Television Review: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

I love time travel stories, even though they generally drive me nuts. The first Terminator movie made fictional sense: something bad came out of the future and this future could not be avoided because - in a sense - it had already happened. When they apparently DID avoid this future at the end of the second movie, the logical thing to happen would have been a total reboot: Sarah back at the diner as a waitress. No Terminators, no son, no nothing. Because those events in the two movies ultimately wouldn't have happened and had been undone, you see? Back to the Future showed this effect at work, Michael J. Fox slowly fading out (though you'd think it would be more like an instant *plop*) when he messed with his past / his parents' future. But that trilogy threatens to make me go off on a long ramble about the butterfly effect, so let's get back to the Terminator saga.
By the third movie, the human-machine war starts - and it seems to be at the forefront of an upcoming new movie trilogy of the franchise. But now we also have the television series, which must be an alternate reality, as Sarah Connor sidesteps her death - as mentioned in the movies - by a jump from our recent past into present day. She is helped by a reprogrammed Terminator, who looks like a sweet girl. This machine is driven by curiosity and cold reasoning, fascinated by human behaviour while letting nothing keep her off her goal of protecting John Connor, the future leader of the rebellion. The fembot is played very well by Summer Glau, who previously showed off her kookiness in Firefly and in this role gets to kick quite a bit of ass. John and Sarah Connor unfortunately aren't all that interesting so far. Sarah is strong and stoic, but lacks charm, while James seems more a surly teen than a potential leader. Their main goal in the series is still to avoid the war which already became a reality in the movies.
There is a fair amount of 'reinterpretation' of Terminator lore here: where it once seemed there were only two models of Terminators - both made in large quantities - there are now a lot of them with different faces. On top of that, I think the first movie stated that only one man and one machine could be sent back in time. The second movie already messed with that statement and this series throws it completely out of the window: multiple machines and multiple humans travel back in time to suit the plot. This makes for major cause-and-effect headaches, such as: doesn't messing with the past on this scale change the future in itself, especially considering the previously mentioned butterfly effect (meaning: any minor change will have major consequences)? And if the Terminators didn't find themselves blinked out of existence after sending the first machine back, why send a second one? Didn't Sarah obviously fail to avoid the war? And why does Sarah want to avoid that future even though it likely means that her son will cease to be? Alternatively, in the case that changing the past doesn't erase the future but results in the creation of an alternate timeline, why bother going after someone in the past who can't affect 'your' reality? Is your head hurting yet?Apart from the special effects budget, I have to wonder why the improved, liquid metal Terminator model has not shown up yet. Is the future saving him as a last resort? And why wouldn't the last resort be sent back to an earlier point in time, as you don't have to be linear when time-travelling? It is somewhat worrying that all this shaky logic is at the core of the plot, but not being discussed. Maybe the show-runners are just stalling to be able to come up with a coherent explanation. The only way to enjoy the series is to let go of all reasoning, just watch the action and not ponder any of it. As it stands, Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles serves as a run-of-the-mill action series with average writing that will need to find a way to stand out from the competition, aside from its affiliation with the Terminator franchise.

Game Review: Phoenix Wright: Justice for All (NDS)

Phoenix Wright: Justice for All is the middle part of a trilogy of games that were ported from the Game Boy Advance for the Nintendo DS. In all three games, you play defence attorney Phoenix Wright and have to get a 'not guilty' verdict for your clients by doing research, gathering evidence, picking apart testimony in court by cross-examination and by presenting evidence at the appropriate moments. An overarching story serves to string the separate cases together, concerning your colleagues, rivals and friends.
The presentation is fairly simple but effective: in front of backdrops of certain locations like Wright's office, the courtroom or the scene of a crime, characters pop up - drawn in manga-style - who you can chat with. They are fairly limited in their animation, having only a couple of signature expressions each and some standard 'moves' that sometimes make little sense when people start appearing at several locations. For instance, a dignified lady sips a cup of tea, which seems right when we see her at home, but gets silly when she is later seen sipping the same cup of tea on the witness stand. The design is deeply charming however and though the cases might be grim - all of them are murders - the game revels in coming up with outlandish people and funny scenarios. One case involves circus people, another one spirit channelers and yet another costumed television Ninjas. The smart balance of seriousness and oddness is what makes the game so addictive. And though the solution to most of the cases is very unlikely, it does make sense within the context of the game.
At first I was a little put off by how little influence you seem to have on the story. Though there is ultimately a 'good' ending and a 'bad' ending, this is the result of one single decision to be made during the final case. And even here you can just skip back in the story to find the 'good' ending. With the help from an occasional hint from an online walkthrough, there is no way you will not be able to finish this game. So you are pretty much just following along with the story, trying to find the right logical action to advance it. Sometimes you will have to go with a hunch, but often a bit of reasoning will keep you from getting stuck. By shouting 'Hold it!' or 'Objection!' into the DS microphone you can press witnesses on their statements - or you can just push a button instead, so you won't have to embarrass yourself on public transport. You will likely end up always pressing witnesses on everything they say. At best it will further your case and at worst it will give you some amusing dialogue in which you get made fun of. I felt a little thrown out of the games at times, as Wright - who is supposed to be you - can suddenly go off on an unexpected tangent when you present evidence, which you picked for a different reason. Vice versa, you can be on - what turns out to be - the right track but have trouble finding the right combination of testimony and evidence to get your point across. Being penalised because the game doesn't understand you, gets frustrating at points. Another nitpick is that during the investigations, characters have repeated standard replies when questioned about irrelevant people or evidence. These take too long to zap through every time you hit on them. Some of the music - which is tied to specific characters or locations - also gets a little repetitive. The stories and cast are very engaging and there is a lot of fun to be had in slowly uncovering the bizarre truth behind a case, as it twists and turns. Though each of the four cases in this volume will take you one or two long afternoons to get through, you will have trouble putting it down. After I finished, it felt like I just read a good book and I was left hungry for more. Just a tip though: as the story arcs throughout the three games, I would advise playing them in sequence: Ace Attorney, Justice for All and then Trials and Tribulations. The last one seems to be the best one - going by reviews - so the story ends on a high note. A new entry in this genre, especially developed for the DS, has also just come out: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. It makes more use of the touch screen and promises to be as good as its predecessors. Look online for the Flash interactive trailer! Court adjourned.

Book Review: Books with Mental Issues

I seem to have accidentally run into a recurring theme in the books I have been reading lately: mental issues. I am choosing to see this as a fluke rather than a cosmic warning, but it is interesting nonetheless. In Running with Scissors the narrator is actually the most sane person in the book. It is a memoir of writer Augusten Burroughs' childhood. During the seventies, his mentally unstable mother ditched him with her psychiatrist in a messy, filthy house where he ends up having a fling with a paedophile. The psychiatrist knows and approves of this, but then he also thinks God is speaking to him through his faeces. He is a mental patient with a license, diagnosing other mental patients. The book consists of stories starring Augusten's crazy adoptive family and makes you convinced people should have to pass an exam to be parents. The writer was not surprisingly sued by his adoptive family after the book appeared, claiming he made a lot of it up. A settlement was reached, though Burroughs still holds to his version of events. In any case, his memoir is an amusing and at times baffling read.

In Running with Scissors, Augusten's brother is diagnosed as having Asperger syndrome, which is what the writer of the next book I read also has. The title is Born on a Blue Day, which illustrates one aspect of Asperger: synaethesia, a cross-wiring of the senses. People with the syndrome strongly associate shapes and colours with numbers and words. For the rest they share symptoms with people with autism. They have trouble reading people's expressions, need a lot of structure and routine and some of them are capable of astonishing things like complicated calculations from the top of their head, done in seconds. A lot of these people can't live an independent life, but Daniel Temmet is thankfully 'high functioning', so he manages to. Through his memoir he gives some insight into his mind and how it works. It is a fascinating book, even if his writing can get a little dry and I zoned out during some of the bits about numbers. You end up imagining what it would be like to have a brain that works so much more efficient in some ways, but in others handicaps you.
The next book I am reading is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, which is a novel said to be written from the perspective of someone with autism, specifically Asperger. There is some controversy about this interpretation, so his condition is not official, but comparisons were made in reviews to the autistic lead character from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Both books are written from the point of view of a sensitive young boy who goes on an investigation and both titles have some drawings and textual experimentation. Extremely Loud is a love-it or hate-it sort of book from what I heard, so I'm curious to see which camp I will land in. I suspect I will like it, as I loved Haddon's book.

But maybe I need to take a break from autism first. Sit down and watch a movie. I hear Rain Man is pretty good...

Book Review: Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star

Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star sounds like the kind of book you would read with one hand in your lap. But this is not the case - for better or worse, depending on your expectations. It is the autobiography of Rich Merritt, better known in xxx-rated circles as Danny Orlis. Rich initially ended up in the news as the anonymous source for a New York Times cover article that made big waves when it was published in 1998. It illustrated the difficulties of being a gay marine with the American navy, forced to live a double life due to their 'don't ask, don't tell' policy.
His real identity wasn't too hard to figure out for people who knew him personally and when The Advocate discovered that Rich had starred in a couple of porn movies while in the service, they did not hesitate in making it public knowledge, causing another scandal.
The book starts at this point in time and then regresses to Rich's childhood, suffering under a highly religious regime at the Bob Jones University. Rich has plenty of material to pick from: a masturbation virgin until his twenties, in denial about being gay until his mid-twenties, his double life with the marines, ill-advised outings into the worlds of stripping and porn, clinical depression, suicide attempts and an addiction to pills and booze.
While there are too many uninteresting details in the book, and a fair amount of pages should have been culled, his story is fascinating even if the style in which it is written won't blow you away. Rich shows himself to be impulsive and eager to please, sometimes arrogant but at other times charmingly open, like when he admits to having had a premature ejaculation problem. By the end of the book he seems to think he now has his life well and truly back on the rails, but as a reader you are left wondering if he could not go off-track again in the future. For the moment things are going well, however: in January he published his first novel: Code of Conduct. Making use of his insider knowledge, he tells the love story of two marines circa 1993, when Clinton was promising to abolish the army's 'shush' policy on gays. It looks to be an interesting and historically accurate read.

Movie Review: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd as filmed by Tim Burton plays like the demented flipside to Moulin Rouge!, sharing the stylised sets, the flashy zooms, the bigger-than-life acting and the overwhelming melodrama. This is not a bad thing. The story: a barber takes revenge on the judge who
sabotaged his marriage, locked him up and took his daughter. He hooks up with a woman who is down on her luck and runs a meat-pie shop. As the movie is based on a Stephen Sondheim musical, lots of singing ensues, while the blood starts spraying and the bodies start piling up. The highlight is a musical number in which the couple goes gloriously around the bend, coming up with a cunning recycling scheme for their victims. Less engaging are the numbers and scenes involving the misplaced daughter and her doe-eyed suitor: insanity and evil-doing proves itself to be much more interesting than innocence and virtue.
The cast is great. Sacha Baron Cohen (aka 'that Borat guy') catches a lot of laughs for his silly performance as Signor Adolfo Pirelli, bending the tone of the movie, but stopping just short of breaking it. Alan Rickman pulls off another sneering 'Snape' performance with glee. Timothy Spall and Helena Bonham Carter make the Harry Potter reunion complete, Carter looking very much like her Bellatrix Lestrange character from Potter world. She does a great job of providing the movie with some much needed lightness and heart as the dangerously loopy Mrs. Lovett. Johnny Depp is intense and single-minded but manages to keep Sweeney interesting and borderline sympathetic. I don't know the plot of the original musical, so I can't say if anything was changed, but the ending as it stands seems fitting. With this much bloody murder going on, it can only end in tears.
There is also a twist near the end that I saw coming a mile away, but not so the two people I was with, so judge for yourself if it is obvious or very clever. The moral of the story is: kids, don't let vengeance ruin your life. Also: don't get shaved by strangers and only eat meat at places you trust.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 2007, 116 min. USA/UK. Director: Tim Burton. Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman.

Movie Review: Shutter (They are Around Us)

If you're ever visiting an Asian country, beware of vengeful pale women or little girls with runny mascara and long black hair. They seem to be all over the place these days, with a morbid fascination for multimedia. They're making prank phone-calls, showing up in the static on your tv, ghoulishly abusing the internet or haunting videotapes.
In Shutter one of these specimens is getting freaky with photographs and generally messing with the perception of the recently graduated youngsters she terrorises. They might actually be to blame for her current deceased condition - or not. I don't want to spoil the plot and going by this little genre, ghosts don't always need a reason to pick a specific person. Sometimes they are just mean, dead, pissed off and lashing out at whoever crosses their path. In this case, a photograph-happy couple with their own darkroom becomes the focal point for the apparition's anger.
There isn't much new about Shutter. The mood is quiet and morose, the colours are a bit drained and the lighting - or lack of it - is impeccable. Occasionally there is a jump scare with a loud musical cue. The frequency of these increases near the end until both you and the characters get very edgy because any one break in a shot could mean a sudden cut to a scary face appearing into frame. It's only this none-too-subtle 'boo' factor that keeps things from getting boring. There is also a neat, creepy twist at the ending, but it's one of those that does not make a whole lot of sense looking back on the rest of the movie. Mostly recommended if you haven't seen many of these 'creepy girl' movies or if you are next to a date who scares easily and who you want to grab you tight. Shutter is currently being remade in the US, headlining Joshua Jackson of Dawson's Creek fame.

Shutter (They Are Around Us), 2004, 97 min. Thailand. Directors: Banjong Pisanthanakun & Parkpoom Wongpoom. Starring: Ananda Everingham, Natthaweeranuch Thongmee, Achita Sikamana.

Movie Review: The Kite Runner

We sell the book (by Khaled Hosseini) at the store I work at, it came highly recommended by reviewers and still I managed to put off reading it long enough for someone to make a movie out of it. I didn't originally go for the book because it seemed to be one of those worthy 'Oprah Book Club' novels in which Big Life Lessons are learned. In the movie version this is indeed the case, but I enjoyed it regardless.
Two boys in Afghanistan (Amir and Hassan) befriend each other and have a strange master-slave dynamic because there is a difference in class status. They spend a lot of time flying kites and there is a competition - which I had never heard of before - in which whoever manages to take down the most other kites wins. This happens by cutting the thread of the opponent's kite, in a way I am still not quite clear on. When something horrible happens after one of these competitions, it breaks up the friendship of the two boys. Amir, the 'master' of the two, behaves horribly to Hassan because of complex but childish feelings. Many years later, Amir is given the chance to redeem himself by rescuing Hassan's son, who has been taken by the Taliban.
The cinematography and the acting are high quality. The movie successfully puts you in a different time, a different place and tells a beautiful story. The only problem is that it tries to tie everything together too neatly, giving the tale a slightly artificial feel. It also leaves one or two interesting aspects of the story untold. But the fact that you would like to find out even more about the secondary characters in a story, can only mean that it really engaged you to begin with. The two child-actors were forced to flee the country after the movie was released. Tragic, but not surprising considering the way the Taliban are portrayed here. It is of course shameful that the Taliban's reputation has been soiled by this movie, as in reality they are of course a warm and cuddly bunch, with hardly any genocidal tendencies at all.

The Kite Runner, 2007, 122 min. USA. Director: Marc Foster. Starring: Khalid Abdalla, Zekeria Ebrahimi, Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada.