Film Review: Gangster Squad (dir by Ruben Fleischer)

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Do you remember Gangster Squad?

This film, which tells the story of hard-boiled cops and psychotic gangsters in 1940s Los Angeles, was originally meant to be released in September of 2012 but the release date was moved back because the film originally featured a gun battle in a movie theater. After the real-life movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, that scene was reshot and the release of Gangster Squad was delayed until January of this year. The critics absolutely hated it, audiences stayed away, and Gangster Squad was the first high-profile flop of 2013.

I was among those who ignored the film when it was first playing at theaters. After all, it was January and I was more interested in following the Oscar race than going to see a film that, by all accounts, was somewhat terrible. However, now that Gangster Squad is showing up on a nearly nightly basis on Cinemax, I recently got a chance to see the movie and you know what?

The critics were wrong.

Gangster Squad tells a familiar story. In fact, the film features not a single character or plot twist that hasn’t shown up in another movie. The setting is Los Angeles in the 1940s. Ruthless gangster Mickey Cohen (a totally over-the-top Sean Penn) is the king of the city’s underworld. How crazy is Mickey Cohen? He’s so crazy that, when we first see him, he’s watching as another gangster is literally ripped in half. He’s so crazy that, in the middle of a gun battle, he yells, “Here comes Santy Claus!” as he fires his machine gun. That’s how crazy Mickey Cohen is.

Seriously crazy.

Fortunately, righteous police chief William H. Parker (Nick Nolte) refuses to allow a little thing like due process to keep him from pursuing Mickey. Parker calls Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) to his office and, after delivering a long and flowery monologue that verges on incoherence, he finally explains that O’Mara’s mission is to put together an elite squad of cops and to take Mickey out by any means necessary! (Usually, I try to exercise some restraint when it comes to punctuation but Gangster Squad is one of those films that demands exclamation points.)

This is followed by a series of properly colorful scenes in which O’Mara recruits his gangster squad.

Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) is a cynical World War II veteran who is, at first, skeptical of O’Mara and his squad. Wooters, however, changes his mind after a saintly shoeshine boy is gunned down in front of him. Wooters is also having an affair with Grace Faraday (Emma Stone), who happens to also be Cohen’s girlfriend.

Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie) is a black cop who is good with a knife and who lost his cousin to the heroin distributed by Cohen’s mob. Watching the friendly and playful interaction between Harris and all of the film’s white characters provides us with one of our first clues that Gangster Squad is not necessarily aiming to be a historically accurate portrait of America in the 1940s.

Conway Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi) is a wiretapper and a family man. Keeler’s fate is pretty much sealed the minute that he tells O’Mara that he’s willing to risk death just to make the world a better place for his son.

Max Kennard (Robert Patrick) is a former old west gunslinger who now spends his time killing gangsters. Max, we’re told, may be old but he’s also personally shot over a 100 gangsters. Max also has a younger partner, an honest cop named Navidad Ramirez (Michael Pena).

The Gangster Squad

As you can probably guess at this point, there’s not a single cliché that is not employed by Gangster Squad. However, and this is what I think several critics missed, the film deliberately takes its clichés to such an extreme that they go from being flaws to being strengths. By so enthusiastically going overboard in its embrace of the conventions of the gangster film genre and, at the same time, acknowledging the fact that the audience is also familiar with those clichés, Gangster Squad creates its own vibrant and compulsively watchable fantasy world. The world of Gangster Squad has little to do with any sort of historical reality. Instead, it’s a world constructed solely out of other gangster movies.

Taking all of this (and the fact that the film is directed by Ruben Fleischer of Zomieland and 30 Minutes or Less fame) into consideration, it’s pretty obvious that Gangster Squad is not a film that’s meant to be taken seriously. And yet, that’s what so many critics did when the film was first released in January. Instead of appreciating the film for paying over-the-top homage to the gangster films of the past, critics attacked it for being an example of style over substance.

And, to give the critics their due, they were exactly right. There is no substance to Gangster Squad. Instead, the film is a total celebration of style.

And what style! In Fleischer’s hands, 1940s Los Angeles is a colorful wonderland of pure excess, a vibrant landscape of dark alleys and swanky nightclubs that literally glow on-screen and are populated by tough men and sultry women in clothing that might not have been found hanging in every closet in the 40s but should have been. (Seriously, when Emma Stone first appears on-screen, she’s wearing a red gown that is simply to die for.)

This Christmas, I want both Ryan Gosling and the dress.

For the viewer who is willing to give themselves over to the film’s over-the-top aesthetic and are willing to appreciate it for what it is (as opposed to condemning it for what it isn’t), Gangster Squad is a watchable, entertaining, and fun movie. And what’s so bad about that?

I’m glad that I finally got a chance to see Gangster Squad. Is it one of the great gangster films? No. The great gangster films have both style and substance but, quite frankly, if I can only have one than I would prefer something stylish and fun like Gangster Squad to something like Killing Them Softly.

(Then again, I would prefer just about anything to sitting through Killing Them Softly for a second time.)

So, enjoy Gangster Squad. Watch it for the style. Have fun. And most importantly, remember that critics are as often wrong as they are right.

Celebrate Lisa’s Birthday With The Passion of Joan Of Arc

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of you may know, I celebrated my birthday on Saturday. I’m still getting used to the idea of being 28. (I can still remember when I thought that 21 was so old!) And, I have to admit, that I think I always figured that I would have all the questions of existence answered by the time I turned 28.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m hardly a lost soul. They say that 30 is the new 20 and, by that logic, I’m only 18 years old, which means that not only am I barely legal but I’m actually doing amazingly well for someone my age.

Still, as I start the 28th year of my often quirky life, it’s hard for me not to think about one of my personal heroines. St. Jeanne D’Arc never lived to be 28. She was burned at the stake for heresy when she was 19 years old. But, in her short life, she inspired and led a nation. When I was 17, I was busy dating and shoplifting. When she was 17, Jeanne was defeating the English at the Siege of Orleans.

So, you can see why, despite whatever else I may have accomplished so far in my life, it’s still difficult for me to feel that I haven’t quite lived up to Jeanne’s example.

With all this in mind, what better time, than my birthday, to share with you my favorite silent film, the 1928 masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc?

Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, the film tells the story of the capture, torture, and eventual execution of Jeanne D’Arc. Dreyer adapted the film directly from the original transcripts of Jeanne’s trial and he brings a truly surprising amount of intimacy to a story that is so famous that it often runs the risk of also feeling remote and detached from modern reality. As opposed to many silent films in which camera movement seems to be almost an afterthought, Dreyer skillfully used jarring angles and sweeping movement as a way to put us directly into Jeanne’s head. As we watch the film, we feel both her courage as she refuses to surrender to her tormentors and her fear as her story reaches its inevitable conclusion. This film transforms an iconic saint into a vulnerable but strong human being and, as a result, 85 years after it was first released, The Passion of Joan of Arc remains one of the most powerful films of all time.

Before one watches The Passion of Joan of Arc, there are three things worth noting:

1) One of Jeanne’s tormentors is played by the playwright Antonin Artaud. Artaud would later found the Theater of Cruelty, a theatrical movement that would later be cited as an influence by Italian director Lucio Fulci.

2) Dreyer specifically barred his cast from wearing makeup, which serves to emphasize both the natural beauty and the vulnerability of Jeanne. It also serves to emphasize the ugliness of those persecuting her. As a result, even as the film serves to transform Jeanne into an individual, it also establishes her as a symbol for all oppressed people while her memorably ugly persecutors perfectly symbolize the excess and corrupting influence of absolute power.

3) It has been said by that, in the title role, Maria Falconetti gives one of the best performances in the history of film. I certainly don’t disagree. Facing her persecutors with a mixture of fear and defiance, Falconetti gives an intensely emotional performance. You look at Falconetti’s Jeanne and you believe that yes, at the age of 19, she could have led a nation to victory. (Though, it should be noted, that Falconetti was actually 35 years old when she played Jeanne). Making Falconetti’s performance all the more poignant is the fact that she only made one other film and she would eventually end up committing suicide in 1948.

Without further ado, here is Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan Of Arc.

Review: The Walking Dead S4E05 “Internment”

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Arleigh

“If you’re not ready to lose one, then you’ll lose them all.” — Dr. Caleb Subramanian

[some spoilers]

As this season’s of The Walking Dead gets closer and closer to it’s mid-season finale it’s time to take stock on what has happened, so far. There human-on-human conflict w hich dominated season 3 has now been replaced by a new and more insidious danger: disease outbreak. It’s a concept rarely explored in apocalyptic stories and barely even mentioned in zombie fiction. We’ve seen how the progression of the disease going through the population of the prison community has become an even bigger danger to everyone. Glenn said it best in episode 2. Zombies and raiders they can take on and succeed, but this disease is something that they can’t see until it’s too late. With the state of medical healthcare in the zombie apocalypse being horrendous at best and non-existent for the most part, this new wrinkle in this group’s survival since the world went to hell was a good move and start for new showrunner Scott M. Gimple.

We’ve seen characters we;ve grown to love in the first four episode grow in surprising and, at times, disturbing ways. Carol has become a hardened survivor who will do what it takes to protect the group from dangers both outside and inside the fences. We’ve seen Rick deal with trying to shed the mantle of leadership for the sake of his children, but quickly realizing (with some help from Carol) that it’s what he’s good at and something he needs to rediscover once again to help the group survive.

Even Carl has shown that he’s not just marching straight into sociopathy in this new world order. He’s realized what his father has sacrificed to try and bring him back from the brink of losing his humanity. So far, it has worked and we see more and more of his father in how he’s handling situations that in the past he would’ve used violence as a solution.

Tonight’s episode, “Internment”, we get to see the opposite image of what Carol has turned into by focusing on the group’s spiritual leader. Hershel Greene has taken over the spiritual and calming guidance that Dale used to provide. Where Dale seemed too entrenched in trying to live life as if the world still operated under the old rules and morality, Hershel has been more flexible. He doesn’t let his idealism get in the way of doing what’s necessary in the end. Yet, he still believes that saving everyone should still be a goal they as a community need to do. He’s willing to sacrifice his own well-being if it means keeping the sick from dying even if it means just providing that calming presence. He’s not just trying to save their lives but give their soul a semblance of hope that things will work out for the best in the end.

The episode played out like a calm before the storm. Some would say that it was unfolding like a throwaway episode that’s trying to give it’s viewers a breather before moving on to the next couple episodes with something more meaty and considerable. But like all slow burns this one exploded into action when we least expected it even though the writers dropped crumbs throughout that something big was about to happen.

Followers of the show won’t be disappointed when that slow-burning fuse finally leads to that gathering explosion. An explosion that once again saw the prison community become smaller and smaller with loses both to the disease that’s overtaken it and the zombies who have awoken inside the prison walls because of it. Showrunner and series writer Scott M. Gimple promised to make the zombies scary once again and in tonight’s episode we finally get the payoff the first four episodes have been working on achieving. Yes, they’re the faceless horde that has made killing them become more a chore than an act of survival, but the way the episode used them tonight made them scary once again. Their numbers will always be legion and this season has shown just how that still remains the scariest part of this show. Human enemies and even diseases are scary as well, but the zombies have once a gain returned as that patient, ever-encroaching symbol for the inevitability of death.

“Internment” has seen one of the more quieter members of the group who was becoming Dale 2.0, but tonight saw Hershel was just as much a badass survivor as Rick, Carl, Carol, Daryl and, his own daughter, Maggie. His faith in whatever plan God has in testing them might have taken a blow, but he still looks to his faith to get him and his friends and family through it all. He hasn’t let his physical handicap slow him and down. He’s even come through the crucible of tonight’s episode with his eyes much more open to the new realities of this new world, but still keeping his faith.

Time to see what the final reveal of tonight’s episode will now mean to the survival of what remains of the prison community.

Notes

Tonight’s episode was written and directed by Channing Powell and David Boyd respectively.
Interesting opening shot of Rick driving back to the prison with a very serious look on his face. Rick almost looked as if he’s steeling himself for the reaction on the news of what Carol did to Karen and David.
Looks like we now know that zombie flesh and blood is not toxic to animals. The two feral dogs feeding on the immobile zombie by the shoulder of the road was a nice detail.
Give Scott Wilson the first star for his incredible performance as Hershel tonight. He pretty much carried the episode from start to finish and there wasn’t a fake or boring section with him in it.
Great to see Rick finally see Carl as someone who is not just willing to provide help and protection for the group, but one who is more than capable of doing so. Carl looked more capable than Rick tonight.
Maggie has been pretty absent this season, but great to see her rush into the teeth of danger just like her father to try and save Glenn and the rest.
This is the second episode this week where half the cast doesn’t get any airtime which more than helps the episode’s pacing.
I still believe that Carol is protecting the real killer of Karen and David by confessing to Rick about it. My money is on scary-sister Lizzie who has taken on some very disturbing habits of treating zombies like pets and then using blood to make patterns on the floor with her shoe. The creepy-meter on this girl is reaching record levels.
Love the use of Ben Howard’s “Oats In The Water” during Hershel’s moment alone after taking down all the zombies in the cellblock and saving Glenn.
Talking Dead Guests: Adam Savage of Mythbusters.

Season 4

A Steaming Pile Of Norseshit — “Thor : The Dark World”

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

The way I work, I generally try to avoid giving up too much by way of “spoilers” when it comes to reviewing movies that are still playing simply because I’m never sure how much anybody out there who might be reading this stuff wants to know about any given flick before they’ve actually seen it. Call it common courtesy, I guess, if you’re feeling generous, or weak-kneed fear of the always-on-the-alert hordes of internet “spoiler police” if you’re not, but nevertheless, it’s something I try to adhere to, however tough the going may get.

And Thor : The Dark World makes it very tough indeed. The simple fact is, you just can’t heap all the criticism on this film that it so richly deserves without giving away numerous key plot points, so here’s what I’m gonna do instead : for those of you who want a meticulously-detailed, blow-by-blow analysis of how and why this big-budget boondoggle fails every single logic test known to humankind, I humbly suggest you follow this link to a lengthy review by the ever-reliable Julian Darius over at the Sequart website : http://sequart.org/magazine/32555/id-need-a-lobotomy-to-enjoy-thor-the-dark-world/ . Julian’s one of the more articulate and intelligent writers the web has to offer on all things comic-related, and while his grammar and syntax are occasionally a bit uncharacteristically all over the map in this particular piece, I get it : he had a lot to vent about, and sometimes ya just gotta let off steam. In any case, his analysis is absolutely spot-on here and, if anything, he’s being too kind to this putrid mess of a movie.

For those of you who want a short, “spoiler”- free summation of why this film sucks so badly though, , here’s the bare essentials — Thor : The Dark World is built on so many glaringly obvious logical inconsistencies, ten-trillion-to-one coincidences, rehashed story elements that worked much better in the first film, plot holes that are big enough for an entire army of Asgardian warriors to charge though, and problems brought on by the idiotic actions of the title character himself that it well and truly boggles the imagination. This is, in short, a complete and utter celluloid train wreck that requires such a heaping dose of suspension of disbelief that even people who can accept the most outlandish premises imaginable will have a hard time coming to grips with this one. It also doesn’t help that the characterization of most of the leading players seems to have taken a leap back toward the dark ages, the dialogue is hopelessly inane from start to finish, and that director Alan Taylor (a seasoned TV veteran, and it shows) brings exactly none of the Shakespearean-rooted vision of Kenneth Branagh to the proceedings and opts, instead, to film things in the rapidly-evolving (and hopelessly uniform) Marvel “house style” best exemplified by the likes of Jon Favreau and Joss Whedon. Sure, their Iron Man and Avengers films, respectively, have earned tons of fan accolades (not to mention box office dollars), but let’s be honest — the directorial work on either of those properties is virtually (okay, who are we kidding, completely) indistinguishable from the other. So, hey, welcome to the lowest-common-denominator club, I guess, Alan.

On the plus side, the CGI is pretty cool here throughout, though, and since that’s probably what half the audience (at least) for these things is there for, said half (again, at least) of the audience should walk away feeling quite satisfied.

For those of us who like a movie that at least tries to make sense, though (or fails to so earnestly that watching it becomes a kind of sublime pleasure in its own right), there just ain’t much of offer here. Natalie Portman goes from intelligent astrophysicist to love-struck schoolgirl the minute Thor hits the scene (we later learn she’s only continued with her career at all in hopes of running into him again — there goes a few decades’ worth of tepid progress for female characters in genre cinema in about one second flat) and spends the rest of the film making puppy-dog eyes but not doing much else; Chris Hemsworth plays up the dull nobility of his character with none of the reckless humanity we saw in the first film (even though he organizes mass treason here — again); Tom Hiddleston wildly accentuates the effeminate qualities of Loki in a way that pretty much screams “you can’t trust this guy, he’s obviously queer“; Anthony Hopkins mails in his performance from behind a shining suit of armor; Rene Russo fulfills her one character requirement by d— whoops, that’s right, “spoliers”! ; Kat Dennings essentially plays the same character she does on TV’s Two Broke Girls ; and Stellan Skarsgard does his best to make sure we all know nervous breakdowns are nothin’ but harmless fun, his character having gone mad due to the purportedly “traumatic” events he endured in The Avengers (a bit of a reach given that even its most fervent partisans would admit that’s essentially a big-budget “popcorn movie” with little to no actual thematic depth whatsoever — they just think it’s a particularly well done “popcorn movie”). In short, if you’re getting the idea that Thor : The Dark World is risible, superficial nonsense with some deeply offensive takes on gender roles, (alluded to) homosexuality, and mental illness, then congratulations! You’re exactly correct.

Christopher Eccleston does his best, I suppose, considering the mountain of makeup he’s buried beneath, as chief villain Malekith, but given the preposterous nature of the character he’s asked to portray (head of the evil “Dark Elves,” who alone has the power to track down a mystical force powerful enough to unmake all of creation called the Aether — except for, ya know, that time he lost sight of it for literally eons when it was purportedly “shielded” from him in a wide-open cave — and even if you buy that, you’d have a tough time explaining why he couldn’t trace it while it was being taken right there), I guess there’s only so much the poor guy can do. Still, I give him credit for at least appearing to want to do more than simply go through the motions here. It’s more than I can say for anybody else, apart from Idris Elba, who does inanimate stoicism better than anyone in his role as Heimdall. Not that he’s really got that much to do, mind you, but he stands around with a hell of a lot of conviction.

At the end of the day, though, I dunno — Thor : The Dark World is still a Marvel studios product, which means that it won’t get nearly the critical scrutiny it should and that legions of loyal followers will proclaim their undying love for it even though it is, by any standard of bias-free critical measure, an absolute clusterfuck of a movie. They, like the Asgardians in the film, will still see Thor himself as a heroic figure even though his decision to bring Portman’s Jane Foster character to his mythic home ensures its invasion by enemy hordes, and they’ll no doubtpraise the film for its forced moments of flat, shoehorned-in “humor” (although even I have to admit the cameo-of-sorts by Chris Evans as Captain America is fun) and equally-forced “dark and somber” tone. This will probably be proclaimed as a “mature” and even “sophisticated” film in many quarters, and needless to say, those of us willing to call bullshit on it will be vilified by Dinsey’s unpaid internet army.

No matter. The simple truth is that Thor : The Dark World is a movie that insults it’s audience’s intelligence in ways that even Roger Corman would never dream of, and goes about its dull and tepid business with less interest and heart than Roger and his barely-compensated filmmakers, actors, and crew ever brought to the proceedings. It’s easily and unquestionably one of the absolute worst films of the year — hell, of the last several years —even if only a few of us have the guts to say so in public. Dis/Mar thinks you’e a sucker with no taste or intelligence who will blindly queue up for anything they churn out. They hold their audience in contempt and at this point are openly daring you to keep forking over your cash for their garbage. How long are you willing to prove them right, and keep playing along?

Song of the Day: Oats In The Water (by Ben Howard)

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Arleigh

The Walking Dead may not be what some critics as great television. Hell, it’s been called boring, pandering and badly-written. It’s popularity has eluded detractors and supporters alike. There’s one thing the show has consistently done well and that’s pick licensed songs to help highlight particular episodes.

Tonight’s episode, “Internment”, is another such episode with a perfectly picked song. This time around the song is “Oats In The Water” by British singer-songwriter Ben Howard.

The song enters the episode as part of the calm which followed one of the most tense and terrifying sequences of the season. Whoever is in charge of licensing songs for this song needs to get a raise because it’s definitely been a highlight of each season.

Oats In The Water

Go your way,
I’ll take the long way ’round,
I’ll find my own way down,
As I should.

And hold your gates
There’s coke in the midas touch
A joke in the way that we rust,
And breathe again.

And you’ll find loss
And you’ll fear what you found
When weather comes
Tear him down

There’ll be oats in the water
There’ll be birds on the ground
There’ll be things you never asked her
Oh how they tear at you now

Go your way,
I’ll take the long way ’round,
I’ll find my own way down,
As I should.

And hold your gates
As coke in the midas touch
A joke in the way that we rust,
And breathe again.

And you’ll find loss
And you’ll fear what you found
When weather comes
Tear him down

There’ll be oats in the water
There’ll be birds on the ground
There’ll be things you never asked her
Oh how they tear at you now

BlizzCon 2013: World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor

Posted on November 9, 2013 by necromoonyeti

After a one year hiatus, BlizzCon is back. As I watched the opening ceremonies and subsequent World of Warcraft panel yesterday, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to another RPG powerhouse all but forgotten in the western world today: Squaresoft. The series of marketing failures that sent Square spiraling towards bankruptcy in the early 2000s felt eerily close at hand as Blizzard Entertainment unrolled one new project announcement after another yesterday in Anaheim.

Square’s troubles from a western perspective began in 1999. They had, prior to that year, released a handful of non-RPG titles in North America–I remember purchasing shmup Einhänder and enjoying Kenichiro Fukui’s soundtrack if nothing else–but these were Easter eggs not marketed to Square’s traditional fan base. In 1999, Square ported and pushed Ehrgeiz. It was a fighting game marketed specifically for RPG fans, incorporating popular Square franchise characters such as Sephiroth and Cloud Strife, and it was the first Square release in North America that I knew about and did not buy. I thought the game was a really cool idea at the time, but that didn’t change my fundamental disinterest in fighting games.

Next came Final Fantasy VIII. The game was definitely a short term marketing success, but it divided Square’s fan base unlike ever before, because it focused on aspects of the game that fans were traditionally disinterested in. It was the first Final Fantasy title to feature really impressive graphics, it introduced a highly developed card-based mini-game, it reenvisioned a lot of elements of the battle system, and it replaced a traditionally heroic cast with none-too-glamorous introverts. These features drew an audience, but they dulled the interest of loyal series fans who loved the epic tragedies and encompassing global struggle-styled plots of games gone by.

Last came The Spirits Within. Square decided to release a movie geared towards their newer fan base. They had no experience in this field, their diehard fans had already lost interest, and their new fans had no loyalty to the company. It flopped, really badly, and whatever the financial statements of Square Enix say, they never fully recovered their foothold in the western market. They found themselves desperately grasping to reel in a fan base that was too broad to take interest in any single product, until they ultimately faded into obscurity in every market. This can be seen in the fact that most Final Fantasy IX fans disliked Final Fantasy X and vice versa.

I say all of this because it is painfully relevant today. Here are two obvious reasons:

BLIZZARD ANNOUNCED A FIGHTING GAME

This isn’t nearly as misguided as Ehrgeiz. As I understand it, Heroes of the Storm will be styled after DotA, not traditional fighters. (The BlizzCon feed for HotS is hopelessly lagging on me, so I can’t confirm much.) But the idea of duking it out with your favorite characters from Blizzard’s three major franchises is only going to succeed if the gameplay drastically outclasses other games of its genre. They aren’t going to draw fans by letting you play as Kerrigan or Thrall, because most Blizzard loyalists are not convinced by the company’s character development. I would also argue that, following the massive hype and disappointment of Diablo III, Blizzard fans aren’t going to be very compelled by a new title beyond their franchises of choice that is not a wholesale break from what we’re used to. Heroes of the Storm will be free, and that is a huge plus, but it is going to have to be really freakin good to make it off the ground. As was the case with Square’s Ehrgeiz, the franchise card isn’t going to hold much weight in this field of play.

BLIZZARD ANNOUNCED A MOVIE

Yes, Warcraft: The Movie is under production. More will be revealed about this project at 1pm PST Saturday on the Main Stage, but absolutely nothing good can possibly come of it. Like The Spirits Within for Final Fantasy, it will only interest a small portion of the Warcraft fan base and hardly anyone beyond. Blizzard has never been a promising plot engine, and their cinematics are hopelessly cliche. It’s not like there’s any precedent for failure along the console to cinema highway, but I give Blizzard’s shot at turning a profit here about one in zero.

WARLORDS OF DRAENOR OVERVIEW

Now, I’ve claimed that Blizzard does not keep fans based on plot and character development. Am I right? Well, I’ve certainly known WoW players who cared about the plot, but they form a minority in my experience. That’s not to say that I or any other WoW fan would not love to see a really awesome plot. It’s to say we won’t get one. This is something Blizzard is particularly bad at, and it’s not the reason we play their games. That is one of the reasons World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor concerns me. The hour and a half of feature coverage yesterday focused heavily on the game’s plot and characters. Blizzard staff went on at length about the progression forward from Mists of Pandaria and the various NPCs you will encounter. In a comically self-defeating slide, they summed it up like this:

That’s all the more a Blizzard plot has ever really amounted to, and it’s why no one cares. Looking beyond the attempted plot hype, what else does Warlords of Draenor have to offer?

SETTING

WoW 6.0 will take place in Outlands, utilizing another weak time-travel plot device to set the zone prior to its cataclysmic restructuring as experienced in The Burning Crusade. Shattrath will now be an independent Draenei city, and the alliance and horde will have their capitals in Shadowmoon Valley and western Blade’s Edge Mountains respectively. These will be known as Karabor for alliance and Bladspire Citadel for horde, and the Blade’s Edge Mountains themselves will not yet exist as such. Their memorable spikey peaks having formed during Draenor’s later destruction, they will be separated into a western, mountainous winter zone (Frostfire Ridge) and an eastern desert (Gorgrond). Shadowmoon Valley will here be a lush land of forests and meadows, not a desolate fel-ridden waste, and Karabor will be the site of what later becomes Black Temple. There will be seven zones in all: Nagrand, Shadowmoon Valley, Tanaan Jungle (Hellfire Penninsula), Talador (Terokkar Forest), Frostfire Ridge (western Blade’s Edge), Gorgrond (eastern Blade’s Edge), and a new zone–Spires of Arak. None of these seem, in my opinion, to offer much of a unique flavor. That is somewhat inevitable, since Outlands is not an unfamiliar world.

The world will loosely resemble Outlands, and like most WoW continents, it will form an image when viewed as a whole:

GARRISONS

Garrisons were described at BlizzCon as “the [Valley of the Four Winds] farm times one thousand“. A garrison is a full town which you can build inside any zone within Draenor, and which you can move from one location to the next. Like the farm, a garrison will involve setting actions into motion which will occur over night (anywhere from a few hours to a full week), but the payout will be much higher. You’ll gain NPC followers who quest and raid for you to bring home epic gear, you’ll be able to tap into other professions beyond your main ones, you can pick and choose what buildings are constructed (armory, stables, etc), and you’ll be able to customize the garrison’s appearance any way you like as it grows. You can even hang a boss’s head from your front gates!

Sounds pretty cool, right? I think it’s riddled with problems. First of all, Blizzard reps claim: “This isn’t a cottage in a far away instance corner that doesn’t actually exist in the world. This is your ability to actually build a base almost as you do in the RTS games, in the actual world, that you’ll be able to see as you fly through the zones. You’ll be able to see it as you go by it. You’ll be able to invite your friends to come and see it if you want to.”

That is horribly misleading. Under the current developmental scheme, your garrison will exist for you and you alone. It’s true, like they said, that it will be smack in the middle of any map you care to put it in, and that it will be visible from afar, but it will be entirely isolated from all other players. It is a solitary bastion in an MMO world. No one will be able to see it (unless you invite them, presumably to role play); no one will be able to attack it; no one will ever know it exists. As such, it’s not much different from the average farming game on your cellphone. The only real reward is the production payout, whatever that may be. Let’s look at a few:

You can choose which buildings to include.

Ok, but what are buildings good for? An inn and stables aside, all buildings in WoW are used almost exclusively for profession and class trainers. But at level 100 you won’t need a class trainer, and Mists of Pandaria drastically nerfed the amount of time and energy necessary to max out a profession, so much so that grinds which once took a month or upwards of 100k gold can now be accomplished in an evening for petty change. (I think that was an awesome improvement in MoP. Don’t get me wrong.) Unless Blizzard invent new uses for these buildings, they will have none. Or if they add such features as transmog, upgrading, and reforging, then Karabor and Bladespire Citadel will be ghost towns. The screen shot Blizzard offered showed the blacksmith being used to learn new patterns. If that’s anything like the daily leatherworking and tailoring pattern rewards in MoP, it will be pretty useless.

It allows access to mats/It farms for you while you’re offline.

What does it farm? Blizzard have still yet to introduce any sort of access to solid gear outside of raiding or valor/conquest points. If this gear isn’t up to par, it will be a waste of time. Does it farm mats? If it’s anything like the Valley of the Four Winds farm in MoP, this will be a completely useless feature unless the mats are BoP. There is a reason you only farm Motes of Harmony in MoP: non-binding general profession mats always have and always will be the domain of bot farmers. You might not like them, but your auction house could not exist without them. They are what make ore and herbs affordable on your server, and the farm system alternative to gathering in MoP has never paid out in time spent to profit earned.

It gives you access to professions you don’t have.

MoP’s profession grind nerf still necessitates six toons at 85 to max everything out, so this could definitely come in handy, but at what cost? The more Blizzard takes away from the auction house, the more inflation will rise.

You can win trophies, and hang your enemies heads upon pikes at the castle wall! Yarrrgh!

The first note I jotted down while watching this BlizzCon session was “wtf is the point of building a castle in an mmo that is not mmo?” That pretty well sums it up. The whole purpose of a trophy case is to brag to other people about your accomplishments.

The bottom line is this: Blizzard couldn’t have given every player in the game a Garrison that existed out there in the real, massive multiplayer world, because it would have been a spam-ridden nightmare. But they could have given one to say, every level 25 guild with at least 20 exclusive active accounts, and they could have taken this in all sorts of promising directions, ranging from pvp sieges to player-made home cities instead of another Shattrath or Dalaran. But they didn’t. Instead, we all get a bigger farm.

GRAPHICS

This is actually pretty sweet. Blizzard is making a massive graphic overhaul to all races in the game, and will now offer visuals competitive with new MMOs on the market.

BOOST TO 90

In an attempt to lure back old players, Blizzard if giving every account a free boost to level 90 for one toon at any level. This is a pretty nice deal, but it could have some unintended consequences. I for one will be employing it as that long-awaited character transfer I was always unwilling to pay money for. By-by dying low population server, hello Sargeras, Kil’jaeden, or Kel’Thuzad. Expect this feature to increase urban migration and server balance polarization.

CROSS-SERVER ITEMS

Blizzard is increasing the types of items that will be available cross-server. In addition to mounts and battle pets, you will now be able to access BoA leveling gear heirlooms on any toon, anywhere. It’s about damn time, I think. They are also making tabards and toys account wide, which is just silly.

DUNGEONS & RAIDS

Warlords of Draenor will launch with 7 dungeons and 2 raids containing a total of 16 raid bosses. Only 4 of the 7 dungeons will be available below level 100, for maximum alt leveling boredom. Upper Blackrock Spire (UBRS) is getting a remake, and the level 100-only dungeons will have non-heroic versions in order to “help players prepare for heroic mode”. … Since no one would voluntarily run non-heroic dungeons at level cap, I interpret this to mean “expect more tedious grinding before you are eligible for real gear.” The reason behind this move is incomprehensible, as no one who is unready for heroic dungeons for reasons other than gear is any less unready for regular dungeons. They are called “noobs”, or “nubs” in some dialects, they are typically too disinterested in the finer details of the game to ever figure it out, and they will be carried by my epic hunter deeps. NEED that agi ring my DK friend! It will definitely help boost you over 10k dps!

Raids are getting a fourth tier. There will now be LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mythic. LFR through Heroic will all be available under the relatively new and quite successful flex raiding system, and Mythic will be 20-man only. While this all sounds like a fine idea to me, the Blizzard reps did show once again how out of tune they were with the game they developed when they explained flex’s utility: We’ve all been in that annoying situation where a few dps or a healer bail in LFR right before a boss pull and we have to reenter queue and wait, they said. Flex will scale the LFR boss down so we can pull anyway!

Well, no, we haven’t. In fact, that never, ever, ever happens. DPS and healers are replaced in LFR in a matter of seconds. There is a 60 minute long queue line of them ffs. Long waits before boss pulls happen because TANKS leave, and you can’t rescale for that.

PVP

Blizzard is bringing back a world pvp zone, and it’s going to be a 24/7 battle rather than a timed instance. They compared it to classic Alterac Valley, and I’m pretty stoked about that. Unfortunately but necessarily, this is going to be a cross-server zone. That means that you’ll never form a collaborative relationship with your team mates, probably, but with a ton of servers reaching 90:10 faction polarization these days, I for one see no viable alternative.

In the world of arena, Blizzard is creating a separate ladder system called Trial of Gladiators. These ladder fights will only be available at certain dates and times, and they, rather than regular arena queues, will determine season champions. This was supposedly developed to eliminate late-night pairing exploitation, which I wholly intended to get in on to knock out some of my arena achievements, but I’m all for it. One really cool thing is that they’re eliminating gear for the event. You will be given the same premade gear set when you roll in, regardless of your ilevel or resilience, so victory will depend entirely on skill and class balance.

ODDS AND ENDS

Blizzard focused on a number of additional changes that Warlords of Draenor will offer, and most of them are complete rubbish that ought to just be quietly implemented on the next routine patch update.

* Battleground progression information — Blizzard are basically integrating PVP DBM into the game proper. But I’ve got an addon for that.

* Random favorite mount summoning — This will be an option. But I’ve got an addon for that.

* Enhanced bag sorting options — You will now be able to control which bags particular types of loot fall into. But I’ve got an addon for that.

* Battleground scores — You will now be able to see a conglomerate score of your performance in a battleground, incorporating traditional stats such as hks and damage done along with your involvement in objection completions. I am not very confident about Blizzard’s capacity to rate my performance, especially considering there are multiple strategies for winning just about any bg. This is also potentially really dangerous, because they suggested that there might be rewards for high scores. Does this mean that, even if you already have the Cap Five X achievement in a bg, you’re still encouraged to spam the hell out of the flag instead of fighting around it for a shot at the prize?

* Quest items will no longer be stored in bags — Yay!

* You can craft with items in your bank, not just your bag — Yay!

* Item stack caps raised from 20 to 100 — Yay!

But I fear that the few positive changes here and there aren’t going to make a difference in the big picture. Blizzard announced WoW 6 this BlizzCon, as expected, but they had very little to show for it. Plot and characters aren’t what keep us playing this particular game, the Garrison system is a single player entity isolated within an MMO world, and almost every other new thing they emphasized was astoundingly petty. There will be modest improvements here and there–to bag space, to raiding opportunities, to free server migration–but in previous expansions these would be afterthoughts. A lot of interface changes amount to nothing more than addon incorporation, but the players who don’t use say, a battleground objective addon, are probably oblivious to battleground objectives in the first place. The most depressing announcement towards this end was the ADVENTURE GUIDE. This is a menu like the Dungeon Guide, but designed for inexperienced players who don’t have a clue what’s going on. It will tell you what zone you ought to be questing in, where you can go for better gear (a dungeon. a raid. mmhmm…), what battlegrounds are available at your level, and so on. Did it ever cross Blizzard’s mind that the people who can’t figure out the dungeon finder or pvp menus aren’t going to figure out the adventure guide either? Obviously not, because the emphasis once again seems to be “hand more fine details to the players who don’t care and won’t read them.” I’m not trying to insult anybody here. My wife’s been happily bouncing around Eastern Kingdoms leveling gnome locks to 40 for a year now. There are players who want to “win” to the capacity that WoW allows, and there are players who just enjoy a little pew pew before they go to bed and have zero interest in learning more. Last I visited Blasted Lands, there was not a sea of confused level 60s unable to figure out how to walk into the Outlands portal. So just who do Blizzard think they’re helping with these improvements?

Has Blizzard lost touch with their fan base? Mists of Pandaria does not lead me to believe so, but the showcase for Warlords of Draenor looks bleak. With little more than a dime-a-dozen farming mini-game and new zones, dungeons, and raids to offer, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking forward to here. I don’t need a new class or a new race to keep me entertained–I’ll be a dwarf hunter until the day I quit–but I need something. Whatever that thing will be, it wasn’t revealed at BlizzCon.

But enough being a Negative Nancy. I’m off to watch Jaedong whoop ass in the Starcraft II World Championship Series Finals. For the swarm!

TV Recap: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Episode #6 “FZZT”

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Semtex Skittle

Back, and with 15% more snark! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to talk about the latest offering from our friends at ABC. It’s time for Marvel’s Agents! Of! S.H.I.E.L.D.! My sunny disposition about this show from way back when has faded under a sea of kind-of-mediocre episodes, and the fact that I’m so used to seeing these comic book storylines adopted for the big screen instead… with plots that need to be condensed down to fit a two-hour window. There are things I like about this show, however. They seem to be making an effort to explore the characters a little, giving them nice moments in the show… and not just Coulson, but the ensemble cast. Actually, today, I spent a lot of time with Agent Fitz and Agent Simmons of Agents Fitz-Simmons. Let’s talk about it, shall we?

Cold open: boyscouts. The troupe leader is telling a spooooooky stooooory… the ending of which he completely whiffs, doing a rather weak ‘cry’ for his crying man. Shortly thereafter, he goes off to investigate a strange noise or something, though nobody else heard anything. The kids are a little more creeped out than they want to admit, so it’s time for some s’mores. Or, it would be, except now there’s a pan floating in midair, and arcing electricity. Also some horrible screams from the forest. Maybe we better get out of here? Everyone gets in the truck, the battery of which promptly explodes out from beneath the hood and lands on the ground not far away. Uh-oh. Actually, isn’t this how a lot of these episodes start? It reminds me of a cold open for an episode of ‘Supernatural’ blended with elements of ‘CSI’.

It’s time for Act I!

Agent Coulson is on the treadmill, apparently having a physical with Agent Simmons. Not a euphemism for anything, sadly, Coulson claims that his physical therapist overreacted to a remark he made, and demanded that he get a physical. Simmons explains that he’s in great shape for a man of his age, a comment which makes Coulson bristle. Scene change!

Agent Ward is not happy. His cool futuristic gun is an once off on weight. Fitz is uncomprehending, Skye is disdainful. Ward describes an improbable long range scenario. Fitz points out that there are rifles designed for such a scenario. Ward woodenly demands that Fitz find a way to lose the extra once. Fitz does an impression of Ward, which Skye gives about 700% more laughter than is really necessary. Fitz decides this is a signal for him to flirt with her. Skye is not happy, but it has nothing to do with Fitz. She is now wearing her house arrest wristband. She has been roundly chastised for her loyalties. Fitz does not care about any of this, but rather is interested in the fact that Skye is very pretty. Somehow, the two are sending each other an endless series of the exact wrong signals, and nothing is getting through. The conversation ends with Skye commenting that Fitz and Simmons are so close, they might as well be ca… oh wait, we already call them Fitzsimmons. Huh. Simmons arrives just then and does another Ward impression. How cute! They even have matching Ward impressions! Just then Ward arrives, it’s time to gear up. Mission time. Simmons gives him back his super future pistol, claiming that the ounce was just a dummy round left in the gun, and now it’s fixed.

On the ground, there’s this electrostatic discharge thing going on. Like lightning strikes. Except there wasn’t a storm with sufficient intensity within a thousand miles last night! Skye is shadowing Ward as he goes all “CSI detective character” up on this scene’s business. Or possibly its grill. Oh, also, there’s a guy hovering in midair in a clearing. He appears to be dead. Fitzsimmons, after a false start, admit that they have no idea how this could be possible. Ward suggests that it could be a weapon (of course he does). Skye’s theory is metahuman. Ming-Na Wen is careful to avoid using any inflection in her voice was she explains that there is no such metahuman. Well, says Coulson, not that we know about. Better follow up on that. Simmons gets close to the body, gets a little jolt of juice, and the corpse falls to the ground. Well, that was weird.

Back on the plane, Skye has already google searched our dead troupe leader, and has plenty of basic biographical information for Agents Coulson and Ward. She makes a Big Lebowski joke that falls flat, crushing my hopes and dreams. Ward this guy’s – coach, troupe leader, volunteer firefighter – entire enemies list. Skye says she already facebook’d him too! He doesn’t have any enemies. People with a vague dislike of him probably don’t have the power to do something completely unprecedented in human knowledge to him. Coulson thinks something must be missing and Skye rolls her eyes out of the scene. Coulson wants to know why Ward is being so hard on Skye. I mean, he always is. But this specific time? Coulson is curious. Ward is mad because Skye lied to them. She’s going to have to earn his trust again, damnit. Coulson points out that she’s good at googling people, and cleverly segways into our next scene!

Ming-Na Wen glares across a table at the, what, assistant troupe leader? Apparently it’s a hard line interrogation, because her expression is extra stoic.

Simmons is performing a full autopsy. Fitz doesn’t like the corpse stank, so he’s outside. Coulson wants to know what’s going on, but Simmons really hasn’t discovered much yet about this event that is completely unprecedented in the human experience. Ming-Na comes in to ask a question. Stoically. Suddenly it’s time for a scene change, get the action running again… Fitz is tracking another electrostatic signal! It’s going nuts! Then it suddenly pulses… and it’s gone. Better check it out.

In their actionmobile (it’s another totally inconspicuous black SUV with heavy tint) Agents Coulson, Ward and May arrive at a barn. It’s barred from the inside, but while Coulson and Ward pointlessly argue about how to enter the structure, Ming-Na just kicks the damn thing. Well, that’s one way. Unsurprisingly, there’s a hovering dead guy in the barn. But there’s no sign of vehicles in the area, so whoever did it… couldn’t have gone far. Skye’s got the satellites moving in for surveillance. Also, she’s on Google again. This second guy was a firefighter too! And he and our first unfortunate victim were first-responders to an alien crash in New York City (remember that little thing with the Chitauri?). Anyway, it’s super weird, but with the possibility of alien involvement, now we can’t rule out the possibility of an alien weapon being used to kill… firefighters? Coulson’s got the right idea: get to the station house before anybody else turns into an electrostatic bomb and dies.

Scene change!

At the stationhouse, the actionmobile disgorges our Agents again. Meanwhile (they keep slipping in these quick cuts!) back on the plane… Simmons says something weird is going on. I don’t know how else to describe some of these scenes with pseudo-science dialogue. They feel like padding. It’s kind of annoying. At the station, one of the firefighters isn’t feeling so hot. Coulson deduces this isn’t good. Back on the ship, Simmons has real information for us: she doesn’t think they were shot with some kind of a weapon, the wounds on their bodies are actually exit wounds. They were killed from within! Well, what does that mean? Coulson confronts our sick firefighter and draws a gun when he sees a hovering pan. It all comes together now. Agent May has spotted a Chitauri helmet in the station. Tony the firefighter says they cleaned the helmet, a souvenir they took from the alien crash site. Simmons has the answer: it wasn’t dirt or rust on the helmet, it didn’t need cleaning, and by stirring up those alien particles, the firefighters exposed themselves to an alien virus. Well, shit.

Coulson orders everyone else out of the station and sits down for a heart to heart with Tony. Our firefighter is terrified, and now appears to be staring down his own inevitable doom. Coulson wants to know if Tony wants to call anyone, notify anyone. If there’s anything he can do. Trying to empathize, Coulson tells a story about that time that he was killed by Loki. He really was dead; they said it was only for 8 seconds, but Coulson felt that it was much longer. He saw something beyond, he says, something beautiful. Ming-Na almost has a facial expression at this revelation. Though I’m not really sure how she can hear him. Tony starts to arc lightning, and suggests that Coulson make himself scarce. You know, before they all die. Outside, all the S.H.I.E.L.D. guys watch grimly as there’s a flash of light… and Tony’s gone.

Fitz comes down with a medical scanner and examines everyone from the ground team to make sure the virus hasn’t spread to them. The remaining firefighters are going into quarantine. The plane is going to be used to transport the alien artifact to “The Sandbox”, a place I imagine looks like this.

Aboard the plane, May is concerned about Coulson. Why did he get a routine physical? Does he want to talk about it? He’d talk to her if something was wrong, right? By the way, it wasn’t his fault that Tony died horribly.

Scene change!

In the lab, Simmons is really excited about what she’s discovering about the Chitauri pathogen. She’s examining the remaining brain cells of the deceased. Her discovery? Apparently this is a virus that does not spread through the air, or fluid transmission…but through electrostatic shock! Such a thing doesn’t exist on earth! She didn’t think it was possible. Also…something’s floating behind her. Coulson apologies, then puts Simmons into quarantine.

Shortly after, Fitz is sitting back up against the quarantine window. FitzSimmons collectively look miserable. Coulson explains that Simmons has only two hours to live, but the plane also has nowhere to land in range in time. If Simmons explodes, it will knock the plane out of the sky. Skye obviously feels helpless, and it’s angering her. Coulson has confidence in Simmons’ ability to figure out an antiserum before her time is up. With Fitz’s help, Simmons begins working on a cure, but their information is still limited. She’s trying out her experiments on laboratory rodents, but the results so far… aren’t so good.

Upstairs, Ward is watching the lab through the video monitor. Skye pokes her head in, asks why he doesn’t just go down there. Ward shrugs it off, “They don’t need an audience.” Skye stays, angry at her helpless feeling. Ward has it even worse. In a rare emotive moment, he opens up, his frustration actually fairly tangible in the moment. Good work, Ward! Then he really brings the temperature in the room down to freezing with our scene outro, Ward’s warning to be ready “For whatever we’re called on to do.” I think we all know what that means.

…But let’s have Coulson talking to headquarters, and get his order explicitly spelled out anyway: Simmons needs to be jettisoned from the plane so she doesn’t explode and kill everyone. Coulson bails on the transmission, then has a terse (and stoic) exchange with Ming-Na.

In what is really probably the strongest bit of the episode, Fitz and Simmons are working on borrowed time. They start arguing, pretty much about nothing, trying to make it about something, and it’s by far the most genuine moment we’ve gotten out of either character so far. They both grow a lot for me right here; I suddenly wonder why they’re being underused as comic relief when the characters have some range, some background, some chemistry! Down with the Ward and Skye fighting scenes! Up with FitzSimmons! …what it all boils down to, is that human antibodies just aren’t properly developed to fight alien disease. There’s no one to make a new antiserum from. Wait, what if there are some cells in that alien helmet? Fitz is off to take some scrapings. And he’s off at a sprint. Over Coulson’s shouted objection, Fitz bursts into quarantine, and FitzSimmons resolve to work together to fix this damn thing. Yay!

Despite his earlier comments, Ward joins literally the entire team as they stand in the cargo bay and watch FitzSimmons work. They do stuff. Feels like padding. Finally, they have a new antiserum! Fitz applies it to the last lab rat, who uh… begins hovering in the air. There’s a moment of stunned silence. Simmons approaches Coulson, and asks him to notify her father, first, and let him tell her mother. Then she asks them to clear the room. Fitz is still working furiously, but Simmons has lost hope. She clubs Fitz in the back of the head with a fire extinguisher.

Upstairs, headquarters is calling again. They probably want Coulson to go ahead and put a bullet into the back of Simmons’ head and dump her body. Coulson’s not into it. But apparently SImmons has opened the cargo ramp and jumped out of the plane. Tragically, just before Fitz awakens and discovers the rat still alive… it was only knocked unconscious by the pulse, which was much weakened by the antiserum. Fitz goes for a parachute, but is shoved aside by Ward, who takes both the cure and the ‘chute and jumps. After a long fall sequence where we get many shots of the ocean drawing ominously closer, Ward, of course, catches Simmons, cures her, and deploys the ‘chute. Yay!

On the plane, Coulson yells at Simmons, though it’s obvious he’s more relieved than angry. Ward plays it cool. Simmons for some reason goes for a callback on the pistol: it’s still an ounce off. Ward knew that. Then he does an impression of Simmons’ impression of him, which she critiques. It’s kind of a weird moment. But then Skye is there too, and practically breaks Simmons with a hug. Emotional plot resolved!

Ming-Na is in Coulson’s office. She wants to know about that physical again. Coulson explains that he ordered the tests on himself because he doesn’t feel fine, even though all the tests claim otherwise. After he got killed by Loki, he’s just never felt right again. Ming-Na seems to actually be acting harder to not assume a facial expression, which I’ll count as progress, as she forces Coulson to examine his scar from Loki’s staff. It’s pretty gruesome. Ming-Na points out that he could not possibly have had that experience and come away totally unchanged. He has scars other than just the physical one. She implies something like that happened to her.

Bonus scene change!

FitzSimmons are talking. He was going to come for her. He’s obviously a little embarrassed that Ward shoved him aside and did the death-defying resdcue bit. Simmons points out that Fitz gave her hope when she had none, that he helped create the antiserum, that he’s the real hero of the piece. Then she bounces. Fitz doesn’t look entirely convinced. Sad face.

And then in our final scene, Agent Blake comes aboard to take possession of the alien artifact. He’s concerned that Coulson disobeyed a direct order, and that S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to yank his team out from under him. Coulson is assertive. Blake delivers a really cheesy line I won’t reprint. Coulson’s character is having growth because this short scene showed him parroting the lessons he took from Ming-Na Wen! We’re moving forward!

Well… my takeaway from this episode is… I found it mostly to be lightly entertaining fluff, but with a nice sequence for the characters of Fitz and Simmons. When the show explores its stronger characters, it’s at its best (since we’re obviously not going to get a small-screen version of the Avengers). I still feel like something is missing. I don’t know that the show is achieving the goal of showing us what life is like for people in a world that has superheroes and aliens and blah blah blah. I hope Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. finds its momentum, because while I was fairly entertained by this episode, it was in a more “this could be on in the background and I wouldn’t be mad” than a “I’m totally engaged in the story being told here”.

Trailer: The Raid 2: Berandal (Official Teaser)

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Arleigh

In 2011, a little action film from Indonesia directed by Welsh filmmaker Gareth Evans took the world by storm. The film was called The Raid (The Raid: Redemption in the West). It out-actioned every Hollywood blockbuster action film of that year and still manages to hold its own against other action films since.

So, it’s no surprise that a sequel was already in production by the time that film’s theater run was winding down in the West. Gareth Evans will return as director of The Raid 2: Berandal and so will the survivors of the first film.

With filming all pretty much done and the film moving on to post-production the first official teaser trailer for the sequel has been released and all I can say is…WOW.

The Raid 2: Berandal will be punching people in the face sometime around 2014.

Scenes I Love: “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” from Cabaret

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tuesday night was election night so, of course, everyone on twitter was talking about politics. People were making fun of Chris Christie’s weight, accusing Barack Obama of being a communist, and going on and on about the Tea Party. Some of them were very liberal and some of them were very conservative and quite a few of them made a big deal about being in the middle. However, the one thing that many of them had in common was that, regardless of what they believed, they were convinced that they had the best plan for America and that anyone who disagreed with them had to be idiotic, evil, or both.

That, by the way, is why I tend to stay off of twitter whenever there’s something political going on. It’s far too stressful having to deal with so many people convinced that tomorrow belongs exclusively to them.

Myself, I believe in freedom of choice and the importance of the individual. That’s one reason why twitter bothers me when it comes to politics. Everyone has something to say but nobody says it as an individual. Instead, there’s a mob mentality that I find difficult to take.

Today’s scene that I love is all about that political mob mentality.

Bob Fosse’s 1972 film Cabaret takes place in pre-World War II Nazi Germany. In this scene, writer Brian (Michael York) and the decadent aristocrat Max (Helmut Griem) visit a Berlin beer garden. As they discuss their own personal concerns, they are interrupted by a boy who singing a patriotic song called “Tomorrow Belongs To Me.”

Fosse begins the song with a close-up of the boy’s angelic face, only gradually moving the camera to reveal that the boy is dressed in the uniform of the Hitler youth. As the boy’s singing steadily grows more and more strident, the other Germans at the beer garden join in. As more and more voices join in, the song goes from being hopeful and optimistic to being ominous and threatening.

Most significantly, only one old man declines to join in. Instead, that man can only watch the scene with a weary sadness that indicates that he’s survived enough to know better.

It’s a powerful and disturbing scene and one that serves as a powerful warning against the political mob mentality.

Here Are The 19 Films Eligible To Be Nominated For Best Animated Feature

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oscar season continues! The Academy today released it’s list of the films that are eligible for Best Animated Feature. Here are the 19 films that are in the running.

Per Academy Rules, no less than two and no more than 5 of these films will ultimately be nominated.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Epic
Ernest and Celestine
The Fake
Free Birds
Frozen
Khumba
The Legend of Sarila
A Letter to Momo
Monsters University
O Apóstolo
Planes
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie — Rebellion
Rio: 2096 A Story of Love and Fury
The Smurfs 2
Turbo
The Wind Rises