True Grit - Review January 4, 2011 by

A slice of peperoni pizza and a medium fountain coke is eight dollars at my local cinema. That's what I learned on my day out to see the Coen Brother's latest, "True Grit". In 1877, there wasn't any pizza in America. There also wasn't a California. But in ten years prior, there was a civil war.

True Grit follows the story of 14 year old Mattie Ross as she hunts down her father's killer. She hires a U.S. Deputy Marshall named Rooster Cogburn to hunt him down. The two end up teaming up with a Texas ranger by the name of La Boeuf, who is also on the hunt for the killer, for a crime he committed in Texas. Over the course of the film, the group learns to appreciate one another. The End.

The aftermath of the American Civil War is when True Grit is set. But that's it- The civil war is only referenced once, in a dick waving competition between Cogburn and La Boeuf, in the one of many dick waving competitions between them. Really, True Grit isn't a gritty film. It's a family movie. A good old American dick waving competition, filled with humor and laughs, about bonding together over revenge. Isn't that sweet?

The cinematography is excellent. The editing is superb. The music is supremely generic and annoying. But what True Grit suffers from the most is content. The film is a supremely well executed pulp and nothing more. It isn't all that memorable, in any way shape or form, mostly because nothing's all that emotional - not even the laughs. It also ends a silly, pointless ending - for no discernible reason at all. Maybe I missed the great point of the film, maybe it should be more important to my life than the fact of pizza being charged by fascists, but I doubt it. True Grit is an over priced piece of pizza, something that's quite edible and even tasty, but nothing really filling, or spectacular - and it cost far too much.


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I Saw Jack Ass 3-DOctober 15, 2010 by

There's nothing really more to say about that is there?

But I guess I will.

After the second world war artists shrugged. They all threw up their hands upon seeing Europe as a pile of sick on the floor. Out of the many movements, the one I am talking about is the theater of cruelty and the theater of the absurd.

People would pay regular ticket prices and sit down in their tailored suits to see the latest plays and wind up seeing a man in a horse suit playing the piano with elbows, or three men just siting down in silence for ten minutes before one of them says a shocking phrase and suddenly they all start shouting at each other incoherently, and if the audience decided to dose off or leave the theater, sometimes the director would throw pigs blood on them.

The goal of these plays would be to pigeon hole people into a corner they didn't want to go into to. Much like how someone insults you and you realize that you have nothing to say back because you accept that it was true. People hated them, but they strangely felt cleansed of the world. The theater of cruelty and the theater of the absurd, acted as a psychological tool that allowed people to understand horrible things and then paradoxically process them. They used theater to its full potential. They interacted with the audience, much like how video games do today.

If you're wondering what the fuck this has to do with Jack Ass 3-D, I'd like you to put two and two together. The difference is that the former great innovative theatrical experiences were created by people that had university degrees and it broke new ground. Jack Ass is created by numskulls and treads on familiar ground, treading then dancing and taking a gigantic shit on it and shoving it on your face.

There's a scene in Jack Ass 3-D where I was close to throwing up. There's a beauty in that. There's meaning in that. The film very much laughs at everything we have today. A society that produces such a film, is quite the memorable one. I wouldn't put it up there with films like 2001 or Nights of Cabiria but it is one of the better films I've seen this year. It definately is better than the critically acclaimed Social Network. Call me an idiot, but if we can't laugh at our own existence, or our society, in the most base and primal way, then we need to jump off of our skyscrapers right now because we must be angels.

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The Standards of Criticism October 12, 2010 by

To be ironic even before we begin, this is all my own opinion, this is not fact, I am sixteen, feel free to not listen to me because of that, have fun kiddies.

I believe it was T.S. Elliot who wrote at length on the subject of the "perfect critic" and since he is a dead white male from the early twentieth century who made contributions to the aesthetics of literature and poetry I think we ought to listen to him. The problem is that I've misplaced my copy of his annotated essays so I can't exactly quote him on the matter. Essentially he wrote "A Perfect Critic" (or a title along those lines, I'll look for it don't worry) in response to the dictatorial view critics in England had when not concerning the practice of formalism but the essential art of the critique.

Now, critique is not something that is a negative thing. It is is in fact more of a intellectually wanky concept that invovles an analysis of something, usually art or ideas. People generally assume when one is being critical, it means that they are shitting on something. I guess this might show that if you think about something in this world than usually it is shit.

observation = dismay

Ignorance is bliss when tis folly to be wise

and so forth.

But that was a small tangeant let me get back on course. So essentially how do we critique something. Well, personally I'm a fan of beginning with a formalist approach.

The formalist approach in literature is not unique to it and I even use it when interpreting a game. In fact I think it is more apt to games than literature.


Enough of wikipedia. What formalism boils down to is finding meaning within the art to better understand the world and thus in tern, understand it. It may sound boring (that is because it is) but it is something that is little bit above just saying "dat's good" or "siiiiccccckkkk".

One thing to remember about the formalist approach, is that on the surface it seems to pride itself in objectivity, it is in fact, a subjective method of bending things that we discern as "objective" from the art and stringing them together subjectively to create opinions and criticisms.

Every single method of criticism on the face of the Earth and anything involving men is empirical. Alright debate if you want but what I am saying is like Socrates said, As for me, all I know is that I know nothing. Essentially objective knowledge is beyond subjective creatures. We are subjective creatures. If we weren't we would be very different. That is why asking anyone, especially a critic, to not be so opinionated is about as ridiculous as saying Hitler had an awesome moustache and was a humanist.

What I'm driving at here is that I'm not trying to say that formalism is the only way of doing things, that's not the point of criticism and democracy. What I'm saying is that we all have our own way of doing things, and though I realize as that truth is by consensus of opinion, such as "this is a chair" and "Limbo is excellent and if you don't like it you deserve nothing more than death you poor sick chimera" we should all be entitled to our own opinion, especially about art.

Now whether we should be able to practice it, is a different question, a question that maybe our old pal Hitler can give the answer to. The answer is no because we end up with impractical decisions that lead to stupid and blunderous tragedies like the fucking holocaust!

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The Social Network, Catfish, Kids In The Hall, Execution, L'etranger: What I've Consumed This WeekOctober 10, 2010 by

Let me begin with these,

I've recently discovered Kids In The Hall, a brilliant show from my home of toronto and another thing about Canadian losers. Yes that seems the way these prairie artists see themselves and our country. Well so I've seen two films this week, The Social Network and Catfish. Both have some underlying common factor, they're all long ass advertisments for facebook. Besides that they are also films that are deep and stuff. Sure.

As most who peruse anything to do with film the Social Network has gone into critics palms and have returned with absolute accolades. Aparently it represents my generation and this decade. It doesn't. People do not speak like any of the characters nor do their idioms even represent the speech of this generation. The film really isn't about what facebook means or what facebook does. It is really about presenting the creation of facebook - and it isn't even what happened. The best it could come up with is "facebook connects people" and unless you're a moron who can't work a debit card or write reviews for films than you should know that. I didn't realize that when art is supposed to be deep it's supposed to be obvious. Other than that it's well done and well realized and it's entertaining which was the point. Which is I guess, the point of facebook.

Catfish is a documentary illustrating the ideas of facebook in a interesting scenario involving the website. The film is set up like a thriller but without spoiling anything it's a sad tale about the person we are and the person we want to be. Facebook was supposed to be yourself on the internet. Catfish asks, are you really yourself on it? Of course it's an extreme case but it is a poignant one. This is the real facebook film.

Now besides film I've been reading. Two books, one that I've never read and the other I have three other times. The new one is Execution by Colin McDougall. The book is more a philosophical war novel than anything else. Though it contains two brutal executions, it is about the state of mind "execution" than the actual act. It's an excellent piece of work and probably the best canadian novel I've read. Granted I haven't read many since I usually read "the canon" or the "classics".

One of those classics is The Stranger (or the Outsider) by Albert Camus. I'm reading it again for school in french class and going back to it I'm reminded of how excellent it is. It truly appeals to nerds I promise. It's essentially about the falseness of the bougeois society and the secret to loving our stupid lives.

So that's what I've been consuming this week besides nachos. Oooh man. Nachos.

Oh by the way I think this film looks alright.

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So Am I Alright? (A Retrospective On My IGN Blog)September 8, 2010 by

Unfortunately, truth is by consensus, or rather by those who hold the high ground. In the blog-sphere of IGN I am a rather unknown blogger not established within the fan community. Recently I've been putting out these introspective, rather arrogant and self indulgent blogs instead of my usual critical analysis of games and the meanings within, or the aesthetics of games. I hope to resume this soon. The reason for me writing on this site is not to connect with the hardcore gaming community primarily but more to practice more formalist abilities in interpreting art (since my post secondary aspirations is to study English literature and political science) and receiving feedback on it. I always ask for comments specifically referring to your particular opinions on the subject matter but rarely ever ask how the reader liked my article. To anyone who knows my previous work, I just wanted to ask, am I good? I haven't posted any of my criticism on other subjects other than gaming (which I put more effort in) mostly because this is a website for gamers who care about games just like I do. If you're unfamiliar with me, my favorites blogs I've put up are:

My first IGN blog:

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