Ever since reading my first review of the game Braid I’ve looked forward to eventually trying it out and seeing if all the hype was true regarding the “little game that could”. The premise seemed amazing and some of the adjectives thrown around describing the game seemed out of place for a contemporary XBOX 360 game; a fact that really captivated my attention. Words like philosophical, artsy and thought-provoking were common place amongst the slew of positive reviews I came across. Braid was released about a year ago yet the logistics of a move to a new country prevented me from seeing for myself if the hype was true or not. As I mentioned in a recent post, this has now been rectified and the lovely philosophical, artsy game called Braid has recently been bested by myself.  Even though the game has been available for quite some time, and reviewed extensively, I still find it pertinent to share thoughts on my experience with the game in hopes that I might be able to offer some unique insight into exactly why Braid is deserving of such high praise.

A description of the game is relatively straightforward but at the same time somewhat complex. Braid is a 2-d platformer, much like Mario Brothers or Donkey Kong, made by Jonathan Blow for around 200,000 dollars; relatively cheap for a modern game that has been met with a great deal of both critical and commercial success. Blow is a former video game consultant and some things are immediately apparent about Blow’s inspiration and interests pertaining to the medium when one begins to play through Braid. First and foremost the pure aesthetics of Braid’s characters and game world are like a moving impressionist painting. As a fan of Van Gogh’s Starry Night I have to say I fell in love with the game the first time I glanced a screen shot. I am hazarding a guess at calling the game post-impressionistic and maybe postmodern-impressionistic if such a thing can indeed be classified as such. Beyond the artistic touch of the renderings there is also an interesting technique known as parallax effect that is used in Braid to make the 2-d platformer literally pop out and come to life. The technique and aesthetic succeed in breathing life into a very classic genre, the platformer, proving that a game does not have to be 3-d and based upon massive amounts of polygons in order to achieve success. To this effect, it supports some reasoning being currently debated pertaining to the fact that some believe there is no need to improve upon the hardware specs of this current generation of consoles, that is beyond the potential monetary awards for the companies that produce them. Instead the focus should be returned to innovative game play and story telling.

Braid’s game play one ups its aesthetics by making use of the codes us “gamers” have developed over the evolution of video games. These codes are to some extent comparable to throwing or hitting a baseball. We learn to do things with one hand or from one side of the plate, while Braid forces a gamer to essentially become a switch hitter, or in my own case as a “righty” to pitch left-handed. A great deal of the difficulty and challenge in Braid is directly linked to being forced to think outside of the box in order to solve a puzzle. Illustrative of this fact is one very simple puzzle found early on in the game dealing specifically with a very Donkey Kong-esque set of variables and iconography. In effort to not to give away the solution I will simply state that, at least in my own case, the puzzle was solved simply by thinking what perhaps any frustrated gamer has thought while playing classic Donkey Kong or games made in its likeness, that is, why can’t the rules be broken?  Braid is a game much like a great film in the fact that it tunes into the essences of its genre and medium, it makes use of things not directly represented and in the case of a video game directly programmed. The answers are often not found in the details. To this extent I would state that Braid perhaps rests as the pinnacle of postmodern gaming, its solutions sometimes found in the memories and experiences of play sessions past.

However, all of these previously mentioned qualities pale in comparison to perhaps Braid’s shiniest of shiny, achievements, and that is simply put the philosophy of the game. Braid beyond its entertainment value functions alone as a “text” that critiques linearity. It therefore has academic value in calling into question just what is possible in a video game and furthermore in society when we are forced to think outside the box. Being a fan of Philip K. Dick I am immediately reminded of his non-fictional writings on cosmonology by the dynamics of Braid’s game play. Dick alludes to an idea that our lives are in a perpetual state of re-analysis or re-living,  producing an ever increasing perfect reality. The comparison Dick makes is with a tape that is rewound, analyzed and reformated in real time; manipulated to produce a product or life of higher quality. This is precisely what Braid represents from top to bottom, apparent when one completes the game, but in effort to allow my readers to enjoy the ending for themselves, you’ll have to take my word for it.

Braid proves that success is achievable via much simpler means then the over use of flashy bells and whistles. Jonathan Blow has in fact admitted that his vision was created in order to critique contemporary trends in video games. To this effect, the discussion about contemporary video games or the video game industry as a whole is comparable to that of the film industry and blockbuster films. What I don’t understand, growing up as a part of the original Nintendo generation, is what happened to having a decent innovative, immersive story line in a game, or the development of completely new genres coupled with new mechanics? With its limited “on screen” resources and budget Braid succeeds where its complete polar opposites, multi-million-dollar MMO’s as an example, typically fall short. It is not only a lesson for an individual gamer as to what is possible in their own skill set and problem solving ability but also a direct critique as to how the video game industry and its producers have, as a whole, begun to blindly follow and become limited by the game industries older, ginger-headed step brother the film industry. An analysis of Braid contains within it a simple lesson in game construction and resource management.

Both of these mediums mentioned, games and film, and the people who create within them must realize that an individual can still be successful by breaking the pre-established codes of a genre and medium, inevitably creating entirely new ones as a result. As I alluded to in a post a few months back, pertaining to the arts in general, this type of innovation becomes more and more obtainable and realized as individuals begin to retain and execute greater control over their original creative vision. The streamlining of the production system and return to interdisciplinary skill sets are a large reason why a game like Braid exists as it does. To me, universalism has always been readily apparent as the solution to a great many of society’s serious ailments and disputes, however it’s even more fascinating that it also can provide astonishing levels of entertainment and enjoyment when used effectively in cinema and now video games.

During the course of a film sometimes there comes a reaction or idea so strong and so right that it can encapsulate perfectly the essence of the moment without the need for afterthought or analysis. It begs to be exclaimed on the spot, bursting out at the seams in tourette like fashion, sometimes border lining on being extremely inappropriate.

I’m proud to introduce a series to my blog entitled creatively enough, “Random Thoughts” where I will state my gut reactions to some of the films that fly across my radar on a weekly basis, ignoring completely any previous knowledge or love I have for them, shooting straight from my hip directly down at my foot.

Random Thought # 1

Good Will Hunting – Somebody kick that kid’s ass!

Most people are well acquainted with the film in question here, Matt Damon plays an over intelligent kid from a hard knock lower middle class life in south Boston. He reads a lot of fucking books and is basically the human calculator. We the audience are meant to feel for him and his shit hole of a life in the projects of Southie, and come to grips with the themes of wasted talent and opportunity. I get it and some part of me maybe even enjoys the film, Ben Affleck does smoke a lot of grits and that’s pretty sweet and all, he also kind of looks like what I would imagine a henchmen sporting a Carhartt jacket would look like, but that’s not really here nor there.

Its not politically correct but I really have to say watching the film last night something really irritated me. A simple thought or question if you will, why didn’t Robin Williams character just kick that kid’s ass? You know the scene where they sit down in the park and Robin Williams seems to be apologetic, somewhat angry but still really overly sympathetic to Will’s asshole-like attitude. Will in this scene, see profile shot above, reminds me a hell of a lot of that one kid everyone knew growing up who had a one way ticket to juvenile hall, a kid who begged on a constant basis for a punch to the face along with removal from his current home by child services. Perhaps as an example and effort to conjure up those memories for you I’ll throw out a name like Randy, in this specific case a name supposed to connote sexual arousal but in reality ultimately just a name and a figure that solicits anger. I realize Randy would not have worked for the context of the film’s title but to me Will is a Randy, the film now for me forever known as “Good Randy Hunting” from here on out.

For the sake of cathartic purposes and a conclusion here I’ll once again propose the question exactly as I expressed it last night, “Why didn’t he just kick his fucking ass?”, “Somebody anybody for the love of god kick that kid’s ass”. No, apparently Robin Williams was velcroed to himself in his study and Ben Affleck was preoccupied smoking grits in the dooryard.

In effort to catch up on the glut of missed films from 2008 I had intended, after watching W. the evening before, to watch a movie that wasn’t centered on politics. My decision to watch Burn After Reading (2008) over Charlie Wilsons War (2007) seemed natural at the time. That is at the time, since Burn After Reading is really a perfect companion piece or follow up to W. I started watching the film under a similar impression as the one I had before W., that the Cohen brothers follow up to No Country for Old Men (2007) in comparison, was not quite up to snuff. It shows me the pointlessness of reading any kind of review before hand; glad I was gifted with the “giving-films-a-chance gene” at any rate.

The Cohen brothers with Burn After Reading are out after capturing what I would consider to be the American zeitgeist, something also present and accounted for in No Country For Old Men. Burn’s plot involves characters that pursue cosmetic and shallow angles in life, ranging from a sex addict building a “fuck chair” to an ex-CIA analyst writing memoirs about an underwhelming and uninteresting career. In typical Cohen fashion the comedy is dark and brutal, accompanied by events played out in a completely chaotic and “cluster fuck-esque” fashion. Half way through the film I was reminded that yes, this is the Cohen brother’s brand of comedy, that it wasn’t quite as good as The Big Lebowski (1998) but it was close, which really ends up being high praise for Burn After Reading.

Beyond the comedic similarities Burn and Lebowski share, there is also the parallel I would quickly like to draw as to what is now glaringly evident for me. The Cohen brother’s overall body of work is rife with the questioning of capitalism’s logic, a hypothesis perhaps deserving of more space than a simple blog post can provide. That being said it is worth mentioning briefly how the Cohen brother’s films tend to deal with the suffering of what I would call “rats in tin shit houses” all trying to frantically gnaw their way out of various, self created predicaments, normally attached to the pursuit of “easy cheese”. The protagonists present in these films, epitomized by the Dude in Lebowski, are always the ones who don’t really want to participate, anti-capitalists if you will, who can’t be “ass’ed” but somehow get sucked in at any rate. Reaffirming that it’s nearly impossible to not play by the systems rules no matter how hard one tries.

Burn After Reading is an oddity here simply for its lack of heroic characters when juxtaposed with the Cohen brothers other films, making it very similar to W. with its lack of a “likeable” protagonist. Burn is a film indicative of the recently deceased fake economic upswing, or bubble, survived by its bastard child of obsessive cosmetic living that hopefully will only become funnier and more absurd as we distance ourselves from the un-heroic rats a large majority of us have become.

This weekend I finally got around to giving Oliver Stones W. (2008) a chance, having been banished from my apartment this past week it was nice to stay home and catch up on a few films.

I can honestly say I did not have high hopes for W. as a result of reading some fairly scathing reviews of the film; reviews that for the most part called into question the relevancy of the film with its sympathies for such an “undeserving” individual as George W. Bush. I think my patience to actually sit down and give it a chance was enhanced by my screening of Frost/Nixon (2008) the previous week. The film however did not begin well. Andreas over at filmstars.se (for those of you that speak Swedish) is spot on in describing the difficulty involved at the start of the film to see beyond things as being just an SNL skit minus the laughter. This changes somehow about half way through the film when suddenly Josh Brolin, who plays W, becomes believable and immersed in an almost “impossible” role . One can also give praise to Richard Dreyfuss’s subtle portrayal of the “super villain” Dick Cheney and Thandie Newton’s portrayal of the “stone cold”, “I didn’t get shit from the civil rights movement” Condoleeza Rice.

How much truth one can draw from the film is, as always, questionable; the format, medium and style all lend a hand in one being able to question the incompleteness or concreteness of the story. Oliver Stone’s biopic is therefore questionable in its accuracy of portraying W via the details, but this is neither here nor there, we are speaking about the details, I am more interested in the essences of how the film does succeed.

W. for me provides possible answers and perspective on what fueled George W. Bush’s rise to the presidency followed by his subsequent fall from grace to become a “lame duck” president. These aforementioned answers provided by Stone are simply put, political inbreeding and egoism. I had never thought of the bit players surrounding Bush as being quite as retarded and incompetent as they are portrayed by Stone; I figured they had to be smart to cover W’s ass. This however does not seem to be the case, the fact that many of these individuals have been kicking around Washington since the late 60s and 70s I believe really does make W sympathetic; he is and always has been a proper representative for America and Americans for the past 20-40 years. That is a president, just like the populous he presides over, manipulated and reliant upon capitalistic scavengers; to this extent Oliver Stone hits a home run. The whole thing is really summed up best by W himself,

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKgPY1adc0A[/youtube]

There was a time a while back; sometime late in that horrific period called the 90s, where it seemed, at least to me, that Kevin Bacon whipped out his “schlong” at very inappropriate moments. It was like a mutated form of the 80s mandatory tit shot. At any rate I’m here to tell you that Frost/Nixon (2008) is totally safe for people with penile phobia, and not half bad to boot.

I enjoyed Frost/Nixon mainly because I don’t know that much about arguably one of the most controversial/vilified American presidents of all time, nor had I ever heard of David Frost. To this extent it’s all well appreciated news to me. I also thoroughly enjoy the “lack” of action in Frost/Nixon, the emphasis instead placed upon dialogue and acting prowess. I suspect for this exact same reason some people will not enjoy the film, finding it to be dull and slow moving. However, then again I’m not so sure who would be expecting that, based upon the title of the film, in the first place. The supporting casts of Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt are excellent along with the two lead roles.

The real key gripe I do have is not with the film itself but its 5 Oscar nominations, specifically the one for best picture. That Frost/Nixon is there and The Wrestler (2008) is not, is to put it bluntly, “a fucking travesty!” That doesn’t diminish this film but it is out of the 5 nominees the one that least belongs, essentially stealing the spot from Aronofsky’s film.