#and a remake of Farewell Human Relations

[spookythesillyfella]

okay so another sketchbook dump i guess

kotoha from "Irresponsible and strange taste" – Dobu no Awa

tamako from "For You, An Empty Shell" – Dobu no Awa

the

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Worst of 2019

I had to follow-up my “Best of 2019″ list with its opposite universe counterpart but before I give the movies that made me suffer another lashing, let’s make a couple of things clear. I’m not a paid professional and even if I was, all I would be is a film critic. Making movies is hard. Nobody in the industry aims to do a bad job - there are much easier ways to make a living. Even though I might’ve hated these films with a passion that still smolders now, I’ve got mad respect for anyone who decides to put themselves out there and put together a movie. At the end of the day, your work is going to live on. You made something millions will see. Me? I’ll ultimately fade away. Take this into consideration as we single out the movies that tried and failed, sometimes spectacularly.

10. Cats

Cats is the kind of movie that doesn’t come around often. It’s actually kind of fascinating to watch, or it would be if it weren’t so boring. Rebel Wilson (who was destined to have a movie on this list when she starred in The Hustle) plays a cat who unzips her skin to reveal an outfit… above her skin again? She leads a choreographed troupe of singing mice and cockroaches that fill you with terror and confusion. It’s as if they’ve been scaled so the actors could scoop them up and swallow them whole - as cats would do - but because human proportions are so different from cat’s the objects and other animals they interact with change size from scene to scene. Meanwhile, Idris Elba is prowling around with his coat all open, his non-existent junk exposed to all who want to see. Our main character is so bland and unmemorable she makes no impact on you whatsoever. There’s magic in a plot that’s composed almost entirely of introductions - which might make it accurate to the broadway show but not entertaining as a movie -, dodgy special effects in every frame, lame jokes coming from the left and the right… and yet, I don’t hate this film like I do the others on this list. In fact, a part of me even admires Cats.

The thing is, had this movie worked, it would’ve been hailed as genius. It didn’t so it’s being ridiculed but I have to give it points for its ambition and willingness to take chances. That means a lot in a year in which every single one of the top ten grossing films were sequels, remakes or expansions of already-existing properties.The gamble didn’t pay off, but Cats had the guts to walk up to the plate.

9. Dumbo

I was tempted to lump The Lion King and Aladdin along with this tale of a baby elephant that learns to fly while a family of circus performers learn that the big circus tycoon played by Michael Keaton is a meanie. Few of the Disney “live-action” remakes do anything to validate their existence. They’re just feeding you what you can already watch at home for free because you probably already own the originals on home video or you have Disney+. I’m going to single out Dumbo as the worst because it actually tried something different and failed spectacularly. This means we can expect all future Disney remakes to take as few chances as possible.

8. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

There are other movies I could’ve put in this spot (see the Runner-Ups section below for examples) but I had to consider the experience as well as the movie itself. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is an unfunny comedy that walks into the room as if it’s going to marry your mother and be your new father. It makes fun of the very thing it’s doing. This might make it appealing to members of the “View Askewniverse” cult but not to me. Whether you’ve been brainwashed by Kevin Smith or not, it’s impossible to sit through the painful bonus material which follows the film, particularly the interviews conducted by Jason Mewes. The actor displays no charisma whatsoever while asking questions you don’t care about to people who obviously don’t want to be on camera. I get what Smith was doing; he was trying to give his fans more than just the movie but anyone in their right mind should’ve seen the bonus footage and burned it.

4. Dark Phoenix

What a disappointing way to end the X-Men franchise. Dull until the very end and then interesting for just enough time to make you realize you didn’t just dream it all, the movie was a bad idea from the start. We haven’t known the young version of the X-Men long enough for this story to mean anything and the choices made to make this story more faithful to the comics makes you wonder if you stepped into the wrong movie. Even before seeing Dark Phoenix, I thought people were being too harsh on The Last Stand. They did a lot of things wrong in 2006 but they had the good sense to leave out the aliens. It’s not great but it’s been somewhat redeemed since because its plot advanced the series and meant something in the end. Even if Disney had considered keeping this franchise alive while it was acquiring Fox, this is such a mess they now have no choice but to reboot the whole thing.

4. Jexi

Jexi feels like it just escaped from a time capsule. Even when it would’ve been new, it wouldn’t have been funny. This had no business appearing in theatres and watching the trailer again reminded me of why I hated it as much as I did. If you suspect you have mutant powers that just need to be unlocked by a traumatic or life-altering event, barricade your doors and start playing this movie. You’ll want to escape so desperately, you might suddenly develop the ability to bend space and time.

6. Rambo: Last Blood

This 5th entry in the Rambo series didn’t even have the guts to commit to being a proper conclusion. The titular character appears to succumb to his wounds as the picture closes… only to get up and go find medical attention during the end credits. Senselessly gory and violent, its depiction of Mexico leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

5. Shaft

No one was asking for this movie, not even fans of the original Richard Roundtree films or the 2000 Sam Jackson reboot. It tired story attempts to introduce a new version of the classic blaxploitation character to a new audience. In the process, it makes you hate the two “heroes” we follow through a generic plot filled with offensive humor. The only good thing about Shaft is that it prompted me to check out the originals.

3. My People, My Country

The Farewell made me think a lot about how we should view other cultures, particularly China. In it, Awkwafina’s Billi is caught in a moral dilemma when she learns her beloved grandmother is dying and that her family is keeping the secret from sweet Nai Nai. You go in thinking the American-raised woman is going to do the right thing by tearing the charade apart but it’s not long before you realize this scenario isn't that simple. When it comes to My People, My Country, I am going to judge. What’s the moral of this movie again? Give up your life, your dreams, your family for the sake of a country that sees you as nothing more than an expandable pion? If that weren’t bad enough, the movie’s so dull it’ll be an epic struggle to stay awake. Whose idea was it to have an entire segment of this anthology dedicated to the engineers who ensured the mechanism that would raise China’s flag in 1949? It’s as exciting as it sounds.

2. ¡Ay, mi madre!

The worst part of this list is that I know how few people reading will be able to relate. ¡Ay, mi madre! wasn't released theatrically in North America, but movies release “Straight to Netflix” have become such a big deal I’ll make an exception to my usual rule of disqualifying direct-to movies from this list. In terms of filmmaking, this is the worst movie I’ve seen in a long, long time. It’s more technically inept than anything else on this list by far. The comedy is so unfunny it’ll make you question your life, the actors are not convincing even before they open their mouths to speak and the ending might as well be a big middle finger towards the people watching. It ha no ending, almost as if they cobbled together the few salvageable strands of footage someone scooped out of the trash into something vaguely related to “coherent”. Remember the name so you know never to click “play” if you happen upon it like I did.

The Runner-Ups

Simmba

I was deeply offended by this Bollywood film but technically, it’s a 2018 movie so I decided to only include it here. It’s loathsome but admittedly, my hatred for it has somewhat subsided since I saw it. Don’t ask me why. This movie sucks.

Playmobil The Movie

This is what we thought we were going to get when they announced “The Lego Movie”. Terrible songs, a lazy plot that makes terrible use of the property it’s advertising, unfunny jokes, and a lack of imagination guarantee this film is destined to make everyone involved regret the day it was released.

Hellboy

Yet another failed superhero movie that enthusiastically sets itself up for a sequel when it’s so obvious to everyone watching that there isn’t going to be one. The one thing it’s got going for it is a pretty cool scene towards the end where demons escape into our world and begin tearing civilians to pieces. To get to that, you must sit through endless scenes that bash you over the head with a mallet marked “Rated R”. Gallons of blood and intestines spilling onto the floor, doesn’t mean the movie is meant for adults. This was written by a teenager disguised as a grown-up.

Gemini man

They waited all these years for the de-aging technology to get where it is now… for this story? Someone should’ve pointed out to director Ang Lee when he was getting ready to film that training doesn’t alter your DNA. Why waste millions cloning Will Smith when you could just raise a normal kid and train them to be an assassin? Ultimately, the movie isn’t really all that bad. It’s watchable but it’s such a big disappointment it needs to be taught a lesson.

Replicas

I’m giving this one a break because no one saw it. I also think it’ll play better at home, where you’ll be free to make fun of it or verbally abuse the loopy plot aloud while your friends listen. If there’s a movie this year that was “So bad it’s good”, it’s this one.

After

At least “Twilight” had its original take on vampires and some danger mixed into its romantic triangle to keep things theoretically interesting. This film started off as - I kid you not - a “One Direction” fan-fic. The drama it serves up will have you howling like a werewolf flying through laughing gas. On the upside, a sequel is coming. In fact, the teaser is scheduled for today!

1. Unplanned

This was the most uncomfortable movie experience of 2019. Most of the Christian propaganda films don’t seem to put much effort into their production - they’re preaching to the choir so why should they? - but 2019 had Breakthrough, which was quite good. It showed these movies don’t have to appeal solely to the churches who will buy tickets en-masse. This movie is ridiculous, gory like a horror film, misleading, and phony. It did have what is undoubtedly the most outrageous and unintentionally funny dialogue of the year, however. “Fast food outlets look to break even on the hamburgers they sell. That’s all they do is break even ... Do you know where they make all their money? The french fries and soda. Low cost, high margin items. Abortion is our fries-and-soda.” Are we sure this was based on a true story? If so, I don’t know why the director decided to edit out the scenes in which Cheryl (Robia Scott) takes the buckets of aborted fetuses home to cook them. I think it would’ve really driven home how evil her character is. I felt dirty sitting in the theater next to people who ate this up.

[miguelmarias]

The Head and Eyes of Otto Preminger, or The Thinking Gaze

With the passing of time, almost every great film creator, as well as — often earlier — some of the very good directors whose contribution to the art of cinema is far less important and original, end up by being "discovered" (or rather, rediscovered) and acknowledged, achieving a more or less widespread and enduring reputation. Thus, it is no longer regarded as some sort of exotic caprice, befitting only a bunch of eccentric maniacs, to highly value or even openly admire Douglas Sirk or Jacques Tourneur, and the names of John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and Howard Hawks have been firmly incorporated into the shared Pantheon of critics and film buffs wherever, so much that praise is implicit when their names are mentioned, and it seems no longer necessary to take up their defense.

Their causes are battles fought and won, albeit if this victory remains relative and only among rather specialized, minority groups, but these names have at last achieved respectability, and in due course — some years more from now, at most a couple of generations into the future — their high position will have become generally established and will remain undisputed. Much more strange and deplorable — though not for their long-dead victims, of course — is the limbo in which float those filmmakers who, even if for some time — more or less long, usually around ten years — they were successful enough at the box office, did receive some awards and enjoyed a certain degree of critical recognition, have fallen into oblivion and whose reputation has been for a long time stagnant at a level well below their merit, basically as a result of the scarce circulation of their films, a circumstance which bears no relation to their artistic value. This is what happens, and will not probably change in the foreseeable future, with Frank Borzage (who always had a few enthusiastic admirers, but is never remembered), Leo McCarey, or Allan Dwan, to mention only three, although the list could be easily expanded, the same as happens, despite appearances to the contrary — and even if he retains a place of choice in every Film History — with the increasingly unknown and maligned figure (this latter only in the U.S., to the scandal and astonishment of most Europeans) of D.W. Griffith himself.

To these names several others could be added, of course — from Nicholas Ray to Tod Browning ��� but I find no "forgotten one" case as downright scandalous as Otto Preminger's, whose appreciation was at best a minority affair and even then remained a controversial taste  subject to violent debate, to be finally swept into oblivion as the result of a deliberate discrediting policy against him (and others, including Vincente Minnelli), started in 1964 inside the very group which had discovered him some twenty years before. The downturn — to which such reversal of critical fortune certainly contributed to some extent; I recall Preminger was still much affected in 1979 — suffered by his career during his last years of activity, in the very midst of the disintegration process undergone by the whole U.S. film production system, until his death in 1986, before his work had reconquered even the degree of interest it had deservedly awakened approximately from 1954 to 1963, completed this demolition job, turning him into an unknown item.

An unknown which, moreover, was not regarded as a serious hole, much less one which required urgent filling, for at least three generations of cinéphiles (or the dubious, watered-down, less passionate version which is today so nicknamed, often in a rather dismissive way), with no chance whatsoever for any revindication attempt to prosper, had there been one, given the scarce availability of the main evidence in his support, which is, of course, Preminger's own films, only now, thanks to DVD, and partially as yet, beginning to circulate again in their adequate format ratio and with their visual values restored (although severely diminished in scale, always "smaller than life").

While not a single feature of the dominant cinematic culture will incite or urge them from outside, I firmly believe that the most curious amongst the surviving true film buffs might begin to discover by themselves that Otto Preminger was not only a smart producer who had the opportunity (or rather, seized it from Rouben Mamoulian) of directing Laura, still widely regarded as one of the crowning peaks of a genre which, once it conquered the taste of moviegoers, has retained its enormous popularity everywhere, as noir in Europe or thriller in its own country of origin (although the most cultivated circles in the US prefer to name it in French).

This film is almost the single reason that has kept Preminger's name from being wiped out of cinema dictionaries, historical reference works, and textbooks. Of the other films directed by Preminger which the spectator seduced and intrigued by the vision of Laura — and few have ever remained indifferent to its charms and mysteries — could wish to inspect as a result, in many countries you can find on DVD Angel Face (1952) and most of the other films in the same genre which Preminger made in between for Fox, using again either Gene Tierney or Dana Andrews, the stars of Laura: Fallen Angel (1945), Whirlpool (1949), and Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950), the latter reuniting both again at Preminger's orders. But you still cannot find on DVD another of his most successful movies, an unusual and unlikely incursion of this reputedly "cool" filmmaker into the realm of melodrama, Forever Amber (1947), nor the unjustly neglected The Thirteenth Letter (1951), dismissed sight unseen as an inferior remake of Clouzot's Le Corbeau, which it is, but that is of no consequence whatsoever.

Whoever ventures into a standard film dictionary or history book will hardly be spared from learning that Otto Preminger, after being one of the first directors to become their own (independent) producers, defied the self-imposed censorship code of the motion picture industry and released, without the supposedly unavoidable MPAA seal of approval, a couple of controversial and (at the time; not so much now, of course) "daring" movies, The Moon Is Blue (1953) and The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). If the consulted reference-book is not too superficial, the curious fan will read with some astonishment that Preminger directed two dramatic musicals with all-Black casts, Carmen Jones (1954) and Porgy and Bess (1959), although the second was a Samuel Goldwyn production, prepared and already started by (again!) Rouben Mamoulian; that Preminger discovered Jean Seberg during a nationwide casting contest for Saint Joan (1957) and had the good taste of employing her again in Bonjour Tristesse (1958). And the eager researcher may even get the idea that after admiring her in both, (then) well-known Preminger fan Jean-Luc Godard picked her as the attractively treacherous female lead in À bout de souffle (Breathless, 1959),  and that, despite his Viennese birth, Preminger did once film a western, whose durable popularity rests on being one of the first movies to be shot with ease in the then-new CinemaScope widescreen format and, even more, on the presence of  Marilyn  Monroe, River of No Return (1954).

Of all these pictures, only the two he directed in 1954 and recently also Bonjour Tristesse can so far be found on reliable DVDs; the French release of The Moon Is Blue and Saint Joan (and The Human Factor [1979]) has been quite a disappointment; and you have yet to forget The Man with the Golden Arm, since there is only a mere transfer from flat VHS to CD, as bad in the many DVD editions released in the US as in its European versions, all available at low prices far exceeding their real worth.

Considering the erratic policy — if there is anything deserving such a name — seemingly inspiring DVD edition wherever, the period of Preminger's career with seems better covered is, quite surprisingly, that of his full maturity as an artist, when already a portion of his early supporters were beginning to mistrust him as too prone to sensationalism and yielding to box-office interests, while another portion of them even increased their deep admiration for such a filmmaker. Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Exodus (1960), Advise and Consent (1962),  The Cardinal (1963), and In Harm's Way (1965) allow us to see again five films in a row which are probably the (as yet unacknowledged) peak of his whole body of work.

Although only available on Zone 1, and  packaged so confusingly and contradictorily as to be discouraged from buying it, its cover casting doubts about its ratio presentation (finally approaching the original 2.55:1 early Scope at the standard 2.35:1), there is also a DVD edition of a film which announces that greatest period of his career, albeit on a lesser scale, the very badly known — I guess that for far-from-innocent reasons — The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell(1955).

There are several other holes, some of them very harmful and not likely to be repaired — I would be most surprised if the hardly popular but quite extraordinary Daisy Kenyon (1947) came out on DVD — including the lack of most of his late films, which, despite their very bad reputation and their box-office failure, certainly deserve taking a new look at them, as proved the very satisfying Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), recently released. The magnificent Hurry Sundown (1966) and the films that followed it are still missing. Even his reassuringly good farewell film, adapted from Graham Greene's The Human Factor, is unavailable in good shape.

Anyhow, it is only recently that the minimal objective conditions are at last beginning to concur in order to recall why, for some people, Otto Preminger belongs with the greatest and most truly original filmmakers in the whole History of Cinema.

To avoid a solitary discourse which finally would lead nowhere — I am already where I am — however convincingly might I try to explain such claims or to persuasively argue my reasons for  admiring Preminger, while the reader has not the opportunity to contrast these arguments with the films in question and to think and judge on his own what he sees, I would rather advise whomever feels some interest for Preminger's work, or anybody suspecting he can be a far more important filmmaker than he had been led to believe and other opinions had let him even guess, as well as to anyone without theatrical screen knowledge of his output, to entirely eschew VHS prints as a working tool, especially if what he can get are second-or more-generation copies or commercial editions usually not respectful of the aspect ratios in which the actual films where shot, and try to see them in 35mm prints (those filmed in 70mm seem now almost invisible everywhere) and on sufficiently large screens (it is almost useless to look at Exodus or even the black-and-white Panavision Advise and Consent on a surface only slightly larger than that of a 34-inch television set). Were such ideal conditions outside your reach, the next best thing would be DVDs, which usually offer restored prints.

I would also recommend, at the sight of what there is at hand, to begin with the best: I'd suggest for a start the most intimate Preminger films already shot in CinemaScope, River of No Return and Carmen Jones; then proceed, whenever possible, to The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell; or jump to Bonjour Tristesseand go on — with the forcible omission of Porgy and Bess — with the masterpieces up to and including In Harm's Way.

Once seen that, if, as I hope, the reader now wants to see every thing Preminger made, he can go backwards and see his dark side, the noir films from the years 1944 to 1952, less personal but full of elements which resurface afterwards enriched and fully developed, and then anything else he can get in acceptable viewing conditions: one of the essential Preminger virtues is that even his less successful or only partially controlled pictures are usually, at the very least, quite entertaining, employ attractive players, and almost always include some most extraordinary shots which, in those films where not each and every one of them is wonderful, result — by comparison — astonishing and spectacularly accomplished. I will warn the reader that, pending an eventual revision on DVD, I have seen the Preminger film I least like — Rosebud (1975) — five times without ever being bored, and that even in that film, for me by far his worst, there are moments, although certainly (and uncharacteristically) isolated, that are worth the entire output of many present-day highly praised filmmakers. That I focus my interest on the period after Bonjour Tristesse — when his own personal, distinctive style reaches the maturity that makes it unique — does not mean that you should skip the earlier films, many of which are admirable and some of them even count among the best he ever directed: Daisy Kenyon, Bonjour Tristesse, or Carmen Jones are as good as any other. And Fallen Angel, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Whirlpool, Laura, Forever Amber, Angel Face, or River of No Return are films not to be missed.

I think advisable to keep in mind a further point: Preminger's best films don't go ostentatiously soliciting attention, avoid strident eye-catching gimmicks, and  — despite his enemies' claims about his "sensationalist" penchant — do not advertise their own "importance," so they can seem quite unexceptional at first sight, if not enough attention is paid at every moment.

They are often built on extraordinarily protracted tracking shots of astounding complexity, staged and shot with such elegance and naturalness that you do not notice either their length or their elaborate movements; rather on the contrary, they seem quite simple and "normal," not to say deceitfully commonplace. Often, after several minutes, one begins to wonder whether there has been some cut or the same shot is still going on; if one looks again — as both DVD and VHS allow — almost in every case, there has been no cut, it is a very long one-shot sequence or that, at most, Preminger interrupted it to introduce a change of distance or point of view which was so strictly unavoidable and necessary that it would have been contrived to replace the simple, direct cut (and he did not fear to jump over the axis) by a quite arbitrary and comparatively slow camera movement.

Several of the films Preminger produced from Exodus onwards are obviously very expensive "blockbusters" and last for well over two hours, sometimes three or even more; in every instance, both the cost and the length — never tiresome or excessive — were perfectly justified by reasons of amplitude, authenticity of the locations and settings (Preminger systematically avoided back-projection), and by the sheer complexity of the plot, often involving an incredible number of individual characters and incidents.

One of the defining features of Preminger as a filmmaker is his unsurpassed ability to clearly tell any story, which in the mature period of his career expands to a wide variety of people with their own personal stories and relationships, very precisely interwoven in such a way that characters who seemed of secondary or passing relevance suddenly take an unexpected moral or dramatic weight and move to the forefront before disappearing or returning to the background, while those who had acted as agents or had served as our guides through the chain of events Preminger is building, often lose power or presence and are temporarily eclipsed by lesser figures.

Since another of Preminger's identifying traits is the neatness and density of the images he organizes and presents to us in the clearest and more deceptively simple way possible, it is quite important that the physical state of the prints and the neatness and precision of their projection do not hinder our viewing, either making it out-of-focus and fuzzy or restricting it to a portion of the original frame.

It can be felt since the first vision of Laura, which surprises no matter how much one may have previously read about it; our guess is steadily confirmed from River of No Return onwards, no doubt because the CinemaScope ratio both allowed and encouraged this inclination or choice, which becomes manifest, in particular, since Bonjour Tristesse, to reign uninterruptedly from Exodus until Hurry Sundown: Preminger created — and brought to perfection — a cinematic style which is not merely plastic expression, but the eminently visual equivalent of very personal dramaturgical and narrative imperatives, and which becomes a unique conception — quite original and without any clear precedent, at least in the sound period; also, I'm afraid, without any true followers — of time and space (the primary means of cinema), i.e., of the environment in which evolve the actors and actresses entrusted with embodying in gestures, movements, and words the development of the story which Preminger is telling us.

Ambition has been an often-voiced charge against Preminger, accusing him of the pursuit of notoriety, success, and money, when what he was really after belonged to quite another order of ambitions, and was a goal much harder to attain: the fullest understanding of events — often historically important and of the utmost transcendence, but which was not that different when he merely dealt with small interpersonal struggles, or fully fictional, rather sordid criminal machinations —  and its complete, undistorted transmission to the spectator so that each individual in the audience, exercising his own liberty and understanding, could fully grasp them, their meaning, their causes and consequences.

The aim, the subject-matter, and the method of most Preminger films could be summarized using only one word: intelligence, a word which etymologically sets up a full action program and requires to connect each thing with other things, to link them rationally. If reason can be explained as the apprehension of reality in its connectedness, then no other cinematic style — not even Fritz Lang's — would embody reason as fully as Otto Preminger's in the whole history of cinema.

And, since everything that happens takes place in the flow of time, and often simultaneously, while others are the effects of previous actions, the means for understanding and showing them to other people are unavoidably narrative, and force the teller to put order where, at least at first sight, there is such complexity, given the amount of factors and elements at play, that it can easily be mistaken with chaos.

The first thing, therefore, that such a project demands from an artist is an enormous mental power, which obviously not everybody has; a well-organized mind, a calm and reflective attitude, that will not allow the accumulation of data to hinder its functioning, a brain which will not fall into perplexed paralysis in the presence of apparent contradictions.

This takes someone balanced and skeptical enough not to let himself be carried away by hurry, by the temptation of witticism, or by blinding partisan assumptions. Such an artist needs to know how to maintain a difficult — and almost never commercially or politically profitable, since it can be criticized from both sides — emotional balance (the so-called "coldness" of cool Preminger) and always mistrust appearances, first impressions, prefabricated images, ready-made phrases, and conventional notions. Accepting passed-on ideas without further inspection, taking for granted truisms or accepting them as axiomatic, logical or "natural" thoughts (or even laws), when they may well be, and so often are, sophisms, fallacies, superstitions, misconceptions, myths, or simply "likely" lies, believable alibis, truthful-sounding excuses, is precisely what Preminger was never ready to do. This requires alertness, lucidity, and self-criticism, remaining absolutely awake and aware at all times, and a sound amount of general mistrust. It entails a not very comfortable rejection of the easier way to get things done and demands at all times a clear-sighted and far-reaching vision.

As well as a considerable amount of imagination, since without this last ingredient it is impossible either to foresee consequences and next moves or to extrapolate events or trends that can be detected in what so far has only begun to inchoate or exists yet merely as a  possibility, as a threat, a risk, or a promise. Such a vision has to be at the same time very attentive to the present instant, scrutinizing the diminutive variations of whatever is happening at every moment before our eyes at variable distances, without ever losing sight of the need of forecasting its future evolution, amongst several directions which remain open, nor refraining from looking, with the hindsight of a historian — or at times, that of an analyst — at what happened before, because it explains or can serve as a model or parallel for whatever so far has failed to become concrete or to surface.

The main thing is to think where we are, how and why we have reached this situation, and which path we can take from here and now, from this moment on, starting where we are. It is again, certainly, quite a lot to ask for from a mere film director, but that seems precisely what Preminger always wanted to do, what he took pleasure in trying to attain, the goal which he wished to reach and towards which he, step by step, confidently and unrelentingly advanced for years.

This previous mental vision allowed him to think up a story, conceived as a sort of Platonic ideal whose physical elaboration on paper, as a simple but detailed blueprint, he commissioned to competent or trustworthy screenwriters, from whom he demanded to translate into writing the desires not always explained in full by Preminger himself, and up to the point where, at last at such early stages in the process of making a film, well before the actors were under contract and principal photography started, no further precision was possible. Intellectually, in the absence of physical elements, it was impossible to advance a step further.

From this narrative framework with its distribution into scenes, grouped themselves into big dramatic blocks perfectly linked one to each other, with the characters already designed in full detail, although not described physically to allow a perfectly free hand in the casting stage, Preminger went on to visually conceive each film, which, as he once confided, he would have liked to shoot in chronological order and, at least ideally, in a single uninterrupted shot.

Preminger's theatrical experience, started as an assistant and apprentice of the great Max Reinhardt in Vienna, then pursued both as stage director and actor — a trade he practiced for a short time in the theatre and also sometimes in front of the camera — had made him a strong partisan of the unity of time and space, which he felt allowed players to feel both more at ease and more secure than when subjected to the fragmentation and repeated takes which had become usual in the cinema.

Since chronological shooting is in practice almost impossible in a standard film production, more so if the budget is high and he is employing very in-demand actors and actresses, with quite tight and complex working schedules, Preminger tried to compensate or reduce  whenever feasible the unavoidable chronological disorder and fragmentation of filming by means of intensive and very detailed rehearsals, quite similar to those which are the rule in theatrical companies. At the moment of shooting, Preminger imposed his concept of the unity of vision, and therefore of point-of-view.

Unlike his admired friend Alfred Hitchcock, Preminger never attempted to emotionally identify the audience with any of the main characters and therefore did not think useful to convey their changing points of view through the choice of adequate camera angles, distances, and framing, which in turn would subjectively determine the size of each shot. In an Otto Preminger film there is no place for anyone else's but his own point of view, Preminger's perspective being rather that of a director who would very much like to reach something almost akin to Jeremy Bentham's ideal watchman's panoptical view, although (and this is a very relevant difference) in a state of freedom: he aspired to see everything at once, in its own space, in its changing environment, and all the time, but without hindering the characters' movements or forcing the space where the action takes place, which whenever possible was the actual setting. Preminger wanted nothing to escape him, even if it happened, so to speak, at his back, outside his field of vision, which therefore had to be as wide as possible and with the possibility of swiftly changing its limiting frame, of adapting its boundaries to the characters' displacements. Therefore, Preminger's camera was always ready to move, expecting or following the action he had, of course, previously staged and rehearsed intensively, but that he tried to capture as if it were something happening spontaneously and unexpectedly, and as if he were a documentary filmmaker, certainly well-equipped and with the best technical means, always attentive to what was happening on the set in order not to miss anything interesting.

For Preminger, the camera is his sight, the technological equivalent to his pair of alert eyes, always connected to his brain and his heart, responding to whatever might happen. Therefore, he needed to see clearly even what was far away (hence the depth of field, and a complex lighting scheme that makes equally clear every inch of the screen), what is at some distance, even in a crowd or in a large place or open space (hence the widescreen); moreover, he needed to remain able to look elsewhere, in the middle or near distances, and on the spot (hence a moving camera, usually mounted on a dolly or a crane, extreme mobility combined with the possibility of approaching and getting a good panoramic view, perhaps slightly upwards so as to dominate the action over the heads of characters, with only the slightest unavoidable obstruction).

A purpose for which, in principle, and from a moment that I feel would be of the utmost interest to pinpoint and put a date to, although that seems no easy task at all — and which, now that Preminger is dead, it would be impossible to settle for sure and beyond any reasonable doubt — Preminger started by considering that the most effective and logical way to do that was through respecting and preserving the unity of time and space of every scene, and filming it, if possible, as a whole, in a sweeping movement encompassing everything, without the usual fragmentation of both factors, and searching other ways of accelerating the action and enhancing the emotion of selected moments. The standard procedures established for years in the American cinema, and almost taken for granted and considered as "natural" practically everywhere were of no use for Preminger. Not that he ever cared to voice such a dismissive idea, or to pass as a radical partisan of change, since he had not the notion that his choices were the only ones possible, or that what he thought was right for himself should be the only way of doing pictures for others.

Ultimately, that conception of what I cannot find a more suitable name for than mise-en-scène implied for Preminger  that, as long as it would not be (or look) too artificial and elaborate, too contrived and unnatural, or too static, each scene or sequence should be shot, on principle, whenever it was possible (and however difficult it might prove) in a single, long, continuous take or shot, without cuts to inserts or close-ups or sudden set-up changes, moving the camera as a function of the displacements of dramatic interest inside the scene, and preferably, in order not to draw attention to the camerawork in itself, at the cover of some character's movements in and out of the scene, in and out of a room, which normally will be connected to the often microscopic changes in their dramatic weight, and seemed to naturally call for these accompanying movements.

This principle of one action/one shot, driving ideally to one-take sequences and to avoid whenever possible and reasonable inserts, jump-cuts, close-ups, and mechanical, conventional shot/counter-shot series for confrontation or dialogue scenes has, logically, immediate consequences in the narrative, dramatic, and, above all, ethic terrains. But all of these repercussions suit, support, and reinforce the willed absence of partiality and the refusal of spectator-manipulation techniques that Preminger had adopted early in his career as the surest way to allow and encourage each individual in the audience to look intelligently at the film and exercise their own freedom of thought.

Of course, to be able to shoot a scene in such a way requires it to be organized in precisely one of several different possible ways; to begin with, the filmmaker should avoid the temptation of setting it merely in order to make possible (or easier, faster, cheaper) the application of such a style of filming, which was never an end in itself, but only a means. One quite frequent mistake that Preminger was never lazy or conceited enough to incur.

But this requires yet more work. It asks for a new critical re-reading, which would already be — at the very least — the fourth revision, of each time/space unit in which has been tentatively fragmented an action which must flow uninterruptedly — yet not uniformly, but with continuous rhythmic modulations and intensity variations — on the screen, and without ever losing intelligibility as a result of those narrative ellipses or jumps as may be needed, and which in any case should not be obtrusive, each shot looking seamless and continuously flowing, the camera's existence as forgotten as that of our own eyes while we see whatever we may want to see that does not require our sight to strain.

Just imagine the investment of intellectual effort, so far merely imaginative, required by each shot, each scene, in an Otto Preminger film. It demands not only an exceptional mental capacity but also a steel-hard willpower, a self-exigence which explains and puts in its place — being neither a caprice nor merely domineering and exploitative — his much-commented demands from technical crews, players, or any sort of collaborators — that's why he only employed the best professionals available, and required that they perform accordingly.

All of it is the result of an enormous effort, which moreover — since it would be a lack of elegance, and could displace the audience's interest/attention from the action itself to the technical prowess of the makers — must not be noticed by those regarding the film, so that all artifice should remain hidden or concealed, if not so much as strictly invisible. Artistry becomes therefore yet more complex and subtle — double artifice — so as to not detract from or disrupt the moviegoer's attention, which must be subtly attracted (during the '40s through a process of spellbinding fascination, usually based on the female leads, later by the sheer elation of seeing everything so well and clearly and by the continuity of a forward thrust movement) and channelled (although forever maintaining the wide scope of his/her perception) towards the main action and the behavior of the characters as they are embodied at every moment by the players.

This principle requires, of course, the full subordination of the players to their respective roles; the chosen performers can be great stars, but must always adapt themselves to Preminger's fictional creatures until no distinction can be made between one and another, until they fully materialize their way of being and of moving, of regarding or speaking, through their bodies and their fitting corporal dynamics or their voices, even in scenes where they must remain passive and quiet or if they have to keep silent. This explains why Preminger has sometimes replaced an actor for another (he fired Lana Turner from Anatomy of a Murder because she wanted to wear her own clothes, and therefore would have remained Lana Turner, and substituted for her Lee Remick as Laura Manion); that he usually did not accept demands or welcome suggestions from the main players, a fact which is the basis of his reputation of having dictatorial ways on the set and of being ill-tempered and bad-mannered; that he refused to change dialogue or traits or clothing, or to allow actors to embellish the characters they played, rather forcing the performers to stick to the roles as they were written in the script.

It has been often pointed out, rightly — although it is something that will rarely escape even the less attentive or insensitive viewers: the relevance in Preminger's cinema of hand gestures, always so revealing, of the rhythms and cadences of the characters' walk or the way they sit or stand still, even when we are shown only their backs. How they handle a ballpoint, a telephone, or a gun is telling us something while they talk or look at each other, without any cut or camera movement ever isolating, stressing, or underlining that detail as something significant. These are indirect, objective, and patent means to subtly let the characters reveal (rather than explain) themselves cinematographically, to suggest what they are really thinking or feeling, letting the audience perceive their changes of attitude, in an unstressed fashion, without verbally stating or imposing any meaning. That kind of watchful observation is within the reach of anyone paying close attention to the whole screen and willing to reason from the indices put at his disposal and thus reach his or her own conclusions.

Preminger's cinema style both takes for granted and demands an intelligent, interested, and alert spectator, who can be trusted not to need that things be repeated to him/her several times nor to require being guided by the hand throughout the plot, however intricate it may be, but who will be able to see what is relevant with the mere guidance of his/her look, without anyone else delimiting excessively, univocally, his/her field of vision, but rather allowing him/her to see quietly and clearly more than he/she needs merely to understand the storyline, letting him/her grasp also other things, even some things which might be more meaningful for him/her than for Preminger himself, or which could seem contradictory or besides the point. Preminger does not require his audience to be cultivated, but only asks their members to be interested, attentive, and watchful, to act as individuals, to look, to remember, to think.

A cinematic style like Preminger's, which quite early could be seen — although Preminger himself never claimed or would have admitted such a pompous thing — as some sort of "theoretical model," requires on the filmmaker's part an extraordinary organizing capacity and an astonishing clarity of mind, traits certainly infrequent either in the film business or elsewhere; such scarcity might perhaps explain why only a few other filmmakers have been able to conceive a roughly equivalent system, why only exceptionally has anybody been able to emulate him or even to try to do so beyond the merest external look of his images, which are instantly recognizable as Preminger's despite being in themselves rather undistinguished-looking and completely devoid of any "signature effects."

It can be comparatively easy to manage a linear storyline, with only a couple of relationships going, with two or three main characters and four or five supporting roles involved, evolving through six or seven places or settings, usually each presented through one or two rooms, that is, less than fourteen sets. These are figures and items which look manageable enough, which can be orderly disposed without headaches, with relative ease and only a reasonable amount of work. Therefore, regardless of their quality and achievement or daring, and several are masterpieces in their respective genres, I see no reason to consider as out of the ordinary the early noir films Otto Preminger directed after Laura, partly as a result of its success.

They are, in the context of the general good looks of the Fox productions of the time, particularly elegant and pointed in their framing and composition as well as in their precise camera movements or the general organization of space and the chained, logical, rhythmically neat succession of one shot after the other; the actors and actresses are as well chosen (usually among Fox's contract players) as they are controlled and directed to obtain the best possible unspectacular performances; the screenplays are intriguing and do not limit themselves to gradually unveiling a mystery, solving a criminal intrigue or chronicling the society or the mood of the period. They are excellent in every sense and repeatedly awake a high degree of unflagging interest, which is, I believe, a direct result of the high power of fascination that is one of the main distinctive traits of Preminger's cinema.

This bewitchment affects as much each spectator sitting in the dark looking at the screen as most of Preminger's fictional creatures, not to forget a third unseen party,  his own camera — which, in Preminger's cinema, stands, more than for any of the characters, for the director himself, whose detached but interested, intrigued, and even concerned point of view it usually conveys, a detail which we must never forget.

This fascinated gaze of the characters at those of the opposite sex, regardless of which may be the gender of the  central figure of each film — like the detective played by Dana Andrews in Laura and Where The Sidewalk Ends, obsessed and attracted by Gene Tierney even when, as it seems in the first of these, he initially believes she's dead, has prejudged very negatively her personality, and has no other references about her than what he has been told by far from innocent bystanders and a haunting painted portrait; or the kleptomaniac wife embodied by the same actress in Whirlpool, herself hypnotized by Dr. Korvo — is what really intrigues and beguiles the still relatively young Preminger; the same multiple fascination process is also present in Fallen Angel, Forever Amber, Where the Sidewalk Ends, or Angel Face, to be further and more subtly developed in later films such as Carmen Jones, Bonjour Tristesse, Anatomy of a Murder, and even as late as Bunny Lake Is Missing.

This works even when the general dramatic center of the film is no longer such a kind of fascination and its narrative weight is distributed among a considerable crowd of characters. In the whole '40s only on a Fox project which fell from John M. Stahl's hands into Preminger's, Forever Amber, but then increasingly during the following decade, the average population of his films begins to expand. Finally, we find in Exodus, a historical piece based on real and comparatively recent events, a true crowd of characters who are never anonymous, indistinct masses, but are individualized even while they retain their identity as groups, from which, in any case, several — many more than is usual — main figures detach themselves and are treated by Preminger as fully accomplished characters with complex and differentiated relationships which evolve in time and are affected by the course of events or which influence their development. Exodus is the very kind of what at the time was called a "blockbuster" which usually other filmmakers, with less powerful brains, would prove unable to fully keep in control, which quite easily get out of their hands, that makes them worried and confused, unable to put enough order in their minds or keep track of every other sequence while they are trying to shoot a scene, uncapable of coping simultaneously with all the elements at play; often, once they have set such films in motion, they cannot see or cover everything, therefore being overwhelmed by the film's own dynamics. Just for that it is quite remarkable how Preminger, far from being overdriven, seems to be extraordinarily stimulated by the challenge of paying attention to so many things at the same time, without ever losing sight, at least mentally, of political or logistic problems while he concentrates, as he usually does, on the most intimate and personal, even the secret or unconscious motives, behind these relationships he goes on showing while he tells a very complex story on a wide canvas, because the characters always remain the axis on which his movies are built, despite the multiplicity of elements, settings, actors, issues, and problems in general. In retrospect, one can realize that the very unique style developed by Preminger was singularly adept to such a kind of narrative drive, since it allowed to show in an orderly way a lot of things at the same time, and that his ample scope and the variety of interests that awakened his curiosity encouraged this change in scale. One could even venture that such a development seems logical and coherent, and could have been foretold since he made The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell or Saint Joan.

However, what remains an utter mystery is why nobody else has ever made movies the way Preminger conceives and films them, which is precisely what makes the experience of watching them so exhilaratingly unique. A further enigma is how he came to think of such an unprecedented, although very logical way, of telling a story, of developing a plot while showing the audience, from the outside and relying on mere appearances, the inner struggles of the characters involved beyond those very appearances.

Of course, there have been other filmmakers — before and after — who also developed a system based on long tracking shots, almost covering a whole scene or sequence without cutting. Even such silent masters as F.W. Murnau did something which would loosely fit that description. In the talkies, William Wyler, Orson Welles, Max Ophuls, Kenji Mizoguchi developed deep-focus fixed shots as well as one-shot sequences with long tracking camera movements. Each in his own way, both Erich von Stroheim and Jean Renoir also approached such a conception. And, on a lesser scale, Roberto Rossellini did already something of the kind in some isolated moments of Paisà (Paisan, 1946), developing in the early '60s a new sort of zoom lens which he named pancinor and which allowed him to explore, without need of a track or of even really moving the camera, the space inside a very protracted set-up, changing the frame but not the point of view. But all those antecedents or near-parallel research do not really explain how Preminger thought out what seems already sketched in Laura, fully developed around Bonjour Tristesse, and only partly abandoned, quite suddenly and surprisingly, around the time he made Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1969), before returning to his own way of shooting at the ending of his career, in both Rosebud and The Human Factor.

Only as a hypothetical suggestion, I think the first sparks of this idea of cinema have their origin in the theater, where Preminger started learning his many crafts. In the '20s and '30s, the classical Vienna stage which Max Reinhardt presided over was generally respectful of  Aristotle's three unities rule, of action, space, and time. Actors on the stage play continuously, in order, and are seen from a distance. The camera can bring us nearer to their faces, so they don't need to overplay their movements and gestures, and their acting methods may be more realistic, more naturalistic, more subdued, more like people are and act spontaneously in everyday real life. By that time, Murnau was eliminating titles, even dispensing altogether with them in Der letzte Mann (The Last Laugh, 1924), while the camera was more and more free to move "unchained," as can be seen from then up to Sunrise (1927). Then sound came and put a temporary stop to the increasing mobility and expressive freedom of the camerawork. As a matter of fact, this static-camera period did not last long, at least outside Hollywood. One can see early talkies in Japan or Europe where the camera moves quite freely. For instance, in Max Ophuls's Liebelei (1932), a film I guess Preminger saw while still in his native Austria. Then came the decisive impact of Welles' Citizen Kane (1941), which was particularly influential (much more than on the RKO sets) on most mid-'40s productions of 20th Century-Fox, where as it happened Preminger was then under contract. And, on top of all that, Rossellini made Roma città aperta (Open City, 1945) and Paisà at the ending of World War II, the former admittedly a Preminger favorite, while of the second I can see traces even in some Exodus battle scenes.

Therefore, I think that the cumulative impact of those very different steps in the course of almost twenty years had probably some influence on Preminger, although it is insufficient, in my view, to properly explain how he arrived at such a original conception of cinema, which is not primarily aesthetic, or even narrative, but has an ethical stand as origin. Despite what a lot of people today would seemingly like to believe, Godard was not merely playing with words when he wrote that a tracking shot is also an question of morals. Maybe he was thinking about Rossellini, but he could have been referring as well to Otto Preminger.

Preminger's style can be considered "functional" insofar as it has always a function, serves a purpose. He privileges long shots over brief close-ups, and long or single takes to film a scene, not only because he thinks that actors are more comfortable or feel more challenged that way; they might be more at ease, but their responsibility if a take had to be repeated would increase, as well as the risk of forgetting part of a long dialogue they had to say with a certain tone and rhythm, so the difficulty was also greater that way. He certainly had some inclination towards fluent camera movements which would accompany the action, but not for the sheer elation of accomplishing a feat, but rather because such a way of filming, which was never systematic or repetitious, allowed him to show several things as they were happening, at once although on different levels, at varying distances, and to bring to view the connections between diverse characters sharing a space (or fighting for it) without underlining it or overstressing such relationships. Anyone watching Exodus, Advise and Consent, The Cardinal, or In Harm's Way will soon find several instances of this, without any need of my pinpointing them. You can take any other film, American or otherwise, made around the period or at any earlier date, with similar scope and themes, and will not find anything even remotely resembling Preminger's movies, except perhaps, to a somewhat lesser extent, in a less perfected and radical form, in the more ambitious large-canvas melodramas directed by Vincente Minnelli: Some Came Running (1958), Home From The Hill (1960), The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1961), or Two Weeks in Another Town(1962). Or, very exceptionally and unexpectedly, in other movies sharing with Preminger's the complexity of intimate and political clashes, like the astonishing Bhowani Junction, directed by George Cukor in 1955, simultaneously deep and wide and with the courage of not pretending to have a happy ending, a true satisfactory and permanent solution for problems and situations which cannot be really reconciled. The acknowledgement that private individual or couple solutions are always temporary and unable to heal the general wounds of a society is something the American cinema seldom allows itself, and that only people like Preminger, and occasionally some others, dared.

 Miguel Marías © FIPRESCI 2006

http://fipresci.hegenauer.co.uk/undercurrent/issue_0306/marias_preminger.htm

[c-40]

A-T-3 016 The B-52's - Whammy!

Famous fans say farewell to the B-52’s is getting shared around my social circle https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jan/13/famous-fans-say-farewell-to-the-b-52s-they-got-me-to-question-my-own-prejudices and as they came up on my list of graffiti cover artwork the other day now is a good time to visit their releases from 1983. For a band that Chris Blackwell says "didn't have any songs" when they were rushed into to capitalising on the success of Rock Lobster with their first album, the B-52's were consistent. Whammy! was the third full studio album for the Athens, USA band, they'd also released the remix album Party Mix and the David Byrne produced Mesopotamia ep and given Gus Van Sant a future film title. A-T-2 064 is a previous look at the Athens scene

Whammy! was recorded at Compass Point in the Bahamas like their second album proper Wild Planet and it was produced by Steven Stanley (A-T-3 02, A-T-2 387) who had remixed their Party Mix mini album. This was sadly the last B-52's album founding member and brother of Ricky Wilson would record before he died of AIDS-related diseases in 1985

Clockwise: Cindy, Kate, Ricky

I've read they were trying to update their sound on Whammy! with synths and drum machines, I don't know about you but the single Whammy Kiss also has a touch of Human League about it. That track is at the end of the post

Song For A Future Generation is brilliant, they clearly anticipated the ironic and cynical nostalgia of 1990s USA (but without the irony or cynicism, the 90s brought a more hetro take on trash culture). The B-52's were clearly fans of John Waters. Like Whammy Kiss all five of the band sing on this track

Moon 83 originally a b side Moon 83 replaces the Yoko Ono cover below after Ono made a fuss, oh no! Moon 83 is a remake of There's a Moon in the Sky (Called the Moon) from their debut album

Album only track Queen Of Lass Vagas

Don't Worry Yoko Ono cover that Ono got removed after the first press of Whammy! I mention above!

Whammy Kiss! if only Island got Paul "Groucho" Smykle to do a dub like they had been doing

[ryanmeft]

Christopher Robin Movie Review

Since I was a kid, I’ve subconsciously hummed “Here in the Hundred Acre Wood…” whenever there were more than five trees present, and occasionally thought how wonderful it would be if Pooh popped out of nowhere and into the real world. I would submit for your consideration the proposal that anyone who isn’t delighted at such a thought may not be very much fun.

Christopher Robin is that kind of fan-fiction. The titular character (Ewan McGregor) is given a farewell party by Pooh (voice of Jim Cummings) and friends before going off to boarding school, fighting in World War II, getting married with children, and taking a job at a luggage company. He hasn’t forgotten Pooh as much as he’s decided he was a frivolous childhood thing, but of course frivolous childhood things are the best of things, and so one day Pooh walks the other way through the famous wooden door and finds himself in London.

He has come because a fearsome mist has rolled over the Hundred Acre Wood, and all his friends are missing. The adult Christopher needs him because he works too much, is being forced to fire his war-shocked staff to satisfy the owner’s grasping son (Mark Gatiss), and has been made to send his wife (Hayley Atwell) and daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael) off on a trip to his old family cabin on which he himself cannot go. Hoary and reliable chestnuts they may be, but greedy bosses, aborted vacations, and working too hard in all the wrong ways are mainstays in stories like this because they work and because we know, deep in our hearts, they are things no one should have to endure too much of.

The scenes between the farewell party and the reappearance of Pooh are a stark contrast to the carefree cartoon versions Disney has previously produced. Directed by Finding Neverland’s Marc Forster, from a story by Alex Ross Perry and co-written by Allison Schroeder, the film deals directly with the reality in London at the time. This includes a radio broadcast related to the Blitzkrieg and once-gentle Christopher leaping to dodge a explosion and frantically calling for back-up. Forster hurries through these bits, but they seem long at times, because they are enforcing reality on a world we’ve come to associate with escape.

When Pooh walks through the tree and ends up in a park right next to Christopher’s house, he explains simply that he must have come out where he was needed, like a Guardian Angel with an insatiable hunnee (spell it properly, now) addiction. He takes up brief residence in Christopher’s house, in scenes clearly inspired by the wonderful recent Paddington movies, and the two share some philosophy. As someone whose work often requires time to simply sit and think, I find I agree with Pooh’s idea that sometimes doing nothing results in the best somethings, and as a lover of travel I can confirm the best way to reach a place is to leave the one you’re in.

Nevertheless, these early scenes lack the energy and joy we need from the characters. Pooh without his friends feels incomplete, and attempts to be Paddington don’t quite work, because the film isn’t fully committed to the idea. It mainly wants to get to the good stuff. That’s because the good stuff is actually very good, really. Afraid for his reputation with the neighbors (though we only meet one, an affable fellow played by Paul Chahidi* who really wants to play gin rummy), Christopher aims to take Pooh back to the tree in the country and thus home. As soon as they squeeze through the door, the film comes to life, with the disconcertingly eerie setup resolved into a typically Pooh-ian tale of Heffalumps and Woozles, which if you recall are very confusles. Here McGregor gets to strut his stuff, battling an imaginary Woozle (or was it a Heffalump?), “saving” Eeyore from a waterfall, and getting his own all-too-brief sequence similar to the famously trippy one from the old cartoons.

Still, whether the movie works or doesn’t depends on how much we believe in Pooh and his friends. Taken from the realm of cartoon or illustration for what I believe is the first time, they, much like Roger Rabbit, blend seamlessly with the human world, and the movie wastes no precious time on any obligatory “I don’t believe this is happening” nonsense; Christopher simply treats them as old friends who have been absent for a time. Tigger (Cummings), Rabbit (an appropriately fussy Peter Capaldi), gloomy Eeyore (Brad Garrett) and Piglet (Nick Mohammed) have their unique character quirks translate perfectly to CG, and there are many laugh-out-loud interactions between them and uses of their familiar lines in amusing new ways. This all culminates in a Madeline-starring chase through London that makes the third act the best part of the film. If Disney always has one thing available, it’s enough money to create the best visuals CG can offer, and there’s never a moment in the movie where the forest citizens seem physically out of place in our world. At this point all misgivings were finally silenced for a time, and I was able to fully believe Pooh had, indeed, popped out of his storybook and into real life.

The Disney live-action reimagining/remake machine rolls on inexorably, converting all classic animation into a new format, as it will for some time. I questioned going in whether the real world angle was wise with Pooh, and at times the film nearly falters into trying to do something different with these timeless, unchanging characters. By the home stretch, though, most of the build-up pays off and most of the missteps are forgiven. Fans of old probably won’t prefer it over languid, peaceful days at the home of Mr. Sanderz, but as a summertime diversion it’s probably more fun than getting stuck in Rabbit’s door again. Probably.

*I could not positively confirm this casting, and if anyone could help me it would be much appreciated.

Verdict: Recommended

[justforbooks]

Obama’s Secret to Surviving the White House Years: Books

Not since Lincoln has there been a president as fundamentally shaped — in his life, convictions and outlook on the world — by reading and writing as Barack Obama.

Last Friday, seven days before his departure from the White House, Mr. Obama sat down in the Oval Office and talked about the indispensable role that books have played during his presidency and throughout his life — from his peripatetic and sometimes lonely boyhood, when “these worlds that were portable” provided companionship, to his youth when they helped him to figure out who he was, what he thought and what was important.

During his eight years in the White House — in a noisy era of information overload, extreme partisanship and knee-jerk reactions — books were a sustaining source of ideas and inspiration, and gave him a renewed appreciation for the complexities and ambiguities of the human condition.

“At a time when events move so quickly and so much information is transmitted,” he said, reading gave him the ability to occasionally “slow down and get perspective” and “the ability to get in somebody else’s shoes.” These two things, he added, “have been invaluable to me. Whether they’ve made me a better president I can’t say. But what I can say is that they have allowed me to sort of maintain my balance during the course of eight years, because this is a place that comes at you hard and fast and doesn’t let up.”

The writings of Lincoln, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, Mr. Obama found, were “particularly helpful” when “what you wanted was a sense of solidarity,” adding “during very difficult moments, this job can be very isolating.” “So sometimes you have to sort of hop across history to find folks who have been similarly feeling isolated, and that’s been useful.” There is a handwritten copy of the Gettysburg Address in the Lincoln Bedroom, and sometimes, in the evening, Mr. Obama says, he would wander over from his home office to read it.

Like Lincoln, Mr. Obama taught himself how to write, and for him, too, words became a way to define himself, and to communicate his ideas and ideals to the world. In fact, there is a clear, shining line connecting Lincoln and King, and President Obama. In speeches like the ones delivered in Charleston and Selma, he has followed in their footsteps, putting his mastery of language in the service of a sweeping historical vision, which, like theirs, situates our current struggles with race and injustice in a historical continuum that traces how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go. It’s a vision of America as an unfinished project — a continuing, more-than-two-century journey to make the promises of the Declaration of Independence real for everyone — rooted both in Scripture and the possibility of redemption, and a more existential belief that we can continually remake ourselves. And it’s a vision shared by the civil rights movement, which overcame obstacle after obstacle, and persevered in the face of daunting odds.

Mr. Obama’s long view of history and the optimism (combined with a stirring reminder of the hard work required by democracy) that he articulated in his farewell speech last week are part of a hard-won faith, grounded in his reading, in his knowledge of history (and its unexpected zigs and zags), and his embrace of artists like Shakespeare who saw the human situation entire: its follies, cruelties and mad blunders, but also its resilience, decencies and acts of grace. The playwright’s tragedies, he says, have been “foundational for me in understanding how certain patterns repeat themselves and play themselves out between human beings.”

Context in Presidential Biographies

Presidential biographies also provided context, countering the tendency to think “that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult,” he said. “It just serves you well to think about Roosevelt trying to navigate through World War II.”

Even books initially picked up as escape reading like the Hugo Award-winning apocalyptic sci-fi epic “The Three-Body Problem” by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin, he said, could unexpectedly put things in perspective: “The scope of it was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem fairly petty — not something to worry about. Aliens are about to invade!”

In his searching 1995 book “Dreams From My Father,” Mr. Obama recalls how reading was a crucial tool in sorting out what he believed, dating back to his teenage years, when he immersed himself in works by Baldwin, Ellison, Hughes, Wright, DuBois and Malcolm X in an effort “to raise myself to be a black man in America.” Later, during his last two years in college, he spent a focused period of deep self-reflection and study, methodically reading philosophers from St. Augustine to Nietzsche, Emerson to Sartre to Niebuhr, to strip down and test his own beliefs.

To this day, reading has remained an essential part of his daily life. He recently gave his daughter Malia a Kindle filled with books he wanted to share with her (including “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” “The Golden Notebook” and “The Woman Warrior”). And most every night in the White House, he would read for an hour or so late at night — reading that was deep and ecumenical, ranging from contemporary literary fiction (the last novel he read was Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad”) to classic novels to groundbreaking works of nonfiction like Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” and Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Sixth Extinction.”

Such books were a way for the president to shift mental gears from the briefs and policy papers he studied during the day, a way “to get out of my own head,” a way to escape the White House bubble. Some novels helped him to better “imagine what’s going on in the lives of people” across the country — for instance, he found that Marilynne Robinson’s novels connected him emotionally to the people he was meeting in Iowa during the 2008 campaign, and to his own grandparents, who were from the Midwest, and the small town values of hard work and honesty and humility.

Other novels served as a kind of foil — something to argue with. V. S. Naipaul’s novel “A Bend in the River,” Mr. Obama recalls, “starts with the line ‘The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.’ And I always think about that line and I think about his novels when I’m thinking about the hardness of the world sometimes, particularly in foreign policy, and I resist and fight against sometimes that very cynical, more realistic view of the world. And yet, there are times where it feels as if that may be true.”

Writing was key to his thinking process, too: a tool for sorting through “a lot of crosscurrents in my own life — race, class, family. And I genuinely believe that it was part of the way in which I was able to integrate all these pieces of myself into something relatively whole.”

A Writer of Short Stories

Mr. Obama taught himself to write as a young man by keeping a journal and writing short stories when he was a community organizer in Chicago — working on them after he came home from work and drawing upon the stories of the people he met. Many of the tales were about older people, and were informed by a sense of disappointment and loss: “There is not a lot of Jack Kerouac open-road, young kid on the make discovering stuff,” he says. “It’s more melancholy and reflective.”

That experience underscored the power of empathy. An outsider himself — with a father from Kenya, who left when he was 2, and a mother from Kansas, who took him to live for a time in Indonesia — he could relate to many of the people he met in the churches and streets of Chicago, who felt dislocated by change and isolation, and he took to heart his boss’s observation that “the thing that brings people together to share the courage to take action on behalf of their lives is not just that they care about the same issues, it’s that they have shared stories.”

This lesson would become a cornerstone of the president’s vision of an America where shared concerns — simple dreams of a decent job, a secure future for one’s children — might bridge differences and divisions. After all, many people saw their own stories in his — an American story, as he said in his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention possible “in no other country on Earth.”

In today’s polarized environment, where the internet has let people increasingly retreat to their own silos (talking only to like-minded folks, who amplify their certainties and biases), the president sees novels and other art (like the musical “Hamilton”) as providing a kind of bridge that might span usual divides and “a reminder of the truths under the surface of what we argue about every day.”

He points out, for instance, that the fiction of Junot Díaz and Jhumpa Lahiri speaks “to a very particular contemporary immigration experience,” but at the same time tell stories about “longing for this better place but also feeling displaced” — a theme central to much of American literature, and not unlike books by Philip Roth and Saul Bellow that are “steeped with this sense of being an outsider, longing to get in, not sure what you’re giving up.”

Mr. Obama entered office as a writer, and he will soon return to a private life as a writer, planning to work on his memoirs, which will draw on journals he’s kept in the White House (“but not with the sort of discipline that I would have hoped for”). He has a writer’s sensibility — an ability to be in the moment while standing apart as an observer, a novelist’s eye and ear for detail, and a precise but elastic voice capable of moving easily between the lyrical and the vernacular and the profound.

He had lunch last week with five novelists he admires — Dave Eggers, Mr. Whitehead, Zadie Smith, Mr. Díaz and Barbara Kingsolver. He not only talked with them about the political and media landscape, but also talked shop, asking how their book tours were going and remarking that he likes to write first drafts, long hand, on yellow legal pads.

Mr. Obama says he is hoping to eventually use his presidential center website “to widen the audience for good books” — something he’s already done with regular lists of book recommendations — and then encourage a public “conversation about books.”

“At a time,” he says, “when so much of our politics is trying to manage this clash of cultures brought about by globalization and technology and migration, the role of stories to unify — as opposed to divide, to engage rather than to marginalize — is more important than ever.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[michellelewis7162]

Are Actually E-Sports Truly Athletics?

Are Actually E-Sports Truly Athletics?

 Quite very competitive personal computer video gaming has actually been actually around a number of years on the Personal Computer together with professional Starcraft leagues or even activities for activities like Quake and Counter-Strike. The Xbox 360 has really made competitive video gaming considerably much more noticeable in the last few years alongside the pro-gaming console video game Major League Gaming, and even MLG for easy, in addition to has started to be categorized as a sport by many gamers. Also sports information insurance coverage, like ESPN, have received right in to this all new pattern gotten in touch with E-Sports (digital sporting activities) in addition to now handles MLG computer game on their web site as effectively as also in some cases reviews it on Sportscenter. Yet is this emphasis validated? Are actually E-Sports definitely sports? The action is actually no as well as likewise provided below are main reasons that this is actually hence. Esports Fan News

 Deficiency of extensive inherent skill-set space

I presumed I would certainly start together with this explanation in purchase that any sort of form of players that think this is the single explanation for this brief post may be cleared up right off. I'm surely not mentioning that I can easily surpass a Halo 3 gamer like Tsquared. He is far much better than me. A lack of organic skill-set void implies that, along with devotion, virtually any sort of kind of player can quickly find yourself being actually a pro at the activity they desire to compete in. This is in fact certainly not remedy for everybody and also beneath is really an instance. When I produced usage of to play SOCOM II, a pal of mine had more than 2,000 hrs logged onto the activity online. I had much lower than fifty humans resources, however I was really significantly and likewise away a much better gamer than him. I presume that despite merely exactly how a lot he participated in, I would have constantly been in fact much better. Nonetheless, on the various other palm, there are actually numerous players including myself that are actually just normally efficient at online video clip activities. I possess a 2.5 K/D proportion on Halo 3, yet I seldom join the computer game and accomplish definitely not take it extremely seriously. I do not additionally like it. I have an emotion, nevertheless, that if I took part in 8 humans resources a time or even much more with the intent to take it very truly, I could more than likely complete at the MLG quantity. I have a feeling a majority of the gamers on Halo 3 that are committed to it, can probably complete at the MLG amount Esports Events.

 This is not thus alongside sports like hockey, baseball, baseball, also golf or perhaps tennis. I used to participate in hockey as a kid yet despite simply how a lot I took part in, there is a 99.999% probabilities I will certainly never ever before create it straight into the NHL. I believe the specific same may be actually discussed for manies many thousand, possibly additionally countless professional athletes in significant sporting tasks. Yet absolutely not pc video gaming. You have a terrific possibility of having the potential to complete in the market of video gaming just through direction as well as also keeping dedicated to it.

 Probably I can certainly never ever beat TSquared nonetheless taking into consideration that video gaming conducts certainly not include physicality, the difference in between our company would be just dedication. He is actually a great deal a whole lot even more devoted than I am, and also has really been actually for a long chance. The qualified games plays online video audio video games as his life. I picked a various progression path. Just like I definitely would not be in fact as excellent a forensic investigator as an individual that has twenty years expertise, I definitely would certainly not be actually as outstanding a player as TSquared if I contended versus him currently.

 There is no browsing include

Most of key sporting tasks games like the NBA, NHL, NFL, as well as likewise MLB, there are actually small circles or even educational institution amount play. This is actually simply exactly how gamers make it around the majors, they join with college and also afterwards acquire made to a team or play in the smalls, confirm on their personal, along with are actually talked to. In E-Sports, there is actually no minors. You don't should verify on your personal to contend, you simply spend to participate in an activity. I can not notify you the considerable amount of opportunities I have actually checked out a sports video game on TV to listen to a commentator claim one factor along charity line of 'You're in the Majors, you should certainly possess the ability to create that play' or perhaps one point similar. There's no state being an MLG player, it is actually worthless. Any individual can effortlessly turn into one at anytime. Today, you might get very outdoed if you're no excellent, however it's given that you're completing at a level you ought to not be actually. There is really a description when big time gamers in MLB are in fact surrendered to the smalls on a rehab task or even the main thing that they control or that a gamer that can dominate at three-way An or perhaps the AHL for hockey may draw in the NHL or maybe MLB, it's a totally various amount of play Esports Events.

 E-Sports do not have quantities of play similar to this (sure there is actually the CAL as well as likewise CPL however it doesn't function likewise). Either you are in fact competing or also you're not. I feel to become checked out a showing off activity, MLG needs to fix this by including a minors where gamers are actually planted arising from to finishing in the majors. This are going to be the only method to become part of the majors is actually to come to be welcomed, surely not just authorize up as well as additionally paying a cost.

 An absence of uniformity or establishment

There are in fact a good deal of gaming games available. There is actually the MLG, CAL, CPL, GGL, Gamebattles (in truth a branch of MLG), Starleagues, and also lots of others, some extra real or famous than others. Sure there are actually different sports video games, having said that I do not think anybody is really moving to discuss that in America there is really a volleyball organization extra reputable and even popular than the NFL or perhaps a hockey game more reputable in addition to well-known than the NHL. Why doesn't pc gaming have one real video game? Why is it consequently ragged? If it was actually a right showing off task, it must possess an unity of company. Instead, video games are actually merely independently had and also functioned which causes a lot of different ones. Are actually players in MLG a lot far better than a gamer in CPL? Who knows, they are really different companies along with numerous activities. I might along with peace of mind case gamers in the NHL are actually much better than players in a European League.

 This takes me to one even more element, the association of E-Sports is nothing like a sporting activity. There is no ordinary time, there are really just tasks and additionally ladders. Also the leagues that behave to have times are actually merely managing ladders for a specific time-frame as well as phone it a season. Ladders do not run like periods considering that you might sign up with or leave a step ladder at any sort of chance. If you go 0-5 on Gamebattles, remove your staff along with remake it as well as additionally you remove your inadequate begin. Groups don't possess the very exact same assortment of computer game took part in. You can easily challenge a variety of other teams at your wish so you definitely never need to engage in a staff that you comprehend can pound you unless you communicate to the Playoffs. Real sporting activities may certainly not feel like this. There aren't only a handful of tournament-style celebrations throughout the duration Esports Events.

 Creating it so much more sports-like

On the whole, E-Sports leagues seem to be to end up being utilizing to produce pc gaming appear a sporting activity without actually producing it straight into one. Like the addition of teachers in MLG tasks like Gears of War as well as Halo. That seems to be like a completely foolish add-on to trained video gaming as well as likewise one that doesn't additionally develop it a lot more like a sporting activity. Why does a gamer demand a trainer?

 To aid produce games right into a sporting activity, they ought to produce organizational modifications. Allow's lug on to utilize MLG as an instance. A Halo 3 group in MLG require to require to become really sponsored by a business or person. A supporter performs certainly not simply devote for quests to Meadowlands and also deliver you incredible personal computer games gears. That individual necessities to have the crew as well as they produce the roster alterations. If Ogre 1 and also Ogre 2 do certainly not much like Walshy anymore, likewise bad. They do not possess a say, the enroller carries out. Groups should not be only a group of buddies that met one-time and also have really played all with each other ever just before because. They should certainly be actually sound foundations that are actually mosting likely to exist years from now, along with our without it's existing player schedule.

 They must perform a frequent time. Instead of exploring a handful of competition contests and even accomplishing in some world wide web measure ladder, the teams related to the duration are actually developed at the beginning of the opportunity. Bid farewell to can easily staffs sign up with or even leave behind when the amount of time is underway. Hence, schedules are in fact organized each crew. If you are actually considered to join a team, you visit that location as properly as play all of them. Real showing off activities teams as well as additionally players trip a residential property. It seems players remainder in the home instruction for the adhering to celebration. You proficient in the training course of the off-season in a featuring task, and likewise play in the program of the duration. Why would definitely sensible play be actually gotten online when you have unit worries, prospective cheating, along with lag? It carries out certainly not make great sense. Consequently there is actually no cause they need to certainly not be really touring around the country to play their observing set up rival.

 Each crew will definitely have the same considerable amount of activities took part in. After the time frame mores than, playoffs will be seeded and played in the tournament-style activities like Meadowlands. That ought to be actually simply how playoffs are in fact carried out. Quickly it seems they have no significance whatsoever other than acquiring you cash and offering you factors Esports Events.

 There must furthermore be a scouting mixture. You may not just up and also participate in an MLG rivals one day. You will most definitely have to take part in a various institution and additionally complete there absolutely till you are actually welcomed through a team manager to join an MLG staff. That would certainly offer credibility to the video game and also probably remove a lot of wish for to-be's as effectively as posers given that they may not be heading to want to contend as well as likewise tour a lot.

 eSports: What Exactly Is It?

 Generally, the a large number of video recording activities that are related to these competitions feature a multiplier factor as the whole entire point of eSports is actually to connect with other gamers. There are actually lots of choices right now supplied that gamers may quickly play in a considerable amount of a variety of contests and competitions. The secret is actually to get involved in the video clip activity design that you get a kick out of many or even are really well at.

 Nearly all game designs are actually fulfilled in eSports in addition to our business positioned that one of the absolute most noticeable types were actually 1st individual firing (FPS), sport and MMORPGs. Our experts prepare for much more to be really consisted of to this listing later on.

 Currently, eSports are really mainly eaten and also appreciated through men along with 85% of guys composing engagement of celebrations. Market forerunners are proactively helping make an attempt to promote females involvement in addition to our company think our crew are actually going to find some growth on this as our crew development into 2017. Moreover, the eSports market generated ₤ 258 million in 2015 as well as our firm anticipate this to become really around ₤ 391 for 2016 which is somewhat outrageous!

 Where Can I View eSports?

All of it audios somewhat promoting, performs certainly not it? The business is forecasted to continue its very own impressive growth in 2017 as well as also involvement heads to an everlasting greater considering that of the media systems standing by. You may take a look at eSports on numerous a variety of units and also world wide web sites. Twitch and YouTube are actually the really the majority of recognizable ones along with ESPN as well as Yahoo also having their very personal specialized eSports regions. Addition web internet sites that you could not have in fact know represent Twitch in addition to supply some great web information. These are really Azubu as effectively as MLG thereby evaluate all of them out for some premium quality eSports streams.

 Such is really the growth of eSports that typical sports world wide web sites (our experts take advantage of ESPN over as a circumstances) are actually beginning to suit their info to eSports followers. This is really somewhat impressive and also really stresses to our provider merely how definitely featuring tasks dj are in fact taking the eSports company.

 The Success of LoL

 So where done LoL occur from?! Its reached the eSports world like a tidal wave on Indonesia. I individually have actually played it on and also off dued to the fact that beta in addition to have actually watched it bloom in to this wonderful entirely grown acceptable moba. It has really been actually no simple roadway for Riot. There has been for that reason many risks got to that Riot have really appeared to surely not only jump over, having said that capitalise on and also expand. Exactly how did they conduct it? Whats created LoL's growth?

 The really early problem for Riot was in fact verse HoN. This competition I assume has in fact stressed simply specifically just how successful the complimentary of cost to play tip might be. Yet absolutely complimentary to play is certainly not a brand-new tip in addition to its own important to consider how correctly Riot well balanced it in addition to paid for relevant information. The convenient material as well as also paid for out web content is really therefore carefully tuned that it dangles sufficient over laid-back players to maintain all of them going as properly as yearning for additional while devoted players generally shell out via the noes to get whatever they suppose they need to play their greatest.

 The various other part of the HoN competitors is that Riot marketed their activity mainly to end up being as approving of all kinds of players as doable, primarily the lay noob. You can find the idea responsible for HoN was to have an extreme competitive focus, perhaps in the order of just how sc2 was actually introduced. It additionally consequently enticed a lot of dota players.

 For the time being Riot was noob accepting, location based and also possessed their 'summoners code.' The the actual ramifications of this particular, imo, is relatively unsubstantial. Folks still imitate dicks along with the communities attitudes etc are actually instead exact same. However individuals receive it, they strongly believe that their activity has a various standpoint despite whether they execute what they show. Its personal equivalent to hipster national politics that proclaim "save the planet man" while advising republican politician.

 Difficulty decided to OWN their competitions. Perhaps the premier LoL tournament is what LoL on its own owns/promotes/runs ingame. Today this is probably something absolutely never noticed prior to in every various other video activity. Several video game designers to time release a task after that permitted the area maintained it. Blizzard are actually among minority producers in past that ever sustain a video game after release.

 Fortune is actually an essential variable as well noted here, in a wide array of locations. The extremely first is actually streaming went massive around this instant. sc2 went to and also got traits cracking on justin.tv > fool in addition to own3d. LoL quickly took this up and also Riot always kept up it. Situations were actually better for Riot to capitalise on reaching their planned reader in an entire brand-new method.

 Another element is actually specifically just how fracking aweasomley Riot obtained creating activity caster capability. Was this an inner choice? Due to the fact that it has really paid out handsomely for all of them. LoL by itself is really a technical/descriptive/ backward and forward wheels damp aspiration. To in other words, its personal an artists cash cow. Its like the cricket of eSports.

 The 2nd component of all the best has in fact been really South Korea and the switch originating from sc1 to sc2. It could not have actually been actually timed far better for Riot as well as I are going to be actually mesmerized to understand much more concerning merely how a lot Riot made an attempt to guarantee LoL in Asia. sc2 surfaced as well as the entire of South Korea were actually adhered in this particular starcraft hangover rut, it experienced like a big economic weather folding significant. sc2 merely will certainly not eliminate as well as likewise Koreans went looking for a new activity. That new computer game was really LoL.

 Therefore right here our staff are actually, LoL as well as riot are actually at the leading upper hand of competitive video games, on the precipice of an all brand-new time. They ruined HoN, have really damaged away from the successful game region and additionally are really today in to the eSports enhancing area. Just one trouble stands just before each of them as well as its own dota2.

 I'm brought in and additionally thrilled to notice exactly just how they handle this problem. The computer game motor is in fact the upcoming field of battle I believe. Presently LoL possesses a fantastic compatibility between being actually incredibly usable on all computers, yet calling for adequate to make folks acquire much better parts to handle it. So it entices the effective quantity of followers to activities.

[bigboobshaunt]

Have you ever made a top 10 list of vidya you like? I enjoy reading your insight into games and I think it would be interesting to see that list and your reasons for liking them.

What is your favorite… sibling? Body part??

OK like, technically I did already make one, on this very site a long time ago (technically I reviewed the 10 that made the cut, separately), but I’m not super crazy about my analysis skills then and many that were on that list just ended up changing with time - both because I played more games and because I just ended up realizing I liked different games better.

Given that I absolutely love running my horrible mouth for probably way too long, your ask made me want to do one again, which was already an idea somewhere on the back of my mind.

A couple of disclaimers before we actually get into it: 

No game is perfect. Games are made by human beings, who carry personal biases and intrinsic flaws. I love a ton of games and they are All flawed in different ways and amounts. If anyone tells you a piece of media is straight up perfect, you should run. I am not claiming any of the games on this list are perfect, and I am well aware of their issues. I have eyes and can read.

This is my list, the barometer for it is Me. If anyone reading this takes issue with picks (which is something I keep seeing happen and it still makes no sense) just simply don’t interact or make your own list. Not looking for arguments here.

These are not, of course, gonna be in-depth for all of the games, just what exactly makes me like them so much, which was what I was asked. There are only so many spoons an enby can have, after all.

I tried keeping it to one game per franchise (barring one arguable exception) because otherwise this would get much, much harder than it already was.

Additionally, I failed to round out 10 of them, only managing 9. I beat around the bush a LOT about what the 10th one was gonna be, but no matter what choice, I always felt like I was gonna betray myself in the end, so I have reserved a section for honorable mentions at the end. These are also not numerically ranked, because while I have a long-standing Favorite game of all time, which is the last one I’ll get to, the other ones occupy uncertain, ever-changing spots.

I’m currently sitting atop a good pile of games I’ve been meaning to check out for ages, and since 2 games I’ve played recently made this list, I think it’s prudent to also make a spot for games I plan on playing to completion soon.

Here you go, anon! (And anyone else who might be interested)

Stardew Valley:

This game is both the most recent release to be on this list and also the newest entry, since it literally hasn’t been a month since I’ve finished it, and that’s part of why I placed it first here.

Though saying I “finished it” is kind of a lie, and that in itself reveals the magic, even after the “soft ending” I just keep going back to it every day, because it’s a world that just puts me in such a relaxed state… I want to spend time in my farm with my bisexual husband every day and I’m already planning two other playthroughs even if my first one is already creeping up on 100 hours!

See also: I’m… not particularly into farming sims? I’ve tried getting into them before but I just found them a little inane and unfocused, if that makes sense, so if my love for a game can transcend even a genre itself, I’d say that’s a pretty well-executed game, generally speaking.

I just also find it super endearing that the entire game was made by one person. From the artwork, the writing and the soundtrack… it’s crystal clear that a LOT of love and genuine effort went into it, and that’s very heartwarming and gives me hope.

Speaking of love, it’s also the entry in this list that has the most queer representation in it, and that’s a huuuuge plus for me, as a nonbinary bisexual. It’s a pretty cute game, and it also still manages to juggle a lot of complex themes which are very personally relatable to me with surprising tact.

Pokémon Black and White:

This is going to date this post pretty hard, but I’m actually replaying this one riiiight now. It’s actually right next to me on the table. How quaint!

These have been my favorite main Pokémon games since their release, and it’s largely a case of me being awed by its story and characters when I didn’t expect to be. I also really appreciate the risk these ones took by excluding Pokémon of previous regions to post-game content, since it forces you to get to know the new ones (which are both plentiful and incredibly creative imho!!) as you make your team.

I really appreciate the moral themes explored in this game, and how they even toyed with core concepts that had been with the series from the word go, questioning the morality we were just supposed to accept from the onset of this franchise, to the point that I’ve seen many people feel guilty about opposing this game’s main antagonistic force, N (who’s one of my favorite characters in fiction, at that).

If we’re talking strictly about casts as collective, this one has my favorite, without a doubt, in terms of rivals, antagonists, gym leaders, and even other minor npcs. I liked how they managed to effectively tie in the gym leaders with the plot, which really should be done more often, and I feel the games suffer when that doesn’t happen (hey X and Y! what’s up). The character development a lot of characters get in the sequel (which while still good, I’m not as fond of) is also very good!

Am I also still salty about folks passing this one up and then posting misinformed, under-researched opinions about it, or even deriding the Pokémon designs? Maybe! …Yeah, okay, I am. I have vivid memories of forum posts at the time, okay?

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky:

So this was the exception I was hinting at before, in the disclaimers. It’s a spin-off that’s quite different than the main series in gameplay, so I’m counting it. I really couldn’t live with myself if I made a list of my fave games and didn’t put this one in it, seeing as it’s one of the most surefire ways to make me cry there ever were.

Much like the previous entry, this one is yet another case of the writing taking me entirely by surprise. It would have been very easy to make this spin-off a quick cash-in just using the Pokémon name, but hot damn does this one’s narrative deliver in good writing.

The previous Mystery Dungeon game was absolutely no slouch in touching very dark themes, but I do feel like those were executed both better and more uniquely in the “sequel.”

Every part of this game past the time travel is just lip-smacking, and although it starts slow, you can definitely see pleeeenty of foreshadowing nearly everywhere, which makes replaying this one very fun. It’s definitely also on my “Must replay at least once a year” list as well.

I think every game in this list has a great soundtrack, but this one takes the cake in utilizing it to heighten my emotions. I think everyone reading this who’s familiar with the game knows what I mean when I say that the farewell scene (and the track that plays in it) is completely heartwrenching and beautiful. Definitely one of my favorite scenes in gaming.

I’m also gonna give a shoutout to the relationship between the player and the partner here for being super endearing and genuinely touching, whether you see it as romantic or platonic.

Sidenote: I will have the liver of that one reviewer who stopped at Apple Woods and then said this game was nothing special.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask:

The prize for reused assets done well goes to…

I would follow that up with a joke, but I’m not gonna. This is legitimately a good thing imo. I think it’s incredible that this game was made in one year because they had to rush it, and there’s a lot you can learn about game design and creatively cutting corners by the way Termina was created, too.

The fact that this game came out as great as it did is almost a miracle, everything considered! I really like the setting here, it’s so delightfully weird, and it makes me care about the fate of even its incredibly minor characters, which makes their impending doom and that of Link’s even more harrowing.

I could see how the time-management aspect of it wouldn’t fly with a lot of people, and admittedly I’m most familiar with the 3DS remake, so I can’t comment too much on how it used to be originally, but I think it largely synergizes well with the story. This IS a world about to end, so it feels warranted in a way that could be tough to justify otherwise.

This game also does something very well with horror, both in-game and in backstory, which is that it doesn’t spell out every implication and event out for you, but it implies juuuust enough that your mind makes you even more anxious and paranoid, as nothing could ever be as scary as your mind actually makes it out to be, and toying with this is way better than outright throwing scary shit at you… even if this game does that as well, what with those mask transformations and whatnot! Jeez.

Undertale:

I don’t know how to start this entry without outright saying this in some shape or form, so it’ll have to do - I don’t care about the fandom. I just don’t. They’ll do whatever the fuck they want with those terrible AUs and character biases, and I’ll bemoan it as usual, but I actively refuse to stop loving Undertale as it is because of them.

This game is a brilliant commentary on video games as a whole and has a great metanarrative! Pretty brilliantly and excellently executed, to be honest. It’s also yet another game that makes me cry frequently, and also makes me introspect more than I already do.

The gameplay itself can be hit or miss for me, but I don’t feel like it hurts the strength of what is there in other areas like storytelling, worldbuilding, soundtrack and character writing. It’s a bit like pinching a very hearty, stout elephant!

The different endings offer very, very different experiences that ultimately contribute to this setting and its commentary as a whole, even if I’m too much of a goody-two-shoes to ever do the No Mercy Run, but I enjoy the fact that it exists AND that the game itself calls me out for not doing it myself but watching it on youtube. Boy, did I get read for filth with that one. 

It’s also a game that masterfully implements a very specific kind of humor that I can’t get enough of, and it does so while simultaneously developing its characters and giving each of them just enough time to shine. It’s a great cast, all in all. I just wish people would appreciate more than one of the characters.

Fire Emblem: Awakening:

Like the game that made me etch a symbol on my fucking flesh forever wouldn’t make the cut. Come on.

I feel like this is the game in the series that comes the closest to getting the balance of qualities I appreciate about gaming right. It could always be better in a multitude of areas, but there’s a reason why it’s one of my most replayed games in general. The more whimsical tone? Doesn’t actually come close to bothering me, at the end of the day.

A lot of people don’t really attempt to get to know the characters like, at all, and then go on to say really dumb shit about them on social media that I’ve been known to flip the fuck about, just a little. But there’s just so many little details and anecdotes about them that you can learn through supports that make them feel more familiar to me, personally, than other casts even within the same series.

This game is also the one responsible for getting me through a really hard time in real life, so of course I still hold it extremely dear while growing out my critical lenses about it simultaneously (Yes, this can in fact be done). It did something similar to the franchise, too, which is always incredible and noteworthy!

It’s also responsible for me being on this site, so you really can say that its impact on my life is the biggest on this list, and I’m… not at all ashamed of admitting that.

I’m pretty sure I’ve spent over 500 hours with this one, without even counting the hours spent re-reading supports and other convos for my writing. This is a lot of goddamn time, but I don’t necessarily want it back, and that’s a good thing.

Udobure owns my soul.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia:

If you were to suck out my brain into this fucked up jar thing and make it spit out my aesthetic biases in creative goop that creates games, two of them would come forth from this messy birth - Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia and Bloodborne.

Given that I’ve actually played OoE myself, it goes on the list! End overview.

…Now, that’s not exactly untrue, but I would be underselling the game if I left that as is, so I’ll clarify other aspects about it that I enjoy.

The main character, for one, she’s one of my favorite protagonists, and it makes me glad she seemed to be popular, but I’m not exactly thrilled with how what a lot of people (and the company) remember about her is fanservice. 

Her story really struck a chord with me. She’s been robbed of her own emotions and memories at the start of the game, and when she regains slivers of it throughout the game, they still feel foreign to her, but even when things look to be at their absolute lowest (REAL nice plot twist, by the by!) not even that will stop her from performing her duty.

Another thing I enjoyed about this one was the difficulty. Normally, I’m not one to prefer the higher settings just because, and even when I try them, I frequently find myself in the position of questioning the absolute bullshit some games pull to fake any actual difficulty, but it works here because it’s actually balanced really well with what you can do and what you have available to you, making you actually think strategically.

Another thing I liked about this title that makes it stand out from the rest of the series is the map variety, since Shanoa isn’t constrained to Castlevania for the entire run, the game has an actual opportunity to show different locales, which is nice, even if they sometimes get reused in a boring way with just a different paint job.

Bayonetta:

Thiiiiis one gets on here for the longest period of courtship, without a doubt. I’ve been wanting to play it ever since it came out, but only got around to it this very year, since it was finally released on a platform I owned.

Well, alright, that’s one of the reasons, the other reason it’s here? It’s fun as FUCK to play! Every movement you make, every action flows into another and the combos all feel very natural, easy, but not devoid of strategy or thinking behind them. Beyond the gameplay, the entire thing is so darn over-the-top in typical Platinum fashion. It’s a very enjoyable ride that never forgets video games are supposed to be fun, above all.

I absolutely adore Bayonetta herself as a character. She is so amazing and multi-faceted despite the fanservice packaging. She’s quipping like the best of them in one scene, like nothing ever affects her, and then also ripping your heart out later when she shows believable vulnerability. 

I would be remiss to not mention the soundtrack, since it’s one of my favorites in gaming (beaten only by the very next entry on here) and is also my go-to for writing; Between fun, catchy themes like Mysterious Destiny and Tomorrow Is Mine, reimaginings of older songs that imho are better than the originals, like Fly Me To The Moon and Moon RIver and utterly jaw-dropping boss themes like Blood and Darkness and The Greatest Jubilee, the OST conveys every beat of the action spectacularly and makes the experience even more memorable than it would have already been.

Bayojeanne forever.

Legend of Mana:

I swear I’m not trying to be hipster-y by having my favorite one also be the least popular one on the list (by a long shot) but it’s likely that the fact that content for it is so rare somewhat influenced how close this game is to my heart, in a way. I think it made me cherish it more.

You won’t find another game quite like this one, I don’t think. The setting is extremely unique in that… you build it. You have to decide where every area in the game goes and all. It’s actually implied you’re rebuilding this world after all the magic in it has gone to shit. It’s something I really like, for sure.

It definitely makes you work for its story, and though the gist of it is presented in a cumbersome way, being exposited in history tomes you can acquire and view in a specific location… even they don’t completely spell out the backstory of this world, but in a good way rather than the usual “we blatantly didn’t finish this” kind of way. It helps that there is a lot you can learn about it from environmental storytelling and interpretation, as well. I like that, being asked to think about symbolism and what it means.

Another good point about this game that’s difficult to articulate is that it manages to create an entire world with its own set of morals and philosophies that, if taken at face value, can sound completely alien to us, but the game immerses me so deep into its world, that I end up understanding what they mean by it anyways and sympathizing where I might have not. I think that helped shape my introspective nature a lot, in retrospect. 

 There’s also the fact that although the four biggest story arcs aren’t actually linked at all, they do still absolutely play into the same major theme… even if a lot of people end up missing what it is due to how obtuse this game can be (It’s love, my dudes. Love and its classical understandings are the theme that permeates this game’s setting).

It’s also absolutely impossible for me to talk about Legend of Mana without gushing about its art design. Even if the graphics themselves aren’t great, the way it implements backgrounds still completely floors me every time I play. It does really interesting things with perspective, which you don’t see often. Hell, even the aptly-named Junkyard is unreasonably gorgeous.

The soundtrack, then? It’s Yoko Shimomura at her absolute best. It goes all the way between upbeat melodies and soul-rending compositions and it’s just intensely distinctive. A special note goes to the song City of Flickering Destruction, which still makes my heart tighten even after so many years.

Whew uh, this got long… if you’ve read this far, congratulations! You certainly can put up with an untold amount of bullshit. I’m sorry this became so disorganized, but I also… really enjoy sharing these. Really, I do. I hope I at least piqued your interest with even one of these entries. That alone would make writing this worth it a thousand times over.

Honorable mentions: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, Earthbound, Bloodborne, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, Pokémon Emerald, Pokémon Sun, Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia,  The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Digimon World Dusk, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros., Super Smash Bros For 3DS, Silent Hill 3, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil: Revelations, Resident Evil: Revelations 2, Bravely Default, Night in the Woods, Shovel Knight, Zero Escape: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors, Okami, Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

To play list: Dragon Age: Origins, Transistor, Bastion, The Darkness II, Skyrim, Hollow Knight, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II,  Sonic Mania, Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 6, Alan Wake, Sonic Mania, Kingdom Hearts.