The compleatly subjective top 10 movie coutdown!

I have decided to do a top 10 movie thing.  The plan is to update it once or twice a week with each post being an in depth look at one particular film.  In the past I have had a love hate relationship with these kinds of lists; they seem so final and something about that kills it for me.  However, recently I was exposed to a different viewpoint on this type of thing by the fabulous Nostalgia Chick.  In summery  I have decided to approach this list with two disclaimers; first, it is completely subjective.  As in, these aren't the best movies I have seen but they are the ones I like the most.  Second, this list is located temporal right here right now; as in, they are my favorite films of this week.  Now that that brief explanation is done with on to the show.

10.  Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

I wanted to start with Scott Pilgrim because I thought it really gets to the heart of what this list is about.  Scott Pilgrim is the kind of movie where I don't believe I can trust my opinion because it is so heavily designed for my generation and demographic.  I really love this film, but I have a feeling that in ten or twenty years I will look back with a warm nostalgia; valuing only the fact that it spoke to me at this time in my life.  In the end that is what this list is about; it is a current portrait, not some objective statement of fact that will stand the test of time.

The character of Scott Pilgrim makes almost every bad decision possible and yet I find him infinity relatable. At times he is oblivious, but the character is most interesting when he knows what he should do but does not because of wanting to avoid as much social stress as possible.  That mixture of self aware and reluctant I believe to be one of the most accurate observations the movie makes about early twenty somethings.  Sure, there have been and always will be heroes who resent their quest, but in Scott's case he resents all difficult decisions in all aspects of life.  While the traditional reluctant hero resolves the conflict and moves on to his or her end goal, In Scott's case growing up and accepting responsibility is one of the main narrative conflicts in and of itself.  Maybe I am over-thinking it, but it seems like the film focuses on this one aspect of the traditional heroes journey and stretches it out large enough to constitute all of the other parts of the journey.

Aesthetically the movie is great.  It borrows so heavily from comic iconography but it just works.  Normally I think when adapting something into a different medium you should work to that mediums strengths instead of trying to fuse the original into this new creation; but in Scott Pilgrim it just works.  The fight scenes are kinetic and exciting.  The more somber relationship scenes slow down but maintain the design focused compositions replacing kinetic dynamism with strangely realistic jittery movement in placid environments.  The music in the film is fitting and fun; that said I don't know much about music so I will refrain from saying too much about it.  Suffice it to say I really like the music.

Lastly the writing.  All of the characters are well drawn and have just enough depth to be interesting.  I enjoy the humor but I have a feeling that may change; rapid quirky bits of dialogue seem to be pretty in right now and I have a hunch that they will not last long.  Time will tell.  Similarly, I enjoy the video game reference based humor, but at the same time I have a fear that in a few years it will just come off as gimmicky and obtrusive.

Above all I find the film entertaining; I am never board when watching it.  This is, I think, the thing that I value most in a film.  I have seen some bad or mediocre movies and enjoyed them because taken bit by bit they are entertaining.  Likewise I have seen some really technically good films, well shot, good writing, good direction etc, but ended up damning them with faint praise because they were not entertaining.  All that said, I don't think boredom during a film is necessarily a bad thing; it can be used in interesting ways.

I'll close up here with two thoughts.  First, expectations seem to be an important element in this list.  I didn't have too high of hopes for Scott Pilgrim as a film and as a result maybe I am praising it too much since it exceeded such low expectations.  Second, I am happy with this choice for number 10, as half way through writing this article I began to have second thoughts about whether or not I really like the film.  This is what usually stops me from doing this kind of thing but in this case I believe it to be a good thing, or at least an interesting thing.

A comic and a game.

Today's post might not be as long as usual and so here is a comic to hopefully make up for it.

I will probably write something else later this week.  The problem is that right now I cannot think of anything worth while to post about. 

Do you think I could get in any legal trouble because I used NCC - 1701 in the comic?  It is the actual designation on the Enterprise and there might be some sort of thing on it.  I don't claim to have invented Star Trek.  Now that I have said that on this post I feel better.

I have been playing a game called Edge lately.  You are a cube and you move around a landscape.  It is a sort of geometry based platformer puzzler.  It strikes me as the kind of game a formalist would make; there is no story, it is not about anything, you need to get this cube to a certain point in a digital environment.  The cube can be seen as an extension of a pixel, which really in game terms I take to be a large scale atom.  The world of the game is constructed entirely of cubes that have the same dimensions as the player's avatar, so I guess someone could read it as an incomplete system that the player must fix.  I don't quite buy that though.

There is something fundamental that Edge taps into, pure distilled computer game.  You are given a simple objective that is easily understood but not always easily completed.  The world is 3d but it is the most primal 3d, just a bunch of blocks.  The essence of allot of computer games is to navigate a digital space of some sort and I think Edge is the sort of game that sees how much it can cut away and still be recognized as that type of game.  In any case it is quite fun and I recommend it.

Thoughts on Foundations

So I have started to read Isaac Asimov's Foundation.  I am maybe half way though and I figured I would post some thoughts on the book thus far.

But first for some background info.  Foundation was published first in 1951; it is the first in a trilogy(not counting the four other Foundation books written much later) by Russian born science fiction author Isaac Asimov.  The main premise is that humanity has spread across the galaxy under the banner of a single empire and now the empire is beginning to crumble.  The story is focused on a organization called the Foundation.  This group was created by a mathematician who foresaw this downfall though a fictional branch of science that is basically statistics and psychology that tells the future.  With this science he arranges the Foundation in such a way that they are in a good position to rebuild a new empire and not lose all of the knowledge gained in this crumbling golden age.  Although it feels like a disservice I can sum up the book with the phrase: It is the fall of the roman empire and the descent into the dark ages. . . in space.

So what is the book like?  How is it?  Well, it is pretty damn interesting.  The book reads like a collection of short stories; each one taking place a few generations after the previous story.  This means that for the most part characters aren't seen more than once.  Moving from one story to the next could very well mean that every character you were just getting to know has now been dead for a hundred years.  There are allot of ways that I can think of where this type of thing could go wrong, but oddly enough it just works.

In terms of writing it is pretty standard Asimov fair.  There isn't too much description of the scenery; there is very little in the way of action.  For the most part the story is carried along by extended dialogue sequences between characters.  This is sort of a double edged sword for me.  On one hand, I am quite a visual person and so at times it can get a little dull, especially when characters are talking about stuff that I already know, or events from the past that I have read about first hand.  Alternatively, I am a sucker for intrigue and watching various people with their own political machinations collide; and Foundation is full of this sort of thing.  Needless to say the dialogue heavy style works well for this battle of wits type of action, so over all it never becomes too annoying or boring.

This is I think the oldest science fiction book I have ever read.  In allot of respects it is impressive that some of these ideas were around in 1951.  The first story mostly takes place on the empire's capital planet of Trantor, a planet who's entire surface is one large city.  Asimov goes into how it needs the aid of a bunch of agricultural worlds to feed it, and how people born there have nervous breakdowns when they first see the sky since their entire lives are spent in the corridors and rooms of the city.  These ideas struck me as interesting and quite forward thinking for the time (though admittedly I am not too familiar with contemporary science fiction).

That said there are a few things that really date the book and one of them is the treatment of women.  That is to say, the seeming non existence of women.  Right now I am more than half way though the book and there has not yet been a single female character.  Women have been mentioned in passing, but for a book that is mostly dialogue between two or more characters I find it extremely odd that there hasn't been one sentence uttered by a woman.  I am chalking this one up to the time when the story was written. Most of the protagonists in the stories are people of political, social or religious importance and given the fact that most of these stories were first written in the 40's I guess it shouldn't be surprising that none of those characters are female.  Even still it is just noticeably weird and frankly a weakness in the book.

My last observation is that Foundation is really focused on nuclear technology.  Planets that don't have nuclear power are sort of seen as barbaric, or at least impoverished.  It is a technology that is treated with religious reverence, and that only the Foundation can provide.  That whole business strikes me as sort of funny, but it makes sense.  Contemporary science fiction authors tend to make up some sort of new technology that makes all of the fantastic elements possible, so I am not use to this great power source being so mundane.  It is totally understandable that Asimov would do this though, at the time nuclear power was new and positively full of potential.  Nuclear power seemed to have limitless potential, and so Asimov just ran with it and used it in the story.  Reading it nowadays with what we know about the limits of nuclear power and also just how difficult space travel is (although hopefully not for long), it is sort of funny in an endearing way reading about how so much hinges on nuclear technology.  All that said, maybe this is just semantics.  Maybe mankind's glorious golden space age will be nuclear powered.  All I am saying is that in lots of the sci fi I have read authors have avoided using such specific language.

So, the conclusion.  I am really enjoying the book.  Foundation is not without its flaws, but it is a fun read and I think an essential one for anyone interested in the history of science fiction.  Whatever it is, Foundation feels monumentally ambitious and if you are looking for a book with a really epic sense of scope I recommend it.

The Malevolent AI and Frankenstein's Monster.

I was thinking about monsters today.  Specifically, new monsters.  There are plenty of vampires and ware wolves and dragons to be sure; but their creation was so long ago.  While a part of these old monsters may still speak to us, I can't help but feel that significant aspects of them are gone along with the cultures that created them.  Now it should be noted that these monsters evolve, and that they endure today either because they have adapted or because there is something fundamentally appealing about them.  That point aside what makes the Chupacabra so interesting to me is that he first appeared in the mid 1990's.  I am not here to talk about el Chupacabra, in my meditation on new monsters my mind would keep coming back to one, the malevolent A.I.

Hundreds of science fiction stories feature the malevolent A.I. as either a plot device or as a direct antagonist.  The idea is that we humans create a computer that can think for itself.  For one reason or another this computer decides that it would be better off if it killed all of us pesky humans.  There are two main reasons that the malevolent A.I. frightens us that I can tell.  Firstly, is the A.I.'s vast intellectual superiority.  As a species who became 'top dog' by having the biggest and best brain out of all of our competitors it makes sense that we would be afraid of something that is our mental superior in every way.  The second reason that we are equally intrigued and frightened of the malevolent A.I. is our dependance on computer technology.  It is at this point that I should inform you that I am going to try and avoid discussing the singularity.  I know that if I start I will have a very hard time not blathering on and on about it.  The point of this post is to talk about malevolent A.I. as a literary monster.

At first blush the malevolent A.I. seems like it would be, by its digital nature, a recently created monster.  However, the earliest appearance of this idea that I can find is in fact from 1921.  The Czech play R.U.R. is about a group of robotic servants who rebel against their human masters.  This play's incarnation of the malevolent A.I. does posses the element of our over reliance but substitutes mental superiority to physical superiority.  This substitution is understandable as computers (and I use the term loosely) at the time were no where near being able to match us mentally.  What machinery could do was out perform us physically, and so R.U.R. plays off of our inadequacy in that respect. 

There are some themes in R.U.R. that parallel the various Communist revolutions that were happening roughly around when the play was being made.  A lower servant class of robots who mostly perform physical labor rising up and overthrowing their masters isn't the subtlest of metaphors.  These themes, while they may not resonate so well today give us a bit of insight into why we think the malevolent A.I. is just so. . . well. . . malevolent.  All computer technology is a tool to be used by humans; essentially all tools exist only to serve mankind.  What the A.I. monster represents is our tools gaining a mind of their own and then that mind not being satisfied with its preordained subservient lot in life.  We as sentient agents know just how much we value our freedom, our autonomy; and so it is our disposition toward freedom that helps us understand and fear A.I.  We are interested and afraid in this type of monster because we know how much we would fight for our own autonomy were we in its position.

Looking back further there are some connections between Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and our modern conception of the malevolent A.I.  Both Frankenstein's monster and our A.I. monster are created by man, and both of them rebel against their creators.  Frankenstein's monster is stronger than a normal man, a similarity to the robots of R.U.R.  Whether or not Frankenstein's monster had above average intelligence is debatable, he certainly picked up language quickly, but that is likely just a plot convenience.  One thing that I find appealing in the Frankenstein story is that the monster is not necessarily born evil.  He is abandoned by Victor at the moment of his birth and all of his future interaction with humans ends in disaster.  Part of what makes Frankenstein's monster evil and pitiful at the same time is his loneliness.  This aspect isn't typical in a contemporary evil A.I. story.  Though a sentient computer who just wants 'love' is an idea that is somewhat familiar the idea that an A.I. wants a companion of equal intelligence or similar construction is both interesting and something of an oddity (if you have any recommendation please comment, I would love to read them). 

Lastly, one part of Shelley's story continues to echo loudly in contemporary science fiction.  The monster asks Victor to make him a bride.  Victor begins to do this but eventually stops, fearing that the two would be able to reproduce, and that their offspring would destroy humanity.  Today the idea of a computer that can build another better computer that in turn can build yet another better computer takes Victor Frankenstein's fear and combines it with the exponential rate at which technology improves.  In either case this demonstrates a trepidation when it comes to science and progress.  Both in Victorian England and contemporary society we recognize science as something potentially dangerous, or at the very least something that has the potential to break free of our control.

So where does this leave us?  I started off thinking about new monsters but found that the A.I.'s roots stretch back to a story from 1818.  Is the Malevolent A.I. just a modernized Frankenstein's monster?  Maybe, but the idea has evolved in the past century to the point where I would be comfortable separating the two.  So I suppose our future robot overlords aren't such a new idea after all.  At least I still have my Chupacabra.

On First Posts and Blogging

First posts are interesting things.  An introduction seems somewhat in order; but that idea strikes me as dry, bordering on arid actually.  Lets just settle for a brief summery of why I am here, and presumably why you are here.  This blog exists because I wanted a place to talk, maybe to you, maybe to myself.  I tend to get allot of ideas, some big, some small, most fleeting.  I typically get really interested in a topic, decide to write some form of essay on it, then forget about it and move on to the next big idea.  I suppose this could be seen as an archive of those ideas.  Maybe there will be more than that; time will tell.

It is at this point that I begin to second guess myself.  There are thousands of people on the internet spewing their opinion; why would anyone look here?  Well, I don't know.  I continuisly bounce back and fourth on issues that concern the value of originality.  The cynic in me says that nothing is ever really 100% original.  While I know this may technically be true I believe it is a wrong headed reason to not do something.  So here it is, the plan is put my opinion out there.  If it sticks it sticks and if not at least I can say I tried.

I suppose at this point I should elaborate on what interests me and what this blog will actually be about.  What you can expect are thoughts on movies and books, both new and old; as I am somewhat of a cinephile and bookworm.  Visual art is also a large part of my life, I am currently finishing up art school and so if there is something vaguely art related in the news I will probably cover it.  I had the idea a while ago to do some sort of podcast or blog where people could send in images that I and maybe other nerds would then critique, so that may occur in the future.  Video games will probably be talked about as I find them both fun to play and interesting to discuss.  I suppose those are the big three, that said  allot of stuff interests me and so a large variety of things will be talked about. 

I promise that all future posts will actually be about something.  I will likely see the new Spider-Man movie tomorrow, if I do there will be a post about it.

Until next time,
Cheers.