Well, I just saw the first episode of the "V"-make. It didn't outright suck.

It did, however, seem to be rather rushed and the reveals as a result were less surprising/shocking than they could've been. The previous miniseries profited from moving a lot slower (albeit throwing in some Contras at the start to help the action-hounds stick through the hour of stage-setting and character development that followed) to build tension; this show's going to have trouble in future episodes because they pushed 9 months of in-story chronology into the first 44 minutes in order to get to the action-y stuff.

-- Steve also gets a whiff of BSG-isation of this version, which isn't bad in itself but does warn that this may not be the freshest of takes on the series' themes. Also, though he can't fault the writers for sniping at Neo-Cons, doing so does cheapen the script.

Well, I guess I had to at some point or another. I downloaded and installed the Crysis demo yesterday evening just to see how this system would handle it.

As it turns out, rather well. I used the demo's auto detection and it suggested that everything be set to "high"... though it defaulted to 1024x768 instead of 1280x1024 resolution. I bumped up the resolution to the latter and turned of Anti-Aliasing, then gave it a shot.

Mechanically it was excellent; though there was no built-in frame counter I didn't encounter any slow-downs or stuttering. There was an awful v-synch artifact (horizontal lines scrolling down the screen) that I couldn't address in the settings (poor form, Crytek; poor form indeed) but it disappeared when I switched from full-screen to windowed view. Odd. In any case, though, to my eye it appeared to support a framerate higher than 30fps even in the tight-and-crazy action. (I did try it with anti-aliasing and did find some stutter in cutscenes, though.)

Case temperature remained under my scare value, with the CPU reaching 50°C, the mo-bo 49°, and the system hotspot (the southbridge) staying below 72°. And that's with a game notorious as a system crusher... so I guess I shouldn't worry so much about heat build-up.

As far as gameplay goes... well, I didn't like the earlier Far Cry very much and Crysis is basically the same game in a prettier wrapper. It's competant as a shooter and the "open world" approach does grant the illusion of freedom, but the AI seems woefully artificial to me (though I'll grant its intelligence) and I found the story pedestrian; the combat is involving, but it's just an exercise in sneeking and use of iron- (or reflex-) sights. I won't be buying the retail version any time soon.

-- Steve did find it very pretty, though, and it actted as an excellent "proving ground" for "Dark Knight".

Well, it's my birthday again... not a "landmark" one, but still the position of the Earth in its orbit about the Sun is the same as it was when I was born. Apparently the world decided that the day was important enough that I couldn't afford to miss it by sleeping in.

For my birthday, I want a rifle with a scope and enough ammunition to sight it in and then punish that idiot bricklayer at the place in back who decided to literally drop a load of bricks at 6:10 in the Gad-damned morning. And then spend time bustling about cleaning it up, reversing his little load lifter that beeps just like my alarm clock and clattering fired clay against fired clay. For this, the fucker must die.

It didn't help that I was up until brutally late last night; as a treat I bought the newly-rereleased Evil Genius from Good Old Games, and I made the mistake of giving it a try in the evening. When I looked up, it was 02:30... the game's a bit repetitive, but amazingly absorbing despite that. Think The Sims: Bond Villains (or maybe Dungeon Keeper set in the early '60s) and you're on the right track. Very stylish and funny, both mocking and loving the "big spy" epics in its look and feel; the menus, for instance, are made to look and sound like the opening credits. (The aqualunged commandos doing Esther Williams choreography in silhouette is particularly amusing.) The music would be appropriate for such a film, even in a theatre, though they could use a bit more variety after the first several hours. (I could easily see this game extending out to sixty or seventy hours of play if you try for all the side-missions or take the "slow and steady" approach to building your criminal empire.) The animations are deliberately cartoony but they work very well when you have a hundred or so characters interacting, and surprisingly well when you zoom in to take a closer look. There's nothing quite like the dismayed body language of an enemy agent when one of your minions stuffs him into a commissary bread mixer to make him talk...

So not only am I sleep-deprived, I've been in training as a criminal mastermind ruling through greed and fear; that's my defense, Your Honour. Besides, he had to die; six-in-the-morning brickwork is an affront to Nature.

-- Steve's mildly dismayed that he wouldn't be able to complete the ensemble even if they make Nehrus in 44 Short; he's allergic to cats, including white Persians, alas.

PS: Here's hoping that the day caps off with the much-delayed launch of of the Space Shuttle Endeavor.

In a fit of weakness last Tuesday, I picked up the second season set for the TV series Burn Notice. As this fit of weakness struck the very first day of sale for the set, and I picked up the last copy on the shelf, I might as well come out right now and say that this is going to be a favourable review.

If you're unfamiliar with the series, my elevator pitch for Burn Notice would be that you blend Magnum PI and MacGuyver until smooth, season with a little The Prisoner, then garnish with a twist of Miami Vice.

Micheal Weston (played by Jeffery Donovan) starts the series as a US government agent on assignment discovering that a "burn notice" has been circulated on him cutting off his government support. Beaten to a pulp when his mission goes sour, he manages to escape, only to pass out on the airplane and then wake up in a seedy hotel in his home-town of Miami. There he meets Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar), ex-IRA ordnance expert and gun runner and ex-girlfriend, and the boozy retired Navy SEAL and covert operative Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell). Weston reaches out to them to help find out why he was "burned". In the mean time he finds he cannot avoid dealing with his mother, Madeline (Sharon Gless), and his abusive father's legacy while trapped in Miami without travel papers and with FBI surveilance, arrest warrants, and vengeful foreign spies dogging him. Out of monetary necessity and a frustrated sense of duty he turns to helping people in Miami deal with the usual troubles you find in a TV "private eye" show.

What draws me to this show isn't its novelty; frankly, the concept itself is nothing new. I am drawn, however, by the obvious love of the craft shown by the show's cast and crew and writers. It's a smart show; though the villains are disappointingly prone to driving with their gas tanks full of foamed napalm, the schemes are less fanciful than the usual ruck and actually look like they could work. (Indeed, many of the criminal plots do appear to be drawn from real life cases.) There is obvious attention to real-world spy tradecraft, right down to a sardonic voice-over by Weston directed at the audience as if to explain to a novice class of spy-trainees the merits and pitfalls of the action on-screen. There is also a real love for the recurring characters, in that they do develop as the show progresses.

The structure is a bit different than the usual, in that though each episode has the traditional "A" and "B" plot familiar to viewers, one of those plots is the ongoing story arc of Weston fighting against those who burned him... and making progress, which removes the awful "episode reset syndrome" that haunted The Fugitive (or Gilligan's Island, for that matter) and gives the show's premise that much more verisimilitude.

It's also fun to spot favourite actors from other great shows cropping up; two West Wing alumni, two from BSG, two from Stargate SG-1, and many others familiar from TV and film. The show draws A-talent, but it also fosters new actors too and I look forward to seeing them in future shows on other series.

The editing and cinematography is stylish; sometimes it's obtrusive, but never overly so and frankly it works. The fight choreography is great, assisted by Donovan's own martial arts expertise.

Argh, out of time... maybe I'll follow this up later with more. In the mean time, just let me say that Burn Notice is worth watching if you can find it. Season 3 is airing now 9pm Eastern Thursdays on the USA Network, which (for some reason or another) doesn't find it's way here to Canada, plus episodes are available on the US-only Hulu service.

-- Steve will also recommend their official site, which sports (among other nifty things) their "Ask A Spy" section wherein Donovan (in-character as Weston) answers fan questions about tradecraft in 1-minute short films. The "how do I escape from a Turkmenistani prison?" segment is particularly amusing.

I saw Up yesterday, in the deluxe-o VIP seating. First I'll comment on the theatre, then on the movie.

The VIP section is nice; it's a separate wing of the theatre, apart from the general screens, with its own waiting lounge and wet bar. Selection of drinks is somewhat limited but not extraordinarily so... as I wimped out and just got a Guinness I didn't see any lack. (My beer was served in a frosty pint glass, too, and no meally plastic cup.) They had some interesting snack foods available but I didn't try any, having just eaten elsewhere, and interestingly enough they can be served to your seat as every seat-pair has a side-table in addition to the cupholders. Be advised it's a heck of a premium on refreshments... then again, since the ticket alone costs double what general admission costs, they're not really competing on price here in any way.

The theatre itself was nice but a bit of a let-down; the seats were big and nicely reclinable, but not upholstered and so not as comfortable as I'd hoped. Still, they're a far cry from regular seats and you won't come out with a numb arse. My show was moderately full and I ended up with an aisle seat on the far right... the show wasn't disappointing to watch, even from that angle, but I do get the feeling that I'd have been better off in the centre. I was mid-way from the screen, though, which was good... they had a "AA" row almost within arm's reach of the screen that I'd hate to try, and which went empty yesterday.

As the venue has a liquor license, admission to the VIP lounge and screens is restricted to those of legal drinking age. So, if for no other reason, the huge uptick in cost might be worth it to avoid kicking and screaming kids.

I'll conclude by saying that the VIP experience was nice but I don't think I'll make it a regular means of watching movies... I'll save it for special occasions, or times when I want to see something popular or in a matinee but don't want to be mobbed by ankle-biters.

And now to the movie review segment of this blog post.

Pixar once again provides a quality film experience. It was introduced, as is their custom, with a short... this one titled "Partly Cloudy", a whimsical take on the stork myth and the clouds which shape the young the birds deliver. I'll say as little as possible to avoid spoiling it, but the use of 3D here was remarkable and sometimes breath-taking.

Up itself also does the Pixar tradition honour; the first ten-fifteen minutes recounted some 70 years in the life of the lead character Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner), a shy armchair explorer and helium balloon enthusaist who, as a child, meets the precocious Ellie with whom he shares his life and a promise of adventure in South America. They wed (in a brief sequence showing her unruly family in contrast to his dour relations) and grow old together, childless (but not by choice, as shown in a heart-breaking, voiceless sequence) and never able to make good on that promise to explore but still deeply in love up until her last illness.

This may sound indulgent, but it's not; it's essential in setting up the character of Carl so that he's more than simply a grumpy septugenarian widower of stereotype... it also sets up the rest of the film.

I could go on about the plot, but that's not the reason to see this movie. In actuality the story is one of the weaker ones out of Pixar. It's more the characters that draw you in; Carl, Ellie, the boy-scoutish Russel who finds himself literally caught up in Carl's attempt to redeem that promise to Ellie, the dogs, "Kevin" (who is wonderously animated and a technical triumph), the aged explorer Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer)... even the nameless and voiceless minor characters do their parts well. The all have internal lives and seem to be breathing (albeit stylised) people.

It's also the animation itself. The 3D effects are understated but used very effectively, and Pixar's usual stylistic and technical excellence remains evident in every frame. The imagery of the balloon-suspended house is incredible, with every single balloon acting with full physics and lighting. The scenery is breath-taking.

If I tried to rate Up purely as a story it'd be mediocre, but as a whole it rates with Pixar's best and has some of the studio's best characterisation. If you liked Pixar's earlier feature-length films, you won't be disappointed.

-- Steve doesn't think it's their best film, but it's still well worth seeing. Especially Carl's condensed life... which is a wonderful tale all by itself.

I'm listening now to the Halo Wars Official Soundtrack album, enjoying the nuances of the music now that I can concentrate on it instead of madly clicking about the map and hunting for cues as to what's going to happen next. And I found that there are a lot of beautiful touches that I was missing while distracted.

Last night I ripped it to my ultramobile PC and listened to it while starting in on a new novel (more later) and loved the little touches in the music, the grace notes and accents, I'd missed while playing. Now I'm listening to the included DVD, which not only has three videos from the promotions (including a mesmerising video synch between all the parts of the "Spirit of Fire" theme and the performers playing the parts) plus extra audio tracks but also the soundtrack mixed for Dolby 5.1. It's worth the $15, really, if you already have a home theatre hookup for your Xbox. (If you're just looking for your iPod/mp3-player, though, Sumthing Digital has high-quality mp3 mixes for sale on their site at $0.99/track or $10 for all 24 tracks.)

The music itself is quite good, I find. It's not in the style of Marty O'Donnell and Mike Salvatore, the architects of the Halo soundtracks, but it does fit the game and the series.

-- Steve is, admittedly, a soft touch for this sort of album.

Alas I'm not very far into the game, having felt just too pooped to really do well in an RTS; sleep deprivation and multitasking are two great tastes that just don't combine. However, I have reached about the midpoint of the single player campaign (no multiplayer at all and no skermishing outside the demo, alas) and I can make some tentative, non-spoilerific observations.

The final game is a lot more challenging than the demo; indeed, I'm struggling a bit at Heroic whereas in the demo I cruised through. This is a pleasant (albeit sometimes frustrating) surprise. I do get hung up, and it has impeded my access to sacred relics progress through the game to the point that I have actually considered dialling the difficulty down a notch, but frankly I'd rather have it this way than a cakewalk.

The control system works. It's not quite as deft as one would wish, but it's about as deft as it can be. Any time weirdness happens, it's pretty much always feels like my fault and not the interface's.

Animations are great. The game is amazing to watch. The cutscenes so far (I'm doing the first mission after the Arcadia segment) have been beautiful. This game is premium eye-candy.

The sound is definitely a key ingredient in making this feel like a Halo game; boosting Banshees, revving Warthogs, the puttering of Assault Rifles and the pew-pew-pew of the plasmas... even the ambient sounds all either come from earlier Halo titles or are strongly resonant with the sounds from other Halo games. The music isn't quite O'Donnell/Salvatore, but it too is in the mode of Halo... and given that I keep humming bars of it I suspect I'll be buying the soundtrack in the not-too-distant future.

The writing needs a bit of work, though. The characterisations are flat, and it's not primarily the actors' fault; there's just not too much for the actors to explore, save for the already-well-developed Regret. (Whom is ably voiced again by Robin Atkin Downes, as was the case in Halo 2.) For all those who write off the writing in prior Halo games, take note; though the characters in them were no less stereotypical than these characters, they felt much more alive and empathetic because of what they said and how they interacted.

I think the campaign game needs a more-readily accessable system for telling players what is mission-critical in scenarios. (Blasted Elephants...)

I'm not doing too well in the skull-hunting department, but that's because I'm struggling with the campaign and not taking time out for map exploration. Next run-through, perhaps, I'll make more progress.

-- Steve'll cut it off there, save to say that he does look forward to resuming the campaign tonight.

I saw Passchendaele today. It's not bad. It's not great, but it's not bad either. The rest of this post is merely filling in the details.

The story, written by (and starring) Paul Gross, is loosely based on that of one of Gross's relatives, I believe his grandfather. The lead character, Michael Dunne, is a veteran of the Canadian Expeditionary Force's attack on Vimy Ridge in France, 1917. The opening sequence involves one of the follow-up battles wherein Dunne is wounded after taking out a machine-gun nest (an excellent action sequence) and then returns to Calgary, Alberta to recuperate. Though his body recovers fully, his psyche doesn't; he exhibits symptoms of PTSD (diagnosed as neurasthenia, given the state of medicine and psychiatry at the time) and is assigned to the Calgary recruiting office under a suspiciously Colonel Blimp type fresh in from Britain wearing ribbons earned in the Boer War.

At this point the story turns into a romance between Dunne and the nurse who cared for him in the Calgary veteran's office, Sarah Mann, and a parallel romance between Sarah's younger brother David and Cassie, the daughter of a prominent doctor. David feels guilty about not enlisting, but is prevented from doing so by his asthma... to Sarah's private joy, given her exposure to war casualties and (dunn-dunn-dunnn...) her Dreadful Secret.

I could go on, but then I'd be tempted to spoil the story for those who haven't seen it. I'll leave it to broad strokes; the movie contains two of the most awkward sex scenes I've witnessed, one (deliberately) hilariously clumsy and one just overwrought with TERRIBLE imagery (including a crane-shot away from the passionate couple to an artillery barrage with flares, no less) and some of the most harrowing battle scenes I've seen on screen that don't flinch away from how terrible trench-fighting got.

I have no recollection of the soundtrack, which alas means it neither jarred nor excelled in the film. It must have been serviceable, though.

The costuming and effects are astonishing, accurate to insane degrees. The battlefield was recreated in the plains outside Calgary and looked terribly like those few miserable yards in Flanders thanks to terrible rain-machine abuse, heavy earthmoving equipment, and a lot of dead trees stuck into the resulting mud. The battle scene extras were members of the Canadian Armed Forces in exact replicas of period uniforms and gear, and they really shine... I saw an interview with Gross wherein he recalled having to rein the soldiers in for fear of them getting injured during the shoot.

Passchendaele lives or dies by its imagery; when it works it's great, but when it clunks the entire movie shudders and wheezes. I definitely appreciate what Gross was going for but I think a lot of the metaphors were too blatant. The excellent production values, much higher than the usual Can-Con^* fare, help save the visual metaphors individually from being maudlin drama-class samples... but the surplus of metaphors in the film and their obviousness detracted from the greatest one (even if it was so blatant) of recreating part of Christ's Passion in the battle.^** That's spoiling no spoilers, however, because the heavy-handed foreshadowing all-but tells you this will happen before the first reel is out... indeed, the blatant foreshadowing is the movie's greatest weakness as a whole as there are few plot turns that aren't telegraphed well in advance.

The movie is worth seeing, as it's a tale not often told in a movie industry obsessed with later wars and it is shot beautifully, but it misses being superb and that's a terrible shame.

-- Steve had something of a personal stake in this film, as his great uncle was probably wounded in that battle, and hopes that bias neither left him with excessive expectations nor poisoned this review.

^*Can-Con is short for "Canadian Content", often a term of derision used to denote material shot by Canadian companies in order to take advantage of Canadian regulations that require a certain portion of this content broadcast daily as part of TV/radio licenses. Many times this content is shot on-the-cheap, taking advantage of every cuttable corner and stray cultural grant, to the detriment of the actual product.

^**Passchendaele's literal translation is, "the dale of the Passion". Subtle, ain't it?

"Rez HD." It's available now on the Xbox Live Arcade, in all it's 60fps wireframe glory. A rail-shooter game first published for the Sega Dreamcast in 2001, designed by the creator of "Space Channel 5" (and later, "Lumines"), it does have a somewhat retro look and feel to the play. However, its apparent simplicity belies the sophisticated experience provided by the game.

Not only does the game progress from very simple to madly difficult along a nearly glass-smooth curve, providing a ton of replay value in going for high-scores and Achievements that are incredibly fun and challenging, but the game is designed to induce synesthesia. The music (trance techno, so be warned if that musical genre isn't your cup of tea) envelops you in Dolby 5.1 now. The beat of the music is synchronised with the appearance and behaviour of the on-screen play. And, to cap it off, the game supports "trance vibration"; you can connect up to three extra controllers and use their force feedback to induce a tactile dimension to the game's output. (I use one controller under my feet; apparently the ideal is one underfoot and one at the small of the back, and if you're fairly motionless a third at the nape of the neck.)

The combination completely sucks you into the game, becoming vastly more than the sum of its parts.

More later, as I have to turn in now for an early-morning shift at work... but if you get the chance to try the free demo, go ahead.

-- Steve's cleared 3 of the 5 levels in story mode so far, and almost had that 4th boss... but there's no time for war stories.

Much crack.

Little down.

-- Steve's not quite finished yet, but the game is a ton of fun.

Roger Ebert still can't see games becoming art. Despite many rebuttals to his senile mumblings on the issue back in 2005. Despite a direct shoot-down by none other than Clive Barker.

To commemerate this occasion, I have created a new userpic to remind me of the true role of the critic.

-- Steve wishes the dozy old wheezer had stayed awake through that other Anton's critique of Gusteau's. Ebert might have learned something.

PS: My admiration for Brad Bird has only increased because of this.

See it.

-- Steve loved every second of this movie so much that the loud kids faded into the background.

(PS: The short in front and the end credits were worth the price of admission together. So don't arrive late or leave early.)

Well, here it is, my long-awaited review of the Samsung Q1 ultra mobile personal computer after three weeks of extended use. This will be quite a lengthy post, hence the cut to preserve the sanctity of my Friends List. I will start by reviewing the packaging, then hardware specifications, then the ergonomics of using the device, then the operating system, the software and how it handles on the Q1, and finally how I use it.

( Read more... )
So there is my impression of Samsung’s debut in the UMPC market. Would I recommend it to others? To that, I’ll give a qualified “yes”.

If you’re looking for a desktop replacement, or a media player for extended use, or a workhorse data cruncher, or something small enough to accidentally run through the laundry in your pants’ pocket, I’d say this is not the computer for you.

However, if you’re looking for a lightweight companion computer that you can take anywhere, that will turn your notebook case into an overnight bag with its small size and sleek form, that will put the Tablet PC operating system within the "notebook" price bracket (and if the USD$1099 price tag doesn’t scare you away, and you’re willing to endure some “version one” hiccups) then I’d say give it a shot!

-- Steve loves his to pieces; hopefully not in a literal sense.

That's a pretty intense movie. Folks, if you're going to make a movie about hijacking, pay attention to what these guys did right:

1. Spend your money on the important stuff, which isn't explosions. Get the costuming, sets, and backdrop right and bring in a horde of people who know what they're talking about to talk you through.
   
   
2. Get a script that deals with people, not cartoons. (Yes, even the evil villains. They don't get less evil if they're nervous and hesitant... they just get scarier, because it's easier to see them as being real.)
   
   
3. Get actors who aren't looking for lines or face-time or other forms of ego-wanking... get the ones who are still interested in the craft and art of putting emotion on the screen.
   
   
4. Get a cinematographer and camera crew together that's not afraid to shoot messy if that's what's needed to get the shot... if a few yards of grainy stock get in, so what?

I can't really see myself buying this on DVD; this isn't really a movie to watch again in the comfort of your own home, it's a movie to see in public and with people with whom you can talk.

Still, it's a damned fine movie and I'm glad I've seen it.

-- Steve had some memories come back to him of the day... so this is what the parents felt every time a flick "shot" Kennedy, is it?

I just finished a new game last night, Wideload Games' "Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse."

One word review: absofriggenlutelycreepyfunnytastic.

More descriptive review: ( Read more... )

All in all, a fun game available on Xbox (both versions will run it), PC, and Mac.

-- Steve's trying to imagine what a Stubbs-based ARG would be like. Probably unbelievably weird, disturbing, and funny.

(PS: after finishing the game, replaying will show 3D-rendered "hippos" which, when run into, will play recorded commentary by Wideload staff on aspects of making that particular part of the level. Nifty, but since the game doesn't pause while the commentary is playing alas I really haven't been able to listen to much of it yet.)

Y'know, I went into the theatre with virtually no expectations. The critical reviews were all over the map on this flick, so I set my mood into neutral and sat down to watch.

Surprise! I actually liked the movie.

Yes, it's not up to "Batman Begins". Yes, it's not up to "The Incredibles". But it is a nice little B movie, shot around a B+ budget and with all the limitations that these imply.

Chiklis was GREAT as Ben Grimm. The frustration and self-loathing he goes through showed in every scene... balked by telephone dials and silverware and old elevators more than oncoming traffic. He did become The Thing on-screen.

Ioann Gruffud did a credible Reed Richards. I must admit that his American accent grated on ears that had heard him in Horatio Hornblower only a few days before, and that he didn't quite nail the "geek" part as much as the role demanded... but complaints that he had no chemistry with Jessica Alba are somewhat misplaced, in my opinion. He was supposed to be dropping the ball. That's the point.

Jessica Alba was acceptable as the Invisible Girl/Woman, not outstanding but far from the bungled role that some reviewers would say.

Chris Evans was authentically annoying as the Human Torch. There's not much else to say.

My only real quibbles with the acting was with Julian McMahon's portrayal of Victor Von Doom. Some scenes were quite good (especially his manipulation of Ben Grimm in the diner) but he didn't carry that over the whole film. The end result was a Dr. Doom that came off as more petty and less menacing than the debased (or is it?) majesty that comes from the comics. The script took an easy out on this one, though, so maybe it's not all his fault. Whatever the reason, it's the lack of that "Doom" feeling that is the major weakness of the film.

However, I laughed when the comedy came and empathised with (some of) the heros. There were a few moments of delight in the movie, and (for me, and for the audience I was with) they were enough.

-- Steve should note that there was one desenting vote in our party of three, so it really is a split decision flick. (But we all did agree that the product placement was egregious... c'mon, guys, rein it in a bit, would ya?)

"Overall this is a very poor film and, although I don't wish to join the mob by just kicking it, I didn't find any reason not to."
-- "bob the moo", Birmingham, UK, regarding "Battlefield Earth".

The full review is most easily found on this page. Maybe it's getting too meta by reviewing a review, but dammit that's more of what I'd like to see when people discuss movies.

Yes, the movie was horrible. (I didn't watch more than about 20 minutes on TV before flicking over to golf coverage. Really.) But "bob" managed to capture what went wrong and lay it out in a manner that's not a "OMG U SUKK" rant or a gloat from a superiority complex.

-- Steve'll try to use it as a model for the next time he encounters a train-wreck movie.

(The movie. No, I'm not going all messianic or anything.)

There isn't much for me to say on the movie itself that Ozy hasn't already covered in his review... his read is nearly identical to mine. The movie got a little slow between the meeting at Karak and the aftermath of the Horns of Hattin, but otherwise had good pacing.

I will say that, as usual for a Scott film, historical detail is fudged a bit in the name of a better story. (And not just in the outbreak of secular-humanism among Crusaders, either.) I'll have to dig a bit, but my understanding that it was the siege at Karak that forced King Guy's hand... that it was Guy and his marshall (and not Balian) who counseled against an attack and instead favoured a Fabian strategy. However, the hotheads did indeed precipitate the war (and for much the reason shown on-screen, as far as I can find) and pressured for a counterattack; Guy bowed to political pressure from the assembled chivalry and led the army into the field rather than face repeated accusations of cowardice that could rob him of his throne.

The results were pretty much as shown. I think Scott missed a good visual when skipping the battle, though; there were accounts of Christian knights throwing away their shields before charging at the Saracens, deliberately making themselves more vulnerable in order to hasten to a Heaven where they could escape a thirst that was worse than death itself. If he was going for a "futility of war" moment, that'd be a good one.

I honestly don't know anything about Saladin's siege of Jerusalem or if the siege techniques shown were the same as those in that battle, but (except for the tower harpooning, dunno about that) those techniques were in use in medieval warfare. Indeed, the placing of "range stakes" is common practice even today.

In summary; great battles, good acting, great backdrop, weak love story all lead to a good movie. Worth seeing... I'll give it an 8 out of 10.

-- Steve'll now pop over to IMDB... and suddenly realises it's going to be quite some time before seeing Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, dammit.

The Incredibles soundtrack. Buy it. That is all.

-- Steve's in utter awe...

I saw an amazing movie last night, The Downfall. For those unfamiliar with the film, it portrays the last two weeks of the Nazi government in April-May 1945 flitting from the bunker beneath the Chancellery to the civilian bomb shelters to the embattled streets of the ruined capital.

It's astonishing achievement is to put a human face to some of the most infamous figures in history; it strips away the stereotypes and hyperbole and absurd dramatics to let you see the people behind the caricatures without diminishing the horrors they wrought. It brings home the meaning of Hannah Arendt's chilling phrase, "the banality of evil". Yet the film never descends into banality for more than a few minutes, and always to contrast it with the chaos and brutality that evil engenders.

Bruno Ganz is brilliant in his portrayal of Hitler; you can see the charm and charisma that won people to him and the monster that dwelt within. Unlike earlier portrayals which dwelt on the injections and sera he used, Ganz shows a palsied dictator with full command of his intellect (if not his emotions) right to the end. This is more horrifying than seeing a drug-addled psychopath as has become stereotypical in movies on the Third Reich... though sometimes the horror takes time to settle in, as it did for many who met the dictator in person. Ganz's Hitler is not mad but deeply in denial of the consequences of his actions and so wed to his doctrine of the fuererprincip that he is incapable of understanding defeat. His chilling switches between compassion for those in his immediate surroundings and utter ruthlessness towards everyone else are made all the more terrifying as a result, as is his repeated refusal to shoulder any blame for the disasters and desertions around him.

Technically, Ganz's performance is possibly the best I have seen in replicating Hitler. His research was painstaking, including study of an obscure recording of his private speaking in Finland and interviews with victims of Parkinson's Disease, and his execution of posture and mannerisms is flawless. I hope to see him in more films... which is entirely possible seeing his casting in recent films such as Luther and The Manchurian Candidate. (I must get around to seeing those, I guess.)

As is entirely appropriate, the film focuses on Hitler; however, it does so mainly through the eyes of his private secretary Traudl Junge (played by Alexandra Maria Lara). The film begins and ends with a voice-over by the real-life Junge (not to be missed) and the action starts by showing, as a prologue, the young Junge's application and interview for the job in 1942. We see in her the unthinking loyalty shown to her leader, often against her better judgment; though she plainly wishes to leave the bunker, she finds herself unable to do so until after the dictator's suicide. Lara's performance is overshadowed by Ganz's but this is no reflection upon her skills; and once we see her leave the Bunker we get a much clearer demonstration in her acting ability as she navigates the ruins to safety.

We see the horrors of the final battle primarily through the character of Peter Krantz (Donevan Gunia), a twelve-year-old awarded with the Iron Cross for destroying two Soviet tanks in Hitler's last birthday review of the troops. His desperate eagerness to strike at the enemy gives way, after a final and horrible defeat, to a child-like retreat to home and family only to see it torn apart; the irony is that his parents died, not at the hands of vengeful Russian troops, but by Nazi vigilantes punishing "desertion" and disloyalty.

Juliane Kohler's Eva Braun shows just how shallow and banal people in high places can get. A party girl trapped in a holocaust, we see her cling to alcohol and music and routine distractions to shut out the horror. More horribly, she succeeds... her stunning (and yet entirely believable) reversal from weeping petitioner when her brother-in-law is about to be shot for desertion to obedient bride of Hitler takes the breath away. Kohler doesn't let us see much of what's inside Braun simply because there's so little there in the character; Braun is an empty shell who fills herself with the attention of others, a mere veneer of vivacity around a human void as shown by her chatty final testament (narrated over a sequence of soldiers and civilians dying brutally in the rubble above).

Diametrically opposed, yet in strange harmony, is Corinna Harfouch's protrayal of Magda Gobbels. She is cold yet intelligent, powerful yet entirely subservient to her fuehrer. Her poisoning of the children to "save" them from a world without Nazism is gut-churningly impossible to shut out; her shrugging off of a comforting touch by husband Joseph Gobbels (Ulrich Matthes) afterwards followed by a studious application to a game of solitaire is just as wrenching, as is her pathetic final plea to a suicidal Hitler to flee the city. Matthes' doctinaire yet emotional portrayal of the Propaganda Minister is also chilling, as is his strange helplessness and inability to face the deaths of family and leader.

The other performances in the film are all excellent; I only avoid mentioning further details to keep the length of this review manageable. See the film to see the dedication of the doctors within and the bizarre mix of power and powerlessness, courage and poltroonery, and insight and vapidity in the assembled generals.

The set dressing is thorough and good; militaria enthusiasts will see great attention to detail shown in the costuming, though alas there are some minor deficits in equipment that admittedly only those who have studied the period closely will notice. The sound is superbly authentic.

I'll wind this down by saying that the movie succeeds in its goal of bringing home the human face of an inhuman tragedy. I won't forget this film.

-- Steve rates the film a 9/10; this is a must-see for all those interested in the period or seeking an understanding of how people can bring themselves so low.