Postmodernism was not a concept that I was entirely comfortable with until sometime last year. I'd had high school teachers briefly touch on the subject, but it was never truly made clear until I played a video game called Metal Gear Solid 3.

While there are certainly some that would argue the relevance of video games as an art form, that is another topic for another day. What cannot be denied, however are the postmodern influences present in MGS3. The Metal Gear Solid franchise is a curious one. They are games in which you watch cutscenes (pre-scripted action or dialogue-focused scenes similar to a scene from a movie) almost as much as you play the game. One of the more obvious postmodern elements present is the sometimes self-referential, fourth wall breaking humor found in the series. For instance, there is a single moment in the third game where the protagonist (codename Naked Snake) looks directly at the "camera" and prompts the player to take action with a subtle head nod and wink. Also, even though the third game is a prequel to MGS1 and MGS2, Naked Snake (whose two clones eventually become the protagonist and antagonist of MGS1) meets a character who bears an uncanny resemblance to a character that Naked's clone befriends 30 years later. The two have an odd moment together, both almost recognizing the other, while simultaneously acknowledging that they have never met. What is interesting is that these events are at once a parody of the genre (spy fiction) and part of a veritable epic. I found the Yiddish copy of Chandler's novel on Meyer's desk to be very much analogous to the type of postmodern humor found in the Metal Gear Solid series.

While the fourth wall breaking humor may be one of the more obvious postmodern elements found in the series, MGS3 contains a slightly altered version of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the events that followed. Reading "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" and picking up on its subtle references to things like Manchuria instantly reminded me of this game. In the game, President's Kennedy's negotiations with Nikita Khrushchev to remove the US's Jupiter and Thor missiles from Turkey was simply a story to tell the American people. In this reality, those missiles were obsolete anyway. The Russians really wanted a recent defector, a weapons designer named Sokolov, back in the USSR to finish development on a weapon called the "Shagohod", which is a nuclear equipped tank capable of launching from almost any terrain. If it sounds strange, you don't know the half of it, as the story soon complicates when Brezhnev's forces engage in a power struggle with Khrushchev's crumbling regime. Although I am greatly selling the game short, I feel I must stop here. As my girlfriend and friends know, I can wax philosophic about Metal Gear for hours straight, but I'll save you the hassle. I will say this however; whoever doubts that videogames can be a meaningful, moving, and utterly breathtaking medium simply needs to play MGS3. I have a strong feeling that they'll understand.

This video clip should explain things a little better than I am able to:

Novel to Film adaptations

When a work is going to be translated into a film, there is a great risk associated with the translation. Of course, many works of fiction get turned into great films, but one could argue that a majority of these films end up as disappointing. The reasons for this are numerous, but I think that the main reason these films end up poorly is that a certain essence is lost when the screenwriter condenses the work into a ninety minute chunk that average Joe Moviegoer can stand. Also, and more pertinent to our class discussions, there is a double standard in place concerning what kind of racial interactions are acceptable to the public. This was the case in the film version of Devil in a Blue Dress.

Even though the novel stresses the immense sexual tension between Daphne and Easy, there is little to no indication of this in the film. This of course means that the rather explicitly detailed sex scene between the two characters in the novel is nowhere to be found. It is embarrassing to think that the general public is simply not ready to view a consensual sex-act between a black man and a white woman. Interestingly enough, a sex scene which is only briefly covered in the novel is rather explicitly and gratuitously shown in the film. The difference? The scene that made it into the film depicted sex between two black people.

When I think of good fiction-to-film adaptations I think of movies like "A Clockwork Orange", "The Shining", "Misery", and "The Shawshank Redemption". Interestingly enough several of these were adapted from Stephen King stories. His works have made some horrendously bad films (I'm looking at you, "Langoliers") but something about his work can be translated successfully to the big screen. However, Stanley Kubrick took great liberties with King's novel when he directed "The Shining" and I believe it made all the difference in the world. As I said previously, it can be difficult to shrink down a story to work as a ninety minute movie. None of these good adaptations that I've listed are that. They are longer than average and I believe that their high quality can be attributed to this.

In case you are wondering, Stephen King's novel had gigantic hedge animals that came alive to keep Wendy and Danny from leaving the hotel. Kubrick replaced this with the now famous hedge maze sequence. I think we can all agree which version was better suited to the silver screen.

belated blog posting

Well, it's far too late but I figured I'd blog about the topic given anyway. Here's an interesting blog I found.

http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2008/02/new-research-on.html.

this blog was particularly interesting to me because it contained research on racial relations not only in the context of minority and majority but also in the context of how different minority groups interact with one another. However, amid the Jeremiah Wright semi-scandal, what is of most concern to me lately is the relationship between black and white America. The studies on the blog show that a large majority of white people get along "pretty well" with both blacks and Hispanics. This may be true, but there is something about the feeling of disenfranchisement that some black Americans feel that terrifies white middle America. I have close relations to many Fox New viewers and I feel like I have my finger on the pulse of what some of them feel about certain issues, and several of them have turned from viewing Obama as the "at least he isn't Hillary" candidate to the "uh oh" candidate very quickly. They feel that because Reverend Wright holds such caustic and even repugnant views, and that Obama is a faithful, devoted member of his congregation, that Obama himself must have a heart filled with viciously anti-American vitriol as well. Interestingly enough, several of these Fox News viewers seemed to actually believe that Obama was a practicing Muslim until the Wright comments surfaced. Sheesh. So much for that well-informed electorate idea. To change gears a little bit, I thought Obama's speech was brilliantly well delivered and a real watershed moment in terms of political honesty and forthrightness. I can't summarize it and do it justice, so here's a link if you haven't watched yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU

Until my next dreadfully late blog assignment,

Will

Investigating Ethnicity #3

As I'm sure most of you are aware of, the amount of crime on campus has been nothing short of staggering this year. With the double homicide last semester, it is easy to think about the numerous armed robberies that have occurred on or in direct proximity to campus. For the first time in my life, I've actually thought about crime around me. I have no problem at all (and I actually enjoy) reading about and watching movies crime, but I feel like now I'm gaining a better understanding of the true nature of crime. In terms of the robberies, crime targets the random innocent. In Marlowe's world (as well as most other crime fiction, old or new), the random innocent is spared. Everyone who dies at least knows the kind of people that they are dealing with. Sure, Rusty Regan didn't really do anything wrong in the time table of The Big Sleep, but he had to know that traipsing around with one of the Sternwood daughters would inevitably lead to trouble. In Marlowe's world, crimes happen on a sort of schedule. Several times in the novel, it seemed to me as if the crimes were "waiting" for him in a way. Even when Geiger is killed, Marlowe is there to see it and pick up the pieces. He is able to do this because the killer's motive is known. The randomness of today's crime effectively neuters such a skill. I can't help thinking that Marlowe couldn't hack it in our world. Well, we still have movies.

Investigating Ethnicity #2

What an curious predicament I find myself in. I know i'm supposed to update my blog tonight, but I didn't write down what we were supposed to write about. I suppose I will talk a bit about the book we just finished, and how some of its themes and motifs remain relevant today.

One aspect of the novel that I find to be particularly interesting is the idea of a young socialite (or in this case, two) seemingly doing their best to ruin the reputation of the people who enable them to have this lifestyle. Vivian Sternwood is a prohibition-era Paris Hilton. She runs around LA with drunk, useless men (that forever-greasy guy that frequently intrudes on Hilton's paparazzi shots) and casinos and other unsavory places much more than any "respectable" woman should. Just like Paris' father, the hotel tycoon Richard Hilton, General Sternwood's reputation and overall peace of mind is constantly endangered by his troublemaking daughters. I guess that would make Carmen Sternwood a bit like Tara Reid; She's sloppy, interesting to no one, and has a bit of a crazy-as-stink look about her.

Well, that seems to be it for now.

Will

Investigating Ethnicity #1

After not posting for several months, I am posting for the second time in two days. Most curious.

As part of my fiction class, we were instructed to write about our favorite work of crime fiction, be it a novel, film, or television show. I feel like I already talked a bit about Pulp Fiction in class, so instead of risking monotony, I'll talk about another one of my absolute favorite films, The Silence of the Lambs.

I'll try to be brief here, so I'll skip the bits about how incredible Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins are as Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter (respectively), how overlooked and underrated Ted Levine is in the film, and how director Jonathan Demme perfectly strattles the line between straight up horror and bone-chilling suspense.

I think I love this film for one main reason. It's really, really scary. I see alot of movies, and I'm particularly fond of horror movies. I've seen everything from gore master Dario Argento's Suspiria, to Takashi Miike's bizarre Audition and everything in between. The thing is, no matter how many buckets of blood and bits of gore these guys throw at the screen, they'll likely never achieve what Anthony Hopkins did in this film. And he did it in a jail cell. That's the truly remarkable thing. Until late in the film, he could never actually get to Clarice, even if he wanted to, yet he manages to creep into our dreams with startlingly accurate estimations of Starling's childhood and nonchalant admissions of cannibalism.

What truly makes it interesting is that Starling needs Lecter so badly that she will risk her own security in exchange for his help in catching Levine's character, Buffalo Bill, a man who kills heavier girls to make suits out of their skin because he was denied a sex change operation. Whew. In any other movie, a villain like Buffalo Bill would steal the show, but Bill competes with Lecter in terms of the movie's most memorable baddie, and most would agree that he loses that battle.

Hopefully this wasn't longer than the post was supposed to be. Take it easy out there.

Will

Finally, a new post

Well, it has been a while since my first post.  I'm not sure I have a valid excuse, so we'll just leave it at that.  Now that Bioshock and 3:10 to Yuma are both old news, I guess it would make more sense to talk about something a little more timely.

The fourth quarter of the calender year is always a huge time for the video game industry, but this year was a different beast entirely.  Similar to the film industry, the game industry this year was absolutely inundated with honest-to-God AAA titles.  Starting with Bioshock at the end of the summer, this season saw great titles such as Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, The Orange Box, and to a (much) lesser degree, games like Assassin's Creed.  I've played all of these games (except Halo, it just couldn't hook me) a pretty large and they are all SO good.  If these games would've come out in different years, they literally all could've walked away with a handful of game of the year picks from top publications.  

That said, I think I can pick a favorite.  One game to rule them all.  I'm not sure why I just said that, I really don't like those movies very much.  Anyway.  I can say with great confidence that the best game of the year was Super Mario Galaxy.  None of the other games can match the sheer, old school fun of this title.  Unfortunately for the other games, it also possessed great graphics and a phenomenal art style, a rock-solid and physics engine, and planetoid-based gameplay that takes advantage of said engine.  However, a game like this also makes me feel a little bit of resentment.  Why hasn't a single developer besides Nintendo been able to make a Wii game look and play like it was made for a true next-gen console.  We keep getting crappy ports of old games with unique (read: gimmicky) Wii waggle controls.  The one exception, the one game that is both a good port and better than the original game as a result of the unique Wii controls, is Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition.  Anyway, the game is great.  If you own a Wii, and don't own Super Mario Galaxy, you need to go get it.  Right this second.

Honorable mention, and I mean very honorable, is Bioshock.  I've never been as engrossed in a universe as I have in the beautifully haunting underwater land of Rapture.  Only the actual shooting mechanics left a little bit to be desired. I could wax poetic about the game all night long, but I'll save you the histrionics.  It's amazing.  If the mechanics would have been up to snuff with the atmosphere and visuals, it would have been a tougher competitor for SMG.  Good thing we can play both.

Take it easy out there,

Will