Category Archives: Movies

Can Marketing Ruin A Piece of Entertainment?

Movies, Video Games

crimson-peak

This month, Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak hit theaters, and some have been coming away disappointed. It’s not that it’s a bad movie (it’s quite good, actually), but that it’s not particularly scary. As protagonist Edith Cushing repeats throughout the movie, it is not actually a “ghost story,” but a “story with ghosts,” in which the “ghosts are metaphors.” It’s a Gothic romance, sort of a cross between classic Charles Dickens and a Hammer Film Production. But you wouldn’t know that from the advertisements, which heavily emphasize the horror aspects of the film.

In the world of video games, a similar problem occurred last week with Halo 5. The promotional campaign focused on a head-to-head with dual protagonists Locke and Master Chief, with one executing the other. However, fans have quickly come to discover that the advertisements were a complete diversion, extremely mischaracterizing the story with inaccurate plot points and scenes which flat-out don’t exist in the title. Disappointment with the campaign story has been consistent in reviews and fan discussions about the game.

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Representation in Straight Outta Compton

Movies

straight outta compton

Straight Outta Compton has been an enormous success for Universal, and with good reason. In addition to being a very entertaining movie and, in its best moments, a breath of fresh air in the “musical bio-pic” genre, it’s a film that came into being at the perfect time. During a year in which systemic racism and police violence against black Americans have been more public and undeniable than ever, Straight Outta Compton is a literal and figurative middle finger to the white establishment, a highly satisfying statement of rebellion in motion-picture form.

This article won’t be a review of the film (for what it’s worth, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but felt like it lost the plot somewhat in its last half hour). Instead, I’d like to examine  the film’s representation of race and gender, as it’s a fascinating counterpart to the modern, whitewashed blockbusters.

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Ex Machina: Fun With Theories!

Movies

Ex Machina(This post contains spoilers for the film Ex Machina. It is written under the assumption that the reader has already seen the movie.)

I am not often interested in fan theories. The vast majority of the time, they consist of taking various tiny pieces of information, removing them from their intended contexts, and then placing them side-by-side with other unrelated pieces of information in order to create an argument. More often than not, fan theories just confuse the narrative further and substitute a clear purpose with wish fulfillment on the behalf of the theory crafter. In the rare event that a fan theory IS correct, it tends to be a theory that actually clarifies the narrative rather than muddling it (R+L=J, I’m looking at you).

I admit: my theory on Ex Machina does not clarify the movie to the degree that some of the best fan theories do. I had a certain idea in my mind early in the film and, by watching the movie with the assumption of my theory’s reality, it may have colored my perception of certain scenes. That being said, I believe it to be a well-supported theory with a more interesting, complex approach than what was openly presented in the film.

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P.T. and Art Revisionist History in the Age of Access

Movies, Television, Video Games

P.T.Last year, a free promotional game called P.T. hit the Playstation Store. It was a wildly inventive and terrifying experience, entirely set in a single repeating hallway. Unlike a lot of horror games, which rely on jump scares and enemy AI, P.T. felt intentionally and masterfully designed against your expectations. Complete game or not, it was a marvel of game design and, at least in my personal opinion, the most interesting video game released in 2014.

Enter today: Konami, the same company that published P.T., is trying to erase it from history. As I mentioned, P.T. was technically a promotional game, and the game it was promoting was Silent Hills, a reboot of the classic survival horror game series. That game (and P.T., by extension) was developed by legendary game designer Hideo Kojima and his team at Kojima Productions, in creative collaboration with Guillermo del Toro and starring Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead. Unfortunately, Konami has been on a roll of self-destructive decisions that ultimately led to the loss of Hideo Kojima from their company. While he’s staying on as a contractor to finish the nearly-complete (or, if you believe some rumors, the complete-but-standing-by-for-a-fall-release) Metal Gear Solid 5, his other projects are being killed. That includes Silent Hills.

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Gone Girl Review – Playing with Genre

Movie Reviews, Movies

gone-girl_c99723(Because Gone Girl has been out and available for some time now, I will be talking spoilers in this review. Also, because this review skews toward a broader discussion of genre, I am including it as a “review” and a “deep end” piece)

Six months after its release, I have finally gotten around to watching David Fincher’s Gone Girl. During that time, it had been nigh-impossible to avoid spoilers altogether (Neil Patrick Harris even spoiled his own death during the Oscars), but I did my best, and it ultimately paid off. Much of Gone Girl’s success comes not only from its twists and turns, but from how surprisingly early they come. Each major twist reshapes the narrative, as well as the genre.

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