Gravity is a Timely Dose of Human Triumph

Make no mistake, we are living in a time of renaissance for science fiction. Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men) has directed one of the most impressive sci-fi films about space since Apollo 13. While some professional astronauts have picked the film apart for inconsistencies, others, like Buzz Aldren, couldn’t have been more thrilled to see a film like Gravity.

Not fifteen minutes into the film, the sense of poetic normalcy of seeing astronauts doing their thing 300 miles above the earth is shattered by the sort of plausible catastrophe that represents the cost that space travellers pay for that beauty. It is also filmed as one, continuous 13-minute shot. Much of the film, in fact, involves long, hypnotic shots. It has the effect of always experiencing the danger from a single point of view, one that seamlessly shifts from global to intimate in a matter of seconds. This choice of cinematic style is a stroke of genius in a film filled to the brim with other visionary techniques that also help us identify with the protagonist.

When a Russian missile test destroys a Russian satellite, sending debris racing through the void towards the team, the story begins. And it doesn’t let up until the very last minutes. The disaster sends medical engineer and rookie Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and veteran Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) adrift in space, and all this without that seemingly obligatory scene we might have had to endure in another, more conventional approach to the film – the scene where the two characters bond, where back-story and other exposition is established.

But we learn just as quickly that this exposition is unnecessary. What we have are two people in outer space, who have to deal with a bad situation. That’s it, that’s all you need to know.

As a result, we learn about these characters by watching how they react, as we should. And because the danger is so compelling and believable, the characters become real. This is the glue that makes this film work. Had it been more character-oriented, it would have betrayed the visual potential. If it had gone the other way (as most films do), it would not have left an impression on anyone in the audience, and the lowered stakes would have made for a lackluster experience.

I can’t say it enough. Every so often, a movie comes along that is so ambitious in its objectives that, when it becomes successful, reminds us that there are still stories left untold. From IndieWire: 

"Four years in the making, "Gravity" presents an artificial world that could only have been made today, and provides a fantastic showcase of new possibilities."

There are many ways of seeing the world through which our eyes are not accustomed to seeing. The nauseating servings of filmmakers like Michael Bay leave many movie-goers cynical about the future of film, because they think that the special effects potential afforded to us by every new wave of technology is only making things worse. They are getting sick of the light shows, literally.

Gravity transcends all that. So many moments in the film seem so familiar, yet they feel fresh. It is as if, in so many of these moments, you could just as easily imagine another director doing a piss-poor job of the very same scene you are watching. You’ve seen it so many times before, the clichés and the pandering. This is the moment when X character has a heart-to-heart with Y character, and “finds” herself.

But in Gravity, these moments work. They work because they don’t feel forced or contrived. They are not like checkpoints in the screenplay, and the action also doesn’t feel calculated. It feels random, chaotic. Just like Space. This is not a character-driven story, or even a plot-driven story (not in the sense that conventional plot points used by other genres – like, say, detective stories – rely upon them). This is almost physics-driven. The action is bourn out of the chaos of Nature, and the struggle of our heroine through this onslaught is what brings about the drama.

As a result, character is revealed. For example, when a major piece of back-story is revealed about Stone near the end of the film, not only does it make complete sense (explaining her reactions throughout the movie), it also feels somehow irrelevant. Whereas in other films dealing with marooned astronauts faced with typical feelings like loneliness and madness, we seldom have the time to dwell on it. And when we do, even Stone doesn’t react in a predictable way. In fact, she takes us places we never would have thought to go.

The buzz generated around the special effects are well-deserved, and an equal share of praise should go to the script, but any review of the film would be incomplete without mentioning the power of the film’s music. Picking up where Kubrick left off, Gravity takes the lack of sound in space to great, poetic heights.

When we see Stone in the foreground fixing a problem outside the ship’s hull, while debris begins to ruthlessly shred and destroy a station behind her, the lack of sound effects is oddly unsettling. The music almost acts as a guide to the visual horror we are witnessing, and even the design of the music seems to mimic the sirens and the engines that otherwise would be heard.

Aside from the few moments inside one station or another, the only sound effects we hear (besides the dialogue we hear throughout) is mostly vibrations. The low-frequency sounds we hear through the space suit makes the danger we witness visually all the more disturbing. But wherever the character struggles, despairs or triumphs, the music guides us. We become adrift ourselves, tethered only by the raw emotion of the characters. We want to be with them, because we relate to nothing else. This was Gravity’s signature accomplishment: humanizing man’s precarious relationship with the infinite.

Katy Perry Wants Your Soul

I’ve wanted to write a piece about Katy Perry for some time, but haven’t found just the right way to express just how vile I think she is. Words can’t describe how perfectly she embodies the moral decay of our society.

Katy Perry wants to have the message and the level of importance that the Spice Girls had in the 90’s, but she’s completely missing the point.

Too many of her fans are duped into believing she is an icon of personal growth, and through her, they get to live vicariously through a woman of such self-importance, she has Barbara Streisand praying for deliverance.

She and many like her in today’s entertainment profess to inspire your uniqueness and your humanity, but end up succeeding in exactly the opposite. People like Katy Perry, while pretending to be humanitarian and thoughtful, actually undo every thread of your humanity by externalizing your worth.

They are soulless and without Spirit, in every sense of the term.

In the end, you are nothing but an animal, and females especially are still nothing more than objects armed merely with the skill of manipulation. If you pay attention, this is the real message.

FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO STARDOM

Imagine my surprise when the same Katy Hudson I had been listening to in my religious high school days was the same Katy Perry I’d come to loathe. It’s surprising because of how good her Christian album actually was compared to all of the Christian music that was out at the time (not to mention the stuff she’s put out recently).

And she was only fifteen.

Nowadays, however, she has become an ego-stroking succubus that is fueled by your need to feel better about yourself (especially if you are 25 and under). She will shamelessly pander to you and tell you that you are super-awesome, unconditionally. She will tell you what you want to hear. She is super-cereal.

All pop music does this, but it’s different with her. Good pop music simply mirrors real human emotions and experiences you’ve already had. You hear it, and you go, “Yes! I’ve felt that before, I know what that’s like.”

When you hear songs like “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted,” or, “Stand By Me,” there is no doubt that it is describing a genuine emotion or moment. Everyone connects to it.

I believe these songs have this effect because they have real human spirit. They can’t be called juvenile or frivolous because they are tapping into something much bigger, much more universal. More pure.

The best art has always done this.

Katy Perry’s music may be self-expressive, but it lacks this spirit. It lacks heart.

If you don’t believe me, watch as I compare her to another pop icon from the 90’s, whose career has unfortunately tanked.

           
She is not the one you think about when you think of maturity, but she has more of it than Katy Perry will ever have. I’m talking about the wonderful Natalie Imbruglia (...yes, that Natalie Imbruglia).

THE AUSTRALIAN INVASION

            
Her career, in many ways, is like the polar opposite of Katy Perry. She has become increasingly mature in her lyrical content and character, yet her popularity has decreased dramatically. 

           
Despite the fact that much of her subject matter is the same (sex, self-image, nostalgia, etc.) and many of their videos are almost identical, the messages they send couldn’t be farther apart.

           
The only thing most people my age remember about Natalie Imbruglia was that one song where she’s really sad that was super catchy for about six months. They don’t remember that she actually had five hits off of her first album (which included a wonderful collaboration with Portishead), and that her career continued.

            
Much of that album was the unsurprising substance of a self-deprecating twenty-something girl whose been dumped on plenty enough to make you wonder when she’d get a clue.

           
I chalk it up to the spirit of the nineties, and I cannot say if it was genuine or not. What I do know is that if a girl was to learn how to respect and love herself honestly, you would expect it to be reflected in the evolution of her art and the kinds of stories she speaks to. Most importantly, you would see maturity.

           
I see this with Natalie Imbruglia. I do not see this with Katy Perry.

           
When Katy Perry was Katy Hudson, she was a fifteen-year-old powerhouse of vocal talent that was singing songs from the heart. It was the heart of a child that was really struggling to reconcile her Christian beliefs with a world that seemed destined to see her fail.

It is not unlike the story of any non-Christian child as well, and even her contralto singing style sounded a bit too sultry for some Christian radio stations which refused to even play it.

           
It was soulful and honest, and nothing like the Jesus-Why-Are-You-So-Awesome one-note symphony of every Christian song that existed, then and now.

           
But now, Katy Perry is nobody.

           
She abandoned those roots and started singing songs about disrespecting the very men on whom she’s grown to depend for her fragmented sense of self-worth.

None of her songs suggest that your uniqueness and your beauty are not determined by external forces and need no approval from others, which is the reality. They don’t promote personal responsibility or human decency, and many of them are just downright mean.

           
Just look at a few examples...

  

One note before I begin my analysis: I’m not talking about talent or quality here. Both women are clearly talented, and I recognize the catchiness of Katy Perry’s music. I likewise don’t believe Natalie’s decline in popularity has much to do with the merits of her music, nor is that going to be a subject of discussion here. I’m simply comparing two very different messages regarding very similar topics. 

"Last Friday Night"

Wreckless, immature and irresponsible actions are necessary for fun.

Like all of the following examples, note how the message in this very similar song and video contrasts with that of Natalie's:

"Wild About It"

A good attitude and good company is all you need for fun.

You’ve met the girl who doesn’t know how to communicate to another hominid unless it’s to regale him or her with stories of her last weekend bender. Smart things bore her, and if you wanna get on her level at all, you better stop caring about things and start caring about her and her careless activities.

            

That’s Katy Perry in a nutshell.

            

It’s the same story as Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance.” Pay no attention to the million ways in which your behavior may find you raped or killed, and don’t listen to anyone who might wish you to reconsider.

             

It’s very uncool, after all, for your parents to get mad when they find half-naked men in your room.

             

And if you are the homely unpopular girl that no one would ever actually talk to in REAL life to save a small child’s life, just know that blackouts will get you into the party where the fun happens, and you will have the beauty and popularity of Ms. Perry herself. It’s practically her money-back guarantee.

             

And unpopular kids who know this isn’t true will follow suit anyway, believing that their success lies in endlessly demonstrating your poor decision-making skills to those who never have and probably never will give a rat's patoot about you.

             

Katy’s convinced them that this is how you REALLY make friends.

             

The message of immaturity is not just a nit-picky token, taken away merely by old persnickety curmudgeons with nothing better to do. It is the bread and butter of the Katy Perry brand, and you don’t need to be a cane-wielding old fart to see it.

              

The Katy Perry slogan should be: “Irresponsibility, always.” It should be tattooed on her arm, in fact. I would respect her more for it.

             

And the only thing better than recklessness to have fun is lots and lots of money…

"Waking Up In Vegas"

I need men to bankroll my carelessness and my excessively expensive tastes. If they tell me no, I just attack their manhood.

"Glorious"

Joy is a state of being that can't be bought, and it's best when shared.

There’s no problem with an innocent little song about having a little fun, even if that involves Vegas. Hell, I used to live there, I should know.

             

If it centers on fun with friends, like Natalie’s, the video could be breakfast with the president for all I care. But there’s more to “Waking Up In Vegas” than that.

             

First of all, even after living in Vegas for two years, even I didn’t have as much fun as she has in that video. If you’ve ever been to Vegas, you learn rather quick: it’s expensive! The sickeningly glamorous time she has is unrealistic even for a local, and that’s sort of the point.

            

Much literature has been written about women who have unrealistic ideals in media and fashion to which they constantly compare themselves, and now with digital models being used more and more to sell clothing, those ideals are becoming increasingly unreasonable. For this reason I don’t have to belabor the point.

             

The belief that the key to happiness is a rich man is unrealistic. That every girl should demand it is also very juvenile.

             

I suppose if you’re still living out your life like you thought it should be lived when you were a teenager, then Katy Perry would make a lot of sense to you.

           

She probably does make sense to a lot of teenagers who don’t know that mutual respect is actually necessary for every relationship. Who’d’a thunk it?

             

Unfortunately for them, Ms. Perry doesn’t even think sex is all that special, and she’s not all that classy about it either.

"Teenage Dream"

My standard for sexual intelligence is a spurious juvenile fantasy.

"Beauty on the Fire"

My standard for sexual intelligence is a moment of pure joy and ecstasy.

Natalie is most certainly not the first to write a song about sex and will not be the last. Her song is not groundbreaking, but it is leagues ahead of Katy in its maturity of the subject matter.

             

Perry’s video, for example, uses the same metaphor – the ocean – but also blatantly shows the sex. As if it wasn’t clear, a motel room was picked out and a hot young obviously-not-teenage stud has his way with the presumably teenage Katy Perry.

             

At least I think she’s a teenager in the video.

             

That part is really confusing.

            

It says that the best feeling a girl can have is to feel the way she felt before she knew what being treated like a piece of meat really meant. It was a time when you are anxious as hell to give away that which should demand the most respect from the other. It is not a frivolous deed, especially when you are 16.

             

When the song speaks of “no regrets,” it overlooks the obvious reality of winding up preggers, too. It muddies an already cloudy pool known as sex, but leaves the impression that the water is actually quite clear. It’s about feeling alive, so says the song.

             

If you think I’m making a mountain out of a mole-hill, then tell me why so much stock was placed by her and her producers in this teenage fantasy? It wasn’t just a song, it was a single upon which her second album was titled.

             

It’s pretty big, and her demographic (teenagers) shows it. Not to mention the fact that it is the actual image of a teenage, stardom-bound Katy, which serves as the poster for Katy Perry’s new concert film.

             

Dreamy-eyed teens are a cash cow for Katy, so it definitely makes a difference what she’s saying about teens and sex.

             

“Teenage Dream” and “I Kissed A Girl” are the songs that started her pop career, so it’s kind of a big deal.

            

 I don’t think approaching sex as a teenager would is very meaningful or smart at all.

            

Sex is a powerful thing that wise men and women have puzzled over for millennia. It’s not a joke, even if it could be likened to one – it shouldn’t be explained, just experienced.

             

Immature lessons about sex would be bad enough, but that says nothing of the damage done when she knowingly exploits it…

"California Gurls"

Basing your self-worth on the uncontrollable sexual impulses of weak men is fun!

"Want"

Basing your self-worth on the uncontrollable sexual impulses of weak men is definitely NOT fun.

I’m not sure why you’d ever want to cheat on Natalie Imbruglia, but the point is pretty clear: If you make yourself an object to a man, that is what you will be to him. And that ruins the lives and dignity of everyone involved.

            

Maybe no one has informed Katy that she will never have a true friendship with a straight male, and maybe she likes it that way. All I know is that I have several attractive female friends who hate the fact that men only seem to be nice for one obvious reason, yet still the women play into it always. Society tells them to.

             

Katy Perry tells them to.

             

Your worth is your ability to turn heads. If you can’t do that, you’re nobody. Go cry somewhere if you can’t.

             

But hey, if you’re going to destroy the self-worth of everyone involved, at least enjoy yourself while you’re at it! After all, no one has the right to tell you that you can’t! Right?

             

Wrong.

            

You know that you’re worth more than that, and men deserve better than a sex object as well. They deserve a woman who doesn’t use her body as a pawn in some game, and they certainly shouldn’t bother themselves with a woman who doesn’t know her own worth.

             

And why, ladies, like all other things, do you have to prove this one thing to anyone?           

             

Whether others find you attractive or not, this is not where you should place your worth at all.

             

The world can tell you if you are good-looking, but it can’t tell you if you have goodness in you. That is something you must learn internally.

             

The message Katy Perry seems to be sending is this: Not only are you allowed to be a terrible person, you should force the world to tell you that you’re awesome anyway.

           

Even her most innocent-sounding and seemingly positive song has this hidden assumption…

"Firework"

Your struggle is external and you have everything to prove to everyone.

"That Day"

Your struggle is internal, and your humanity needs to be proven to no one but yourself.

See the difference?

            

There are some things that need to be proven to others. Your ability to drive a car, for example. Or your ability to sing or do long division.

             

But your humanity is not one of them.

             

I don’t think Katy Perry is talking about humanity at all. Everything is a contest with her, as you’ve seen from these few examples.

           

In “Hot and Cold,” she all but beats a guy into submission (with baseball bats, no less) because he’s not man enough to make a decision. “Ur So Gay” is one of the meanest songs she’s ever written, and even her breakout hit – “I Kissed a Girl” – flaunts a petty experiment with the same sex like it’s a status symbol.

             

It is not an important or emotional act of self-discovery, it is just an immaterial checkpoint in a game of spurious value, made all the more petty by her need to mention the discarded feelings of her current partner.

             

Everything is rivalry, manipulation and ego with Ms. Perry, it never goes deeper than that. If it did, she might not have needed to stray much from the progress she’d already made spiritually, back before she decided: “To hell with internal growth. The world for the modern female is just Machiavellian manipulation through sexuality, nothing more.”

             

So when she sings, “Make ‘em go oh oh oh,” I think this is what she means. You need to make sure that everyone accepts you – no exceptions! Never mind that this is not how the real world works. 

            

Why does she feel the need to show us a boy with cancer, or a girl who's afraid to jump in the pool because of her weight? These are external identifiers, and Katy Perry doesn't know how to assess value in any other way. 

            

How about a church-goer? Or a father trying to get joint custody of his kids from a woman whose been badmouthing him? How about a gazillion other ways in which identity and worth are established that have nothing at all to do with the physical self.

            

Externalizing your worth is dangerous.

            

If you don't believe me, try watching the video with the sound off. The finale looks not much different than a PCP-infused Occupy Wall Street riot. 

            

You convince enough people that their worth depends on their willingness to take action and force their sense of self-worth and identity onto others, even if those actions are drastic and violent, and you start to see how that "spark" of which she speaks looks a lot less like Spirit and more like TNT. 

            

I might have thought I was reading too much into it, but when you look at the whole of Katy Perry's career, it makes perfect sense.

             

To make the point extra clear, here’s one more example.

"Part of Me"

You will not change me, and to prove it I will completely change my entire life.

Now contrast that message with another pop singer, whose message is just as mature and wholesome as Natalie's...

"Stronger"

I can accept change by being true to myself, and that is why I'm a better person.

Kelly Clarkson is the steak to Katy Perry’s tofu, pure and simple. Kelly gets it, Katy doesn’t. No other way to say it.

             

Kelly makes her millions just like any other, and I don’t begrudge her that success. She’s earned it, and I don’t care what anyone says.

             

She also represents what soulful pop music has always done: vicariously transforming hearts and minds for the better through music.

             

Sure people are being validated through Katy Perry as well, but her message is not one that transforms for the better. These two videos should illustrate once and for all the real difference between a good, soulful message and one driven by ego.

That all of your actions are oriented around proving your humanity (or any part of your identity) to others is very juvenile. To admit that you have been hurt (something the ego is not keen to do), and that you were changed by someone who maybe never cared about you at all (i.e. The World), is not betraying your humanity at all. It is recognizing it.

             

If you've ever been betrayed by someone, you know what it's like. To trust someone is to have faith that they see in themselves what it takes to be kind and respectful to others. 

If you live your life as if relationships are simply a game, where you must get one over on the other before they hurt you, you will never know love at all. There is much love in Kelley's video, not so much in Katy's.

One is fueled by self-respect and the other is fueled by petty antagonism. Can you guess which is which?

            

It’s the same song, but informed by two different philosophies. One says you don’t ever have to change, unless you can say that the change was always a “part of you” to begin with. The other simply acknowledges the change for what it is and rejoices in the triumph of becoming a better person.

SO NOW THEN...

What all of these examples show is that real growth and maturity comes from within. It is a process that does not exclude the outside world, but synthesizes it with an already beautiful inner landscape waiting to be cultivated.

You can build up that universe inside you for its own sake, and not for any reason that the world gives you.

             

You have two options.

             

You can nurture the light within you by feeding it, and not your ego. You can recognize that your worth is not defined by the world but by the spirit within.

            

 Or you can remain ignorant of how best to utilize your inner strength. You can reduce your body to a mere sexual object instead of seeing it as a vessel of light, and you can place priority on ideals that are unrealistic at best and shameful at worst.

             

You can do this and stifle that light within you, if you choose. You will become a pestilence on the world, like Katy Perry. You will forever encourage others to act as entitled as you feel to undeserved offerings and praises from a world you seek to control.

             

You will do this, but you will find in the end that you have put out the only fire you possessed which made you a human being in the first place.

             

PS: Katy, if you are reading this and you still don’t get it, maybe this song will help:

What Glee Taught Me About Sondheim

I've always wanted to like The Company because it deals with many things I've often thought about life and marriage. The lyrics are clever and the music is arranged well, but it has always left a bad taste in my mouth. I never realized why until I saw Kurt Hummel sing "Being Alive" on Glee.

My immediate reaction was to praise it. Not the performance necessarily, but the idea.

Glee is an over-indulgent, self-gratifying masturbatory fantasy for anyone -- gays, nerds, the handicapped, etc. -- who have ever felt stepped on and mistreated by society. It is very juvenile in this regard (what used to be called "bourgeois"), but the show makes no bones about that. It says "Yeah this is infantile, but so what?"

We know in real life there's very little chance that even one, let alone two, kids from the same midwestern high school are getting into Nyada, or that Kurt would increase his chances of getting in after being rejected by reapplying without demonstrating any evidence of or interest in improvement.

The fantasy becomes even more absurd when we are expected to believe the strictest of college deans would suddenly change her mind and let him not only try again, but do so in front of attendees to what is presumably one of the school's most prestigious showcases of the year. But this mandala of gyro-scoping absurdity is the show's genius, and is the secret to its success.

So when Chris Colfer sings "Being Alive," it's less important why his character picked it and more important that the show is continuing to emphasize absurdity over reality while also making a mockery (however unintentional) of folks like Sondheim who take themselves far too seriously. The emptiness of Sondheim's original story is upstaged by a dreamy-eyed gay teen singing about why marriage is important. Imagine that.

The fact that the song has more significance when sung by a gay teenager on a melodramatic, farsical primetime network television show serves to summarize -- again, probably unintentionally -- Sondheim's play in a word: trite.

If, like Glee, The Company didn't take itself too seriously, that might make up for a story about urban socialites whining, as the Glee-sters often do, about trivial nonsense. The play should really be called, First World Problems: The Musical.

It's not that Sondheim isn't good at what he does, it's that he has nothing profound to say (at least on the basis of this musical). And for someone who is considered a God on Broadway, he is very touchy about criticism.

He's something of a spoiled child, and if you DO think he has something meaningful to say, then I challenge you to ask the girl who made your blouse in a Malaysian sweatshop what "being alive" means to her. She will probably say "clean drinking water and mosquito nets."

If you show me a man who is well-fed, well-educated, who is safe, employed and loved by his friends and family, then I'll show you a man who's pretty Goddam alive already. If he is unhappy, then his place is not in a serious Broadway play, but in the fantasy of a little boy.

Ridley Scott, What Happened To You?

Warning: There be spoilers.

Dear Ridley,

Hey buddy, how you doing? Are you feeling ok?

I heard some rumors that you’ve been coming down with something, and I really want to express my condolences. I know we all go through this phase where we feel like the world is on our shoulders and we try to overcompensate for this otherwise understandable apathy and emptiness that comes with being under the weather. I take it this is the explanation for Prometheus. If so, I forgive you.

Don’t get me wrong, Ridley, I still want to be friends! I super duper want to be friends, I promise. It’s just that, well, it’s hard to watch a good friend loose it. And I feel like you’ve lost it, mister.

I was never surprised to find a wonderful collection of images that capture the imagination as I saw in Prometheus. The standard-bearer of modern sci-fi was bound to show us jaw-dropping worlds, where we work out the wonders and horrors of our own humanity. Bringing us like Dante through the inferno of Blade Runner and into the Fruedian abyss of space in Alien, I would have expected nothing less than divine mental and spiritual gymnastics, the likes of which no other filmmaker could compare.

But there’s no sound in space, Mr. Scott.

I don’t know if you stumbled into your sound mixing session doped up on Robitussin and Quaaludes and just happened to miss the addition of purring engines from a ship moving through space, but I must inform you: it actually made it into the movie.

OK, so you made a rookie sci-fi mistake. That’s cool. No one’s perfect. Except, I always took you to be respectful of science fiction. But you’ve let that guy from Lost walk all over it, and I think he’s a bad influence on you. I’m only saying this because I care about you, Ridley.

The essence of sci-fi is really not that complicated. Your characters exist in a world that is predictable and understandable, and whenever they see something they don’t understand, they perform tests that then provide data. Sometimes people have to get eaten for us to learn things, but it’s still scientific. Like how we Westerners view reality.

So when you open the film with a weird alien dude who kills himself by drinking some sort of poison, it’s kind of important that we understand why. Is he on the planet where this film takes place, or is it Earth? Is it Earth circa 10,000 BC or circa 4 million BC? And most importantly, assuming we ever learn what it is he actually ends up doing (i.e. does he create life or does he alter the life that already exists on the planet?), why does he do this? We are given no information, and so we can draw no conclusions. The scene adds nothing.

Ok, so the studios told you to open the film with a hook and that’s what you came up with. Fine. They also probably insisted that we see the discovery of the cave painting that ultimately leads to the mission, but it probably wasn’t necessary.

I understand you have to sell popcorn, too. I looked past it and thought, “we’ll get to the really good stuff after Ridley gives the studios what they want.” I get that. Sometimes when my boss is riding me, I just give him what he wants and when he goes away, I go back to whatever it is I wasn’t doing.

Well I don’t want to be insensitive, but I don’t want to beat around the bush anymore either: the script for Prometheus is like a dying mother with a crying baby in her arms. It’s depressingly bad.

I’m not sure where I would begin to explain how mired with flaws the film actually is, but let’s start with Dave. Playing into our tendency to mistrust androids is a bit tired, but you could make that interesting if you wanted to. And you have before. Added to this is the obvious fact that he serves little purpose other than being an easy avenue to figure out alien technology without having to actually explain it.

So he’s smart. How original. But you, Mr. Scott, once created androids with more of a purpose than merely being a Greek chorus who knows alien shit. There is only one scene in which there is a notable narrative meaning to his presence, and the scene itself was not written very well.

It is the scene where he poisons Holloway. This scene has so many flaws you would need a wheelbarrow of putty to patch them. We know so little about Dave’s agenda and it’s hard to even know what’s at stake. Does he know what will happen if Holloway drinks the black goo? If he doesn’t, what part of his programming says that it’s OK to experiment with human life in this way? Is he taking orders from someone or acting of his own volition? This act of free will would be significant and meaningful, if we knew it for sure. The film ended, and I do not feel I got an adequate answer to any of these questions.

What I did grasp was a sloppy attempt to dramatize the cynicism behind thinking that our makers would not care about us, like we don’t care about that which we’ve made (i.e. Dave). It is sloppy, not just because Holloway looks less like a thought-provoking philosopher and more like a drunk douche. It is sloppy because both characters exhibit logos and pathos in the wrong proportions.

I expect the scientist to have emotions, but he seems to lack any logic at all. They’ve just arrived on this planet, and in a discipline that would normally require months in the real world to form anything close to a conclusion, he’s jumped right to it and he’s quite a baby about it.

Dave, on the other hand, is too emotional, and I’m not referring to the manner of his delivery. Just because Fassbender doesn’t emote does not mean the dialogue he was given comes from a place devoid of passion. Why would he ask Holloway how he would “feel” about anything, such as if our makers said they made us just because they could? We are made to empathize with him emotionally over something that is clearly emotional, yet we are expected to believe he is incapable of feeling?

So we come into the scene not really knowing what the motivation is for either character (except for guessing), and when we leave, we still don’t know. We believe, but we don’t know.

And every scene is like this. It feels like everything will get an explanation later on, but we never get one.

What were the giant people running from when the big dude got his head cut off by the door? And for that matter, why did he fall under the door to begin with? Did he trip? Where are the bodies of the other people who made it into the room that was presumably sealed off until the Prometheans opened it? What even was that retro simulator thing that showed them to us anyway? What created the breathable environment in the alien structure, and how did opening the door disturb the canisters? Where did the maggots come from? Is there any other life on this planet, or just the maggots? And what the hell is the black goo? The only thing we learn about the black goo is that its black and its gooey and it turns maggots into super-maggots.

Did we ever find out why the head exploded? Do we ever learn why the maggot-snake grows his head back so quickly, and why the acid eats away Fifield’s helmet, but instead of killing him, turns him into a super-creature? Where did all those crew members come from that were killed by Super-Fifield? Actually, how many crew members were there period? After this scene happened, I thought they were down to like five, but then after we discover Weyland has been in stasis the whole time, we discover several other crew members, the presence of whom is never addressed.

You see what I mean, Ridley? It’s cool to beg questions with your film, but if I can’t trust you to answer any of them, or at least stick to the pursuit of them, it’s hard to stay interested.

So your heroine gets pregnant with an alien. I don’t care! Not only is it unoriginal – it has been done by you! – it is not written well at all. She discovers her pregnancy, stumbles to an infirmary, calibrates a male-patient-only machine to do a Cesarian, escapes the pod from her offspring and runs away. All in the span of about ten minutes.

I didn’t believe it for a second.

Sorry man, but if I had a disgusting squid monster kicking and screaming in my belly, I don’t think I’d be competent enough to operate a Cuisinart. This scene could have been so much more gripping if it was not written as an action scene. If you know that it’s going to be terrifying when it gets pulled out, it’s not going to be that terrifying when you pull it out. If, however, you have her perform the Cesarian under normal conditions, the suspense would be much more compelling. It could have been deftly handled by a master like yourself.

And this is the problem with your movie, Mr. Scott. There are great ideas, but I wish you had pushed back a little more on that Lost guy and actually taken charge. You know how to do this right, so why didn’t you?

What lead you to believe that the revelation of Weyland being Vickers’ father was going to be anything but contrived, undeserved, uninspired and totally pointless? Your jealousy of Lucas? And why even give Vickers a back story if you intend to make her just as useless. Why does Weyland think the Engineers will give him everlasting life when they very clearly do not possess this themselves?

Perhaps most importantly, how are we supposed to feel about the fact that our heroine ends the film in the companionship of the same droid who lead to her impregnation with the squid monster? She never gets even for this. In fact, the movie seems to suggest that its OK to get pregnant by sleeping with horrible men, because you can just abort the fetus and it will all be OK. You can even call up the guy that hooked you up with that douchebag and have drinks together and talk about your ill-fated quest for “answers.”

I, like her, would like answers. I’ve only scratched the surface with my questions. In the original Alien, there was only one: where do the aliens come from, and who made them? But you see, it’s acceptable not knowing the answer to this one because by the end of the film, we have never doubted what we’ve seen. We know exactly how these aliens work, how they reproduce, etc. Every development or discovery leads to a change in the group dynamic and has a meaningful moral outcome. The characters use what they've learned scientifically against their foe in order to beat it.

I have no idea what the group dynamic in Prometheus is. It’s like all the people that work at my local Starbucks got on a ship and arrived on a foreign planet. They all lack insight, the attention to detail that science requires, and maturity.

The only believable one is the ship’s captain, Janek. But even he suffers from tokenism. You give him a musical instrument and some dialogue about shagging? So deep. Still, he’s the only one that attempts to put the pieces together as a scientist would and posit a guess as to what this place is and what really went on – and he’s not even a scientist!

You can do better, Mr. Scott. It’s all I’m saying. You can fool the masses whose appetite for good sci-fi has been whetted for years with dizzying Micheal Bay light shows and confusing Christopher Nolan mind trips. But you’re not fooling me.

Get some rest. Maybe try a romantic comedy, or perhaps a farce. Anything but sci-fi. Take my advice and drink lots of fluids, then call me in the morning.

In Defense of JCPenney: Social Media Justice and Mob Rule

That half a dozen of my Facebook friends (all of them women) separately denounced the recent clothing miscarriage showed just how vehement and wide-spread this outcry really was. I can see the point: JCPenney made an obviously-sexist T-shirt available for sale that seems to promote looks over brains. Before too long, another T-shirt came under fire for listing ‘boys’ and ‘shopping’ among a list of a girl’s ‘best subjects.’ The outrage spread like wild fire, and the same day it started, JCPenney pulled it and issued an apology.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and defend JCPeney: they shouldn’t have pulled the shirt. I mean, you can’t fight a mob, so pulling it was certainly the smartest business move, but don’t think for a second that JCPenney actually gives a damn what was on that shirt.

First of all, this is not a controversy at all, and it should be. Half of the more than three hundred headlines that come up in a Google search for this story read “sexist T-shirt sparks controversy.” I’m sorry, but controversy implies there is an argument going on, but I see no debate. There is no one providing another perspective. So I guess that’s my job.

It is such a wild phenomenon to witness the mob mentality at work on social media. No one engages in discussion at all. It’s just, “Oh my God, this! This is happening!” And you pass it along just like that, and pretty soon everyone feels like they are a part of bringing down the Berlin Wall or something, but they always end up looking like Johnny-come-latelys who do their deed and walk away having no clue what they've just done. I’m not saying this is true for everyone, of course. Some people do have strong beliefs, but to jump on a band wagon and pass it along without a conversation is a little disingenuous.

The only article I found – the ONLY one – that actually gives another view is from this mother of two. Her personal opinion is this:

And I wouldn’t pity a girl in this shirt because I don’t know that girl or how she sees herself. I agree it advertises something, but that something is exactly what’s up for debate. Is it…

I’m pretty, I can’t be smart.
I’m pretty and I’m so smart I conned my brother into doing my homework.
I hate homework, I wish being pretty got me out of homework.
or even
This shirt’s slogan is silly, I’m just wearing it for fun

Who knows?

She also points out, correctly, that it is her job, and NOT JCPenney’s job, to be the role model and educator of sexual and social values. She has her opinion about the shirt like everyone else, but ultimately it’s her decision to buy the shirt for her daughter or not.

But it’s not just the controversy, it is the apparent amnesia that social media justice seems to have when executing its sentence. Remember Don Imus? The racist who talked about the black WNBA athletes as a bunch of “nappy-headed hoes”? Sickening, right? You should have heard his show years ago! He wasn’t racist enough to get fired before, so why now? Because of social media. But this is a double-edged sword. Imus’ audience didn’t go away, just him. You can dance with joy that you've brought down an awful bigot, but isn’t it his audience we should be concerned with? I would have though bigotry would be bad for business in this day and age, but he was holding steady right up to the end.

And do you really think that JCPenney is the first to put out a T-shirt that promotes looks over brains? Certainly not. There’s a whole market of sexist T-shirts for sale online! If she can’t get it from JCPenney, she’ll get it from someone else. JCPenney is not the culprit, here.

But let’s assume they are, and get to the bottom line (no pun intended): Demanding that options be taken off the table does not fix the problem in a free market, it just removes options. The only thing that will fix the problem is for consumers to not buy the product. It’s that simple.

Vote with your dollar, not your voice. Here’s why…

When the next shirt comes along, how is the marketing manager going to know if there will be another public outcry? Suppose you go to Walmart and say, “I was told that Tapioca will give you cancer. How dare you make Tapioca available! I’m telling!” And then you go tell your friends and they tell their friends, and pretty soon there’s an angry mob outside demanding the removal of Tapioca from the shelves. They remove the Tapioca as anyone with any business sense would, and the mob goes away feeling like they’ve done their job. But later on, a new rice pudding comes out. The market manager might reject it because it bears too close a resemblance to Tapioca, and whether it is or not, it would be too much of a risk to carry it. And others will no doubt follow. And this is all to say nothing of the fact that Tapioca MIGHT NOT ACTUALLY BE BAD FOR YOU.

Nevertheless, for these reasons, it is not just the “I’m too pretty” shirts that will be pulled and refused to be sold. There are several shirts which will never see the light of day, and not because people won’t buy them, and not because they are bad. As this girl points out, while she’s glad they pulled the Homework shirt, she doesn’t have a problem with the other shirt that quickly made the rounds on social media. But JCPenney won’t consider the difference.

And also, if anything was done here today, it has probably resulted in making teen girls MORE interested in things like this. If you make a forbidden fruit out of it, they will flock to it. No doubt some of the girls saw this come up on their Facebooks and thought, “now I want that shirt!” And they will try and get it or one like it, not because it’s how they feel but because they don’t want to feel stupid anymore. At least the T-shirt will give any parent a golden opportunity to teach their kid a lesson about self-worth, which is not a lesson every girl needs to learn. Just the ones who vote with their dollar.

I'm Not Sorry I Waited For Games To Get Good Again

I’ve been grilled repeatedly in the past for my reluctance to consider video games as being a superior medium of art and entertainment, which will eventually replace movies. So many of my gamer friends don’t watch movies much, yet they are convinced they have the golden goose. Though I remain thoroughly convinced that cinema as an art and entertainment medium isn’t going anywhere, there are some things that my gamer friends would be surprised to hear me say, and that is partly what this blog is about.

The first thing is that I love video games.

It’s true. I give video games a bad rap because I hate most of the ones they make these days. Like every gamer, I like to spend my time – including the time I want to waste – doing something that matters to me. Something fun or useful or educational. Even if it’s shooting spaceships with a laser or stacking puzzle blocks, I want to feel like I’m benefiting from the experience in a number of ways. Trying a new game shouldn’t feel like trying a new kind of tofu, it should be a powerful experience that pulls you in like a dynamo.

Unlike most gamers, however, I’m willing to admit that this is subjective. If I don’t like a game, I don’t expect some douchebag to tell me, “oh, you’re just not fun-ing right,” or “you call yourself a gamer?” Few are as elitist and condescending as online gamers (though Metal fans and pretty much the whole of modern art comes to mind as well). You can have an opinion, so long as it’s not a bad one.

For me, the whole emergence of interactive media is analogous to the start of a really awesome party. Officially, the party started at 7pm, but you don’t show up at 7:05. You never want to be the first one to show up at a party when there’s not much going on. You show up at 11:30 when a good number of the women are already sauced, but not so late that all of the best ones are taken. For video games, I’d say we’re at around 8:15. We still have a long way to go before shit gets interesting.*

But in all seriousness, I want to make several points. I'm going to argue that video game users have less psychological control over their input of media than movie-goers, video games will not replace movies but may compliment them, and that some of the best games of the future (IMO) will be of a type called "interactive cinema." Although I could be way more vicious in my attacks of gamer behavior, I've kept them to a minimum. The gamer lifestyle is not what I'm after here.

*

I learned rather quickly growing up that, outside your typical Tetris-style puzzle games, they would have to change quite a bit before I’ll place them alongside cinema in my life. I love non-story-based games but story-based ones have a lot of growing up to do.

First of all, there are many fundamentally different interactive experiences that are possible, which all tend to get lumped under the banner: Video Game. It is disingenuous to compare cinema to interactive media without making this distinction.

Puzzle games like Tetris are not interested in telling a story at all, and are worlds apart from a game like LA Noire, which is story-based. There may never be a college professor who does his dissertation on the dramatic motivation of one tiny green frog who just wanted to cross the damn street, and just as well. Furthermore, some non-story games involve competition between players, both in the room and online. You would not call these story-based any more than you would a soccer match.

But of the games that we would reasonably call story-based, there are those who would contend that the self-written story is an argument for the viability of video games as its own art form. They contend that the user’s desire to control the outcome of the story is not afforded by film and therefore will be the reason for film’s obsolescence. But they would be WRONG.

Let’s be clear about one thing: cinema is a passive medium and interactive media is, by definition, an active one. They share two things in common: they both involve the illusory rendering of photographic images, and they have an educational function. They have a beginning, middle and end, motivated by the educational function which is chiefly responsible for showing us how the new universe works and which choices will help us reach our goal. Time, space and control are the main differences between these two mediums.

If we are limiting the discussion to story-based video games, let’s start with role playing games (i.e. self-written stories). These are no more self-written than choose-your-own-adventure books are. No matter what ending you choose, the author of your world saw it coming! They must have, in order to design your world. Everything, down to the last coin you found which finally gave you enough to buy the elixir you’re gonna need to fight the big boss guy down the road – God’s got it covered.

And there is nothing fundamentally different between playing Grand Theft Auto to beat on some whores and watching someone else do the same in Hostel. If you play GTA so that you can torture someone, you’re not making a choice that is any different than choosing to see Hostel, in which much torture takes place. The big difference, however, is in the fact that a largely architected statement is being made upon the completion of the story in Hostel.

Games don’t have to make statements, but in a sense they do nonetheless: come to my sandbox and do what you can’t or won’t do in your real life. They’ll set up the torture chamber for you, get you all the tools you need to do what you want to do, all so that you have a choice? Get real. If you actually went to a hostel and got a room of your own and a victim of your own, and they give you a chainsaw, an ax and a dull knife, would you really just say, “nah, let her go”? And if that is your argument – that you COULD choose to let her go – then I’m right anyway: there is no more choice in a video game than there is the choice to see a movie.

However, suppose you do play Grand Theft Auto and you don’t want to do bad things; suppose you want to play it straight. You would still only be making choices that the game designer is allowing you to make. So, even if you have more choices, they are false choices. In a movie, you’re with it or you’re not. But that is a good thing, not a bad thing. Good stories need a good storyteller. Could you imagine driving across a bridge and going, “you know? I think the bridge should go THIS WAY!” and to find out, to your dismay, that the bridge does not, nor should not, go that way; hence, you sink and you fail.

A story-based video game that lets you do whatever suits your fancy (in terms of story) isn’t really a story-based game at all. The game designer knows the ending to all story-based games – even the games in which your choices change the outcome (as I will discuss later). Again, the designer MUST know.

The previous comparison does also present an ethical quandary, which speaks to the spurious notion of control in video games. We think interactive media gives us more control, but this is mostly false. It is one thing to see such heinous acts in a movie, but it’s quite another to become complicit in them.

If you see torture in a movie, you are detached and passive, and can become desensitized to seeing it. If, however, you participate in the act yourself, you are psychologically guilty yourself. The argument that “it’s just a few bits of code in a machine” is actually quite a disturbing validation for something you would never even dream of doing in real life. It's the same as using the line, "It's OK, we're just fooling around," as a cure-all to justify bad behavior.

I’ll stay on this point, because this is a huge point of contention between some of my friends and I. If you say to yourself, “I’m going to climb Mt. Everest,” psychologically speaking, you have. Studies have shown that simply saying something like this actually produces the same psychologically-satisfying effect as actually doing it. That is why whenever you announce your plans in this manner, whether you are aware or not, you will be more likely to fail than by not saying it. You can THINK it all you want, mind you, but when you actually say it out loud – especially to a friend – in your mind, it’s just like you did it.

This is why those who play aggressive video games tend to become more aggressive in nature. It is why the military is able to use Doom to dehumanize killing and thereby raise casualty levels. Yes, I’m using the Doom argument. That gamers scoff at this argument to me indicates a greater sickness, because they would rather discard it as anomalous than face the fact that they might not have as much control over their minds as they thought. They don’t want to acknowledge that doing something in Make Believe Land actually has consequences psychologically. Sure, you’re not going to believe you’re Spiderman in real life, but every time something goes awry, it becomes mighty easy to say subconsciously, “Wait! You mean the world isn’t right? I thought I saved this shit already!”

With movies, on the other hand, you are forced to be not a participant but an active observer, attentively taking in each detail. I agree that not everyone is as attentive as others, which is why a lot of the arguments I’ve just made about video games and psychological complicity apply to film as well. They are both visual mediums. If you are not paying attention to what is going on around you, you WILL be vulnerable to subliminal persuasion (as opposed to voluntary persuasion, of course, where you are agreeing to the terms of the story). In video games, it is by definition impossible to be an observer. Multi-tasking only works so well and young people have a disproportionately high perspective of their ability to multi-task. When you have a thousand things on your screen all vying for attention, how do you sift through them?

With film, it is the job of the filmmaker to tell you what you need to know and when you need to know it. Some filmmakers, like Wes Anderson, like to “cloud the frame” by giving you plenty of stuff to look at, but it’s more an aesthetic choice that doesn’t (or rather shouldn’t) affect your ability to follow the story.

For all of these reasons I think it’s safe to say that genuinely telling your own story is not, to my knowledge, happening in today’s games, nor is it really possible in an interactive way. The fact that it is interactive means you are simply a character in someone else’s world, especially if you are playing a role of any kind in that world. You are telling his story more than the other way around. You can sit in the front of the roller coaster or the back – both are choices you could make that would alter how you enjoy your experience. You can spend five minutes in the House of Mirrors or an hour. Wear the brown robe instead of the black if you want, but you’re not “controlling” anything. If you don’t believe me, stop and thank Mr. Conductor before leaving the roller coaster. Thank him for letting you “tell your own story.”

In my view, you are not telling your own story until the day in which you are creating the world yourself. No, Sims doesn’t count. There, you are still using someone else’s toolbox and, therefore, someone else’s predispositions and set of embedded values. You might not, for example, be able to construct an eco-friendly home or community, and must instead settle for what's already in the toolbox here. As a side note, however, interactive media could play a vital role in modelling political and economic systems in the way civilization-building games work, and this would be an interesting place to start with the self-told story.

What I would love to see is someone creating a simple system whereby a user COULD create his own tools, write his own story, and use this custom-taylored toolbox to continue writing and telling personal stories. I realize that it would cease to be interactive, but it would fit the definition of a self-told story.

*

NOW, if any of my gamer friends are still reading this (and haven’t already begun plotting my assassination, or at least preparing their rebuttal), let me get back to the part where I love video games.

I have no doubt that video games give a user more control over the manner in which the media is taken in or in some cases how the story turns out, at the expense of psychological control. But wouldn’t it be a match made in heaven to have the best of these two worlds? That is where the last form of gaming comes in: the truly interactive story.

Resident Evil was an interactive story, but it was more interactive than story, like most games. But what if you could actually have a game that was more story than game? Would anyone play it? I FUCKING WOULD.

Gamers, despite their elitist posturing, would greatly benefit from such a form of video game. It would bring in a whole new slew of gamer, just like the Wii did. And the Wii is pretty goddamn fun to play, let me tell you. The Wii re-introduces the notion that you can have fun playing a game with OTHER PEOPLE IN THE ROOM. Such a foreign concept nowadays!

I’m surprised developers have not yet caught on to the fact that there is an obvious buck to be made by bringing a mostly cinematic audience into the fold. Film and television are still way more popular than video games, and I don’t see any indication that that’s going to change.

If you are a gamer, I already know you disagree, but I have news for you: YOU’RE WRONG. If you want to look simply at the “film industry,” then you would see that it is quickly changing, but is far from dying. Where are most of these rumors of a struggling movie industry coming from? The MPAA, of course. But even though the MPAA lies. Numbers don’t lie.

People watch movies now way more than they ever have, because of the increasing accessibility and diversity of them. People thought that television would kill movies, but once the industry adapted and stopped hating TV like the plague, it ended up helping the movie industry. The Internet is doing the same thing. The more people CAN watch movies, the more they DO. The only thing that is going to change for movies is where they are viewed and how many there are (and there will be MANY more).

Additionally, and perhaps most important economically, the old model of getting pop culture product – where something becomes huge like the Beatles or Star Wars – will become increasingly irrelevant. There will still be exceptions, like millions of people tuning in to see the Moon landing, which will connect us once again through experience.

But this doesn’t mean death to movies, because it’s true for all media. It is what those in the media trade call The Long Tail, and it basically stipulates that all content will become individually less popular because there is more media appealing to niche markets. For video games, this means that interactive media has come at the end of pop culture, rendering the argument for its future supremacy moot. This means that even if movies do fall out of favor socially, they will merely exist along side video games in a landscape of “media clutter.” By today’s standards, this will look even more like anarchy than media already is.

*

Here's what I would love to see...

I had a dream which operated in the manner of interactive cinema described above. It was night time, and I was on the mound of a baseball stadium facing the outfield. Thousands of spectators filled the stadium, and there was a large movie screen in center field. A scene between Deep Space 9’s Benjamin Sisko and Cassidy Yates played out, in which he was stupidly falling for her plot. I pitched the ball to myself and swung the bat, and the ball hit Sisko right smack on the head. He immediately turned to her, shot her a look of absolute disgust and said: “You are a witch, woman, and you will not usurp my presidency!!”

I would be most happy if I could do this in a video game. And as it turns out, I can. One of my favorite games is Heavy Rain, which does this very well. It’s very rough around the edges, but it’s got something very innovative and powerful going on: a truly cinematic gaming experience. The emotional journey is just as much a part of game play as the physical one. You can be a deadbeat dad who whose negligence and tendency for self-destruction brings about an early end (as was the case for my roommate), or you can be the strong-willed, loving father who perseveres (which I’m doing).

This kind of experience, in a lot of ways, would be much harder to design than a film or a typical video game. To have the rest of the game’s story be affected by a character’s emotional and moral choices, and hence their dealings with other characters, would be quite difficult to do, especially when such a small thing as hugging your wife says oodles about the kind of guy your character wants to be.***

I think this interactive cinema will and should become huge, and it is where film and games finally meet. Cut-scenes do not a cinematic experience make, nor does throwing toast at a midnight screening of Rocky Horror make an interactive experience. But, I believe these two will not just flirt with each other, but because they were made for each other, they will create a form of art and entertainment all their own. But right along side of this beautiful creation, film and video games will continue to do their thing.

I will still play my Galaga, and I will make room again for others. I am hereby announcing my desire to try some new games. My interest in games has already been rekindled by some games like Braid, Heavy Rain and Portal. If you think I’m not being fair, prove me wrong. Point me to what you consider to be the best, and I will check it out.

If what you think is the best is terrible, I do, however, reserve the right to crap on you for showing it to me.


*I admit, this analogy only works if your goal is to get laid. If your goal is to quietly judge the competition and sip your Grasshopper while sparring with a colleague you dragged to the party with you over the latest stock picks or pseudo-indie rock bands, then NO this analogy does not work for you. You win, I guess, but you kind of also lose.

**To fully make the point that cinema is here to stay, I would have to write a whole new post. If you remain unconvinced, email me and I’ll consider writing one.

***Even though making story-based games more cinematic would be pretty sweet, my arguments for why movies allow for more psychological control are still true for them as well.