Panel Discussion: Hitting the Mark

By James

There is something about the show Arrow that really appeals to me. The dialogue is cheesy, the plot predictable, the stakes too low. And yet, there is something fairly addictive about the show that gets me to watch and rewatch episodes. I went through the same sort of fascination with the show The Cape, but in the end, that intrigue faded when the show was canceled. There is something about the concept of a superhero story told through television that I really enjoy. The concept of a serialized story medium appeals to my sensibilities and schedule. The format is conducive to that of comics themselves, complete with the one villain per story and the cliffhanger endings. And I think that that’s underrated.

Recently, there have been quite a few superhero films in theaters. Captain America, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Avengers, Thor, the list goes on and on. It has become an imperative to release superhero movies on almost a bimonthly basis now. In television, the number of comic adaptations is surprisingly low. Arrow and Smallville are among a very small list of non-animated shows adapted from comics. Rather than focusing on a particular chapter of a character’s life, a movie chooses to focus on the growth and development over the course of a particular chapter of that character’s life. With a television series, the story that we see is more clear and complete. Although it takes more time for a television series to start and stop, and to remind the audience of the previous adventures, the result is closer to the comic format that I have come to know and love. The subtle references to characters and events within the larger DC continuum are huge reasons why I continue to watch Arrow. The self-referential characters, the small links to the larger universe, everything else adds to the comic book style that it borrows so heavily from.

Even though I don’t particularly enjoy origin stories, Arrow does the job properly. Starting with the relatively unknown hero Oliver Queen, the show even explains how he developed his archery skills brilliantly. In much the same way that the Christopher Nolan Batman series started a gritty take on that particular franchise, Arrow creates a strong new take on a character, albeit a less popular one than Batman. The result is a movement into a brand new type of story. Relatively unknown characters are given a new life. This is a trait that I would love to see with Ant-Man, Marvel’s size-changing super hero. To serialize such a witty, real character gives the franchise a chance to appeal to a new audience. Although I am sure that director Edgar Wright will do a fantastic job with this movie, I think that the best medium for comics has now emerged.

 

Incidental Insights: The Benefits of Life

By James

As I waited in a line that went down three blocks, I started to dread the main attraction. The first band had already started to play, and even from outside the building, I could tell that it was loud. As we reached the front door, the possibility of escape was cut down by the dread of another long line. I was in for the duration of the concert. The room was already packed, a quarter mile track filled with both fans and apathetic observers. The concert stage was set, and the only thing missing was the band. After a half hour wait, tension was at an all-time low and high. While everyone had gotten sick of the nervous agitation that comes before a performance, the waiting made the concert even more anticipated. Finally, with a muffled explosion of a roar accompanying their entrance, Passion Pit took the stage. And I had no idea who they were.

When I heard that Passion Pit was coming to Case Western, my first reaction was to look up who they were. After listening to their top hits on Spotify, I felt confident that I knew what type of band they were. To me, they represented the “indie” brand of popular radio that seems to be so prevalent. I expected little and, in return, believed there to be little to find. Then the music started to play. The music wasn’t fantastic. It had all been done before, and by better artists. When the music started to play, my opinion had not changed. In fact, I still believe their music is trite and somewhat uninteresting. During the middle of the second or third song, one of my friends was lifted into the crowd for some crowd surfing. Then things started to get crazy. The energy of the crowd just went through the roof. The better part of a thousand kids started to pulse, jumping up and down, waving hands and screaming like lunatics. As I stared at the rolling crowds, I thought about how stupid everyone looked. Then I noticed that I was jumping too.

In some ways, being in a live audience is like joining a mob. Every action is fickle and prone to a sort of adrenaline high. The performance becomes an outlet for energy, a catharsis for all agitation. Halfway into a song that I didn’t know, I caught myself shouting along with lyrics that I couldn’t remember. The energy of the crowd was captivating and raw, an unprocessed emotional force that swept everyone along.

In a way, that is the real power of concerts. The music is immaterial in the face of the fact that the entire audience is united in their love of music and noise, in the primordial sense of unification of a group. It does not matter that the audience is enjoying an event; it is the energy that makes a concert so special. From the obnoxious drunkards to the unlikely revelers, it is hard to find a place that is quite as diverse as a college concert. And so, an hour and a half later, I walked out with my ears ringing, my voice hoarse, and a happy grin on my face.

Television Tribune: The Thing About British Shows

By James

This article has been coming for a long time. Some of you might have noticed that I seem to have a touch of Anglophilia. It’s true that I bleed red, white, and blue, but it would probably come out as the Union Jack. Due to a long history of family friends living in England, my childhood was filled with trips to the Welsh countryside. There, we were exposed to something entirely foreign: the BBC. The BBC is a government run broadcasting corporation, allowing the inhabitants of the isle to watch quality programming, free from conventional advertisements. From a young age, I was able to watch shows like Super Ted, the story of a stuffed bear thrown in the rubbish, free from the blaring pop music that was Kidz Bop 8. As I grew up, the shows grew with me. From Blackadder to Father Ted, and from Chef! to The Vicar of Dibley, I developed a taste for British humour.

British humour is much different from American humor. America was and still is a melting pot of cultures. The cultural heritage is so diverse and varied that it is impossible to guarantee that an audience will understand a joke, let alone find it funny. Instead of specializing, comedy became more relatable. Slapstick humor and sexual innuendo is still used to appeal to the universal spectrum of comedy as a base humor. That is not to say that all shows in America do this. However, there is a cultural trend based on the phenomenon. British humour is usually more subtle, relying on sharp wit, quick tongues, and vicious words. Oftentimes, the humor in a situation is sheer abstract absurdity, such as in Monty Python. British humour relies on its subtlety, choosing to let a funny situation develop without the aid of a laugh track. The point is that British shows are subtle, clever, and dry.

Let us for one minute dive into the realm of Doctor Who. For those of you who haven’t heard of the show, it is a huge success in England and America, detailing the journeys of a space traveler, called The Doctor, whose ship is a blue Police Call Box. He wanders around the universe with his companions, a mix of humans who change out every few seasons and his trusty sonic screwdriver, a device capable of fiddling with any technology except for wood and deadbolts. The doctor regenerates whenever he is killed, as his entire race can do. The show is currently enjoying its huge success, and fans wait with bated breath for the announcement of their brand new Doctor every season. The past three actors to play the doctor have all been in their thirties, good looking men with a teenage heartthrob quality to them. At the announcement of the twelfth Doctor, there was a huge outcry. You see, the new Doctor is going to be played by Peter Capaldi, a famous actor in his own right who carries his 55 years on his face. This new doctor isn’t the vibrant young man that people wanted, and so they are as upset as ever.

A few months back, I had decided that I was done with Doctor Who. The fans all seemed too obsessed, and the plot lines were too clichéd. The show focused on inspiration instead of subtlety, antithetical to my view of the complexity that I felt was necessary in British entertainment. The final straw was the contrast between fan conventions and my perception of the English Way. All of these factors led to a temporary boycott of the show. Then, last weekend, I decided to sit down and watch an episode with some of my friends from college. All of a sudden, I was brought back to a different time. When I first sat down to watch an episode of Doctor Who, I was in the first grade. My dad rented videos of the Fourth Doctor series out of the library, and we watched the terrible budget and fantastic writing battle out for our attention. From the plastic bags that were supposed to be blood-sucking aliens from the planet Krakos to the crazy mannerisms that Tom Baker brought to the role, the show was the inspiring silly sci-fi that blesses every child’s life. The show was still the same kooky comical farce that it always was; it was just me who had changed.

The thing about British television is that it is easy to not understand it. After 19 years of having watched shows and movies fresh from the other side of the pond, it became painfully clear to me that I was wrong. Just as I was wrong about writing off Doctor Who, I was wrong about what makes up the basis of English humour. The defining attribute is not subtlety, as that answer is as wrong as it is pretentious. Rather, the defining attribute is the desire to make an audience laugh, the same as any other type of humor. And in the end, all the pretension in the world will not increase the value of a show. British shows are no different from American shows, just another face of entertainment.

Incidental Insights: Nintendo, A Legacy

By James

The death of Hiroshi Yamauchi has been put in the national spotlight recently. Hiroshi Yamauchi was the president of Nintendo for more than 50 years, and in those 50 years, he transformed the company from a playing card manufacturer to one of the biggest video game creators in history. Yamauchi was a gaming giant, and his legacy included Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and other classic Nintendo games. The life of Yamauchi is well-documented, and his legacy is well-told through countless stories. I would highly encourage reading this New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/business/global/hiroshi-yamauchi-who-helped-drive-nintendo-into-dominance-dies-at-85.html. As great as his legacy is, his story has been told by various news outlets. My own commemoration of Hiroshi Yamauchi is therefore going to be one of my personal experiences with the company that he developed, and the legacy that his company left behind.

For me, Nintendo has always been the predominant source of video game activity. I remember the first time that I saw somebody play Donkey Kong on a Game Boy. I was intrigued. How could something so tiny hold so much data? In preschool I became more accustomed to the role of the Game Boy. The very first game that I remember playing was a copy of Pokémon Blue. I accidentally erased a save file, and experienced the bliss of choosing a starter. Though I never got to carry out my game, I still remember the excitement as everyone crowded around a tiny screen to watch a four-year-old inexpertly mash the attack button to see Warturtle use bubble beam.

My next memory of Nintendo happened in 4th grade. We had just had a snow day, and the 6 inches of snow precluded venturing out into the white, wild unknown. School was canceled, and my brother and I had grown tired of playing in the snow. We had just curled up in our blankets, to settle down with a book and some cocoa, and my mom brought down a big box. To this day, I can still remember the moment when she brought out the old SNES, and set us down to play Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. Later, my mother played Dr. Mario while we watched, and we played Super Contra multiplayer with my father.

My next experience with Nintendo came in 6th grade, when my brother’s godfather bought us each a Nintendo DS. We didn’t have any games, so instead we spent hours marveling over Picto-Chat. That was about the same time when I started to make friends, and started to go over to people’s houses. Super Smash Bros. abounded, and with it the hatred and torment that goes along with playing games with friends.

Every memory I have of Nintendo is incidental to my family and friends. The fondest memories I have of games and Nintendo come from the times that I spent with friends. My DS has gone through hours of battles with my friends in Pokémon Heart Gold.  My Wii was probably used for playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl with my brother in excess of hundreds of hours. I never really loved playing catch with my brother, as I was always too afraid of the ball, and hated baseball. Instead, our interactive medium was through video games. It was always a competition to see who could get a better score in Duck Hunt, or reach a higher level in Super Mario Bros. Nintendo provided a medium where we could interact. The video games were not violent, nor were they dull. Instead, the games were age appropriate. The classics of a different era came to life in the hands of us, the new generation. And yes, the games were hard, but they were always enjoyable. But the best part was the sense of camaraderie and companionship. Some of the best conversations I have had with my brother were conversations that we had while playing video games late into the night. That’s the legacy that Nintendo has with my brother and me.

Hiroshi Yamauchi once said “I have better things to do” when asked if he liked playing video games. To an extent, I agree with him.  Video games can be fun, but they can also be mindless, and they can seem like a waste of time. However, given the right set of people to play with, games can be a relaxing and engaging social activity, more of a bonding experience than a time-killer. Nintendo always brings that spirit of gaming to light, creating family games instead of mature material. And that is why Nintendo can still stand up to heavy hitters like Microsoft and Sony. While the debates run on over the graphics and gameplay of each system, Nintendo continues to put out its phenomenal family games, to let new generations of siblings fight for the controls. Nintendo releases the familiar and the heart-warming, allowing you to relive your childhood, no matter how old you are. And that is why, even as a college student, my Nintendo DS sits in a place of honour on my desk.

Frames of Preference: There Will Be Blood

The movie There Will Be Blood is about oil in the same way that Pulp Fiction is about a couple of guys getting burgers. It’s an emotionally tense drama, which uses the high pressured business of oil prospecting as a backdrop for its power struggle, and the consequences of that struggle. The battle between head and soul in a small western town plays out well in this movie, allowing the gritty interior of a man’s descent into madness to permeate through to the visual style. In this shot we have an example of how the beautifully shot movie shows the power of this situation. At a glance, the situation is very clear, with religion and the priest controlling Daniel Day-Lewis’s character.

Frames of Preference: Requiem for a Dream

In honor of its recent addition to Netflix, I would like to recognize the movie Requiem for a Dream. The story of four people who destroy their dreams with drugs, Requiem for a Dream is a beautiful movie. The film score features one of the best musical numbers of any movie I have seen, the song “Lux Aeterna”. This particular frame shows a close-up of the two main characters. In this scene, the two of them are high on heroin. The lighting and the orientation of this frame shows that the two of them are lost and have no idea where their lives will head. Symbolically, Marion’s art is scattered, as her aspirations of becoming an artist are ancillary to the thrill of heroin.

Random Encounters: The Search for Virtual Reality

By James

Whenever I play Sid Meier’s Civilization V, I become somewhat obsessed. Civ V is an all-day affair for me, a 6-8 hour job in which I make an empire for the day, and try to keep it running for as long as possible. Civilization is a series of games centered around creating an empire, with the ultimate goal of winning through military, diplomatic, or scientific victories. It’s a turn-based strategy game, and consists of various cities, units and resources which must be placed and organized in the optimal way. Empires can be huge, or they can be small, but there is always a way to make your empire dominate the political playing field. I have had some great empires, and I have had miserable failures. But the thing that always keeps me coming back is the possibility of immersion.

Civ V is probably the best strategy game I have ever played. Its structure is fair, tactical, and simple enough for anyone to pick it up fairly easily. Beginners don’t have a steep learning curve in front of them, but experts can still feel the imminent crushing defeat when they research the wrong technology. The problem is that I never seem to finish a game. The games typically take 10- 20 hours to complete, a length comparable to the campaign of other games. However I have spent many more hours than that in a single game of Civ. While some would say this might be due to a short attention span or the desire to leave the house on the weekend, the truth is, I can never finish a game because the experience is not quite right. Even when I have a perfect setup going, it is still hard for me to continue with the game at hand. Sure, there are alliances, intrigue, spies and enmities, but it still is not quite an Empire. I can control an empire within the game, but I can’t be an Empire. The problem with the game is that I always want more. I don’t want to play Sid Meier’s Civilzation V, I want to play James Sheehy’s Civilzation V.

Videogames are tremendously subjective. Playing as a character can be extremely emotional, and the stories are rich and rewarding for those with the time and attention to appreciate them. The inherent problem with games is the lack of creation. Sure, there are loadouts to personalize, characters to create, and empires to build, but there is always the niggling feeling that something just isn’t quite right. I love games that try to be innovative, with a novel take on an outdated concept, or a new idea entirely. Special mechanics, an interesting concept, or a new style of RPG will always drive me to a game, but in the end, I always feel disappointed. The major source of disappointment is the fact that I still can’t control the core aspects of the game. True, I can control characters, vehicles, empires, even worlds, but in the end, there is always a limit to my creativity. Ultimately, there is only so much that my character can do. And every victory feels all the more hollow with the sense that the possibilities are limited by the vision of the creators.

There is an intricate connection between the two halves of video games. Games try to tell stories, while simultaneously trying to allow the player autonomy. These two halves are hard to manage. Allowing a player to do whatever they want means that sometimes there are huge gaps between the chunks of story. Try to create a coherent story, and autonomy is forced to take the backseat. Some of the best games try to blend these qualities, like Bastion, while others take the opposite path and ignore the story completely to try and create a better experience, like the Civilization series or to an extent, the Grand Theft Auto series. The inherent problem lies with the fact that the gameplay itself can never come close to real. Even with better graphics, there is a fixed limit on how much time and effort the developers are allowed to spend on creating subtle animations that people will never see. Though I acknowledge that there is no possible way to change that, I can’t help but feel frustrated.

Video games for me are not escapes, but rather mental exercises. What happens if I change a parameter? The games are as much a matter of focus as they are of entertainment. They are about a speedier return on investment of my time, a way to make noticeable changes within a short period of time. For me, the personalization of a game is imperative, and as such, I can never be truly immersed in a game until the day when anything can happen in a game. And though I wait for that day with bated breath, I realize that I will have to settle with the games that we have now, and even though my empire might not be as niched as if I ruled the world, it will do for now. In the meanwhile, I will try to sit back and finish an empire.

Flix Fix: That Pixar Spark

By James

Last Saturday, I went to a Cleveland Orchestra concert. The Cleveland Orchestra is widely regarded as one of the premier orchestras in the world, and their home turf, Severance Hall, is located directly on my campus. Despite the mere five-minute walk that it would take to get there, my friends and I did not attend this particular concert hall. Instead, we headed out to Cuyahoga Falls. The venue was half open-concert-hall and half lawn, and the people took advantage of the space by sitting on the grass and picnicking in the fading light of evening. The orchestra was dressed in T-shirts, black pants, and skirts, and the only person wearing a suit was the conductor. As he stepped up to announce their first song, the throngs of people quieted down. And the Pixar fanfare emanated from one of the most famous orchestras in the world.

Pixar has an interesting relationship between art and emotion. As someone who grew up with its movies, Pixar has grown and developed with me.  From the very first time I watched Toy Story, when I was around the same age as Andy, to the finale of Toy Story 3 when I was going off to college, the path that Pixar has followed has always been an incredible journey. Even after seeing Toy Story 3 as many times as I have, I still tear up at the end when Buzz and Woody get left behind.  Pixar knows how to emotionally engage an audience, and what’s more, they do it with (primarily) inhuman stars. Pixar is also one of the most innovative animation firms, creating films that capture beauty beyond simply their technological achievement. The team’s films are as beautiful as they are, not because of the technology that they use, but the dedication of the animators. For example, in order to make the fish in Finding Nemo look more realistic, the animators took graduate level ichthyology courses in order to study the movement patterns of different fish. The soundtracks to the movies show this blend of art and emotion as well, emphasizing theme through the very technical pieces that the films require. Listening to the soundtracks’ Oscar-winning songs played by the Cleveland Orchestra, it’s hard not to be impressed by the technical perfection and emotion within the songs.

The lasting power of Pixar rests with its universality. With so many films nowadays deriving entertainment value from sex and violence, it’s a breath of fresh air to have a simple, innocuous story now and then. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy sex and violence, but Pixar manages to blend nostalgia with interest, creating fantastic films with no agenda, and no emotional scarring. Pixar is not childish in any way, because the stories don’t apply solely to children. The films are universal, self-affirming messages that are applicable to everyone. And sometimes, it’s nice to hear that. Even for adults.

Frames of Preference: Moon

The plot of Moon is an insane ride, a ride which I would be remiss to spoil. The movie concerns a man who is alone on the surface of the moon seeking to finish the duration of his time at an energy facility. The movie plays with the idea of loneliness and the nature of isolation, as well as the true nature of what it means to have only one’s self as company.  This image shows the loneliness on the surface of the moon as the rover faces the Earth, and the yearning for normalcy and human contact on a surface that is so close to earth, yet so far away.

Flix Fix: The Coen Brothers, The Modern Millers

By James

The first Coen brothers movie I ever saw was No Country for Old Men. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, it is based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy, and tells the story of a man from Texas who finds a load of drug money. The movie, released in 2008, won Oscars for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screen Adaptation, and Best Supporting Actor. This is the legacy that awaited me when I started on the works of the Coen brothers.  Their films are set all over the United States, from the hokey criminals of Raising Arizona, to prohibition mobsters in Miller’s Crossing, to the Hollywood screen writers portrayed in Barton Fink, to the wilds of Minnesota in Fargo, and the Depression-era South. The list continues through different states and time periods, ranging from the 1800s to present day.

For me, the Coen brothers represent the best in American film. While other directors rely on settings in foreign countries to give the audience an escape, the Coen brothers show the stories of Americans. The sheer range and variety of their work allows for a huge plethora of stories to be told throughout American history without ever overlapping. The Coen brothers have never needed to recover one of their stories, as they have so many stories to tell.  While they may reuse actors like John Goodman, John Turturro, George Clooney, and Francis McDormand to tell these stories, at the heart of these films lies the adventure of this country that many now take for granted. The Coen brothers instead try and tell the story of the average man, much like Barton Fink, in his eponymous movie. They actually seem to love America and, in producing their movies, they seem to want to share that love with the rest of the country.

In addition to their devotion to the country, the Coen brothers have advanced film through their careful cinematography. Each movie is shot distinctly and carefully, as every solitary frame fully reveals the movie it came from. Each film is carefully scripted and shot to enhance a sense of reality. True, the reality may not be the reality that we inhabit, but each movie tries to be as true and honest as possible. The brothers don’t try to hide their actors, instead opting to focus on their stories. This really needs to happen more often. While watching one of their pieces, a viewer can really get a sense of the love and care that the brothers use to approach their movie. The audience instinctively latches onto the reverence that the Coens have for film, and the excitement fuels the ride through the scenery, be it the Midwest or L.A. Their comedy and the dramas are equally appealing for this very reason, as the films are both developed thoroughly and completely.

Perhaps the equal appeal of the comedy and dramas is what makes the pair so interesting. The brothers always pair the two genres together. Their films seem to come out in these pairs: Barton Fink was written at the same time as Miller’s Crossing, and Burn After Reading was written at the same time as No Country for Old Men. No matter what, the two of them seem to find comedy in darkness and darkness in comedy, mixing their seriousness and their farce through films such as Fargo and O Brother, Where Art Thou. The point seems to be that life is neither completely funny nor sad. Within every aspect of the story the two genres mix. Whether these are the common threads of life that tie us all together or the common connections that Hollywood movies make, I really cannot say, but I chose to believe that the brothers capture one of the essential pieces of life: nothing is ever clear. There is never any comedy without some tragedy nearby, and there is no drama so depressing that we cannot laugh at ourselves.

Arthur Miller was widely considered one of the greatest modern American playwrights. He took a look at the conditions of people throughout different times and places of the United States, from Salem during the Witch Trials to the 1950s, his modern times. One of the biggest things that Miller started was the modern tragedy. These works did not focus on kings and lords who started in a position of power, and were brought down low by arrogance, but showed instead, the plight of the common man, resplendent in his life, who is brought down lower than he started.  The Coen brothers capture Miller’s spirit. Their concern for the common man drives them across America in search of that one true glimpse of simple life, bringing them face to face with not only the best of comedy, but the saddest of tragedy. Playwriting may be a less popular art, and American theatre may have inexorably drifted away from plays to the cinemas, but the spirit of the great American plays still lives on in the works of the Coen brothers, because they still maintain the same perspective that Miller did. In the end, the Coen brothers create works as great as they are because they care.