amount of time that both these shots were on screen. The shots basically decapitated the twins with the frame and focused solely on their suits and ties while still providing limited information of the background. It was an unusual shot in a film full of usual shots. That's not to say that the film looked bland or wasn't shot impeccably. If anything, Fincher should probably direct everything and anything just on the basis on his ability to make uncinematic material cinematic. These shots are also perhaps the pinnacle of Fincher's visual wit within the film. These shots provoked more thought in me than anything else in the movie. Really. It got me thinking about the simple differences between Mark Zuckerberg's fashion and the Winklevoss'. How the Winklevoss twins seem to be perpetually in suits and ties, while Zuckerberg always dresses casually, even at his own deposition. It also speaks volumes of the way capitalism in the modern digital era is. These shot cut off probably the most defining feature of any human, the face, and all you get are a pair of suits. Anybody could fill those suits. The Winklessvoss twins' idea wasn't revolutionary. That's why Facebook is still afloat. And I believe I read somewhere that the real Zuckerberg said if he didn't make Facebook, someone else would have. Its this ability to replace that is a chief characteristic of the Internet age and the anonymity that is a result of that. What makes your Facebook photo album of you and your friends getting drunk special from the myriads of others? Someone defriended you? You can always find someone else to fill that spot in order to get your friend count back up to what it once was. These two shots show how powerful mise-en-scene can be and why we need more directors with eyes like Fincher's.

Note: I plan to write more on this film in relation to Fincher's previous two offerings.

Milk of Sorrow

I was reminded of The Headless Woman while watching this. In that film, I was more interested in the white-skinned protagonist's brown-skinned help and here, I was more interested in the brown-skinned protagonist's white-skinned employer. When you win, you can't win. Only shot that made an impression on me was a shot of a floor scattered and covered with pearls with the protagonist and her employer slowly picking up the pearls mainly because the actress that portrays the protagonist's employer has a grace of movement in this shot that is often afforded to actors and actresses in Rivette. In regards to the whole, it's arthouse up the ass and has a dead-serious fable quality to it that I frankly found kind of annoying.

Amer

I can't comment on how giallo this supposed homage to giallo is due to my experience with the genre only limited to a few Argento films and even then, I'm not sure if any or all of those are actually categorized in the genre. I do know that the film contains some tripped-out lighting that is reminiscent of the kind in Suspiria and disembodied black-gloved hands make an appearance that are a hallmark of the genre (or are they?). Every shot in this bad boy drips of sex, menace, and, several times, both. The framing of the shots often dismembers body parts and it both dehumanizes and heightens the sense of physicality involved with mundane gestures. The film works best when it generates suspense out of seemingly thin air and the danger is imagined instead of reality. Plot doesn't matter here since the film goes straight to the jugular of the subconscious through pure stylistic bravado. This is one seductive and sinister experiment that is surpisingly successful.

Piranha 3D

Jerry O'Connell portrays "not" Joe Francis and Christopher Lloyd plays the Doc Brown of man-eating fish instead of time travel and they both seem to be giving performances in the movie I signed up for. The special effects aren't much to look at with the exception of Riley Steele. Ving Rhames's last stand with a boat propeller is glorious but sadly cut short for obvious reasons. The film is what it is except when it isn't. At one minute, the film seems to want me to take pleasure at the sight of Eli Roth getting his head smashed in by a speed boat and at the next moment, it wants me to give a shit about the plight of Elizabeth Shue and her dumb kids. I'm indiscriminate when it comes to horror victims. I wanted them all as food for the fishes. Unlike such fare as, say, Snakes on a Plane, it never builds to a transcendent stupidity like I wanted it to and the violence is actually pretty dang grody and didn't lend itself well as fodder for derisive laughter. Forgettable except for O'Connell's character "not" inspired by the creator and producer of the "Girls Gone Wild"(TM) series's final words, which will haunt me for ages.