Before they were messing around with your gym equipment and wasting time in abandoned warehouses, Chicago-based alt rockers OK Go were doing something very pedestrian by their standards: Imploring some wanton audience to put things in perspective.
An Inexplicably Close Look at an Obscure Song (or AICLOS, for those of you acronymically inclined) has always been about exegesis of the trivial: Those nonsensical lyrics you just can't get out of your head from a ditty no one cares about. OK Go has rendered that mission difficult, as it is quite impossible to divorce the band from their ingenuity in crafting visual representations of their music that stun and get people talking. Don't believe me? Walk into the next bar you come across and ask the patrons about OK Go's debut album, and they'll sit there, mouths agape. Ask them about those guys that made that music video on a treadmill, and you'll get laughs and pats on the back.
OK Go has taken an era where the music video has been rendered pointless, thanks to MTV's constant marathon of teenagers doing awful things, and embraced the viral nature of today's video content. One could imagine them shooting themselves out of cannon at bullseye comprised of vials of infectious diseases, if only for a couple thousand more hits on YouTube.
"Get Over It" is the band's first official music video, and its nod to the band's future half avant-garde, half bored Americans at work audience is a super slow-motion ping pong game in which the melody halts entirely. Seriously. That's it. The rest of the time they're playing their instruments and having random objects thrown at them.
Like OK Go's other songs, the visual representation has nothing to do with the lyrical content of the song, which is ostensibly a rant to a friend of either gender for complaining about things that are beyond your control and to simply enjoy what pleasures you have in life. Whether one of those pleasures is a ping pong game or a faithless wife is something you'll have to decide for yourself.
Of course, without reading the lyrics and instead simply reading the title of the song, one could surmise that OK Go's been pulling a fast one on us for the last several years. Their nonsensical videos could simply be a commentary on how seriously the music industry was taking itself, though considering these guys shortly postdated things like this, it's hard to take that position seriously.
Maybe I shouldn't be reading too much into the music of a band that named itself after the thing you say while impatiently waiting in line for the waterslide.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Monday, June 24, 2013
An Inexplicably Close Look at an Obscure Song: "Summer" by Sum41
So I've been doing a bit of warm weather inventory here at the Shallow End, which invariably leads me to that list of oft-repeated tunes — the ditties you just can't escape — iTunes' collection of my "Most Played" tracks. The top 10 is nothing to write home about and encompasses about everything you'd expect. The 57 seconds of brilliance that is "Stu's Song" from "The Hangover." A melange of '90s One Hit Wonders, and the world's most perfect love song and best with the word "Wanna" in the title (eat it, Spice Girls): Hootie's "Only Wanna Be With You."
But #2 is an entry I simply can't get my head around. It's the eighth track off of the unfortunately titled "All Killer No Filler" by Canadian punk band Sum 41, whose only real claim to fame in 2013 is that their lead singer, Deryck (that's not a typo, apparently they enjoy consonants up North) Whibley's fling with Avril Lavigne. I have to give the boys credit, though. A Rockstar (video game company) sticker is has a conspicuous cameo in the video for "Motivation," one of the few angst-ridden tunes of my teens I still return to from time to time without wanting to travel back in time and punch a hole through my own skull.
As we all remember from early 2001, Sum 41 hit it big with "Fat Lip," that song you sang in your bathroom mirror because clever lyrics like "The doctor said my mom should have had an abortion" seemed incredibly edgy at the time. Sum 41 became the third most popular punk band with an unexplained number in their name that summer, and made the rounds of TRL and whatever subsequent noise VH1 was throwing on the air. All Killer No Filler went platinum, the Warped Tour was cool again and swimming pools everywhere emptied for impromptu skate competitions.
Why, then, did an unreleased track find its way onto my Most Played list?
Unlike Fat Lip, "Summer" is a bit of a conundrum lyrically. Gone are the references to trashing house parties and unsupervised El Camino binges, replaced with what reads like verbal overflow in which our narrator admits he's "awkwardly speaking with nothing to say."
One could argue the entire period of "punk pop" from 2000 through its fiery death in 2005 could be described this way. These were the years when Blink 182 was still writing about prank phone calls and some band that looked like Incubus felt compelled to tell us they weren't perfect. Yellowcard was signing about sunny California while trying to recreate Groundhog Day and the second incarnation of the Cure was trying to confuse teenagers with overwrought allusions and fancy adjectives.
What did it all mean? In the end, a whole lot of nothing. And that's what "Summer" is. It's a nice upbeat song that perfectly encapsulates the "whoa!" of everything speeding around you, and just as quickly you realize the time is up and it's been wasted. We find ourselves, as fans of this music, admitting vicariously to our former favorites: "The worlds not learning from you."
Or maybe I'm just looking a little too closely and being a little too harsh. Here's to summer, you fans of that late 90s/early 2000s punk sugar. The rush will end someday, but replay "Summer" and live in it for just a while longer.
But #2 is an entry I simply can't get my head around. It's the eighth track off of the unfortunately titled "All Killer No Filler" by Canadian punk band Sum 41, whose only real claim to fame in 2013 is that their lead singer, Deryck (that's not a typo, apparently they enjoy consonants up North) Whibley's fling with Avril Lavigne. I have to give the boys credit, though. A Rockstar (video game company) sticker is has a conspicuous cameo in the video for "Motivation," one of the few angst-ridden tunes of my teens I still return to from time to time without wanting to travel back in time and punch a hole through my own skull.
As we all remember from early 2001, Sum 41 hit it big with "Fat Lip," that song you sang in your bathroom mirror because clever lyrics like "The doctor said my mom should have had an abortion" seemed incredibly edgy at the time. Sum 41 became the third most popular punk band with an unexplained number in their name that summer, and made the rounds of TRL and whatever subsequent noise VH1 was throwing on the air. All Killer No Filler went platinum, the Warped Tour was cool again and swimming pools everywhere emptied for impromptu skate competitions.
Why, then, did an unreleased track find its way onto my Most Played list?
Unlike Fat Lip, "Summer" is a bit of a conundrum lyrically. Gone are the references to trashing house parties and unsupervised El Camino binges, replaced with what reads like verbal overflow in which our narrator admits he's "awkwardly speaking with nothing to say."
One could argue the entire period of "punk pop" from 2000 through its fiery death in 2005 could be described this way. These were the years when Blink 182 was still writing about prank phone calls and some band that looked like Incubus felt compelled to tell us they weren't perfect. Yellowcard was signing about sunny California while trying to recreate Groundhog Day and the second incarnation of the Cure was trying to confuse teenagers with overwrought allusions and fancy adjectives.
What did it all mean? In the end, a whole lot of nothing. And that's what "Summer" is. It's a nice upbeat song that perfectly encapsulates the "whoa!" of everything speeding around you, and just as quickly you realize the time is up and it's been wasted. We find ourselves, as fans of this music, admitting vicariously to our former favorites: "The worlds not learning from you."
Or maybe I'm just looking a little too closely and being a little too harsh. Here's to summer, you fans of that late 90s/early 2000s punk sugar. The rush will end someday, but replay "Summer" and live in it for just a while longer.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
A Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Movie Review: Man of Steel
There's a scene in Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan and David Goyer's reboot of the Superman film franchise where our hero, Clark (Henry Cavill) visits the Smallville parish. We've received the obligatory backstory at this point, with Kevin Costner and Russel Crowe performing valiantly as Jonathan Kent and Jor-El, respectively. The evil General Zod (Michael Shannon) has arrived on Earth and demands Clark turn himself in, ostensibly to save the human race.
As Clark and the bewildered minister discuss the moral quandary, Cavill's profile is framed by a stained-glass image of Christ in a not so subtle nod to Superman as savior. It's a brief moment in the film, certainly not a narrative thread one would call dominant in the film by any stretch of the imagination, but it's an interesting choice given the note Nolan and Goyer left their last superhero project, The Dark Knight Rises. It's as though the heroes of the DC Universe, on the screen, are both grappling in worlds that are extremely gritty but built ideals that existed way back when these characters were created. It's a dynamic that, in the Dark Knight trilogy, worked because of the inherent tragedy at the center of the story: the death of the Waynes, and Batman's righteous quest to carry on their ideal, within limits.
Superman has no limits. We know that early in the film, when Lara worries their son will be killed on Earth and Crowe's Jor-El deadpans, "How?" Therein lies the center problem with any Superman film, and the reason 2006's "Superman Returns" left many moviegoers with a bad taste in their mouths. How do you craft a villain for a hero with so few weaknesses?
Snyder and Co. do well with Shannon's Zod, and his accomplice Faora-Ul (Antje Traue). But Nolan and Goyer's mold just doesn't fit the Superman mold perfectly, and in grasping for a narrative that makes sense in this universe, there are some misfires (the church scene chief among them, because the idea of Superman as a martyr to human beings fails on a few levels).
That's not to say Man of Steel isn't a great film. It is, it just feels disjointed. The performances, particularly of Costner and Crowe, stand out. It's just too bad that the questions of patriarchy and the effect they have on Clark are never fully explored. In one scene, Clark bickers with Jonathan about his future. Within minutes of screen time, Jonathan is taken from Clark forever, and the emotions as a result feel...slightly off. That may be because the origin story is told through flashbacks, a narrative technique that works in this film but lacks the gravitas, say, of a "Batman Begins."
The film looks great, though. Snyder is the perfect choice to direct a film in which hand-to-hand combat becomes pivotally important, as it does in the film's final third. The director's signature camera slowdown works excellently here with the jerky, thrusting movements of Zod's foot soldiers, and the climactic battle between Zod and Clark in the skies above Metropolis will take your breath away, regardless of whether you watch it in two dimensions or three.
Much has been made of Cavill's lack of the humor that makes Superman relatable to the audience. It's a valid complaint, but also one with its origin in the source material and not the story that Nolan and Goyer are trying to tell. This is a story with weight — questions of humanity and how it might react to the larger question presented by Superman's presence: How do our notions of the universe (and even God) change when a man with such abilities appears on Earth? The smartest decision the team made was making Jonathan and Martha (Diane Lane) keenly aware of the effect this knowledge will have and using it as the source of their wish to shelter Clark from the world. It gives this tale a touch of humanity and reality that might have otherwise gone by the wayside with so many things blowing up.
I'm not sure where the Man of Steel franchise will go from here. Given the early box office returns, a sequel is inevitable. And while not perfect, Man of Steel sets the canvas on which to paint a number of very interesting stories (and potentially set up that Justice League movie, eh, Warner Bros.?). Let's just hope the next time out, that story is chosen from the start and remains focused during all of those aerial theatrics.
Verdict: 4/5 stars
As Clark and the bewildered minister discuss the moral quandary, Cavill's profile is framed by a stained-glass image of Christ in a not so subtle nod to Superman as savior. It's a brief moment in the film, certainly not a narrative thread one would call dominant in the film by any stretch of the imagination, but it's an interesting choice given the note Nolan and Goyer left their last superhero project, The Dark Knight Rises. It's as though the heroes of the DC Universe, on the screen, are both grappling in worlds that are extremely gritty but built ideals that existed way back when these characters were created. It's a dynamic that, in the Dark Knight trilogy, worked because of the inherent tragedy at the center of the story: the death of the Waynes, and Batman's righteous quest to carry on their ideal, within limits.
Superman has no limits. We know that early in the film, when Lara worries their son will be killed on Earth and Crowe's Jor-El deadpans, "How?" Therein lies the center problem with any Superman film, and the reason 2006's "Superman Returns" left many moviegoers with a bad taste in their mouths. How do you craft a villain for a hero with so few weaknesses?
Snyder and Co. do well with Shannon's Zod, and his accomplice Faora-Ul (Antje Traue). But Nolan and Goyer's mold just doesn't fit the Superman mold perfectly, and in grasping for a narrative that makes sense in this universe, there are some misfires (the church scene chief among them, because the idea of Superman as a martyr to human beings fails on a few levels).
That's not to say Man of Steel isn't a great film. It is, it just feels disjointed. The performances, particularly of Costner and Crowe, stand out. It's just too bad that the questions of patriarchy and the effect they have on Clark are never fully explored. In one scene, Clark bickers with Jonathan about his future. Within minutes of screen time, Jonathan is taken from Clark forever, and the emotions as a result feel...slightly off. That may be because the origin story is told through flashbacks, a narrative technique that works in this film but lacks the gravitas, say, of a "Batman Begins."
The film looks great, though. Snyder is the perfect choice to direct a film in which hand-to-hand combat becomes pivotally important, as it does in the film's final third. The director's signature camera slowdown works excellently here with the jerky, thrusting movements of Zod's foot soldiers, and the climactic battle between Zod and Clark in the skies above Metropolis will take your breath away, regardless of whether you watch it in two dimensions or three.
Much has been made of Cavill's lack of the humor that makes Superman relatable to the audience. It's a valid complaint, but also one with its origin in the source material and not the story that Nolan and Goyer are trying to tell. This is a story with weight — questions of humanity and how it might react to the larger question presented by Superman's presence: How do our notions of the universe (and even God) change when a man with such abilities appears on Earth? The smartest decision the team made was making Jonathan and Martha (Diane Lane) keenly aware of the effect this knowledge will have and using it as the source of their wish to shelter Clark from the world. It gives this tale a touch of humanity and reality that might have otherwise gone by the wayside with so many things blowing up.
I'm not sure where the Man of Steel franchise will go from here. Given the early box office returns, a sequel is inevitable. And while not perfect, Man of Steel sets the canvas on which to paint a number of very interesting stories (and potentially set up that Justice League movie, eh, Warner Bros.?). Let's just hope the next time out, that story is chosen from the start and remains focused during all of those aerial theatrics.
Verdict: 4/5 stars
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
The Shallow End Presents: An Inexplicably Close Look at an Obscure Song, Louis XIV "Finding Out True Love is Blind"
Pop music exists solely for the purpose of giving you that sugar rush, fizzy feeling only soda bubbles can provide. Of course, on closer inspection, the songs in this genre tend toward the flat, syrupy nonsense that signals it's time to crack open another 2-liter. Luckily, the Shallow End is here to lap up the dregs.
For all their differences, the two Louis XIV's that will go down in my history book (yeah, I'm writing one — professional baseball ends in 1985) actually have a lot in common. Sure, there's the discrepancy between their periods of relevance. The French monarch was in power for 72 years, while the San Diego-based rockers were a blip on the modern rock dial for roughly 72 hours. The king waged a war against Protestants, while the band focused their efforts on good musical taste (zing!). The king rested his head at the luxurious Palace of Versailles, while I can only suspect the band snoozed on a tour bus amid a group of squealing groupies. I mean, that's what Almost Famous taught me.
But perhaps the greatest congruency between the two is their inherent treatment of women as objects. This has become a central theme of the Inexplicably Close Look in our examinations so far, and in fact thinking about Louis XIV's semi-hit from 2005, "Finding Out True Love is Blind," I saw a clear cultural path from pop songs of days past.
The song provided some controversy when, in 2005, mega-school Hoover High in Alabama (that place where MTV filmed their high school football tell-all) banned the quartet from playing a gig under their roof. The reason? Promoting hedonism and rowdiness, with more than a hint of racism in the lyrics. Shallow End reports, you decide:
Ah chocolate girl, well you're looking like something I want
Ah and your little Asian friend well, well she can come if she wants
I want all the self conscious girls who try to hide who they are with makeup
You know it’s the girl with a frown with the tight pants I really want to shake up
OK, OK, ee cummings this is not. Let's also put aside the mildly amusing fact that a man wearing eyeshadow is crooning about picking a woman out of a glorified police lineup (everyone has their moment of "The Cure" weakness, I suppose). Is it racist?
Our dramatic voice in this song is soliciting a "chocolate girl." We can assume he doesn't mean the Hershey variety. And he clearly wants to friend-zone the "little Asian friend," perhaps she's coming along to carry the long train of garments Louis XIV was known to wear. There may be nothing sexual at all about the ditty. The last two lines clearly suggest this guy has something other than skin color on his mind, though. And that's getting with women who are insecure about themselves and perhaps one who will put up a bit of a fight in the process. Racist? Probably not. Morally reprehensible? You decide that one.
Really, we shouldn't fault Louis XIV though. I mean, "Finding Out True Love is Blind" is just an extension of the path we've been on since the Beach Boys' "California Girls" to Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5." Yes, I did just mention those...shudder...artists in the same sentence (Bega, you owe me a beer for that last remark — that is, if those royalty checks from 1999 are still rolling in. If not, I'll take a rain check). For a band so keen on invoking history, it's only fair we afford them the misogynistic context they so rightfully deserve.
(Let's be fair to the Beach Boys, who were singing in a different time and place in our culture. But if one need see evidence of how far the "California Girls" conceit can be taken to the male-dominated extreme in our current culture of sexual dynamics, look — if you dare — no further than David Lee Roth's update.)
Let's not carry this too far, though. I mean, Louis XIV the band is merely singing to a generation of girls who are being told that their idols objectify the female form, while Louis XIV the man actually seduced mistresses in addition to his wife, who bore him six children. In between all that purging the continent of Protestants stuff and setting in place the contempt of authority that ultimately spurred the French Revolution.
The affront on your eardrums (and your liberal-minded tendencies) will have to make the call about which was more detrimental to mankind. Or maybe you'd rather spend time thinking about something more productive, like I should have been doing.
For all their differences, the two Louis XIV's that will go down in my history book (yeah, I'm writing one — professional baseball ends in 1985) actually have a lot in common. Sure, there's the discrepancy between their periods of relevance. The French monarch was in power for 72 years, while the San Diego-based rockers were a blip on the modern rock dial for roughly 72 hours. The king waged a war against Protestants, while the band focused their efforts on good musical taste (zing!). The king rested his head at the luxurious Palace of Versailles, while I can only suspect the band snoozed on a tour bus amid a group of squealing groupies. I mean, that's what Almost Famous taught me.
But perhaps the greatest congruency between the two is their inherent treatment of women as objects. This has become a central theme of the Inexplicably Close Look in our examinations so far, and in fact thinking about Louis XIV's semi-hit from 2005, "Finding Out True Love is Blind," I saw a clear cultural path from pop songs of days past.
The song provided some controversy when, in 2005, mega-school Hoover High in Alabama (that place where MTV filmed their high school football tell-all) banned the quartet from playing a gig under their roof. The reason? Promoting hedonism and rowdiness, with more than a hint of racism in the lyrics. Shallow End reports, you decide:
Ah chocolate girl, well you're looking like something I want
Ah and your little Asian friend well, well she can come if she wants
I want all the self conscious girls who try to hide who they are with makeup
You know it’s the girl with a frown with the tight pants I really want to shake up
OK, OK, ee cummings this is not. Let's also put aside the mildly amusing fact that a man wearing eyeshadow is crooning about picking a woman out of a glorified police lineup (everyone has their moment of "The Cure" weakness, I suppose). Is it racist?
Our dramatic voice in this song is soliciting a "chocolate girl." We can assume he doesn't mean the Hershey variety. And he clearly wants to friend-zone the "little Asian friend," perhaps she's coming along to carry the long train of garments Louis XIV was known to wear. There may be nothing sexual at all about the ditty. The last two lines clearly suggest this guy has something other than skin color on his mind, though. And that's getting with women who are insecure about themselves and perhaps one who will put up a bit of a fight in the process. Racist? Probably not. Morally reprehensible? You decide that one.
Really, we shouldn't fault Louis XIV though. I mean, "Finding Out True Love is Blind" is just an extension of the path we've been on since the Beach Boys' "California Girls" to Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5." Yes, I did just mention those...shudder...artists in the same sentence (Bega, you owe me a beer for that last remark — that is, if those royalty checks from 1999 are still rolling in. If not, I'll take a rain check). For a band so keen on invoking history, it's only fair we afford them the misogynistic context they so rightfully deserve.
(Let's be fair to the Beach Boys, who were singing in a different time and place in our culture. But if one need see evidence of how far the "California Girls" conceit can be taken to the male-dominated extreme in our current culture of sexual dynamics, look — if you dare — no further than David Lee Roth's update.)
Let's not carry this too far, though. I mean, Louis XIV the band is merely singing to a generation of girls who are being told that their idols objectify the female form, while Louis XIV the man actually seduced mistresses in addition to his wife, who bore him six children. In between all that purging the continent of Protestants stuff and setting in place the contempt of authority that ultimately spurred the French Revolution.
The affront on your eardrums (and your liberal-minded tendencies) will have to make the call about which was more detrimental to mankind. Or maybe you'd rather spend time thinking about something more productive, like I should have been doing.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Virtual Dork: Bioshock Infinite Review
"The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is."
-Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
Reviewing Bioshock Infinite as a game is more than a little difficult for me. The feeling of not merely playing, but experiencing, the first Bioshock is much stronger in this spiritual sequel. There is a well-polished, brilliantly conceived and balanced shooter at the core of the Bioshock Infinite experience. But to simply dwell upon the game's genius mechanics would be a disservice to the beautiful piece of art (that's right, Roger Ebert, art) that Irrational Games has created.
Infinite begins with a very familiar scene for franchise devotees. You're in a boat, rowing toward a lighthouse. All you know is contained in a box of effects: your name: Booker DeWitt, a pistol, a photograph of a girl, a key and a few handwritten notes. On one of them: Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt. Devilish in its simplicity, the note kicks off a journey into the clouds that mimics the bathysphere spectacle that kicked off the original Bioshock.
From those few opening moments, Infinite becomes an increasingly unnerving exploration of that city — Columbia — and an early 1900s xenophobic patriotism morphed by Christian values that struck me as much more interesting than Andrew Ryan's Ayn Randian utilitarian Rapture. From the opening moments, as you're baptized among cloaked devotees in a brilliantly lit sequence initiating you into the city, to the final revelation of Zachary Comstock's (the zealot and main antagonist — or so it seems — of this installment in the series) perversion of religion to suit his lofty, utopian aims, Booker's journey through Columbia is one with horrifying and unsettling cruelty toward man under the guise of ideology and zealotry that never really lets go.
Your charge, as Booker, is to find Elizabeth, the girl locked in the tower. You do so early in the game, after inadvertently alerting the entire city —which wants to protect Elizabeth — to your presence. This is where the fighting comes in. Not only will you battle citizens of Columbia, who are not intoxicated by powers like they were in Bioshock but rather sane human beings driven by devotion either for or against Comstock, but also giant machine enemies known as Heavies and Elizabeth's protector, a massive mechanical bird controlled by Comstock himself.
The resulting escape mission will take you through many heart-pumping sequences throughout Columbia. Gameplay is cosmetically similar to Bioshock, though the names of the powers and perks have changed. Instead of plasmids, you have vigors, which range from being able to fire a flock of murderous crows from your hands to traditional electric charges and fireballs. I found Bucking Bronco, a new vigor that allows you to throw your enemies into a daze mid-air, extremely effective with conventional weaponry, particularly the shotgun. Once Elizabeth joins your side, you have access to things called "tears," in which she opens up portals to other dimensions to bring offensive and defensive objects into battle.
It's all very familiar territory, despite the changes. The aerial aspects of combat are improved greatly by the presence of a Skyline, a device that allows you to travel around Columbia on steel pathways that crisscross the city. There are also freight hooks throughout that you can attach to with your Sky Hook, granting you access to higher ground for strategic combat situations and secret areas where money, ammo and other secret goodies await. The Sky Hook also enables gruesome melee kills. This is not a game for youngsters.
The difficulty of Bioshock Infinite is also alleviated by Elizabeth's ability to revive you throughout. Once you've beaten the game, the devilishly difficult "1999" mode becomes available, in which respawns are limited and ammo is harder to come by. I haven't had a chance to fire it up yet, but the game ratchets up in difficulty significantly in the second act even on Medium. It will be an interesting challenge that I'm impatiently looking forward to.
All of this discussion of Infinite as a game is extremely difficult for me, though, as I said at the outset of this review. Because, to be perfectly honest, the gameplay isn't what stuck with me. This is a better-than-average shooter with an extremely high amount of polish, don't get me wrong. But the gun and vigor play wasn't what kept me riveted to the screen, it was the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth, and the little clues that something is amiss in the world you're seeing that kept my fingers from powering down the Xbox.
Without giving too much away, the final 20 minutes or so of the "game" will take you back to Rapture and cause you to question your motives throughout. One reviewer noted Infinite has no "Would you kindly?" moment, as the original Bioshock did. But the reason for that is complicated. The existence of multiple realities, and an unreliable narrator who knows just as much as you do, makes that scenario — groundbreaking in videogames just 5 years ago — seem obsolete. By the time the credits roll on Infinite, you'll have realized you were never playing the game you thought you were. And that makes another playthrough seem cheap, despite how fun the game is to play and the promise of missed achievements.
The game, in other words, is secondary to story. Some people will play Infinite simply because it is one of the prettiest and most functional shooters out there. Indeed, the thrill of landing a perfect headshot on a Skyline, then zooming down to light some fools on fire and stick a Sky Hook in their cranium is one that will continuously take your breath away. But the story crafted by Ken Levine and Irrational is something that transcends simply one kind of media, and quite frankly renders the intricate plot of the original Bioshock, which earned universal praise just a few short years ago, obsolete and trite by comparison.
Which is the only real criticism I can come up with for the game — I honestly have no idea how you can top, in terms of storytelling, the final act of Infinite (of course, I thought the same after Andrew Ryan got the golf club to the skull in the first Bioshock). It will make you question why you've become so complacent with video games as a medium. As mature gamers, we should be demanding experiences that challenge us and the traditional roles they play in our lives — escapism, mindless cathartic release and sensory stimulation. Infinite turns all those tropes on their heads, in a brilliant story distilling great works of fiction in all mediums.
Do not miss this experience. And stay for the gameplay.
Rating: 5/5 stars
-Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
Reviewing Bioshock Infinite as a game is more than a little difficult for me. The feeling of not merely playing, but experiencing, the first Bioshock is much stronger in this spiritual sequel. There is a well-polished, brilliantly conceived and balanced shooter at the core of the Bioshock Infinite experience. But to simply dwell upon the game's genius mechanics would be a disservice to the beautiful piece of art (that's right, Roger Ebert, art) that Irrational Games has created.
Infinite begins with a very familiar scene for franchise devotees. You're in a boat, rowing toward a lighthouse. All you know is contained in a box of effects: your name: Booker DeWitt, a pistol, a photograph of a girl, a key and a few handwritten notes. On one of them: Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt. Devilish in its simplicity, the note kicks off a journey into the clouds that mimics the bathysphere spectacle that kicked off the original Bioshock.
Look familiar?
From those few opening moments, Infinite becomes an increasingly unnerving exploration of that city — Columbia — and an early 1900s xenophobic patriotism morphed by Christian values that struck me as much more interesting than Andrew Ryan's Ayn Randian utilitarian Rapture. From the opening moments, as you're baptized among cloaked devotees in a brilliantly lit sequence initiating you into the city, to the final revelation of Zachary Comstock's (the zealot and main antagonist — or so it seems — of this installment in the series) perversion of religion to suit his lofty, utopian aims, Booker's journey through Columbia is one with horrifying and unsettling cruelty toward man under the guise of ideology and zealotry that never really lets go.
Your charge, as Booker, is to find Elizabeth, the girl locked in the tower. You do so early in the game, after inadvertently alerting the entire city —which wants to protect Elizabeth — to your presence. This is where the fighting comes in. Not only will you battle citizens of Columbia, who are not intoxicated by powers like they were in Bioshock but rather sane human beings driven by devotion either for or against Comstock, but also giant machine enemies known as Heavies and Elizabeth's protector, a massive mechanical bird controlled by Comstock himself.
The resulting escape mission will take you through many heart-pumping sequences throughout Columbia. Gameplay is cosmetically similar to Bioshock, though the names of the powers and perks have changed. Instead of plasmids, you have vigors, which range from being able to fire a flock of murderous crows from your hands to traditional electric charges and fireballs. I found Bucking Bronco, a new vigor that allows you to throw your enemies into a daze mid-air, extremely effective with conventional weaponry, particularly the shotgun. Once Elizabeth joins your side, you have access to things called "tears," in which she opens up portals to other dimensions to bring offensive and defensive objects into battle.
It's all very familiar territory, despite the changes. The aerial aspects of combat are improved greatly by the presence of a Skyline, a device that allows you to travel around Columbia on steel pathways that crisscross the city. There are also freight hooks throughout that you can attach to with your Sky Hook, granting you access to higher ground for strategic combat situations and secret areas where money, ammo and other secret goodies await. The Sky Hook also enables gruesome melee kills. This is not a game for youngsters.
The difficulty of Bioshock Infinite is also alleviated by Elizabeth's ability to revive you throughout. Once you've beaten the game, the devilishly difficult "1999" mode becomes available, in which respawns are limited and ammo is harder to come by. I haven't had a chance to fire it up yet, but the game ratchets up in difficulty significantly in the second act even on Medium. It will be an interesting challenge that I'm impatiently looking forward to.
All of this discussion of Infinite as a game is extremely difficult for me, though, as I said at the outset of this review. Because, to be perfectly honest, the gameplay isn't what stuck with me. This is a better-than-average shooter with an extremely high amount of polish, don't get me wrong. But the gun and vigor play wasn't what kept me riveted to the screen, it was the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth, and the little clues that something is amiss in the world you're seeing that kept my fingers from powering down the Xbox.
Without giving too much away, the final 20 minutes or so of the "game" will take you back to Rapture and cause you to question your motives throughout. One reviewer noted Infinite has no "Would you kindly?" moment, as the original Bioshock did. But the reason for that is complicated. The existence of multiple realities, and an unreliable narrator who knows just as much as you do, makes that scenario — groundbreaking in videogames just 5 years ago — seem obsolete. By the time the credits roll on Infinite, you'll have realized you were never playing the game you thought you were. And that makes another playthrough seem cheap, despite how fun the game is to play and the promise of missed achievements.
The game, in other words, is secondary to story. Some people will play Infinite simply because it is one of the prettiest and most functional shooters out there. Indeed, the thrill of landing a perfect headshot on a Skyline, then zooming down to light some fools on fire and stick a Sky Hook in their cranium is one that will continuously take your breath away. But the story crafted by Ken Levine and Irrational is something that transcends simply one kind of media, and quite frankly renders the intricate plot of the original Bioshock, which earned universal praise just a few short years ago, obsolete and trite by comparison.
Which is the only real criticism I can come up with for the game — I honestly have no idea how you can top, in terms of storytelling, the final act of Infinite (of course, I thought the same after Andrew Ryan got the golf club to the skull in the first Bioshock). It will make you question why you've become so complacent with video games as a medium. As mature gamers, we should be demanding experiences that challenge us and the traditional roles they play in our lives — escapism, mindless cathartic release and sensory stimulation. Infinite turns all those tropes on their heads, in a brilliant story distilling great works of fiction in all mediums.
Do not miss this experience. And stay for the gameplay.
Rating: 5/5 stars
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
An Inexplicably Close Look at an Obscure Song: Green Day "Minority"
Ah, the year 2000. How much simpler you were. The world was still basking in the post-we-didn't-get-blow-to-smithereens-by-Y2K glow. Grand Theft Auto was still in two dimensions. And Green Day was still making music they didn't beat you upside the head with their political beliefs (and Billie Jo was wearing way less eye makeup).
Sure, other acts would follow Green Day's plunge into political messaging. The Hives. Bright Eyes. Hell, even R.E.M. got in on the George Bush bashing in the mid-2000s. Apparently, pretending you majored in political science became a badge of honor for popular acts of rock and or roll.
It doesn't change the fact that 2000's "Minority," about the much more pure and unadulterated punk message of rebellion, proved Green Day's biggest hit of the decade.
This is classic, zit-popping, unrestrained and misdirected rebellion at its finest. All it's missing from the early Green Days (see what I did there?) is a vaguely worded reference to masturbation. I mean, sure, you could argue there's some reference in there to the actual Moral Majority, but compared to later lyrics from Green Day, I think it's safe to say "Minority" can only be described as benign.
In many ways, "Minority" actually celebrates the idea of self-autonomy and the American experience. After all, would we even be a united democratic republic if our forefathers hadn't chosen to shout, "A free-for-all/F--k 'em all!" to the British? I mean, can't you hear the democratic music in that verse?
In all seriousness, James Madison warned in Federalist 10 "that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." Clearly, the young gentleman and voice of Green Day's campy ode to all things contrarian is taking Madison's call against faction to heart. One can only suppose, from the concerns of Green Day in their early hits and music videos, that such an anthem is meant to be a rallying cry for mental health care parity and universal access to life and health insurance, in spite of partisan-inspired arguments against such policies.
So here's a salute to marching out of time, Green Day. We here at Shallow End hope you're marching to your own beat now ... more in step with Dookie. That album was awesome.
Sure, other acts would follow Green Day's plunge into political messaging. The Hives. Bright Eyes. Hell, even R.E.M. got in on the George Bush bashing in the mid-2000s. Apparently, pretending you majored in political science became a badge of honor for popular acts of rock and or roll.
It doesn't change the fact that 2000's "Minority," about the much more pure and unadulterated punk message of rebellion, proved Green Day's biggest hit of the decade.
This is classic, zit-popping, unrestrained and misdirected rebellion at its finest. All it's missing from the early Green Days (see what I did there?) is a vaguely worded reference to masturbation. I mean, sure, you could argue there's some reference in there to the actual Moral Majority, but compared to later lyrics from Green Day, I think it's safe to say "Minority" can only be described as benign.
In many ways, "Minority" actually celebrates the idea of self-autonomy and the American experience. After all, would we even be a united democratic republic if our forefathers hadn't chosen to shout, "A free-for-all/F--k 'em all!" to the British? I mean, can't you hear the democratic music in that verse?
In all seriousness, James Madison warned in Federalist 10 "that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." Clearly, the young gentleman and voice of Green Day's campy ode to all things contrarian is taking Madison's call against faction to heart. One can only suppose, from the concerns of Green Day in their early hits and music videos, that such an anthem is meant to be a rallying cry for mental health care parity and universal access to life and health insurance, in spite of partisan-inspired arguments against such policies.
So here's a salute to marching out of time, Green Day. We here at Shallow End hope you're marching to your own beat now ... more in step with Dookie. That album was awesome.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
The best of everything 2012
They've done it.
The New Yorker, in a maddening meta move bound to get your Inception-sense tingling, released a list of the greatest lists on Wednesday. Judging by its placement in Shouts & Murmurs, I'm going to give the magazine the benefit of the doubt and assume this is a wonderfully satirical look at our obsession with creating lists at the end of the year. And not an exercise in forcing my brain to do seven backflips in a row.
Exponentially confounding indices aside, it certainly has been a great year for — well, pretty much everything. I mean, we're still standing here after December 21, so we must've done something right, right? Even though I have several pop culture adventures yet to go on before the clock strikes midnight next Tuesday, I've compiled my favorite things of the past 361 days. Don't go looking under your chair though, Oprah fans. There's no copy of "The Dark Knight Rises" waiting for you.
Favorite news item:
Higgs Boson found
It wasn't the sexiest story of the year. I mean, what could be sexy about a bunch of scientists in a Swiss bunker pursuing the so-called "God particle" by shooting lasers at each other. Actually, that does sound really cool, when you stop to think about it...
What really made the story interesting and my favorite of the year, though, was the attempts by lay journalists to explain what a Higgs boson was. Some failed miserably — and hilariously.
It was also nice to see those billions of dollars actually produce something. Even if it only lasted as long as it takes that impulse of dread to shoot up your spine when you see the bill for the project and the number of countries now in crippling economic straits. But enough of that, this is a best of list!
Favorite read:
"Snow Fall" by the New York Times' John Branch
It's not a story. It's not an infographic. It's not a photo gallery, nor is it a video or a GIS-powered map.
It's all of those things.
The New York Times, as only it can, combines brilliant narrative storytelling with all the bells and whistles the semantic web has to offer, and plops it down for readers, viewers, clickers to enjoy. It's a fascinating piece that is not only interesting in its own right, but shows the direction journalism is likely to go on the semantic web in a way only the most prestigious name in worldwide journalism could pull off.
And audiences responded. More than 3.5 million people have viewed the package as of this writing.
Favorite game:
You Don't Know Jack (Facebook)
There were so many triple-A titles on consoles this year. Black Ops 2. Halo 4. Assassin's Creed 3. Mass Effect 3. New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
And they all got outclassed by a free-to-play, Flash-based game.
You Don't Know Jack has always been a pleasure of mine. I love when the worlds of high and pop culture collide to create a serendipitous mess that questions you whether an item is a piece of Japanese origami or a position in the Kama Sutra. Putting it on Facebook, with new episodes to play every day, was just like sprinkling addictive drugs on a Chicago deep-dish style pizza.
The addition of themed episodes and iPod/Pad functionality only means good things in the coming year.
Favorite sports moment:
Kansas City fans boo Robinson Cano in 2012 Home Run Derby
WAAAAAH!
Here's why Kansas City fans booing Cano was awesome and not classless, as many East Coast-based sportswriters would have you believe:
1. Kansas City fans showed that, even in the midst of another losing season, they still cared about the game of baseball enough to make asses out of themselves on national TV.
2. A Yankee player was subjected to harsh criticism. You know, something they all experience daily from the New York media. Except it was Midwest-flavored.
3. Cano proceeded to go oh-fer after the rousing round of jeering.
Say what you will about the supposed importance of "tact" and "class" in a competition where the goal is to hit a ball over a fence, and that previous champions who were cheered breathlessly were actually steroid-popping cheaters. Watching Cano get what was coming to him was the highlight of an otherwise ho-hum All Star weekend.
Favorite movie:
Moonrise Kingdom
I know, I know. It's really difficult for me to conceive a world where I don't put The Dark Knight Rises or The Avengers at the top of the list. And, likely, 2012 will be remembered as one of the peak years for the comic book renaissance that has been in full gear for the better part of a decade.
But Wes Anderson outclassed every other title released in 2012, with perhaps his most precocious and accessible film to date, populated with a brilliantly familiar ensemble cast, a fairy-tale like visual style, and another hauntingly beautiful soundtrack. Well done, Mr. Anderson. Well done.
Favorite album:
Fun. "Some Nights"
This was perhaps my toughest choice. I really wanted to give it to Mumford's spirited release "Babel," which follows up "Sigh No More" fearlessly with a bevy of tracks that are just as memorable. Ben Folds Five also released a wonderful comeback album, "The Sound of the Life and the Mind," that made it sound like 1998 in my car all over again.
But Fun hit a level of enthusiasm, catchiness, and lyrical genius that just doesn't let go for the entirety of the album. While the tremendously popular "We Are Young" made my mind dizzy by mid-March with its inundation of every popular radio station and PA system in my general vicinity, the quality of the rest of the album more than makes up for being subjected to replay hell.
Favorite show:
"Boardwalk Empire"
While I didn't love the finale, it's clear Boardwalk Empire, after the death of one of its major characters in Season 2, rebounded with a series-defining season over the past three months. Showrunner Terence Winter took Nucky Thompson to places it seemed inconceivable he'd go three years ago when the show premiered. There was an epic weight lent to the events onscreen, and the decision to crucially break with reality in certain instances left the impression the show could pivot in a heartbeat to unexpected and horrifying territory.
2012 also saw the appropriate end of House, a breathtaking freshman effort for The Newsroom, a lackluster calendar year for How I Met Your Mother, the autumn absence of Psych and a slew of...hmm...reality shows. So, let's not overstep the significance of my favoritism toward Boardwalk.
The New Yorker, in a maddening meta move bound to get your Inception-sense tingling, released a list of the greatest lists on Wednesday. Judging by its placement in Shouts & Murmurs, I'm going to give the magazine the benefit of the doubt and assume this is a wonderfully satirical look at our obsession with creating lists at the end of the year. And not an exercise in forcing my brain to do seven backflips in a row.
Exponentially confounding indices aside, it certainly has been a great year for — well, pretty much everything. I mean, we're still standing here after December 21, so we must've done something right, right? Even though I have several pop culture adventures yet to go on before the clock strikes midnight next Tuesday, I've compiled my favorite things of the past 361 days. Don't go looking under your chair though, Oprah fans. There's no copy of "The Dark Knight Rises" waiting for you.
Favorite news item:
Higgs Boson found
It wasn't the sexiest story of the year. I mean, what could be sexy about a bunch of scientists in a Swiss bunker pursuing the so-called "God particle" by shooting lasers at each other. Actually, that does sound really cool, when you stop to think about it...
What really made the story interesting and my favorite of the year, though, was the attempts by lay journalists to explain what a Higgs boson was. Some failed miserably — and hilariously.
It was also nice to see those billions of dollars actually produce something. Even if it only lasted as long as it takes that impulse of dread to shoot up your spine when you see the bill for the project and the number of countries now in crippling economic straits. But enough of that, this is a best of list!
Favorite read:
"Snow Fall" by the New York Times' John Branch
It's not a story. It's not an infographic. It's not a photo gallery, nor is it a video or a GIS-powered map.
It's all of those things.
The New York Times, as only it can, combines brilliant narrative storytelling with all the bells and whistles the semantic web has to offer, and plops it down for readers, viewers, clickers to enjoy. It's a fascinating piece that is not only interesting in its own right, but shows the direction journalism is likely to go on the semantic web in a way only the most prestigious name in worldwide journalism could pull off.
And audiences responded. More than 3.5 million people have viewed the package as of this writing.
Favorite game:
You Don't Know Jack (Facebook)
There were so many triple-A titles on consoles this year. Black Ops 2. Halo 4. Assassin's Creed 3. Mass Effect 3. New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
And they all got outclassed by a free-to-play, Flash-based game.
You Don't Know Jack has always been a pleasure of mine. I love when the worlds of high and pop culture collide to create a serendipitous mess that questions you whether an item is a piece of Japanese origami or a position in the Kama Sutra. Putting it on Facebook, with new episodes to play every day, was just like sprinkling addictive drugs on a Chicago deep-dish style pizza.
The addition of themed episodes and iPod/Pad functionality only means good things in the coming year.
Favorite sports moment:
Kansas City fans boo Robinson Cano in 2012 Home Run Derby
WAAAAAH!
Here's why Kansas City fans booing Cano was awesome and not classless, as many East Coast-based sportswriters would have you believe:
1. Kansas City fans showed that, even in the midst of another losing season, they still cared about the game of baseball enough to make asses out of themselves on national TV.
2. A Yankee player was subjected to harsh criticism. You know, something they all experience daily from the New York media. Except it was Midwest-flavored.
3. Cano proceeded to go oh-fer after the rousing round of jeering.
Say what you will about the supposed importance of "tact" and "class" in a competition where the goal is to hit a ball over a fence, and that previous champions who were cheered breathlessly were actually steroid-popping cheaters. Watching Cano get what was coming to him was the highlight of an otherwise ho-hum All Star weekend.
Favorite movie:
Moonrise Kingdom
I know, I know. It's really difficult for me to conceive a world where I don't put The Dark Knight Rises or The Avengers at the top of the list. And, likely, 2012 will be remembered as one of the peak years for the comic book renaissance that has been in full gear for the better part of a decade.
But Wes Anderson outclassed every other title released in 2012, with perhaps his most precocious and accessible film to date, populated with a brilliantly familiar ensemble cast, a fairy-tale like visual style, and another hauntingly beautiful soundtrack. Well done, Mr. Anderson. Well done.
Favorite album:
Fun. "Some Nights"
This was perhaps my toughest choice. I really wanted to give it to Mumford's spirited release "Babel," which follows up "Sigh No More" fearlessly with a bevy of tracks that are just as memorable. Ben Folds Five also released a wonderful comeback album, "The Sound of the Life and the Mind," that made it sound like 1998 in my car all over again.
But Fun hit a level of enthusiasm, catchiness, and lyrical genius that just doesn't let go for the entirety of the album. While the tremendously popular "We Are Young" made my mind dizzy by mid-March with its inundation of every popular radio station and PA system in my general vicinity, the quality of the rest of the album more than makes up for being subjected to replay hell.
Favorite show:
"Boardwalk Empire"
While I didn't love the finale, it's clear Boardwalk Empire, after the death of one of its major characters in Season 2, rebounded with a series-defining season over the past three months. Showrunner Terence Winter took Nucky Thompson to places it seemed inconceivable he'd go three years ago when the show premiered. There was an epic weight lent to the events onscreen, and the decision to crucially break with reality in certain instances left the impression the show could pivot in a heartbeat to unexpected and horrifying territory.
2012 also saw the appropriate end of House, a breathtaking freshman effort for The Newsroom, a lackluster calendar year for How I Met Your Mother, the autumn absence of Psych and a slew of...hmm...reality shows. So, let's not overstep the significance of my favoritism toward Boardwalk.
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