photo credit: kern.justin

At the end

of every month, I’ll be posting an entry summing up the sneakily-updated ‘Reading‘ and ‘Watching‘ pages, where I review concert, books, and movies as I experience them. I’m not as good as others when it comes to writing full reviews, but I think these give my opinions in appropriately bite-sized proportions. I hope you find something you like!

Reading:

Journals:

The Reader produced by the Emerging Writer’s Festival–A brilliant little resource full of tales of advice and stories that illustrate where you can go with your writing should you heed it. There are valuable lessons to be learned about the industry itself that ‘emerging writers’ (a term whose origin and definition is discussed within) can lap up with ease. Highly recommended, and can be bought here.

The Sleepers Almanac No. 5 produced by Sleepers Publishing–I’d never bought a Sleepers Almanac before now, but if this is the quality of Australian short stories that is the norm in their productions, I may have to change that. This is top quality stuff, with stories that will leave you laughing, commiserating, scratching your head, and enjoying every word. From the moment it opens with the heart-breaking ‘Cameraman’ by Peta Murray it is evident that this is the cream of the crop. I particularly enjoyed the sparkle of an illegal marriage in ‘Elvis, Husbands, And other Men In Costumes: A Memoir’ by Liza Monroy, the everyday surreal tale of ‘The Day of the Hen’ by Tony Birch, the confused tension of ‘Attack of the Tiny Miracles’ by Max Barry, an amazing exploration of a relationship in ‘We Must Catch Up’ by Virginia Peters, the list goes on, but honestly I was wowed by just about every story I read. Highly, highly recommended.

Books:

Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steven Amsterdam–This collection of short stories by Melbourne writer Amsterdam is grouped around post-apocalyptic settings. But rather than focussing on the logistics of a post-apocalyptic society, Amsterdam relates the lives of his protagonists with only the occasional, necessary nod to the broken world in which they live in. This is human drama taken to a bold new place, as far away from the popular household minutiae fiction that we’ve come to expect from today’s literary cabal as can be. And yet, Amsterdam still manages some beautiful turns of phrase throughout. The plots can be somewhat relegated to the background in favour of bringing characterisation to the fore, but they serve their purpose and do just as much to illustrate the bleak march as anything else. And hey, it’s not science fiction, so genre-haters can still read this without feeling guilty. I recommend picking this up for an east-west plane trip.

The Lack Brothers by Malcolm McKay–A very Gaiman-esque tale (think American Gods set in Britain and with Angels interfering with the fates of men rather than deities). It is crude at times, but perfectly within its rights to be so. The characters are brilliantly realistic and the plot tight. It holds the dubious honour for being the only book to have ever made me walk into a sign. Great holiday reading.

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde–This was a very brave departure for Fforde, whose Nursery Crimes and Next Tuesday series are so beloved by his fans that you’d expect him to continue expanding their universes, much like Pratchett did with the Discworld. Instead, he’s made a diversion into a fascinatingly imagined world where the spectrum of colour (yes, that’s colour with a ‘u’, thank God. If an American had written this I dare say I’d have thumped it down in anger before the second page) that a person is able to see dictates their place in society. It’s a very ambitious concept, full of opportunities for concept loopholes. Fforde not only carries it off, but he does so with his customary wit and twisting plots that will have you guessing until the very end. While this book is less revelatory than a lot of his others, there is a reason: the series will be expanded into two sequels that will continue the tale of Eddie Russet and Jane Grey. Think Rupert Thomson’s Divided Kingdom crossed with Pratchett’s Discworld, by way of Orwell’s 1984. If that combination appeals to you then I’d suggest picking up Shades of Grey as soon as you can.

Graphic Novels/Comics:

Logicomix by Christos H. Papadimitriou, Apostolos Doxiadis, Alecos Papadatos, and Annie Di Donna–An intriguing graphic novel about the life and times of Bertrand Russell. I had bought it expecting something of a tutorial in the language of logic, but found myself engrossed in the personal life and questions raised by the historical characters and the constantly meta-conversing authors themselves. It may not be for everyone, but I enjoyed it.

Watching:

Movies:

Five Minutes of Heaven–This movie is being presented as part of the Perth International Arts Festival movie line-up this year, and to be honest, I went in expecting to come out horribly depressed. This may be because it’s a film about Northern Ireland and films about Northern Ireland are generally depressing, especially when they deal with that period of Northern Ireland history commonly known as ‘The Troubles‘. Liam Neeson plays Alistair Little, a man who, as a teenager, shot and killed the brother of James Nesbitt’s Joe Griffin. Griffin was merely a boy then, and suffered greatly from the event due to his mother’s grief taking the form of blaming him for not doing something to stop Little. The film shows the event and then cuts to modern day, where a reality television show about redemption and forgiveness has brought the two men together after 33 years. The performances of Neeson and Nesbitt are brilliant in portraying both men as scarred and tense. Both have carried their demons over the huge number of years, and to be able to accurately bring that out (almost manically in Nesbitt’s case, brooding in Neeson’s) in any number of nuances of expression and voice is an achievement. While it’s by no means a cheery movie, you won’t walk away from this one quite as depressed as you think you might.

Avatar–There’s not much I can say about this that hasn’t already been said, argued, trolled, reposted, or tweeted about. The CGI was amazing, the 3D was implemented better than the one other 3D movie I’ve seen, the story was unwaveringly predictable and the racist undercurrents evident, and there were numerous cuts that could have been made to speed up the action and not batter us over the head with the ‘lessons’ to be learned. But overall, it wasn’t a waste of money.

Zombieland–Saw this on the plane back from a trip to Sydney and it made me giggle quite a few times. The Bill Murray section was hilarious, and the ongoing reminder of the Rules were great. As much as I love the use of zombie apocalypses as a background for human dramas, I wouldn’t mind if this one should bring to a close that little sub-genre. Also, props to the main protag for being as close to being Michael Cera as you can be without actually being Michael Cera.

Concerts:

Cat Power, Astor Theatre–If there is a reason you go to live shows, then Cat Power perfectly exemplifies it. You cannot possibly emulate the depth and breadth of the power of her voice with a digital recording. You might get close with an LP, but it’d still lose some undefinable element in the grooves. I tried to capture the grace with which she delivers herself in my last review of her live show but to be honest this is one area which our language fails. The Astor was an interesting choice of venue, especially considering its odd mix of both seated and standing room, meaning that anyone who got early and sat in the seats in the first three or four rows got a barrier of people standing in front of them when the main act came on. We were in the middle and so unaffected. A little bit bizzare that. Anyway, yes, still mighty impressed with Ms. Marshall, and I urge anyone who wants to see a powerful performance to try and catch her.

Them Crooked Vultures, Challenge Stadium–Let’s be honest, with names like Josh Homme, Dave Grohl, and John Paul Jones you can’t really go wrong with a band. Another in the long list of super groups that have popped up lately, Them Crooked Vultures were loud, proud, and incredibly polished. The years of experience shared between all of them showed in a performance that was pure rock. Yes, they were showmen to the extreme, bordering on showing off in the form of various unnecessarily long solos. But hey, that’s rock ‘n’ roll baby. I’d never been to Challenge Stadium before, but it served the purpose well, with decent acoustics and a good crowd. Great gig, and they deserve their super status.

Related posts:

1. Reading & Watching for February
2. Mini reading update

photo credit: richt…

There’s something Zen

about laying down fourteen or so remote mines on the integral supports of a structure and then pressing the ‘B-for-boom’ button. And that’s a very fortunate thing, since the act of destroying buildings in a wide spectrum of thought-out and frantic ways is the main gameplay mechanic in Red Faction: Guerilla. The way that the building sways gently under the initial shock wave, then comes tearing down as metal bends and glass shatters appeals directly to my physics background, as well as being a mechanic that encourages the kind of gleeful holyshitlookwhatIdid giggling that has been missing in most of the single-player games I’ve played since Burnout 3. If you like blowing shit up, then the equation for your next car trip is simple: shopping centre – $100 = RF:G + hours of entertainment.

Of course as in all video games there is a glass ceiling of meaningful statistics to assign to various industry-standard  attributes. In RF:G’s case, while it rolled a strong 8 in Gameplay, it sucked out on the Story and Voiceacting stats, a mere 2 and 3 in each. The wunderkind engineer that fixes up all the new weapons you use to do the aforementioned blowing of shit up is the most offensive. Or should I say ‘aww-fensive’, as she’s somehow developed a very bloody posh British accent despite being a self-confessed Mars-born baby. Unfortunately she acts as a gateway between your character’s initial measley remote charges and assault rifle and the thermo-friggin’-nuclear rocket launcher and quantum singularity charges that you receive later in the game. So you’ll have to excuse her, or be prepared with the mute button everytime you approach her workbench.

The feel of an open world is maintained to relative success, with changes to the environment (read: great big holes where buildings used to be) persisting throughout the game. As you complete objectives and liberate the downtrodden Martians you will gain more and more ground support, which leads to objectives becoming easier to complete. Abuse that gift by letting citizens die and you’ll find yourself alone versus an army of special forces quite intent on ripping you limb from limb with the power of bullets alone. The AI is actually quite tough and your character can die quickly when out-positioned, so if you don’t use your environment effectively for cover and large-scale destruction, you’re in for a lot of replays.

Not that it matters much. Between rigging a suicide death truck with ten remote charges and watching it roll up to a guard post to detonate, engaging a mechanical walker complete with jetpack to run through building, and deconstructing enemies atom by atom with the nano death-ray (which I take special privilege to LOL at given my degree in nanotech), you’re not going to care if you have to replay the occasional mission. It’s a solid game with a distinguishing mechanic that pushes it beyond a generic idea to something that is genuinely enjoyable to play. I’ve yet to really push at multiplayer but I’m assured it’s a blast. Ho ho. Four out of five compromises of structural integrity from me.

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