Movie Review: The Parade

The Parade is a Serbian tragicomedy about a homophobic gangster who, through a series of unlikely events, ends up having to protect the first attempt at a Gay Pride parade in Belgrado. It won Best Feature during the Roze Filmdagen (a gay film festival) in Amsterdam in 2013 and deservedly so. It is both a farcical buddy movie and a call to arms and it manages to balance these two elements skillfully. There are stereotypes all around, from boorish straight blokes to screechy queens, but as everyone operates on the same level of comical exaggeration, it works. The characters are sympathetic and there is genuine heart in the way the little group that will be in the parade bonds with their reluctant bodyguards.

It's sad that the movie had to end with a turn for the dramatic, as so many gay-themed movies do, but the intent here is clear: the makers mean to make you angry. Generally speaking, Eastern Europe is still a shitty place to live for lesbians and gays. The scenes in the movie depicting ruthless homophobic violence and blind hatred are chilling. Watch The Parade; you'll laugh, you'll cry and then - hopefully - you'll realize there's much more work to be done for gay rights and contribute to the fight in whatever way you can.

Movie Review: Resident Evil: Retribution

I just observed Resident Evil: Retribution. I say 'observed' rather than watched, because I knew going in that I would enjoy it more on an analytical level than I would enjoy the story or characters. I knew this because the previous four entries in this franchise all contained a lot of loud noises, kinetic energy, slightly too cheap special effects, flat characters and lacked any real emotional point of entry for the viewer. It's not that the franchise lacks plot, it's just that it's a massively convoluted and badly thought-out one, which keeps getting twisted and turned in awkward ways.

The movie picks up right at the moment its predecessor stopped, and after one artsy scene it has the leading lady (Milla Jovovich) recapping 'the story so far' for the viewers, including shots from previous entries in the franchise. That's pretty lazy storytelling and it doesn't seem all that necessary as the film quickly resolves the last movie's cliffhanger in a sloppy and unsatisfying way and then reverts to the 'let's escape from a big base'-scenario from the first movie.

So what is the franchise about? The evil Umbrella Corporation had a virus that accidentally spread from an underground vault and turned most of the world population into mutated zombies. The A.I. from that ill-fated vault decided to stop the mutation by killing everybody on the planet and the head of the formerly Evil company now wants to stop it. Meanwhile, Jovovich first escaped from the vault, then got injected with the virus but it gave her superpowers but then those have been taken away again. Or something. I may have glazed over at some key points in the narrative.

I am not entirely clear on how she is being all Neo and doing slow-motion backflips and in general kicking martial arts-style ass if she is just a simple human now, but then I am not entirely clear on a lot of things in this movie. Such as: why does a big monster waste no time killing a few people, but then doesn't kill the one person still necessary to the plot, dragging its victim to its nest instead? Why is this monster first impervious to bullets and then temporarily incapacitated by them? Why does an A.I. need to create an actual physical representation of people and a city to simulate a viral outbreak? Why doesn't it run virtual tests and infect some of the army of test subjects apparently at its disposal? How is this massive base run by just a handful of people?

Much like the previous flicks, this Resident Evil entry strings together action sequences that have the semblance of Cool, but lack rounded characters or a coherent bigger picture to give them meaning and make the viewer care. It comes with enough plot holes in the central storyline to make even the most hardcore suspenders of disbelief snap.

But maybe I need to just speak for myself, as the movies are apparently successful enough to continue churning out new ones. And director Paul W.S. Anderson and his wife/ lead actrice Milla Jovovich keep koming back for more, so it seems they are having fun with this franchise. Which is romantic, I suppose. The next entry is rumored to be the last one, but I'm sure someone down the line will reconsider if it's successful enough. Just like some of the villains in this movie, the Resident Evil series seem almost impossible to kill.

Things go 'boom'. A lot.

Game Review: Tomb Raider (2013, PC)

Lara Croft is an ambivalent creation, like most female characters in video games. She is empowered and doesn't need a man to come to her rescue, but she has also been designed to please hormonally bothered teenage boys. Traditionally, she had a tiny waist and sported considerable cleavage. And though she went about kicking ass, there were flashes of what seemed to be misogyny in the elaborate death scenes that would occur when a button prompt was missed or a jump went wrong. There are even gleeful collections of Lara's death scenes on YouTube.

I'm not saying that I'd like to build a summer home here,
but the trees are actually quite lovely.

The new Tomb Raider game, supposedly a reboot of the franchise, downsizes Lara's bra and gives her a more believable appearance, even though she is still very, very pretty. The odd mix of girl power and gruesome failure is maintained. Like Lara Croft herself, this new game was created based on two separate approaches. There is the storytelling aspect and there is the gameplay. The story introduces us to a younger Lara Croft than the previous games, but it seems to take place in the present-time. Her back-story is unchanged in so far as it is discussed: adventuring parents gone, silver spoon present. Within a few cut-scenes she finds herself stranded on an island with some violent factions and hints of a Lost-like mystery. From just trying to survive, she goes through challenge after challenge until she grows from a hapless victim into a pro-active predator. At least, that is the story the cut-scenes tell us. The gameplay didn't quite get the memo.

She's going deeper underground.

It's not much of a spoiler that Lara gets hurts badly very early on, getting impaled on an iron bar that runs through her side. This would put most people out of commission for a while, if not for good, but the pain is forgotten. It takes Lara longer to walk it off than the average action hero, but the game takes place over the course of a day or two and she takes so much abuse that her being mobile, alive even, beggars belief. Despite all her wounds, she pretty soon learns to fling herself at walls with an axe and climb her way up them without wear or tear, among other amazing feats. She also turns out to be a really good shot with a bow (or a gun) even at long distance, right from the start.

Not only does she have the constitution of The Terminator, which undercuts the semblance of realism, her psychological journey also doesn’t come across so well in the gameplay. Much is made of the first time Lara kills a man, even though he really had it coming. She agonizes about this and her next couple of kills in a cut-scene and a few lines of dialogue. Then she proceeds to rack up a body-count throughout the game that most serial-killers would be envious of. It doesn't help that, as a player, the kills are actually fun, because you are given a lot of options to get creative with it. It distances you from the character you're supposed to be.

Nothing's gonna stop her now.

That's not to say this isn't a great game. The story and gameplay don't mesh very well, but are a lot of fun when compartmentalized. The gameplay is varied and polished and there's an interesting mix of exploring beautiful and varied environments, mild puzzling and action. (Though I would have preferred a bit less action and some more complex puzzles, like those featured in the last two Tomb Raider games.) There are the usual collectibles strewn about, which help you upgrade your equipment, gain experience points to level up or give back-story on the island and its inhabitants. The places they're in often make no sense contextually, but they're fun to track down.

I've never played any of the Uncharted games, but allegedly this Tomb Raider incarnation has taken more than a few pages from its book. It's a roller coaster ride of an adventure, but it manages to retain the familiar Tomb Raider flavor, even if it is a bit low on raiding actual tombs. (And most of the tombs here are small and optional.) There is an ancient civilization featuring mysticism that may very well be factual, there are gory deaths and there are personal losses, which are also a staple of the franchise. Quite why Lara has a taste for more when it is all over, is not clear. But unless the entire next game is about her going through a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder, maybe the franchise is better off dropping the pretense of realism.

PS: I haven't bothered with the multiplayer, which I've heard is okay. For me, the Tomb Raider franchise was and is (despite the current emphasis on action) mostly appealing because of the sense of isolation and wonder that comes from wandering alone through overgrown tombs with clues about ancient societies all around. And, of course, it appealed because of her giant rack. Phwoar! Am I right, guys!?

Ancient civilizations. And a hot babe.

Movie Review: Cloudburst

If you angle the candelabra that is affixed to my ancient oak bookcase just so, and tip-toe down the winding stairs that this action reveals, then cross the bridge over the alligator pool, pass the Bieber dartboard, pass my geeky game room and my naughty gay room and then open the door just to the west of the giant Vin Diesel pin-up, you will find a shrine dedicated to Olympia Dukakis. In other words: I am a fan.

I am not quite sure what it is that generally makes gay men admire strong women. We don’t want to be them (speaking for myself, in any case) and we definitely don’t want to sleep with them, but we would love to knock back some beers with them (or maybe appletini’s, if that’s more your thing) and bitch and laugh about men in general and straight men in particular. Olympia Dukakis has this quality and in the role of Anna Madrigal in the Tales of the City tv-series, also has shown a maternal warmth. She seems like someone you could tell all your sordid secrets to and who would give you a reassuring hug afterwards, without judgment.

Playing a butch dyke, she is the best thing about Cloudburst, a road movie about an elderly lesbian couple. Her character Stella is crass and blunt, aware of this but unable to help herself, and she is softened and redeemed by the clear love for her partner, who is near-blind and dependent on her. When a scheming family member in denial about their relationship tries to place Stella’s partner in a care home against her will, the couple decide on a trip to Canada. Getting married there would give their relationship more validity and better legal standing, they think. Along the way, they meet an attractive young hitchhiker with a troubled past who is on his way to visit his ailing mother.

The ancient cliché applies to Cloudburst: it is not so much about the destination, it is about the ride. The mood is more important than the script, which is a bit lightweight. The movie meanders, the scenes loosely sketching out the characters and their relationships. We learn more about the history of the couple, their travelling companion and watch the beginnings of a friendship. There are shots of landscapes, scenes with mild suspense and there are some farcical scenes, notably one in which stuntman Randy Bolivar is plastered across the windshield of a car while full-frontal nude. (Going by the mostly lesbian audience I saw this with, male genitalia do very well as comic relief.) Both this scene and the insertion of an attractive guy as the third lead, seem intended to capture the interest of gay men, widening the potential audience.

I imagine the ideal viewers for this movie are lesbian couples, curled up together on the couch, imagining themselves growing old together. It is about equal parts sad, sweet and comforting. I would have preferred a slightly more upbeat ending, as it seems all too many gay and lesbian films end on a maudlin note, rather than leave you smiling. But it’s a trip worth taking. And now I am off to take a trip of my own, to light a new candle at my shrine dedicated to Olympia Dukakis. Because the lady still kicks ass.

Game Review: Batman: Arkham City

The first word that comes to mind when thinking of Batman: Arkham City is ‘stuffed’, possibly even ‘overstuffed’. The second is ‘detailed’. The game crams a plethora of Batman’s foes into a part of Gotham City that has been rendered in beautiful detail. The area has been cordoned off to serve as a penitentiary, for reasons that become clear later in the game, though they don’t quite convince. Bruce Wayne (aka Batman) purposefully gets himself thrown into this dangerous place to put a stop to all sorts of nefarious shenanigans.

Arkham City is a direct sequel to Arkham Asylum, a wildly successful game from 2009. The graphics haven’t changed much, but then they were great to begin with. The game marries the grittiness of Nolan’s Batman movies with the more outrageous designs found in Tim Burton’s version. When Robin puts in an appearance, however, he seems photocopied out of Joel Schumacher’s cinematic attempts, minus nipples on the suit. Every part of the design seems to have been carefully, lovingly pondered and despite the blending of the visual style of various movie versions, it forms a cohesive whole. Think dark, dirty gothic with splashes of neon.

Of course, in terms of realism, there is plenty here that is ridiculous. Most people like Batman because he is just a guy, allegedly lacking superpowers. This makes you wonder how he can beat up hundreds of thugs and various of his most deadly enemies over the course of one night, without so much as a nap or a toilet-break. And realistically his arms should be close to falling off by the end of the game, from ziplining all over the city for hours on end. But even though Batman remains in top-condition (outside of the cut-scenes, in any case, where he looks a bit more troubled), his costume does start to show wear and tear as you go, which is a very cool, subtle touch.

The second outing in the Arkham franchise is more of a sandbox game than its predecessor. There is more space to explore in-between the missions that advance the main story and this exploration is even necessary to wrap up a couple of side-quests. Evil mastermind The Riddler has left little trophies all over the city, as he did last time in Arkham Asylum. Some are easy to access, just needing to be found, others require combined application of Batman’s gadgets to grab. Getting them unlocks challenge levels, art designs and other treats. The game is so generous with extra content, that you’re actually likely to ignore part of it. It all becomes too much of a time-sink and takes away focus and urgency from the main narrative. Without spoiling things, going by story logic, Batman shouldn’t be wasting precious time. Though the game doesn’t put a timer on you, it just feels odd for him to be hanging around on rooftops, figuring out how to get his hands on a trophy. The designers have crafted every alley with obvious care, but they seem to expect that you will spend hours of your life admiring every inch of their work. This seems a bit greedy.

If you just follow the main story, tackle a couple of the less time-intensive side-mission as they pop up (some are inaccessible later on) and collect some trophies you stumble upon while you ignore the rest, it is a jolly good game. There’s some mild detective-work, some exploring, some puzzles and a lot of non-lethal fighting. The latter is as smooth and satisfying as ever, and it doesn’t surprise that so many other recent games have copied the franchise’s approach to it. Arkham City improves upon its predecessor when it comes to the Boss fights. The previous game upped the difficulty level towards the end by throwing more and more waves of samey enemies at you until it turned into a frustrating slog. Here, there is more variety.

If you bought a non-used copy of the game, you get to play a few missions as Catwoman, which is a nice change of pace. And if you buy the Game of the Year edition, you will also get a DLC mission that takes place after the ending of the main game. It picks up on the very interesting way that things were left off, but it poses more questions than it answers and throws in one of those massive arena fights that the main game had mostly dropped. As I understand, the writer of Arkham City and its predecessor (Paul Dini) wasn’t asked back to plot the DLC and it shows. Even though writing is generally one of the weakest elements in games, the importance of an interesting story to hook you and keep you invested, should not be underestimated.

Arkham City is the continuation of a trend where I really like a game but I am done with it long before it seems to be done with me. Games these days tend to give you a percentage of completion as you go, to show you far you have advanced. I tend to be ‘done’ at slightly over 50% which generally means that you finished the main game, but didn’t bother with any multiplayer, trophies and achievements. Of course, it’s great that all that extra content is there for those who want it. But as a 35+ year old gamer, it does make me look back nostalgically at a younger age when it seems people have all the time in the world. In any case, I’m on to pastures less neon.

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Movie Review: Tensión Sexual, Volumen 1: Volátil

Tensión Sexual, Volumen 1: Volátil is a collection of vignettes, mostly about bulges in underwear that travel dangerously close to someone who might be interested in the contents of said underwear. The viewer is made complicit, as the bulges often get close to the camera and linger there. There is even some full-frontal nudity on the part of some sexy Argentinian men, which doesn’t displease. There is no release to the tension, at least not on screen, as these charged, short encounters between men fizzle by design, apart from one or two pieces where a well-timed fade-out leaves you wondering.

At its best, Tensión Sexual is playful and manages to be erotic, but it does fall flat on occasion. For instance, there is a wordless story about a male nurse who replaces a sexy man’s usual nurse. The nurse proceeds to soap and shower his patient in an extended sequence that had me checking my watch. It doesn’t help that the nurse has something creepy about him, and that his sexy patient mostly looks bored. Chemistry can be hard to bring across on screen, especially if you can’t fall back on kissing and sex, because the general theme here is ‘missed opportunities’. There may be as many lingering stares here as there were in the infamous Twilight. Not surprisingly, the couple of stories that forego dialogue are the worst offenders in this respect.

The pieces I enjoyed the most were the ones that showed a sense of humor. There is the fairly unbelievable story of one supposedly straight guy teaching another supposedly straight guy how to make love to a lady, by getting near-naked and acting things out with him. And there is a story where it becomes clear that one of two muscled training buddies is sneakily seducing the other. The fun here is that it takes the audience a while to figure out that one of them is doing it, and that his friend doesn’t catch on even after we do.

You do have to be a somewhat shy and patient person to identify with most of the characters in this movie. Once or twice I rolled my eyes wondering why someone was playing coy and didn’t just make a move already. By the end of it all, despite some lulls that lead to mild boredom, Tensión Sexual mostly delivers on its title. It is extended foreplay without the release of sex. It leaves you titillated, a bit frustrated and in need of a good shag.

Movie Review: Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook is about two troubled people (one with a borderline personality, one an emotionally wobbly widow) who end up orbiting each other. Will they be able to help each other or even *gasp* fall for each other? No, seriously, take a guess.

SLP is an interesting movie. Or rather, two-thirds of an interesting movie and one-third of a generic romantic comedy. It spends a good long time building up nuanced, troubled, believable characters (even the ‘sane’ characters turn out to be a bit kooky) and then suddenly decides to chuck realism in favor of an all-out upbeat ending. It ends up as one of those movies where the camera rotates around a kissing couple to signify the passion and intensity of the kiss. It’s a shame that the first, more realistic part of the movie makes it hard to believe that all problems have been resolved, as the ending wants us to believe.

Is the movie worth seeing? Well, yes. The performances are great, especially those by the leads. Apart from being convincing as someone with borderline syndrome, Bradley Cooper is dreamy enough that I could watch him read aloud from a dictionary for two hours and still not nod off. Jennifer Lawrence seems a little young to be paired up with him, but then that’s the way Hollywood likes it. And her performance easily makes you forget about the age gap, as there is more than enough chemistry to bridge it.

Speaking of chemistry, it is a bit suspicious how drugs seem to be the silent heroes of the film, used to fabricate the happy ending. And it is odd how drinking two glasses of Wodka doesn’t impair someone’s ability to dance. Alcohol apparently disappears right out of your body when a script calls for it. But then, that’s a silly romantic comedy for you. If you can roll with the switch from fairly realistic dramady to romance-fixes-everything (as most people on the IMDB seem able to) then Silver Linings Playbook will leave you with a big smile on your face.